January Scaller lives with her father’s employer, Mr. William Cornelius Locke, in his grand mansion in Vermont called Locke House. Locke is the wealthy owner of W. C. Locke & Co., and head of the New England Archaeological Society, an exclusive club for collectors. He collects rare objects from all over the world, and January’s father, Julian, travels to find unique pieces for Locke’s collection. In her seven years of life, January has spent more time with Mr. Locke than with her own father, and Locke provides for January as if she is his daughter.

In 1901, when January is seven years old, she accompanies Locke on a business trip to Western Kentucky. During Locke’s business meeting, she escapes from their hotel and runs to an overgrown field. She notices a run-down blue doorway standing in the field and longs for it to lead to a new and exciting place. She begins to write a story in her special leather diary about a magic Door, and feels an unexplainable shift in the world around her, “like an earthquake that didn’t disturb a single blade of grass” (10). When she steps through the Door, January stands in emptiness for a moment, then steps completely through and finds herself “in a world made of salt water and stone” surrounded by the ocean (11).