Tags
Fiction, flash fiction, short stories, short story, story, writing
It began before she could even sit up, before she had uttered her first words.
In the middle of the night, her eyes would open wide and she would sing.
It happened only once a month, but her parents were confused and worried. They couldn’t understand her, and couldn’t wake her when she sang. In the end, all they could do was lie awake in their beds, listening to the eerie singing of their sleeping daughter.
In time, the words grew clearer, but her parents still could not understand what she sang.
Her father took to writing it down. She sang on the seventh day of the month, without fail, so once she fell asleep on that night he would creep into her room and sit, with pen and paper in hand, until her song began.
When he had several songs written down, he went in search of educated men to try and understand her words. He didn’t tell them where he got the words from.
He was shocked to be told that she sang in ancient Greek. Riddles, the educated men said.
He bought books, spent hours teaching himself an ancient tongue so that he could understand his child’s songs. He wrote each one down, translated it, and kept her words to himself.
In time, he became powerful.
© Kari Fay
