ACT I – The arrival

After a freak summer storm over London, ten-year-old “Tiger” Lilly finds a giant bioluminescent flying goldfish in her back garden. Still reeling from the death of her mother, she feels an instant kinship with the fish – a fellow castaway in a world that’s no longer safe. She names him Hector. Her mother starts to appear to her at moments of emotional stress.

Lilly lives with her father Jake, a philosophy teacher who has retreated behind abstraction, and their flamboyant octogenarian lodger Vadim, once a war hero and artist, now adrift in memory and regret. Hector’s arrival begins to draw all three out of their isolation. The fish seems attuned to their feelings, a connection manifested in its strangely familiar songs.

Across the Atlantic, marine biology dropout MC grapples with the drowning of her father and the discord with her mother. When she receives an email from Lilly asking what to feed a flying fish, the attached photograph jolts her out of an emotional impasse. Drawn by the chance to make a difference, she flies to London and joins Lilly’s fractured household.

While Hector’s empathic presence grows, outsiders intent on exploiting him begin to circle, including ruthless circus impresario Sal. MC learns of a similar fish in Ethiopia. To save Hector, they must reunite him with his own kind. Lilly wants to bring Hector “back to his family.” Jake reluctantly agrees, and the group sets off across Europe and Africa.

ACT II – The Journey

As they travel through France, MC is contacted by Vatican priest Tiberio, who offers to help them reach Africa safely. In Rome, it becomes clear that Tiberio has his own fanatical plans for Hector – and that Sal has followed them. The group escapes their pursuers by stealing a Lancaster bomber from an airshow, with Vadim at the controls.

Flying across the Sahara, Hector’s otherworldly empathy seems to draw them closer. Jake confronts his guilt over his wife’s death, MC faces her grief over her father and her fraught relationship with her mother, and Vadim relives his buried memories of war and lost love. Lilly, still visited by her mother, slowly begins to let Jake back in.

They are forced to refuel at the desert lair of Vadim’s old nemesis, gunrunner “Eggs” Armington, who also has designs on Hector. With the help of Lilly’s spectral mother and their newfound, Hector-induced ability to understand unfamiliar languages, they escape, and after crash-landing on the Afar plains, make their way over land to Lalibela.

At the rock-hewn church of Saint George, they find Yete – the second fish, brooding a mouthful of luminous eggs. Lilly is overjoyed to have reunited Hector with his family. MC reconciles with her mother. For a moment, it feels as though their quest has succeeded, even as some of the emotional wounds in the group remain tender and unresolved.

ACT III – the reckoning

As the group celebrate their apparent success, their pursuers converge upon Lalibela. Sal, Tiberio, and “Eggs” all make their final moves to claim Hector and his family. In the chaos that follows, Jake and MC are captured, Lilly is taken, and Yete is mortally wounded.

Lilly confronts her guilt over her mother’s death and fears history is repeating itself. Jake, realising he might lose his daughter as well, emerges from his emotional paralysis. Together with Vadim and MC, he tries to fight off the gathering forces, but they are outnumbered.

Lilly realises that Hector’s empathic gift can be turned outward, and Vadim floods their attackers’ minds with war memories, shattering their resolve. MC saves Yete. Sal, repentant after being moved by Lilly’s grief, sacrifices himself to lead Hector and his family to safety.

Lilly says goodbye to her mother one last time, having learned that loss is an inevitable part of loving someone. As Hector rises into the African sky, Lilly, Jake, MC, and Vadim are left behind, bound together as a family that has learned how to live again.