Chapter 1: Where a certain Miss Celeste Reynolds ventures out to an abandoned jetty.
Life in Chickentown, Minnesota was just about as dreary as a life could get. The tiny town was only on the map for one reason: chickens. It was all people ever talked about and all they ever did. Except for Celeste, whose only hope in life was to get as far away from Chickentown as was humanly possible. She was in her last class of the day, History, and Mrs. Schwartz was detailing the requirements for their final project. "Pick ten interesting things about Chickentown…." She was saying, Celeste thought that would be near impossible.
The only interesting thing to happen to Chickentown, as far as she was concerned, was the disappearance of Candy Quackenbush. It had been a year and still no sign of her, not one trail to follow, according to the town police. No one knew what happened to her. She had just walked off and never come back. People had sworn they smelled the sea on the air that day and Celeste had thought of the ocean, which she had never seen for herself. For her assignment, she decided, she would write about Henry Murkitt; a man who had loved the sea. The bell rang for the end of the school day and Celeste headed towards the far end of town.
Celeste went, as she often did, out to the edge of town to watch the waves of grass and imagine she was near the ocean. She walked out past the last house in Chickentown with a spring in her step. If you tried really hard the swish of dry grass in the wind became the dull roar and crash of waves. She could imagine the sea, and in her minds eye she could see it sparkling and glinting, throwing the sun's refection back into the sky. The grass was dry and brown as ever, and she waded through it, holding her arms out and brushing the tips of the blades with her fingers. She had walked like this, just happy to be away from the smell and sight of Chickentown, many times. She wandered past the hollowed out skeleton of what she liked to imagine was a lighthouse, however unlikely. The stair that led up to the top was too collapsed to climb. The jetty, an old and rather burnt looking structure, sat out in front of her now. It reached out away from her and its spidery wooden supports, broken and rotting, looked crazy and spindly in the afternoon light.
She climbed up a set of rickety old steps to what had become her favorite place to daydream about the sea. There, standing on the jetty she could see miles and miles of golden waving grasses. A slight breeze ruffled her silvery blond hair. She lay down on the dry, warm planks of the jetty and closed her eyes. She imagined a sea breeze, and the smell it would bring to her. Celeste was just drifting into a light sleep when a spray of cold water and air hit the side of her face.
She opened her eyes to an impossible sight. The rush and swell of a vast and endless sea had flooded the world around the jetty. The grass was gone, already swallowed in the tumult. The water continued to come out of nowhere, and fast. The swirl of it made the aging supports of the jetty give and groan under her. Celeste was at once amazed and frightened. She began to worry that she was stranded there, on the jetty, as the water continued to rise. And rise it did, until the jetty itself was becoming immersed in the rushing flood. The world looked nothing like it had just moments ago and a feeling of magic had mixed into the air.
Celeste looked down at her feet, now covered in at least an inch of water, and made a snap decision. When the tide went back out, she would go with it. No more Chickentown. No. Wherever these mysterious waters would take her, she would go. She breathed in the salt sea air and smiled.