Joe Blackwater knelt in the black water and searched for the spot where his sister disappeared. Two days ago she stood here, screaming, before the swamp swallowed her. Now Joe had come back to find her. But the water had risen. The reeds all bent the same way. Every gray tree looked like the last. Joe turned in a slow circle and understood the worst part. He no longer knew where she went under. He pulled the rifle off his back and checked the mud for tracks. Nothing held. His boots sank. Ripples spread and erased whatever marks he made. Joe pressed his fists against his temples and tried to remember. A stump. A fallen log. Anything. The swamp had eaten his landmark along with his sister. "You're looking wrong," a voice said above him. Joe spun and raised the rifle. A tiny woman hovered near his face. Thin wings buzzed behind her, catching the weak light. She wore a short pink dress and crossed her arms, unafraid of the gun barrel inches away. "Point that somewhere else," she said. "I came to help you find your family. I'm Pepper." Joe lowered the barrel. His hands shook. "I lost the spot. The water moved. I can't tell one part of this swamp from another." Pepper flew higher and looked down at the flooded ground. "You're standing in it. Humans see mud. I see what the mud remembers." She darted left, then stopped over a patch of still water. "Here. Something big dragged through here. The plants are broken under the surface." Joe waded toward her. He plunged his arm down and felt along the bottom. His fingers found a deep gouge in the clay, wide as a barrel, cut by something huge. It led away from him in a straight line. "That's a drag mark," Joe said. "Not footprints. Something pulled her." Pepper's small face went tight. "Then she didn't fall. She was taken." Joe followed the gouge with his hand, tracing it through the muck. It bent toward deeper water, where the trees crowded thick and black. His stomach dropped. He knew now that his sister was alive enough to be dragged, and dead-set trapped somewhere in that dark. "Can you follow it?" Pepper asked. "I can follow it." Joe stood and shouldered his rifle. The lost spot no longer mattered. He had a trail now, and a direction, and a thing to hunt. He stepped into the deeper water and the mud pulled at his knees. Behind him, Pepper hovered and stared at the black trees ahead. "Joe," she said quietly. "Whatever made that mark is still out here." Joe didn't stop walking. "Good," he said. "Then it can lead me straight to her."