Silent Echo Read Online Free Page B

place this birdcall, but she knew instinctively that they were beckoning a response from her. Signing feverishly, she tried explaining to them that she couldn’t sing back. Even in her dreams she didn’t have a voice.
    The flock continued to call out more fervently, their collective voices growing louder and louder. The sound was dizzying as Portia spun around and around trying to address the ring of birds. As their speed increased, it became impossible to distinguish one from the next until suddenly, midflight, the birds converged into one giant creature.
    The bird was hard to look at full on, its down whiter than freshly fallen snow emblazoned by the sun. The mutant creature must have stood upward of eight feet tall, its wings stretching for miles. The popping noise had evolved into something altogether explosive as the giant wings flapped back and forth, catching Portia in their breeze.
    Portia could feel a looming sense of danger as the winged mutation picked up speed. She was terrified to look into its face, closing her eyes against the fluorescence of the wings. Much as she tried to avoid it, though, there was no escaping the explosive song of the bird, which had suddenly taken on the spoken word.
    “Portia, you’re all grown up. No more silence…”
    “What do you mean?” she signed back, ignoring the fact that she was conducting a conversation with a giant freak of nature.
    “You’ll know.” The creature started laughing, a loathsome sound that was both painful and beautiful.
    Portia began floating up to the surface of the slumber, determined to escape the clutches of the unsettling dream.
    “Open your eyes, Portia.”
    The menacing laughter of the bird grew more distant as Portia climbed further and further out of the grip of her sleep. Right before she broke through the surface, the creature drew her back in with one final song. The lyrics were weighty but secondary to the actual beauty of the vocals, which were unparalleled by anything she had ever heard before.
    She was caught in the music, her entire person riding the tide of the melody. The oddest combination of euphoria and dread settled over her as part of her longed to remain in the song forever and part of her wanted nothing more than to run for her life.
    “OPEN YOUR EYES, PORTIA!”
    Her eyes flew open with a start and she found herself curled into a fetal position, Ms. Leucosia’s slender hand stroking her forehead. The nurse’s touch was a welcome tether back to the real world, her world, where giant winged creatures were reserved for fables and legends. Portia made the universal sign for “something to write with” and then remembered that Ms. Leucosia was fluent in signing.
    “Have I been sleeping long?” her weary hands managed.
    “About twenty minutes,” the nurse said as she took Portia’s wrist in her hand, feeling for a pulse.
    Portia could not believe it had only been twenty minutes. She felt like she had been sleeping for hours. Her limbs were heavy and a dense headache had settled itself in for what she was certain was going to be a long visit. Mostly she longed for a toothbrush to rid herself of the thick pasty feeling that had developed in her mouth.
    Once she awoke, only brief fragments of her dream were retrievable—the strange noises of the birds, their aged eyes, the enormity of the one giant winged creature. Something specific was gnawing at her, something the creature had said just before she woke up. What was it?
    Jolted back to her present surroundings by a pungent, not altogether unpleasant odor, Portia noticed Ms. Leucosia closing the lid on a glass jelly jar.
    “What’s that smell?” she signed. She detected lavender and citrus.
    “It’s just a little homemade remedy I keep on hand. I applied some to your shoulders and back to relieve your pain.”
    “Thanks,” Portia signed, “It feels much better.” Indeed the pain had actually subsided and Portia offered Ms. Leucosia a grateful smile.
    The nurse