WHISPERROOT will soon be completed and ready for release. The story has twisted and turned and has so many layers to it. It’s about the dangers of silence, but it’s also about memory, and sisters, and survival. Most of all, it’s about staying true to yourself. Which is one reason I love this chapter.

This is a (long) reading of a significant chapter in WHISPERROOT. I’m sharing it, even though it’s really long and even though it’s a “big” chapter in the book, because a lot of my stories focus on the trauma. I want others to feel the pain, I want them to see what it can do to someone. But, also, I want survivors to know how strong they are and that there is hope and light at the end of the tunnel. No situation is impossible. This chapter made me believe in that just a little more.

Every silence has its echo

We didn’t ask for this to happen. What else were we to do? It was for the protection of our sons, our souls, our traditions, our survival. The girls– well, they were wayward. Ainela, she knew better than to wear the Devil’s color, better than to sneak out after dark. And there were whispers of witchcraft, of rebellion. We didn’t want them hurt, but something had to be done.

You say you did not ask for this. But we heard the votes whispered behind closed doors. There was no witchcraft, there was no rebellion. They were children—Ainela cried for her sister when she was broken. We felt the shovels strike when you buried your secrets. You tied ribbons and called it remembrance. It was silence.

Don’t judge us. They were our daughters. We told ourselves they’d gone to safer places—cousins in Krakow, a convent, anywhere but here. We wanted to believe that. Zosia stopped speaking because it was dangerous. In Myreska, silence kept us alive.

In Myreska, silence kept you comfortable. We carry their names in our soil. We ache with daughters you surrendered. Our roots pulse with their songs, our bark itches with their tears, our branches hold their ribbons. Zosia remembers.

You can silence a girl, but not her roots.