His father killed in the brutal fighting of the Spanish Civil War, ten-year-old Carlos is sent to live at the desolate Santa Lucia School, now a makeshift shelter for war orphans. Soon after his arrival, Carlos has a series of seemingly supernatural encounters: strange shadows, voices and, most frightening of all, the apparition of a brutalized young boy. Turns out that Carlos is not alone in seeing these strange phenomena, many other children have experienced the "One Who Sighs," as the entity has come to be called. A classic ghost story, haunting as it is moving, "The Devil's Backbone" is also a subtle allegory for the war that rages on just beyond the school's walls.