Mabel and Jack relocate to Alaska as homesteaders, seeking escape from grief over their stillborn child.

Jack and Mabel build a snow child on the night of the first snowfall, adorning it with mittens and a scarf.

The next morning the snow child is dismantled, the mittens and scarf are gone, and a bloody hare is left on the doorstep.

Mabel spots a blond girl in a threadbare blue coat accompanied by a red fox near the barn.

The mysterious girl leads Jack through the woods directly to a massive bull moose, which he kills with one shot.

The girl visits the cabin, devours dinner with her hands, and speaks her first words to the couple.

The girl leads Jack to a canvas tarp in the woods concealing her father's decomposing corpse.

During a winter visit, the girl finally shares her name — Faina.

Spring arrives and Faina disappears; Jack finds a photograph of a couple inside her empty hut.

A bear spooks Jack's horse; Jack is thrown from the saddle and left unable to move in the fields.

The Bensons arrive at the farm to plant crops and nurse Jack through his long recovery.

When Faina returns with the first snow, Jack finally tells Mabel the truth about her wilderness life and dead father.

Stranded overnight in the woods together, Mabel asks Jack about their dead child and he reveals the boy's name was Joseph Maurice.

Faina and Garrett marry in an outdoor ceremony; Faina wears a dress elaborately decorated with feathers.

Faina gives birth to a healthy son but disappears from the outdoor nest Garrett made for her fever, never to return.

Mabel and Jack relocate to Alaska hoping the wilderness will help them escape the grief of their stillborn child. Their lives change forever when a mysterious girl appears after the first snowfall — she leads Jack to food that saves their lives, eats dinner at their table, and finally reveals her name is Faina. Jack discovers Faina is a real orphan surviving alone in the wilderness, though he conceals this from Mabel for a time. A crisis strikes when Jack is badly injured, but the Bensons help save the farm, and Faina continues her pattern of visiting each winter. Years later, Faina falls in love with Garrett Benson, and their union brings Jack and Mabel closer to the family life they were denied. The story ends with Faina vanishing into the wilderness after childbirth, leaving behind a son and a grief that, for the first time, Jack and Mabel face together.

The core story of Jack and Mabel's frontier life and their mysterious snow child.

Mabel, isolated in the frontier cabin, considers suicide but refrains to avoid bringing shame upon Jack.

George Benson offers Jack the labor of his sons to clear the fields before winter sets in.

The Bensons invite Jack and Mabel to Thanksgiving dinner, where Mabel meets Esther for the first time.

Jack leaves a doll out for the girl; the next morning the doll is gone and wild blueberries are left in its place.

Mabel writes to her sister Ada in Philadelphia asking her to send the Russian fairy tale book.

Mabel resumes drawing after years away, filling sketchbooks with images of the mysterious girl.

Mabel receives the illustrated fairy tale book from Ada along with a letter warning the story ends in tragedy.

Mabel takes an uncooked chicken into the woods as a gift for Faina's red fox.

Mabel shows Esther the snow angel impressions as proof of Faina's existence, but new snow has erased them.

Jack spots Faina's red fox in the fields; when Garrett moves to trap it, Jack firmly orders him to leave it alone.

Mabel spends the autumn season embroidering a winter coat decorated with snowflakes as a gift for Faina.

Jack offers Garrett legal partnership in the farm, telling him he is the closest thing to a son Jack has.

Garrett visits and presents Mabel with an extravagant silver fox hat as an unexpected gift.

Faina explains to Mabel that her name means shining, referring to the glint of sunlight off snow.

In their later years, Jack and Mabel visit Garrett's cabin and find peace sharing memories of Faina with their grandson Jay.

Before Faina's arrival, Mabel wrestles with suicidal despair while the Bensons quietly become the couple's lifeline through Thanksgiving dinners and practical help with the farm. Mabel reaches out to her sister Ada for the Russian fairy tale book, resumes her long-abandoned drawing, and exchanges letters that reconnect her to her own past. Faina's presence reshapes the household in small but meaningful ways — a doll exchanged for wild blueberries, a raw chicken gifted to the fox, snow angels that vanish overnight without proof. As years pass, Mabel prepares carefully embroidered gifts for Faina while Jack navigates his deepening bond with Garrett, eventually offering the young man a share of the farm. The Bensons remain steady presences throughout, and it is Faina who gives Mabel's artistic imagination its richest subject. The story's final chapter arrives in the epilogue, where Mabel and Jack find genuine peace in the company of their grandson Jay and the extended family they have built together.

The supporting moments and relationships that quietly shape Mabel and Jack's journey.

Mabel impulsively rushes outside into the first snowfall, drawing Jack out for a rare spontaneous snowball fight.

Jack secretly follows the girl's boot prints in the snow and finds a crude hut built into the side of a ravine.

Mabel recalls the Russian fairy tale Snegurochka and becomes convinced she and Jack have conjured a magical snow child.

Jack lies to Mabel after returning from the woods, claiming he simply lost track of the mysterious girl.

Jack investigates in town and learns that a solitary Swedish lumberjack had lived alone near the mountain.

Jack quietly returns to the site of Faina's father's corpse and buries it alone in the frozen ground.

Mabel tells Esther about the mysterious child at dinner, but Jack refuses once again to confirm the girl's existence.

Faina places a single snowflake on her hand and challenges Mabel to draw it, then says goodbye as spring arrives.

Over strawberry cordial, Mabel opens up to Esther about Faina; Esther declares the girl must be real.

While trapping alone in the woods, Garrett secretly watches a beautiful young woman in a blue coat expertly gut a wild swan.

Faina confronts Garrett about killing her fox, tosses him a wolverine carcass in contempt, then guides him safely home through a storm.

Garrett brings Faina a puppy to replace her lost fox; Faina's eyes are alight with joy at the gift.

Jack discovers Garrett and Faina making love in the woods and strikes Garrett in a furious rage.

Faina confides to Mabel that she has stopped bleeding; Mabel realizes with joy that Faina is pregnant.

Jack comes to comfort the devastated Mabel after Faina's disappearance, and the couple grieves together for the first time.

The story's engine is a series of revelations and choices, beginning with Mabel's impulsive dash into the first snowfall that breaks the couple's long emotional stalemate. Jack's secret discoveries about Faina's real life — her wilderness hut, her dead father, and her true identity as a feral orphan — create a sustained deception that shapes both his and Mabel's relationship to the girl. The tension between fantasy and reality builds through charged moments: Jack's lie to Mabel, his quiet burial of Faina's father, and Mabel's desperate flight into the stormy night when she finally learns the truth. Garrett's first secret glimpse of Faina in the woods and their volatile early encounters mark the turning point from one generation's story into another. Faina's pregnancy, the feather-dressed wedding, and the catastrophic moment of her disappearance bring the narrative to its emotional peak. The pool closes with the quietly powerful moment when Jack and Mabel finally grieve together — a healing that the death of their stillborn child long ago made impossible.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that drive the story's transformation.