Kya, a 14-year-old girl, notices a foreign presence in her lagoon; eventually realizing it's an older boy who has spotted her.
Startled, Kya hides from the boy, running and concealing herself within the surrounding brambles and undergrowth.
Feeling exposed, Kya takes precaution and locks her shack's door, something she only does seldomly.
By morning, her fear turns into curiosity after discovering a feather, lodged upright in a moss-coated stump. Kya recognizes it to be a rare feather of a great blue heron, suggesting it was intentionally placed there by the mysterious boy.
Kya has been fascinated by birds and is skilled at painting them; she meticulously sketches the feather and places it in the center of her feather collection decorating her wall.
In the following days, she excitedly discovers more feathers, including a rare tail feather from a tropicbird, significantly more impressive than the other feathers in her collection.
After a few days without a new feather, Kya grows restless and starts to anxiously check the stump multiple times a day.
Relief floods her when she finds a wild turkey tail feather on the stump, indicating the boy's "game" is still ongoing.
However, the turkey's feather also reminds her of an earlier, traumatizing experience with a flock of wild turkeys brutally killing a tangled member of their own to avoid attracting predators.
The memory is further associated with a night of verbal abuse from local boys, who had come to mock her known as the "Marsh Girl" from outside her shack.
The boys' ridicule fills her with shame; yet, Kya takes solace in the game with the mysterious boy and the beautiful feathers he leaves for her.