Page 74 of Shadebound
The screaming ran deeper than sound.
She watched me for a long moment. Her purple eyes were tired. Too tired for someone our age. Then she signed,I’m not glad you can’t hear. But... I’m glad you can’t hear this.
I smiled. Not because it was funny. Just because I understood.
I signed back;I suppose this is definitely a benefit. I don’t think I could handle a lot of noise all the time.
She stared harder at me, with no emotion on her face. Then her hands moved slowly, as though worried she was asking something wrong.Is it not lonely, being in the quiet all the time?
I’d love to hear, sure, I replied.But being deaf isn’t a lonely existence when the people around you don’t allow it to be.
She was watching me closely. Like she wasn’t used to people speaking about things like this without shame.
I told her I knew people who hated it. Who felt isolated, abandoned, angry. And I understood that. It was a common thing that made sense. Most deaf people existed in their own bubble. A lot even had parents who couldn’t be bothered to learn how to speak their language. They had friends who didn’t want to make the effort to communicate, and they had most strangersin the world never once considering learning a handful of signs. Too busy living in their noisy bubble of things not bothering them.
But that hadn’t been my experience.
Everyone I love learned how to talk to me, I signed.They learned my language. Even my sisters’ friends, and other friends I have back home. I’ve never been alone. Not once.
I was lucky. I knew that.
If anything, I added,people who can hear often seem lonelier than I am.Because my life may be silent, but it is not empty. And lots of hearing people exist in the emptiness.
She was quiet after that. The bloody water on fingers dripped faintly silver onto the white porcelain. It clung there like ink from a broken pen.
Then she asked,But... you don’t have magic, either. Doesn’t that make it harder? Living in a world like this? I can barely stand to live without my magic.
I shook my head.
You’re losing something, I signed.You had magic, and now you’re watching it fade. That’s like losing a limb. I understand why that hurts.
I paused, then added,But I’ve never had it. You can’t miss what you’ve never known.
Her hands stilled. She just stared at me for a long moment more. Then slowly, unsure, she signed back,I don’t like my life. But I feel like you do. And I don’t get how to do that. How to love things I don’t have.
I like who I am;I told her.I like my life. My family. My silence. I’m not unhappy.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and kept going.
The worst thing that ever happened to me was losing Bells.My chest ached as I signed it.She was taken far too soon. AndI never get to see her laugh again. That’s the only thing I hate. Magic doesn’t change that.
Luna stared at me as if I were something fragile. Or maybe something ancient. Like I’d already survived a thousand things she hadn’t learned the names of yet.
Then she signed,Do you think you could help me figure it out?
I blinked.Figure what out?
How to be happy, she signed.Without magic. Without everything I used to be. At least until I kick the bucket and leave a wolf-shaped hole in the fabric of time.
Her mouth curved upward. A small, dry smile. Like a cracked flower blooming in winter.
I nodded.Of course.
Her hand reached out before I could prepare for it. She laced her fingers with mine, her skin cold and trembling and light.
Something fluttered in my stomach. A hush of wings. A tremble I didn’t expect and definitely shouldn’t have been feeling.
Not with a girl destined for death. Not with a girl who needed comfort and kindness more than anything else.
