A whip-smart outsider insecure in her gender identity, 17-year-old Maggie explores the North Carolina woods and avoids misery at home and school by communing with shadowy figures including a long-ago biologist. When her gorgeous cousin’s brutalized body is found at the marina where Maggie lives with her heartbroken father, a persistent detective intimates that she’s prime suspect—and this backwater suddenly becomes more complex and dangerous.