In an impoverished circus in Mexico City, a 13-year-old Alma spits fire every night, swinging from a trapeze. She carries the son of her father, Renato, an old and sick clown with whom she was in love. Renato dies and Alma is expelled from the circus because, despite threats and curses, she refuses to lose her son. She lives on the streets and meets a group of itinerant puppeteers who, starting from Refugio, her guide, preached the word of God. She recognizes in them a promise: she glimpses a hope, and entrusts to God the future of her son; she is subjected to a purification ceremony in which only through deprivation and pain could she achieve redemption and her place in the Book of Forgiveness. But the God of vengeance and sacrifice does not heed her call. Alma is stripped of her faith, of her innocence.