“She wasn’t awake,” Soule repeated. “Her mind didn’t know she was singing.”
“How could you tell?”
Soule opened her mouth, closing it. The same way she knew other things. They never had the words for what she wanted to say. Everything was clumsy grunting sounds, like an animal. She had thought for a time that her father hadn’t given all of the words he knew to her, that there were more words she hadn’t heard yet, but she now believed they just weren’t there.
“I just can,” she said.
Isidor stared at her for a moment. He reached out, touching her cheek, caressing.
#
Winter and Isidor had chased her, both of them. She had run for the hold, going down the stairs and ducking to hide under them. Winter had come down, then Isidor, their faces wrong, their minds full of the woman’s need, her
