Tobias Caldwell lives in a world balanced by the scales of grandeur and decay. The southern plantation he calls home has been the pride of the Caldwells since their settling there in the nineteenth century. As a boy, Tobias knew every crevice of the landscape, but he favored the creek to be his very own. By the time Tobias reached the age of seven, his father had begun to parcel off the land to new housing subdivisions, and the magical creek no longer belonged to Tobias alone. Soon they had neighbors, and Tobias was dispatched to meet a boy who was just his age. What Tobias encountered was an unruly, mean-spirited boy named Ben Wilson and his twin sister, Merritt. Ben's relentless cruelty brings malice into Tobias' good-natured heart, and he leads Ben to the creek, where the tree roots snarl and the cottonmouth snake coils itself for camouflage.

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