Lena and her husband Bill are vacationing in the northern Norwegian town of Svalbard in mid-January where there is darkness twenty-four hours a day. Lena begins to grow tired of the dark colors, but Bill seems to be having a great time — taking pictures of snow mounds and the northern lights. Lena meets Irena who is a waitress at the lodge they are staying at and converses with her in Russian. Lena’s grandparents were from Russia, her grandfather a supposed Chukchi shaman, and so she knows a little Russian. Irena talks about the different coal mines around the town and “mine seven” which Lena and Bill didn’t know existed. One day, as Lena and Bill are in a bakery, the lights of the town go out and in an instant Lena realizes that someone has died near her. She loses Bill and finds her way back to the lodge in the dark. There are a few other survivors in the lodge all huddled around a fireplace trying to stay warm. The lodge staff have all gone missing and the survivors begin to burn books in the fireplace to keep it alive. They hear large footsteps outside the lodge and see the footprints look like snow chains, but the group decides it must have been a polar bear. One night, they hear a loud knocking on the door, which they have barricaded, and one of the survivors goes to investigate. He is dragged out suddenly by a giant fist and Lena sees the shape of a monstrous giant, a kelet, with the bodies of the dead frozen onto it. It looks at her but then disappears into the tundra. Lena decides to leave the lodge and she gears up in a parka and snow shoes before leaving. As she hikes in the snow she lets the northern lights guide her and she runs into Irena. They return to a barn and Irena and Lena discuss how mine seven contained these _kelet _and that because the permafrost is melting they have been released. Lena decides that she will go to mine seven and attempt to use a spell her grandma taught her in order to freeze the giants back in the mine.