Marcus Sedgwick

"Seven linked vignettes unfold on a Scandinavian island inhabited--throughout various time periods--by Vikings, vampires, ghosts, and a curiously powerful plant"--Provided by publisher.

Finland, 1910: Fifteen-year-old Sig is shocked to see a hole in the frozen lake outside his family's cabin and to find his father's corpse nearby. Why did Einar steer his dog sled across the lake instead of taking the safer land route? Sig's sister and stepmother go for help, leaving Sig alone with Einar's body in the cabin. Soon after, an armed stranger barges in, demanding a share of Einar's stolen gold.

Having always been able to know when someone is going to die, Alexandra poses as a nurse to go to France during World War I to locate her brother and to try to save him from the fate she has foreseen for him.

In the dangerous dark of winter in an Eastern European village during the early seventeenth century, Peter learns from a gypsy girl that the Shadow Queen is behind the recent murders and reanimations, and his father's secret past may hold the key to stopping her.