In a future society where there are no longer any wild animals, Sloe and her mother are sent to a prison camp in the snowy North. Her mother's crime is the determination that one day the lost animals will be reborn.

Years later, when her mother disappears, Sloe sets out on an epic, one-thousand-mile quest to be reunited with her, persued at every turn. Her only companions are the Lindquists, the tiny, magical creatures bequeathed to her by her mother.