Alive or dead, people were too much trouble. Look at where being a good girl landed Megan. Dead at sixteen, a random pedestrian struck in a freak car accident, the driver a woman speeding past a red light on her way to pick up her kids from school.…

All the other village boys Berit’s age have long since found their voices swimming in streams or grazing in fields or nesting high in trees. They have hunted them, and they have feasted. Now they speak as men. Only Berit is an unvoiced child, a boy who must sign.…