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Fourteen year old Ravna was born in a little town in the Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, in what most people know as Siberia. She was always considered a bit of an oddball and an outcast, not because of her foreigner mother, but because said foreigner mother was, to the perception of other people, absolutely, utterly insane. The key words are 'to the perception of other people', who could not explain how a young woman speaking the Sami language of indigenous Nordic people appeared injured beyond the point anyone could survive, let alone walk, on the outskirts of their town, fifty years ago...

Ravna inherited many of the inexplicable traits of her mother, Vuohkku. Though her mother's injuries upon arriving in the little town were so severe the town doctor gave her minutes to live, so long as she was supplied with water, she continued to heal at an astonishing rate. Broken bones, for both Ravna and Vuohkku, are things that heal in weeks, not months. Vuohkku's left eye grew back entirely in a month. Frostbite that should have been lethal left no lasting damage. In addition, both women are fiercely strong, requiring no training or workouts to move things much heavier than themselves, up to and including cars. While Vuohkku married a perfectly normal man, the aforementioned town doctor, their only child was born from a pregnancy lasting a scant four months, and immediately began displaying strength beyond that of an ordinary baby.

Ravna has always wanted to be a doctor, to leave her little town and get a degree, help somewhere without access to medical care. She is extremely, unrelentingly blunt, often rude, determined and stubborn, but she cares for other people deeply, and will defend people she doesn't even know. Ravna will walk into a fight where she is outnumbered, start an argument she can't win, and refuse to walk away or stand down. She befriended several of her former bullies by helping them when they were hurt in various circumstances. She beat a boy twice her age up for hurting one of her classmates. Ravna has a bit of a hero complex, something perhaps born from defending her 'crazy' mother for so long to so many people.

This all comes back to bite her, when one day five men from her town go out to hike before they leave for college, going the direction Ravna's mother arrived from. One returns months later, ranting about a door and orange lights... just like Ravna's mother. This prompts Vuohkku to run out into the wilderness herself, babbling about 'home' and 'returning to the Sami' Armed with arguably more knowledge on the mysterious door than anyone else and inarguably more physical strength, Ravna goes out into the cold, to find the door that led her mother from Norway to Siberia overnight, and bring her back along with the older boys who she grew up with and thinks of as friends. Stakes are high, information is scarce, and then? Then the situation actually goes bad.

The Doors lead to more questions than answers, lifeforms that are not human, and a truth more outlandish than any fiction. After all, in fiction, the truth has to make sense. In the world between the doors, things lurk that will eat you alive, that will make you see things on the walls like films of your memories, and try to drag you to Above, the place at the top of their world, where things beyond description are trying to break in to the universe at large.

But Ravna is not leaving. Not without her mother. Insanity is a small price to pay for family.