Meg looked about. The cloud forest had enfolded her as a blossom closes with the coming of night...In the undergrowth to her side a large spotted form moved cautiously in harmony with Meg. Oddly, she felt a sense of calm. Slowly, Meg walked toward it. 'Come to me,' it said. 'Let me show you all that the forest has to offer. Wampang will help.' A giant blue butterfly appeared at her shoulder and whispered in her ear. 'Wait,' Meg said as it flew away. 'What were you saying? I almost understood.' 'It is Niawa the jaguar,' a human voice said and Meg started. 'Wampang was trying to tell you that you should be careful with jaguars. They rule the forest.' Meg O'Connell, a single mom with a rebellious teenage daughter, is suddenly snatched from her comfortable suburban life, drawn to the Peruvian Amazon by a quest she could never have imagined, the search for her sister's head. In a rattling peque-peque, chugging up a muddy river, Meg will find the only person who can possibly help her, an anguished gun-toting Jesuit priest who barely clings to the basic tenets of the Catholic faith. Together, they will discover much more than either had ever intended.
