Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

the front bench was left for the sea-kissed so that they could lip-read more easily, and see the under-clerk responsible for announcing lots in sign language.

Continenters who obliviously flouted this hidden rule could never work out why everyone then made a point of treading heavily on their foot as they passed or leaning forward to breathe cheroot smoke into their faces. At the moment, no foot-stamping seemed to be happening, so presumably everyone at the front was sea-kissed.

Even with her level of skill, reading lips at that distance was tiring, particularly when the boy twitched his head this way or that to answer people’s questions. Filling in those gaps in the conversation through deduction, over and over again, had become draining and irritating after a while.

using a sign like that for “eel.” The Myriad sign language had grown from the signs divers used to communicate underwater, and this showed sometimes.

Some of them had Marks, because of their many trips down into the Undersea to talk to the gods. A few of the mutations were particularly startling—a cloudy left eye twice the size of the right, or a fleshless little finger that still flexed and bent to its owner’s will. However, that wasn’t what bothered Hark.

Sea-kissed deafness was like a dueling scar or ship tattoo, proof of boldness and belonging.

voice was measured and level, with no weakness in consonants, not even the ‘s’ sound. Either she could still hear her own voice a little or she had a good recollection of how to use it.

Everybody has heard about it, she signed bitterly, her “everyone” a great circular gesture that seemed to suggest the whole of the Myriad and beyond.

Selphin’s only answer was one swift, fluid sign. It was the expressive sign for a jellyfish, pulsing its way forward, fingers trailing as tentacles. Of course, above water it generally had a different meaning.

He trailed off. Selphin had coldly and deliberately looked away from him. He had been silenced,

he suddenly realized. If she wasn’t looking at his signs or mouth movements she couldn’t “hear” him. His voice, his treasured power to persuade, had been taken from him in an instant.

After a fortnight, her eyes were no longer bloodshot, but she could still hear almost nothing but a droning, buzzing hiss. It went on and on, sometimes changing its pitch like an insect’s whine.

Selphin also had her pride, in a different sense. She was too proud to admit that she felt lost, or that she experienced a deep ache in her soul whenever she woke from a dream of sounds to a world of buzzing silence. In those early days, learning to lip-read made her want to cry with frustration, and when other sea-kissed chatted among themselves, their signing was often too fast for her to follow. Suddenly there seemed to be no conversations where she belonged.

The rest of their friends were clearly unhappy with seeing a sea-kissed treated this way. However, the balance of power in the group was shifting. They had always been in awe of Selphin, but time after time they saw her tongue-tied, confused, and on the back foot. If Selphin had told her

They were sea-kissed, warriors of the deep.

Rigg always forgot that when she yelled she was harder to lip-read. When her mother’s mouth movements became too contorted, Selphin stopped trying to understand them. Instead she looked away, cutting the conversation dead, which she knew Rigg hated.

exhaled, and delivered the sign with an exhausted flick.

hands moved, but it was too dark to make out her signs, so he shook his head again. Selphin reached out and took hold of his hands. He felt her turning them, arranging the fingers, and then slowly moving them. Her hands were smaller than his and a little cool, with calluses on the palms and fingertips. After a few seconds he realized that she was slowly guiding his hands through signs. Nearest building, she signed with his hands, then released them.

The story was being told through a sea-kissed song. The “singer” was magnificent, creating silent music through her swaying as she signed, the expressions of her face ever shifting and expressive as the sky. A drummer held the beat, but everyone in the tavern matched it by stamping on the floor in time, sending an ever stronger vibration through the timbers. It was the heartbeat of the story, and everyone could feel it through body and soul. It filled Hark with a feeling of kinship and strength.