Although Birdie gets a little hungover sometimes and has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature. Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie, he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains. But soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she ever could have imagined.