Description: Withering-by-Sea One Stella Montgomery lay hidden behind the ferns in the conservatory of the Hotel Majestic, flat on the mossy tiles, tracing a path through the Amazon jungle in a small, damp atlas. She skirted around a vague outcrop of some kind--possibly mildew--and continued upriver. The drip and trickle of water and the hiss of steam under the grating in the floor seemed to mingle with the swish of jungle trees in the wind and the screams of parrots. Stella wiped some water drops off the map and read, On the trees, thousands of curious and gorgeous orchids live and flower. The jungle was full of all kinds of dangers--vampire bats, earthquakes, and hunters armed with blowpipes full of poison darts.

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