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The Silent Song

Published Date: 14 Apr 2020

Child's drawing of a mermaidEva's drawing of Syreni

Long ago in the watery depths of the sea, a ripple broke the still of the surface and a flash of green flickered. There swam Syreni the lonely mermaid.

In the distance the sound of the mermaid song echoed, but for Syreni there was no song. Unable to hear the other mermaids, she sang her songs in her freckled head. Syreni dreamed of being able to sing with her friends and make friends with the other mermaids. Oh! How she dreamed.

One day Syreni was enjoying sitting in the sun. The sun bounced off her green tail, making her sandy yellow hair appear seaweed green. Staring lazily in to the distance she daydreamed. Then out of the corner of her eye Syreni saw a blue glow in the distance. Curious she swam over to investigate. She saw stones with ancient mermish carved onto them. Syreni translated them as "Go, go to the place of the silent song, there you shall find company." Puzzled, she picked up the pebble. It fitted snugly into the palm of her hand. "This could be important," she thought as she slipped the little rock into a seaweed pouch that hung from her neck.

Later as she devoured her sea noodle soup in her lonely cave, her mind drifted to the pebble in her neck pouch. "What does it mean?" she thought. "Obviously it must mean something but what?" She took the pebble from her pouch, played with the cool carvings, and ran her finger along the scratches. The scratches resembled her hometown, the Drifting City. Then it dawned on Syreni. The scratches were a map! "To where?" she thought. Then she thought of the inscription, "The place of the silent song!"

The next day, after she had packed all her belongings into a bag, Syreni followed the first part of the map's route through the shipwreck wood. Then past ocean volcanoes and seaweed tangles. Finally, she decided to stop in an empty worn ships hull. Just then an eel shot out from it's home. "Maybe not," she thought. Instead she settled for an old tunnel from undersea miners. Empty, even of eels, she lay down on the half rotted coral. "Just think of what the place of the silent song may hold for me," she thought to herself.

After a long uncomfortable sleep, Syreni awoke expecting to see the soft moss on her cave's bedroom roof, but she saw thick chunky rocks hanging from the ceiling. Then it struck her like a bolt of lightning, she was on the way to the place of the silent song. With a soft sigh she rose from her (not really a) bed. She grabbed her bag and had some sea flakes and dolphin milk in a conch shell for breakfast. She pulled the lid from a bottle of dolphin milk and let it slosh around the conch bowl. Syreni gathered her items again and left the cave.

The map said to go into a mountain? She advanced to the mountain she could see in front of her uncertainly, her eyes adjusting to the gloom. Then she saw a dozen mermaids all moving their hands beautifully. There were no vibrations. They were not speaking but seemed to be singing silently. "Is this the place of the silent song?" Syreni drew in the sand. They all nodded. Then they signed to each other and Syreni realised that is their language. A mermaid came forward and signed hello to Syreni. A confused look went across Syreni's face. Another mermaid darted forward. She wrote the words in the sand. Syreni understood.

Over time Syreni's new friends taught her their language. This felt truly like home to her.

Eva

Eva (12) is profoundly deaf. She came in the top 10 of our book competition last year. Eva said: "I was very excited when I heard I’d been picked and glad to be considered a good author."