Melody couldn't hear a sound. Her days blurred colors and lights, she could taste foods - the sweet burst of fresh strawberries, the heavy scent of early morning rain, the grass-stained sweat of her skin after a day in the family orchard - and she could feel things: warmth, wetness, frost. But she only ever dreamt of listening.
She loved to stand in the garden, a large area behind their house, enclosed by a wooden fence that kept the rest of the woods at bay. She loved to watch the deer and rabbits that went by, and once she'd spotted a pack of wolves. She could sit beneath an apple tree, or a peach tree in blossom season, and breathe. It was better than being at home, where the walls and the floors were stained with the sour stench of drink. Outside, she could watch the sky change color, and she would wonder:
What sound does the sun make? Do clouds float by in silence? Could the trees communicate? Rain must make a sound; what could it be? Do wolves and squirrels sound different?
How will I ever know? Melody would ask silently. All she could do was smile and nod - that's what her father insisted she did, smile and nod - whenever anyone spoke to her. She knew what the other villagers thought of her, what her father loved to say. That she was stupid. She couldn't speak. She couldn't understand.
But she could! She could. She couldn't attend the village school with the other children, not that girls were allowed to study past age ten anyway, but her mother taught her lots. She learned how to use her fingers to spell words. Her mother even spent her bride-price, a small fortune, to hire fingerspeaking instructors from King's Hovel. And Melody made the most of it.
She learned the names of things. She learned how to express herself and how to read and write, which was a rarity in their small countryside village. She wasn't stupid. She could think. She could wonder. She was alive. Her mother learned the language as well, though she wasn't nearly as quick, but it frustrated Melody, especially once the gold ran out and the instructors left, that she only had her mother to speak to.
And her father. Her father who'd learned just enough to chide Melody. He'd scratch his belly in circles whenever he'd see her, twisting his face as he signed the word, disgust. He compared her to a goblin, a foul beast of the wilderness, a disgusting monster. "Nobody will ever want you," he'd sign to her when he'd had enough to drink. "You're no good."
It was their family business. Fermenting the fruit that grew in their orchard. Melody wasn't allowed to help; all she wanted to do was keep the fruits fresh, to have the peaches and apples and strawberries as they were, and her father considered that a waste. People pay way more for drinks than they do for fruit. But slowly she'd learned that her mother's dream was for the orchard to be a magical garden - she signed about fairies and mystical spirits and wonder, and Melody's father would get upset. Don't fill her head with stories. The deaf and mute don't get happy endings.
And what use was reading and writing if she could never speak? Could never stand up for herself? "You're weak," he'd sign with clumsy fingers after taking a swig of peach brandy. "Pathetic."
Then, one day, the flowers struggled to bear fruit, and the bushes retained their berries, and the family coin thinned further still. There wasn't enough for food; there wasn't enough for new clothes; there wasn't enough for anything more than handfuls of rice at a time. Her father crumpled under the pressure, growing more and more tense.
He exploded at the slightest incident - spilled drinks, wasted food, or even a dead branch that had fallen. Everything cost money, he'd scream, his face red, about to burst like a squashed grape. He'd have to sign it after screaming because Melody could not hear his words. And he would add that everything cost silver and gold, and all he had was a useless, mute daughter who he couldn't even marry off. And after the fourth potential husband, an elderly man from the village, turned Melody down, her father declared his life in the village a failure. He blamed Melody who'd only been sixteen at the time, but he couldn't kick her out, as the orchard and the home was an inheritance that belonged to her mother, who'd finally decided enough was enough.
Her mother divorced her father and swore she would run him through with a kitchen knife should he ever return. With one last disgusted look at Melody, he gathered his clothes and his pipe and left. She never saw or heard from him again after that, and it felt as though she'd woken from some terrible dream.
Their orchard and garden still struggled to flower, but now that they'd stopped making ale and gin, and now that her father's presence was gone, there was enough fruit to sell, as well as fruit to eat.
"The fruit will come back," signed her mother. "They always did. Every time, when I was growing up. And when your grandmother was growing up. And when her mother's mother was growing back. This land knows our love. This land keeps its promise as long as we keep our own."
She taught Melody how to make jam and seal it in jars to preserve foods for the winter. This way, they could save money and spread out their meals through the year. And even though things were tough, her mother never grew red in the face whenever Melody bit into a peach or a strawberry. Instead, she'd kiss Melody on the forehead and sign, rubbing her chin with her fingers and smiling, only the sweetest food for the sweetest girl. Their home never reeked of drink again.
Her mother was patient. She was kind. Even as the wrinkles deepened on her face and gray spread across her hair, it was Melody's mother who'd always bring her storybooks of the kingdom's Heroes and taught Melody how to cook and knit and clean. How to tend to the trees and bushes even as they bore such little fruit that the two of them went to bed with only water in their stomachs on some nights. But every morning, Melody was awoken with a hug. On special occasions, they had a breakfast of eggs - often exchanged for their jam by kind village friends - or they'd make flatbread with leftover flour from the bakery they could buy for cheap. With their jam, they felt like royalty.
Melody worked hard for her aging mother's sake. She tended to the orchard, yanked out the weeds, and finished all the household chores so that her mother could rest as much as she needed to. Most evenings, they spent their time outside, sitting together in silence, and Melody knew they both had the same wish in their hearts: for all the flowers to bloom, and for the land to come alive again, and for the world to be vibrant and wonderful. She'd even given up on her desire to hear; all she wanted was for the two of them to be happy.
She loved her mother for loving her. For telling her that husbands don't mean anything, that worth comes from within. That her deafness, her muteness, didn't make her an oddity, didn't make her a failure, didn't make her anything other than what she chose to do with what she had. But what did that mean? Melody would wonder; she had no idea.
But the fistfuls of happy, quiet years slipped by, and sometime after Melody's twenty-first birthday, a bout of Waggle Dance Fever struck the village, and her mother turned into a swarm of honeybees.
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People were left to die alone on the roads, kicked out of their homes by fearful villagers in an attempt to keep the fever from spreading. Waggle Dance Fever turned humans into bees, and no one was sure how it spread. Nobody knew how it had even started. Theories of witches and curses and demons floated around, and it wasn't long until the ill were burnt alive. Once they were infected, once they started to turn, they were dead anyway; all the elders agreed immolation was the best medicine to protect the rest of the community.
Her mother had signed at Melody to not look the first time they saw someone tied to a wooden stake and set ablaze, but she'd watched anyway through her fingers and wondered why the ill didn't just run away.
When her mother caught the fever - she'd come home one day complaining of a belly ache and a sore throat, and was flushed by the next morning and couldn't even get out of bed - Melody hid her in the house. Neither of them could go outside, though her mother protested. "Let me leave," she'd sign, pleading with tired, slow-moving fingers. "I'll go into the woods. What if you get sick too?"
"If I get sick, then I'll be with you," Melody signed back. "Even if you go to the woods, I’m coming with you. I'm not leaving you."
"Please," signed her mother. "Please."
Melody closed her mother's weathered hands and kissed them, wishing so painfully that she could speak. But Waggle Dance Fever worked quickly, and, within a few days, her mother was too sick to even sit up.
Melody skipped her meals, saving what little food they had so she could feed her mother. She knew it was futile, but she kept hoping that with enough strength, with enough food in her belly, maybe her mother could survive this. Maybe this didn't have to be a death sentence. She'd sit by her mother's bedside crying and counting each time a piece of skin or flesh or bone grew translucent wings, shook off blood and excess moisture, and took to the air. A fuzzy black-and-gold body ready to zoom all throughout their small home.
Her mother burned at higher and higher temperatures, hotter even than their woodfire stove, no matter how many water-soaked cloths Melody lay on her head. She bathed her mother. Fingerspoke to her as much as she could, and squeezed her hand, and tried to speak. "I love you, please don't leave me," but all she managed was a warbled mess of sounds.
All she could do was sleep beside her, holding her fragile burning body, as bit by bit, her mother disappeared. She couldn't hear her mother's last words; her lips moved. They curled into a smile, and tears filled her eyes before, with a final breath and a shudder, her face gave away into a cloud of honeybees. Melody stared at the worn-out dress that had once contained her mother and sobbed.
None of the bees ever stung her. A few tickled the tears on her cheeks and rested in her hair. She kept them in the house, swarming all around her, giving them dishes of water and sugar until she knew they needed flowers and fresh air. Melody opened the windows and said goodbye to her mother, signing the word over and over with her fingers. Even if she could speak, she was crying much too hard anyway, and, with a few final bees zooming past her face and brushing her lips and her nose with their wings, her mother left the house, and Melody was alone.
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She didn't eat that night; she didn't sleep much either. But when the sun rose, and she managed to peel herself off the kitchen floor, Melody stumbled outside to find the bees still there. They'd built a beehive on the peach tree nearest to the house. They were curled up in the flowers. They whizzed past her face and zipped around her and several landed on her cheeks to lick at her dried tears. She smiled and tickled their fuzzy little bodies, felt their wings beat so quickly against her skin.
Every day, there were more. Beehives seemed to grow overnight. Within a week, every tree in the orchard had several. It was as if all the bees in the village had come to her family orchard to build their home. All the people who'd been cast out, who'd run away, who'd died alone. The bees they'd become had gathered in her orchard. None of them stung her. None of them seemed frightened by her. The villagers thought she was a witch. They shunned her, ignored her, and kept their distance. But the kind grocer, an old man who'd been a family friend since she was young, still purchased her fruit in exchange for rice and bread.
It wasn't till a month had passed and no new incident of Waggle Dance Fever was reported that the village atmosphere brightened. Melody had figured out what happened; bees danced to tell one another where the best flowers were, and her mother must have told all the other bees where to come. Maybe that was how they'd ended the disease. With love. They’d even begun to make honey, a distinct red honey that Melody knew was magical.
It was red like blood. Red like sunset. Red like strawberries. The honey was thick, with a mesmerizing aroma of fruit and sweetness, but the taste had a trace of bitterness and salt, like tears. She couldn't quite explain it, but it tasted like how she felt when she missed her mother the most. It tasted the way sunlight felt on her skin. It tasted like the last time she'd hugged her mother. It tasted like silent laughter. It tasted like crying.
After the kind grocer accepted her honey one day as payment, and after he'd sold it to others, a new understanding spread through the town. The special honey had to be the cure. It had saved everyone. She learned of this through the grocer who'd written her a letter explaining everything, asking for more jars of honey to sell - he would provide as many jars as she needed - and he would split the profits with her. He even offered one of his sons to marry her.
She'd accepted everything but the last offer and sank into a comfortable routine. Melody woke every morning to tend to her orchard and her bees. All the flowers now bore fruit, peaches and apples and pears and oranges. All of them delicious, juicer than any fruit she'd had before. She even had strawberries that she plucked sometimes from the bushes and ate straight away, shutting her eyes and wishing her mother were here to try them. She could rub her chin and sign to her, look how sweet they taste.
As for the special honey, she harvested some frequently. Every day, she had at least a dozen jar's worth, and her honey was unlike anyone else's. She’d heard that guests came from all over the kingdom to purchase a jar or two, and the grocer had to raise prices since Melody refused to bring more. She didn’t want to tire out her bees, and she wanted to keep half the jars at home and build up her own supply. That way, if the trees ever stopped flowering, if anything ever happened to her fruit, she could rely on the honey.
In the afternoon, she carried her basketful of honey and a wagon loaded with fruits to the grocer who greeted her with warmth. He was getting on in his years, and his sons helped him. They treated her with respect, though the eldest acted shy and timid around her and the youngest always seemed to be laughing. Through pen and paper, they'd always ask if she needed anything. If she ever wanted help tending to her orchard. But Melody knew her bees would never accept that, and she'd smile politely and shake her head. She'd even taught them a few words in fingerspeak: how to say, thank you and you’re welcome and see you soon.
Sometimes, the grocer and his sons would recommend selling her honey further. She’d make even more gold. But Melody turned down anything excessive. What was she supposed to do with all that money? She already got plenty more than she could ever spend, and it would make her honey feel less special. She enjoyed being an oddity, remembering what her mother used to say about how she wasn't an oddity. That she was what she chose to do.
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Color returned to the village once the fever became a thing of the distant past. Her bees spread far and wide sometimes, seeking flowers to nourish, and life grew all over the countryside. They always returned home to her orchard, however, and their honey remained blood-red and tasting of heartbreak. The village became famous for it, but thankfully, the grocer respected her wishes for privacy, and nobody ever bothered her. She saved all the gold she earned and ate little every day. It was enough to keep her strength up, but not too much, as the sight of a big meal made her deeply sad.
She sat outside in the evenings and watched the bees' mesmerizing dance as they worked from flower to flower, as they swarmed around her. She wondered what stories they told one another. She often wondered which of the bees had come from her mother. It was only when they returned to their hive on the peach tree that she knew for sure, but when they flew around, spinning circles and seeking pollen, they were indistinguishable from the rest. It was easier to imagine every single one of them was some part of her mother. And though the bees stung others in the village, they never harmed her. They rested on her fingertips and tickled her skin, and it was only around them that she felt comfortable enough to laugh.
Her father had loved reminding her that her laugh was ugly. It was one of the few things he learned to sign, but nobody would teach him how to say ugly, so he used dirty instead. He'd hold his hand under his chin and wiggle his fingers while curling his nose.
Slowly, she learned to treat herself. She bought finger yarns and cloths to make dresses and outfits. She chose bright colors since the bees seemed to like yellow and orange and sky blue, and she enjoyed being the same colors as the sun, so she knitted and sewed dresses and aprons to wear as she went about her day.
Every once in a while, a man in the village would smile at her. A farmer or the blacksmith's apprentice or a Hero passing through. They'd say things. Their lips would move and stretch, and she liked watching their tongues flick against their teeth, but they were as quiet as the trees. Melody would nod politely and walk away, and sometimes one of the other villagers would inform the men of her condition. Other times, she'd glance back and see them staring after her in curious confusion. Were they asking for directions, asking for a drink, or just begging for food, she'd never know. She didn't want to know. She much preferred making her way back home, tending to her bees and her honeycombs, and to read her books and make her clothes, and sleep with the taste of honey on her lips.
She was happy in her silent world, and the months melted into years. Every winter, so many bees died, and she wept for each corpse she found curled up on the ground. She buried them quietly and waited for the next generation of bees to emerge in spring. But all the honey and fruit from the warm months kept her sustained through the year, and she saved so much gold. She had her clothes and her reading. She'd asked the grocer to get her more books to buy, and she devoured each one the way soil devoured the rain. There was nowhere else she wanted to be; where could a deaf girl even go? The world was something only to be discovered in storybooks, and through her routine, the years began to blur.
Villagers she'd known growing up left for the thriving inner cities of the kingdom. Many went to the capital, King's Hovel, to earn their keep. The Heroes that passed through the village seemed younger and younger with each passing day, and her joints began to hurt every morning. Stiff knees and elbows. Her neck ached until she'd had a good stretch and drank her morning tea. Sometimes, she'd catch sight of herself in the mirror and smile at her wrinkles, at her streaks of white hair, and how she looked so much like her mother. She’d rub her chin for sweet.
One sunny spring morning, shortly after her bees had come back again, and she'd turned sixty, Melody opened her door to step with her basket of jarred honey, and very nearly stumbled into a wide-eyed, little green woman.
The woman looked so alarmed, it made Melody's heart race. Eyes, vivid green eyes, that grew wider still, so huge and scared and frightened, and then the woman raised shaking fingers to sign words - slowly at first, then much more quickly. "I'm sorry to bother you, Mrs. Granny, but I've been looking for you. I wanted to ask you something very important."
Mrs. Granny? Melody blinked in confusion, trying to calm her heart as she clutched her chest.
Nobody had signed so many words at her like this in so long, she'd almost forgotten how to read them. And the woman..., she was a goblin. She had to be. Short and green, but she was wearing a straw hat and a white shirt tucked into dark shorts - human clothes. Long black hair went down her back, and long black boots covered her feet. All her clothes looked worn and shabby, as though they'd been worn every day for a long time.
But where was the stench? Weren't goblins supposed to reek? Melody sniffed the air, but the woman smelled sweet. Like flowers. Like rain.
She'd seen pictures of goblins in her books; she knew how they lived in tribes and how many turned feral and fed on young children. And how Heroes often had to be summoned to cull their populations. And how her father used to compare her to them. A group of goblins was called an infestation. But that was all so far away from her sleepy little village. What was a goblin doing on her doorstep?
And how did a goblin know fingerspeak? What kind of trickery was this? Melody wondered if this was a devious scheme of some sort. Maybe it was a trap; other goblins were lying in wait. But what could they want with her? Were they going to eat her? But I'm so old. There's hardly any meat; it's all just bones.
When she didn't respond, the goblin girl blushed and pulled her hat down lower before adding, "I'm sorry to be disturbing you."
Melody wondered how long she’d been waiting on her doorstep. It’s not like she could’ve heard any knocking. She signed at the girl, "What do you want?"
"My name is R-I-S-A. I've been looking for you for almost a year now!"
"A year?"
"Your honey is the best in all the lands." The goblin's eyes went huge again, and she took off her hat to reveal long, pointed green ears that popped out at the sides. But then she blinked in alarm again, her dazzling green eyes widening with worry, and she forced the hat back on and hid her ears. "Sorry," she signed quickly, making circles with her fist against her chest. Before Melody could say she liked the girl's ears, she continued: "I wanted to make a deal with you."
Melody lowered her basket and took a breath. She was too old to be waiting on doorsteps and fingerspeaking with strangers. "What does that mean?"
"Not much can hide from a goblin's tongue, see? And your honey has magic! It tastes better than any honey anywhere else, and I have a small stand in King's Hovel, and I want to sell your honey properly there. What do you say?"
Her back was hurting trying to follow along with Risa's hand signs. Melody frowned. The goblin signed almost as naturally as Melody, but she was sure that Risa wasn't deaf. The girl had a habit of mouthing all the words.
"How did you find me?" asked Melody.
Breathlessly, Risa smiled. Her cheeks reddened slightly but she straightened up. "I learned how to read the bees. It wasn't easy. Their language is so strange, but then I heard from the shopkeeper that you only spoke fingerspeak, and I had to learn that too!" She swallowed and shook out her hands before continuing. "I wanted to show you that I'm all in, okay? I really want to do this. We can call it Granny's and Goblin's Gorgeous Honey! And we can make so much gold! Everyone will go crazy!"
Melody rubbed her chin. She was curious about the young woman who looked so beautiful in the sunlight. She might've been a goblin, but there was something endearing about her. Maybe it was the shyness. Maybe it was the bright, carefully practiced way she fingerspoke with such earnestness. Maybe just her smile. She had very pretty lips, decided Melody.
"So?" signed Risa, eyes wide with hope. She was standing on her tippy toes. "What do you say?"
Melody sighed. Then she told the girl what she'd told every person who'd tried to franchise her honey over the years. "No."