"When her old friend, Ricky Maulders, who is dying [of] cancer, visits artist Dorothea Howard, he discovers she's being held captive by the magical power of one of her own creations she refuses to let go of, and haunted by the ghost of a judge in post-Revolution France. Dorothea insists that all she wants is to be left alone. But then three Chicano teens on the run from the police and a gaggle of summer-school students violently enter Dorothea's life, and she's confronted with all the messy stuff (like "politics") she's always sought to avoid."--Publisher's description.