Eleven-year-old Mary intends to describe dark events that happened a year earlier. She lives in the town of Chilmark on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Mary says, “Every small village must think itself perfectly unique. I now know there was not another like ours in America, in the Year of Our Lord, 1805” (1). A stranger comes to the island and changes Mary’s life in important ways. She tells the reader, “I warn you, there are accounts of great wickedness along with hope in these pages” (1).

In November, Mary is walking on the beach with her best friend, Nancy. Mary explains that Nancy is hearing, and Mary has been deaf since birth. A large percentage of the island’s inhabitants are also deaf. The two girls stumble across the carcass of a whale. When the townsmen are summoned to dispose of the sea creature, Mary is sad because the whale reminds her of her late brother. On the way home, she avoids visiting his grave.

Back at her own house that same morning, Mary converses with her mother in sign language. Her mother is hearing, and her father is deaf. Her late brother George was also hearing. Mary tells her mother that she saw a wave on the beach that looked like a lion.