On a westbound train, 12-year-old Abilene Tucker thinks about her father, Gideon Tucker. He used to tell her stories about Manifest, Kansas, his hometown. Gideon decides to send Abilene to Manifest after she cuts her knee and the wound becomes infected. Rattled by Abilene’s illness, he determines that Abilene must go to Manifest for the summer while he works in Iowa on a railroad crew.

Abilene’s valuables are stored in a flour sack as she travels, and they include a dress, two dimes, a letter from Gideon instructing that Pastor Howard is to meet her at the Manifest depot, and Gideon’s compass. Gideon’s compass is her favorite possession, and the arrow never stays pointing north. The date it was made, October 18, 1918, is engraved on the compass, and the compass is stored in a box lined with newspaper. The newspaper articles in the compass box are written by a reporter named Hattie Mae Harper. Abilene imagines the chain of the compass stretching between herself and her father, connecting them.

Moments after the conductors announce that Manifest is the next stop, Abilene jumps off the train rather than waiting for the train to stop.