• Information
• Extract

Berlin. The dead of night. Sixteen-year-old Alissa and her best friend Evelin make their secret Christmas pilgrimage to Alissa's father's grave.

In the graveyard, Alissa falls through thick snow into an underground crypt. Searching for a way out, she discovers something else: out of the lid of a small coffin coils a strange black plant. Drawn closer, Alissa sees its roots embedded in a young child's heart. This chance encounter sets off a chain of nightmarish events that throw her life into turmoil. Haunted by angels, stalked by her ex-boyfriend, only with Evelin’s help can Alissa reclaim her sanity and discover the truth about her frightening new gift.

Translated by Chantal Wright, this is a deliciously dark, chilling teen gothic thriller, set against the ultra-cool landscape of Berlin in the snow. Winner of the German Fantasy Novel Award.

Reviews: 

'… somewhere between Stephen King and the X Files.' DER TAGGESSPIEGEL.

            It’s dark outside, and I’m standing by the window cursing the winter. I can still remember how much I wished it would snow at Christmas when I was a child. I wanted to see thick flakes of snow falling from the sky and ice crystals on the windows.

            On the nights leading up to Christmas I would lie in bed impatiently, staring out into the darkness. Although I wished for it from the very bottom of my heart, it never snowed at Christmas. Not once. And now today’s weather is taking its revenge on all those Christmases without snow.

            Houses, cars and street lamps disappear behind a whirling white curtain. I can’t see the pavement or the road. All I can see are the eerie shadows of the treetops. They move their branches as though they’re arms waving up from the bottom of the sea.

            It’s six o’clock on Christmas Day. A fairytale winter scene stretches out in front of me and I’m cursing it as best I can.

            ‘Shit!’ I say. ‘It’s never going to stop.’

            ‘If it doesn’t stop, we’ll do it some other time,’ says Evelin.

            She makes it sound like a question.

            I don’t say anything. I press my forehead against the glass and close my eyes. For a moment the snow isn’t real, for a moment there’s no reason to stay at home. I can hear Evelin’s breathing in my ear. Of course we could do it some other time.

            ‘It might stop soon.’ My best friend is trying to calm me down.

            I open my eyes again. ‘I don’t think so.’

            Evelin sighs loudly.

            ‘You don’t have to come,’ I say. ‘It’s OK if you—’

            ‘I’ve been every year for the past three years,’ she interrupts, ‘no matter what the weather.’

            ‘I know.’

            ‘So?’

            ‘So?’

            ‘Will you pick me up?’

            ‘I’ll pick you up.’

            Silence. Evelin’s waiting for me to say goodbye. I’m waiting for her to change her mind.

            ‘I’m not changing my mind,’ says Evelin.

            ‘Right. I’ll see you later then,’ I say, and hang up.

            It was hardest keeping my eyes open just before midnight. I was tired of eating and talking. I was also tired of my little brother. I love him very much, but he’d been getting on my nerves for the previous two hours. Nobody wanted to play with him; nobody wanted to try out his new toys.

            ‘Go to Alissa,’ my mother kept saying.

            Me of all people. Thanks very much. I’d been thinking about nothing but the weather all day, but that’s over now. I’m lying in bed, listening to the snow falling against my window, and I’m calm inside. The sound makes me sleepy. It’s like a cat touching the window with its nose. I rub my eyes and yawn. The clock says four minutes past one. There are no more voices in the living room, and there’s no light from the hallway falling through the cracks around my door.

            Christmas is over.