 It is the day before Christmas. Gila Diaz is a young adolescent girl, the oldest child in a large rural Tex-Mex family. She is frustrated with her family s poverty and the drudgery of her life in caring for her many younger siblings. Gila s parents drag her and the family to midnight Mass. They go to hear the Pastorela, a traditional play about the shepherds who are told of the the birth of Christ and the triumph of the God s angels over Satan s diablos. Gila is knocked unconscious by a prop and suddenly she is transported into the real story of the Pastorela and begins a frightening fantastic quest to Bethlehem to find the Christ Child s manger.