"STICKS AND STONES" HAD IT WRONG. Words can hurt you, as elementary school teacher Jon Wanamaker learns while working to preserve a dying language. Already mired in the aftermath of a failed marriage, Jon is suddenly tormented by ghostly, ribbon-like sentences that stream across his vision, wrenching him in and out of consciousness. But are they hallucinations, or something more? Minutes after the ribbons appear, a deranged sniper is hot on Jon's trail; a pro baseball pitcher sees exactly what Jon is seeing, from three thousand miles away; and a neurophysicist is leaving cryptic warnings while rushing to Jon's rural mountain community. Meanwhile Jon's ex-wife is about to expose a deadly, ribbon-related episode from Jon's hidden past… a revelation that could endanger the entire region. Then there are the whispers, about ties between the mysterious sentences and a wondrous language unspoken for four thousand years. Are Jon's ribbons something miraculous, as his growing convictions insist? Or are they dangerous, as the people hunting for him-and the woman he still loves-claim? The startling answers promise to unlock new frontiers… if Jon can avoid falling prey to the Mother Tongue.