On a warm summer day, Ella walked along the crowded beach. Waves crashed against the sandy shore, and children played in the ocean. The soft cry of seagulls sounded across the water, and the bright sun shone out over the clouds. Ella was a young girl, around ten years old, with dark brown hair and green eyes. Ella's small puppy, River, trotted alongside her, as he always did. He began to paw at something-a bottle. Ella expected it to be simply trash from a vacationer, but upon further inspection, it contained a note. Carefully opening the small bottle covered with barnacles, she read the torn, old note:

March 20, 1720

I have to hide the gold before it's too late follow the map to find the treasure

It must be a joke, Ella thought as she continued to walk on and leave the bottle, but she made sure to put the note in her pocket.

It took days to understand what the note said. Some days, she was so busy she didn't even think about it, but others, she spent hours obsessing over it and trying to understand what it meant. She knew it must have been fake - if it was real, why hadn't someone noticed it already-but still, she felt like she had to solve it. Almost like there was some reason she noticed the bottle, or at least some reason why River noticed the bottle. She kept on repeating the words, "I have to find the gold before it's too late". Finally, after what felt like weeks of confusion, she understood.

It didn't need deciphering. Not really. Her Dad had said that when he finally got his calling, it had been similar to her chance encounter walking on that humble stretch of beach. Except his was a time capsule - he thought it was, anyway, urging whoever found it to remember her name and remember her mission, to find the long-lost jewels. Again, his dog had found it. A greyhound, that he'd taken to the local park. It wouldn't move until he helped it dig into the grass to unearth the mystery. It begged the question, were the humans in her family actually the smart ones? Well, there's a reason why they say dogs are a man's best friends.

And besides, this was her calling. There was no point wallowing in her envy that River had found the bottle on the beach rather than her.

Ten years old was fairly old to "come of age", as her Mum called it. But finally, she could officially join the profession her family was bound to. She could finally join the Guild of Cartographers. She'd been practising her linework practically since she was born. She had a quill instead of a rattle, a yellowed piece of parchment could console her just as much as a gentle muslin cloth could. She'd not had a doll house, she had a ship like the ones of her family's fleet, complete with sleeping bunkers and storerooms. Her action figures were not superheroes, they were sailors, seafarers, clothed in neat tunics and bandannas.

She imagined her ancestor who had managed to connect with her. 1720. That was a long time ago. She imagined a woman with her green eyes and dark hair, and with her fierce determination. She'd probably disdained her domed petticoats and chosen the easy flamboyance of trousers, a waistcoat - of a purple colour, she thought, she didn't know why - and a flowing topcoat that flapped stubbornly in the wind that gusted in the sails of the boat, in the crow's nest of which she plotted the so far uncharted seas that bridged the gap between this sad mortal world and the other one, where all that could be imagined lived.

Finally, Ella could do what she was meant to do. She would live and die as a mapmaker and a seafarer, as generations and generations of her people had before her. She could live and die in her fantasies, live out her wildest dreams until she was bound to a fantastical death, capsized by a sea monster or lured by a siren or pulled into the depths by a band of rogue mermaids.

But most of all, she could try and find the treasure that her family had still so far not found, the treasure that would prove to the rest of this world that there was a better world, a different one, that would give the lost purpose.

Ella spent the next few weeks plotting out her voyage. Her Mum and Dad gave her tips and pointers for navigation on the sea--the Southern Cross could be used to find latitude, and your watch could be used to find longitude in combination with the sun. She studied the note, the handwriting and the ink, to try and decipher exactly where it had come from and where she might find her ancestor's gold.

Then she started creating her first map. Carefully, she outlined the coast in black ink and traced her planned route. She listed the compass bearings she would follow, the winds and currents she might encounter, and what she would do if she encountered a sea serpent. (Blue and red sea serpents were mostly harmless if you left them alone, but if you saw a green sea serpent, you needed to sail the opposite direction as quickly as possible.)

This map was only a suggestion of where she might go--it was expected that she would edit and change it as she visited new destinations and discovered new challenges. However, it was important to start out in some direction rather than none at all. Equally important for her family to know where she was going in case she didn't return. Very few Cartographers were lost at sea on their maiden voyage--they considered Beginner's Luck to be a very real and powerful force, along with dozens of other sea superstitions. But there was always the chance.

Finally, she was ready for the voyage. She packed up her Dad's sailboat, the Sea Hound, the same one he had sailed when he got his calling. River hopped in the boat at her side, his tongue lolling out happily--he was a Cartographer's puppy, after all, and he was also born for a life of adventure. She spread out the map on the prow, right next to the note she had first received.

The sky was clear, and the wind was favorable. As she cast out to sea, she waved to her parents. They were still waving back even as they vanished over the horizon.