New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice returns to New Orleans in this supernatural novel featuring a group of teenagers who find themselves with mysterious and dangerous powers.

My name is Niquette Delongpre and on the night before my mother’s forty-seventh birthday, my entire family vanished without a trace. Everyone assumed the swamp swallowed them. They were wrong. The real story begins weeks earlier, in the very soil of the place we called Elysium, which means “final resting place for the heroic and virtuous.” An ironic name, given that the secret unearthed there has the potential to change the course of human history.

Deep in the swamps outside of New Orleans, Niquette Delongpre and her family uncover a well on their property—a well that has roots all the way down into the soils of the Mississippi River. A well that brings ancient things to the surface—things that should have stayed buried.

When Niquette is exposed to a small parasite, it triggers in her mysterious and dangerous powers. As she tries to come to grips with these new abilities and what they might mean for her future, she realizes that she is not alone. Someone else, someone who was exposed to the same mysterious parasite during a clandestine visit to the swamp Niquette would rather keep secret, also is discovering his new talents, and he’s not as nice as she is…