11-year-old Amelia knows this unfamiliar, too-green valley isn’t home. She also knows that captured tree souls grant wishes.

When her struggle with silence gets her stuck in the school basement, and her strange rescuer seems to have all the answers, Amelia learns that the lush Virginia landscape might have everything she needs to make her wish come true. But wishes rarely play out the way they’re planned, and Amelia must find her voice if she’s ever going to find her home.

Merya has been stewarding this corner of the sea for centuries. She has watched colonies arrive, patched up countless blue crab shells, and stayed behind while the rest of her kind sought clearer waters. She’s even made peace with the giant tunnel that collapsed her warren of sand burrows.

But when winter winds blow a ship into the bridge, threatening harm to the tunnel and the things that it carries, Merya must decide just how much she’ll give to protect every piece of life in these waters.