Motivated by a secret desire for the oil company to give her perfect white teeth like those she had seen on a girl from Tiguino, 12-year-old Nenquimo persuades her father to take her to visit his sister, Aunt Nantoke, who lives near the oil company. On their journey through the forest, they find signs left by uncontacted Waorani clans—the Tagëiri and Taromenane—including a red toucan feather, which signals anger. When they reach the road, they meet Babë, a Waorani man who works for the oil company. Babë scoffs at their traditional beliefs, boasting that the company has more to offer than God. 

Nenquimo is deeply uncomfortable at Babë’s cement house, where his daughter makes a crude comment about girls with gaps in their teeth and his grandson stares at her. The next day, her father shows her the oil well, a massive machine craning up and down. He explains that it is sucking oil, the blood of our ancestors” (110), from beneath the ground. 

They finally arrive at Aunt Nantoke’s traditional leaf-roof home, where she warns them that money has made Babë “unwell in the heart” (112) and that the uncontacted tribes are angry about the noise from the wells. That night, Nenquimo prays to Wengongi, asking him to protect the uncontacted Indigenous people of the forest and for Stephanie to take her to the Land of Rachel.

Nenquimo believes the oil company will give her perfect white teeth if hers are gone. Claiming to have a toothache, she asks Tementa, the village pastor, to pull her molars. The procedure is agonizing and fails; a tooth cracks, leaving a shard in her gum that causes a severe, disfiguring infection. Her grandfather, Donasco, arrives and performs a healing ritual. He warns Nenquimo that the allure of the white world is like a “boa’s tongue” that mesmerizes and disorients Indigenous people. Shortly after her grandfather’s visit, Nenquimo begins menstruating. 

A boy from another village tells Nenquimo about a missionary settlement called Damointaro. Still holding onto her Christian faith, Nenquimo dreams that Stephanie Saint is returning to take her to the Land of Rachel; she wakes excited, certain Stephanie will come soon. A plane does arrive days later, but it carries Tementa and another elder, Mincaye. They deliver bad news: Stephanie has died from a brain hemorrhage.

Grieving Stephanie and feeling lost, Nenquimo runs away from home to the missionary village of Damointaro. The journey is ominous; she is whipped by a snake and has a terrifying, supernatural-seeming encounter with a jaguar. At the mission, she is welcomed by the lead missionaries, a married couple named Alfredo and Rosalina. When Rosalina asks for her Christian name, Nenquimo supplies “Inés.” She begins learning to read and write in Spanish and settles into mission life. Her parents visit and express their disapproval, but ultimately leave her there.

The mission becomes a place of horror when, during one of Rosalina’s trips away, Alfredo enters Nenquimo’s room at night and sexually assaults her. Nenquimo is paralyzed by fear and unable to fight back or scream. Another girl at the mission, Daboka, has experienced the same abuse but is too frightened to speak up. Alfredo continues to rape Nenquimo. When Rosalina returns, she finds herself unable to tell her what happened.

After Nenquimo has been at the Damointaro mission for nearly two years, her parents give permission for her to go to a mission in Quito. Rosalina accompanies her on the plane, and they stop for several days in the town of Shell, where Rosalina attempts to teach Nenquimo the ways of “Civilization,” including how to use a toilet, eat with cutlery and buy goods with money. Nenquimo is overwhelmed by the noisy, unfamiliar environment and misses the forest. Alfredo arrives in Shell, comes to Nenquimo’s room and rapes her again.

Alfredo and Rosalina drive Nenquimo to a mission for Indigenous children on a hill outside Quito and leave her there. The head missionary, an American woman named Barbara, is immediately hostile. Nenquimo feels utterly abandoned and afraid among the other Indigenous children. Her new roommate, a Shuar girl, warns her that the missionaries read the private devotional journals they are forced to keep and use a wooden paddle for discipline.

After more than a year of obedient but miserable life at the Quito mission, Barbara tells Nenquimo she must visit her old village to evangelize. Nenquimo returns to Toñampare with Rosalina, feeling alienated in her cowori dress. They present the village children with gifts on the condition that they come to church. Nenquimo then helps the children write letters to their American sponsors. Nenquimo’s Aunt Geca confronts her new beliefs, noting that “wengongi” is the name of a common fish in their tradition. Aunt Geca reveals that Nenquimo’s grandmother had visions warning against the white people.

Nenquimo returns with Rosalina to the house in Shell, where Alfredo is waiting. There, Nenquimo discovers that Rosalina rewrites the children’s letters to their sponsors, “the Compassionate Ones” (168), to make them sound more pious. That night in the kitchen, Alfredo touches Nenquimo, causing her to drop and shatter a glass and cut her hand. When Nenquimo begins to reveal the truth about what happened, Rosalina cuts her off. Nenquimo finally understands that Rosalina already knew about her husband’s abuse. Screaming that she wants to die, Nenquimo flees the house into the night, resolving to leave the missionaries forever.