After many years Doctor Victor Hoppe returns to the small village he grew up in. His return after an absence of many years generates a lot of interest - and suspicion - as he is accompanied by three triplets, all of whom share the same physical deformity as the doctor - a hare lip.
These children are very quiet and are rarely seen in the village. But with time, and a series of apparently miraculous cures and tales of the wife he lost, the doctor begins to win the villagers over. He hires an ex schoolmistress, Charlotte, to look after the children. But the longer she works with the doctor, the more she begins to suspect that the children - and the doctor - aren't what they seem...