voice ;

Huh? I don’t get it… This book doesn’t have words. Books are supposed to have words, right? That’s why Carnegie gets mad because all of the other books don’t have the words he’s looking for.

So do other books just not have words at all?

I don’t think I really understand this. Not that anyone would tell me if I asked. Or understand it themselves either. I could ask mom, maybe. If I can get a moment away from the others. Carnegie threw this book out, though. So he shouldn’t care if I keep it. It doesn’t have words anyway. It’s just… there…

[There’s the sound of something running across the paper, her fingers fingers touching the book lightly when…]

Preparing to post. [the book says to her.]

Did this book just talk?! And… what does ‘preparing to post’ mean? Hello! Is anyone there? Can anyone he-

There was one word people would use to describe Solara, and that was lucky.

But Solara didn’t agree with that word. She didn’t agree that the man who housed them was a good, kind man. Not when she watched him beat her mother for failing to do something or another at dinner. Solara had tuned out his rants and could only hear her mother’s pleading for him to stop. She didn’t sit but she reacted, jumping up from the table and begging him to stop.

He didn’t hear her.

No one heard her.

At the bar the next day the man leaned across the counter and smacked her ass as she walked away. She demanded that he stop in a firm tone. But when she turned again, sure enough she felt the sharp sting of his hand against her ass. She gritted her teeth together and ground her fingers into the plate she was carrying to keep from screaming.

No one listened to her.

She wanted them to listen. She wanted to scream her frustrations with this world. When Redridge stared at her from across the bar with that possessive look in his eyes she wanted to scream that she wasn’t an object.

But she was silent.

She didn’t speak out against Carnegie for fear of losing her home. She didn’t speak out against the man, because words would never work. She did speak out against Redridge’s sharp gaze for nothing could stop it. She didn’t speak out. She bit her tongue, she hung her head, and she became the quiet girl that did what she was told. All the while a feeling inside her built up and searched for its release. Searched for her freedom.