Chloe Timms

Raised by her grandmother after a fire claimed her parents, Esta's instructed to piety, deference, and acquiescence by a religious society. Cut off from 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. 

Before long, Esta gets a taste of freedom. But she is bound when she is married off and her motheryear is finally declared. Will she conceive a child in her loveless arranged marriage, or suffer the same fate of many women before her, and be Untethered?