The Snow: synopsis

Twenty-year-old Luke Maddison had plans for spending the summer holidays earning money in his local pub; instead he was dragooned by his parents into looking after his three younger sisters in a relative’s remote house on Dartmoor. With no internet or television, and a strict hostess, the holiday threatened to be long and dreary.

That was until his youngest sisters, Meg and Emily, decided to relieve their boredom by exploring the old house’s cellars. When Emily vanishes in the dark, Meg attempts to search for her through a narrow tunnel in the walls. But she emerges in pine-covered hills with patches of snow, a far cry from the rainy summer landscape of Dartmoor. Before she can return through the tunnel however, she is captured by soldiers in Roman-type clothing and taken away to a great cliffside structure, Rocosa, ruled by a ruthless order of Priestesses.

Emily, seeing Meg captured, returns through the tunnel and tries to warn Luke and her eldest sister, Susan. After initially dismissing her story, they realise that Meg is missing and follow Emily into the cellar, discovering that this forested and medieval land is very real.

They are nearly captured themselves by soldiers but are rescued by a local hunter, Alucio, who had seen Meg captured a few days before, suggesting some time difference between the two worlds. He takes them to his home and tells them of the world and the island that they live on. He also explains about the religious order that rules it and Rocosa where Meg is being held. When Emily runs away, Alucio, Luke and Susan are forced to travel to the nearby village to find her. They learn that a trader had captured Emily and sold her to the military. Susan is forced to degrade herself as payment for taking them to Emily, an experience which hardens her and results in later violence. With the aid of a clever plan, they are able to free Emily and row along the coast to the home of Alucio’s fishermen friends who offer them refuge while they plan a way to rescue Meg.

While this is happening, Meg is being interrogated by the soldiers and Priestesses who wish to find the portal and the potential it will bring. After Meg lies about its appearance, she is drafted into the slave class of the Priestesses where it is hoped she will become more compliant and helpful. After undergoing a traumatic ‘purification’ ceremony, she is set to work as a slave, making friends and enemies in the process. As her brother and sisters adjust to the new life and learn to catch crab and fish, Meg’s ordeal takes a more frightening turn. The High Priestess and ruler of Rocosa, decides to take the girl on a long voyage across the ocean to the home of the Arch-Priestess and head of the religion, where the portal will be discussed. As their ship will not be ready for several weeks, she decides to send Meg to Sometria, the school for slaves in the interior of the island, for indoctrination and training in obedience. Her slave friend, Toia, will be sent with her as surety, to be punished for her errors and under the threat of death if Meg escapes.

Meanwhile, Alucio forms a plan to rescue Meg from Rocosa. Disguising himself as a trader and Susan as his slave, the pair sneak into the structure at night and, with the help of Susan’s quick thinking, make their way to the attic where they believe Meg is sleeping. There they meet a slave friend of Meg’s who tells them that she has been taken to Sometria before helping them to escape. They return to the fishermen, needing another plan.

At Sometria, Meg undergoes more trauma as she tries to maintain her individuality under the ruthless instruction of the head tutor. When she defends herself against a lecherous male teacher, she is placed in a pillory overnight and her spirit just about broken.

Her siblings and their friends come up with another plan: to find a slave and use her knowledge of Sometria to help them free Meg from it. In the woods near Rocosa, they find a lone female slave, Nena, gathering plants and kidnap her. With the help of Luke’s sympathy and patience, they persuade her to aid them in rescuing Meg.

Leaving the fishermen behind (whose collaboration is unknown to the Priestesses), the others travel to Sometria. There they eventually find Meg washing clothes alone. But, when they try and free her, she refuses to leave without Toia who would be killed as a consequence. Nena is sent to help Meg to find her friend but, as they all flee, the head tutor appears and orders Toia to return. The slave is so indoctrinated that she obeys and, as Meg is dragged away by her siblings, the tutor kills Toia.

Meg is brought back to the fishermen where, for several months, she recovers from her ordeal as they hide from the soldiers’ searches. Eventually, when things calm down, the Maddisons feel a desire to return home and search for the portal. Thanks to Emily’s memory for places, it is found and the foursome pass back through the tunnel. But when they return to Dartmoor, they find the house is in ruins. A tattered calendar informs them that over sixty years has passed in England for their hundred days in the other world. Realising that their parents would be dead and a return to their old life impossible, they decide to return through the portal to live permanently in the new world with their friends, filling in the tunnel so that no other person could use it again, from either direction.