Chapter 1 Summary

The novel begins with the report of the emptying of the crypts at the Convent of Santa Clara. This is where a skull was found of a twelve-year-old girl with a huge amount of copper colored hair growing out of it. The author remembers the legend of the twelve-year-old girl from two hundred years ago who died of rabies. The scene then shifts to a city in colonial New Grenada, in what is now Columbia. Sierva is the twelve-year-old girl, and is going to the market on her birthday. She is slightly bitten on the ankle by a dog that is later found to be infected with rabies. A dog runs through the market and bites four people, including Sierva, who is the only child of Marquis of Casalduero. The child is with her maid and they have been shopping at the market...