Summary

A regular swamp in the south can kill you in 100 different ways. Dangerous things lurk in the mud between the cypress knees and beneath the surface of the brackish water; gators, bears, stinging plants and poisonous cottonmouths. But the swamp outside Sticks, Louisiana was something else, it was much, much worse. Sterling’s grandfather built a fence around the swamp that bordered their home to keep the swamp’s magic on one side, and Sterling and her brother Phin on the other. They too were a brother and sister looking for an escape, from an abusive father, from southern gossips and small town minds. Phin was the brave one, when he crossed the fence into the swamp, Sterling, scare to enter the swamp, waited for him to return…but he never did. Phin walked in, a girl named Lenora May climbed out, over the fence and into Sterling’s life, taking Phin’s place as her sibling. Everyone has forgotten Phin, instead they remember the family with two daughters living on the edge of the swamp. Sterling herself even has false memories of growing up with Lenora May and has to struggle to remember Phin. She is determined to unwind the magic of the swamp and rescue Phin and send Lenora May back where she came from.