Content warning: This section of the guide discusses domestic violence and sexual assault.

The narrator, Omishto, a sensitive and observant 16-year-old girl, sits and daydreams inside a small rowboat, watching a storm roll in. She has awoken after another night of sleeping in her boat in the swamp, where she feels safe from attack by her stepfather, Herman, who desires her. Usually, this area of her home in the Floridian Everglades appears beautiful to Omishto, but today, it feels ominous. A poisonous water moccasin (also known as a Cottonmouth) snake swims toward her boat until she pushes it away with her paddle. The trees at the water’s edge appear black under the shadow of storm clouds, and she feels a feeling of danger, imagining that someone is watching her from the tree line. She fears that it might be a bear, or a panther, though she has never seen a living wild panther before as there are few of them left.

Omishto knows many stories about the panther from Ama Eaton, one of the elders of her clan, the Taiga tribe who believe that the panther is their sacred ancestor.