When Erin was offered a job at a weather station in the north of Sweden she jumped at the opportunity, for she had long dreamed of living someplace where she could isolate herself and write. From that point on, she simply followed the course of events which unfolded, never pausing to question what lay behind them. But now, having arrived after hours of driving, she began to wonder whether the force steering her was that of running in blind panic from something she feared or of being unknowingly drawn toward something yet unseen. In either case, the road traveled was the same and the first part of the journey completed. She looked around. On the far side of a gradually sloping meadow crouched a long low cabin in the fold of land that formed the boundary between the lowland forests and fields and the steep rocky foothills of the mountains beyond. The man at the weather bureau hadn't exaggerated when he had said the observation station was isolated; she hadn't seen a single house along the ten kilometers of narrow dirt road that wound upwards through the forest from the last village. It was exactly what she had hoped for. At the same time, she felt strange, both excited and apprehensive, as if something unbargained-for lay hidden, waiting just around the corner. But for the moment she was too tired to pursue it.