While doing research for her documentary about her cousin Natasha--who disappeared in the Dominican Republic fifty years ago during the Trujillo--twelve-year-old Pilar Violeta Ramirez is transported to Zafa, an island where Dominican myths and legends come to life and where her cousin is being held captive in a sinister magical prison, and Pilar must defeat the Dominican boogeyman if she hopes to free Natasha and return home to Chicago.