These pages comprise 14 short sections that alternate between the four young narrators, all of whom are experiencing the same devastating time in history. It is 1945, and Joana, Florian, Emilia, and Alfred are enduring the harrowing conditions of WWII in East Prussia while harboring secrets that haunt them as loudly as the terrifying sounds of war.

As the novel begins, thousands of displaced refugees are walking to the coast to escape the encroaching Russians. Joana, a 21-year-old Lithuanian woman, along with other refugees, trudges along an icy road as planes drone overhead and bombs reverberate through the nearby forest. Her group of haggard survivors includes Klaus, an orphaned six-year-old boy whom they refer to as “the little boy” or “wandering boy”; Heinz, a kindly, old cobbler lovingly called the “shoe poet”; Ingrid, an intuitive blind girl; and Eva, a “giant,” outspoken woman. When the little boy discovers a dead Latvian girl buried under the snow, Joana takes her identification papers.

Meanwhile, Emilia, a traumatized 15-year-old Polish girl, seeks refuge in an abandoned cellar, where a Russian soldier discovers her. Were it not for the sudden appearance of Florian, a wounded young Prussian who has been hiding in the forest, Emilia would likely have been raped and killed.