Synopsis

Aumarais is a small French town in the years between the two world wars. This is how it is, but it could very well be otherwise. What matters is that Milto Kayik is a farmer whose peach orchards suddenly become diseased and stop bearing fruit. And so he is forced to go to war, where one day he captures a hussar soldier who, in exchange for his life, shares a secret with him, directs him on the trail of great wealth, and entrusts him with a letter written in characters as fascinating as they are mysterious. And so Milto arrives in Aumarais, following the trail of that promising gamble. But the French town is a world-like place, a universe where nothing is as it seems, but everything seems to be there to reveal who we truly are. Who is Andrea Kratzer? And the boy Gaël? And is Elfreth J. Watkins really the benefactor everyone thinks he is? And where, finally, is the hidden treasure that Milto Kayik and others are searching for?