Winner of the Toyo Shuppan Literary Award. Within the peaceful walls of an old French church, Mayu, a young Japanese artist, finds inspiration. She befriends the local priest and gets involved with community outreach, discovering a rough world of drugs, prostitution, and marginalized youth. Through this work, she learns the value of human life. Even young Pierre, who gets arrested for attacking his mother with a knife, deserves compassion. This delinquent has a seven-year-old sister named Anna and, as Mayu gets to know the family, she uncovers a disturbing history of abuse. Her wild attempt to save the girl from her twisted mother calls upon a brutal courage she didn’t know she had.