Patience Avery is a dowser—a "water witch." With a pair of divining rods and her natural gifts, she can locate lost items, missing people—and aquifers deep within the earth. This last skill is more in demand than ever, as the normally lush, green countryside of Patience's native Vermont is in the grip of the worst drought in years. Patience does what she can to help her neighbors find new water sources for exhausted wells, but she knows better than most that this crisis is a symptom of worse things to come.