Esta has known nothing but the island her whole life. Raised by her grandmother, after a fire claimed her parents and scarred her face, she''s instructed to piety, to deference, and acquiescence by a religious society that will not suffer anything else. Cut off from the moral iniquity of the mainland, the island believes it can stay free of the Seawomen - creatures from the water that came upon land to corrupt God''s creation and Man. The inhabitants fear the water and believe the only way to remain virtuous is to never enter it, and for the women to conceive within 12 months of their appointed motheryear.
If they do not conceive, they''re cast back into the ocean as a sacrifice in an act called the Untethering.
Esta witnesses such an act as a child. Her childhood growing up on the island is fraught with tension as she comes to the terms with the prohibitive malaise of the culture she finds herself in. Before long, she gets a taste of freedom and the potential of the
