When the ashes from an Ash Wednesday service in the prairie town of Andwhen, Minnesota, refuse to wash off, members of a small congregation are left wondering whether they’ve been blessed or cursed. For Basil --- a “gentle giant” of a teen reeling from a farming accident that shattered his family and haunted by his mother’s decade-long confinement in a state mental hospital --- the ashes become a sign. He embarks on a secret ritual of fasting and prayer, seeking meaning in his unraveling world. Meanwhile, Basil and his friends, Lukas and Morgan, stumble upon what may be the centuries-old remains of a Viking explorer in a local meadow, a find that brings its own complications, as folk history clashes with the agendas of online racists. As Basil’s relentless fasting warps his grip on reality, the danger he poses to himself and his family escalates.

Recovering from a terrible auto accident just before the turn of the millennium, college dropout and hobbyist computer-game programmer Lucien Swenson becomes the caretaker of a house in northern Minnesota. Shortly after moving in, Lucien sets out to find a woman with whom he had an affair, who vanished along with money stolen from the bank where they had worked together. His search will take him to Rose of Sharon, a white supremacist church deep in the wilderness, where a cabal of outcasts await the end of the world at a place they call The Land. Lucien is visited at the house by a mysterious guest, who may not be who she claims, as well as a vast flock of violent ravens out of an apocalyptic vision.