Summary

The narrative opens with two quotes related to birds. Then the chapter Begin Reading begins with Ava telling the story of the first time she can remember flying. It was when she was a four-year-old and she had run after her mother who led her to the park. There she put Ava on a seesaw and then ran and jumped on the other end. Ava had flown over her mother’s head and her mother caught her fall. That night she told Ava about the ritual that the girls who had not been able to go out into the world had performed with the seesaw to be able to see the world. Ava had not understood because they lived in a city, not behind a wall.

In the next section, Ava introduces herself and tells readers about the origins of her name...