It's fourteen-year-old Anna's first winter in New York City. She has just moved to New York with her mother and stepfather, and hates everything about her new life. After another argument with her mother, she defiantly sneaks out to ski in Riverside Park. Much to her surprise she meets another cross-country skier, an attractive boy about her own age, who has something of an unreal quality about him. Against her better judgment, she follows him into what turns out to be a snow-covered magical netherworld inhabited by monstrous creatures known as Wyssun' as well as by the Skiers who hunt them. Before she knows it, she is accepted by the peculiar Skiers as one of their own, and becomes trapped in the Wyssun' World. Run by elves, and not the Keebler kind, it's a confusing and dangerous place. Anna must get back home before the fairy tale turns into a nightmare. She explores the many paths that connect with yet other worlds, making new friends and unexpected foes, while discovering the magic of intention, and learning to understand her own feelings. If negotiating glaciers and battling tunnel-dwelling monsters aren't enough, she is determined to win the affection of the boy she likes, while fending off the advances of a mysterious sorcerer for whom she feels a marked antipathy. Before the Wyssun' Word destroys her of she destroys the world, Anna must discover how desire itself creates reality, and that the way home is shorter than one might think. The young heroine's adventure marks a Jungian journey into the subconscious otherworld. The nine chapters of the book reflect the color spectrum which is born in black and ends with white, and are illustrated with opulent watercolor illustrations.