When his bare foot snapped a fallen gumbo twig, the timid sound caused Yoolee to freeze. A chilly feeling crept over him, as though unknown eyes were searching him, whispering a caution to stay still.
Yoolee inhaled, breathing in the scents as though they were spices, most of them familiar—except one, a wisp that willed him to wonder: What? Or who?
As he peered through the pond apples hanging from spindle limbs that drooped with their weight, the foreign odor again flinched his nose. It seemed alarmingly alive, mean and menacing. It didn't appear to be human because the stink was too strong.
"What are you?" he asked the night.
Deep in the Everglades swampland, young Yoolee Tharp's prime concern is protecting his little sister, Havilah, and his mother, Ruth Ann, from the violent rages of his hard-drinking father, Velmer.
Then another horror enters their lives as the tiny settlement is stalked by an enormous killer beast. When Yoolee's father disappears, it's up to Yoolee to protect his family once again, aided only by his Uncle Bib and Uncle Bib's fitful lady friend, Mimosa May Sugarman.
A spellbinding adventure and vivid coming-of-age novel from the author of A Day No Pigs Would Die.
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