Lily glides through life silently. She hasn't spoken since her brother Pete died a few years back. No one pays to much attention to her in school. She comes and goes as she pleases because her teacher, like all the adults in her life, isn't too sure what Lily understands anymore. She has become practically invisible, allowing her to become the super sleuth that she admires most, Nancy Drew. Secretly, she has smuggled each of the Nancy Drew books out of the school library and read it more than once. When she isn't spying on the inhabitants of Olena, she enjoys her contraband Nancy Drew mysteries in the shade of the big cottonwood tree and listens to the cicadas that have mysteriously shown up after having been gone for years. it is under the big cottonwood tree that Lily gets involved in a mystery of her own in the form of Tinny, the new girl in town. Tinny trades in secrets, and quickly discovers some of Lily's deepest secrets which she holds over Lily for favors and trade