The Rhythm of Silence

The mist clung to the hills like mud to a boot, ever persistent, never quite willing to go. Morning in the highlands arrived quietly every day, not in the manner of a whisper in the wind nor the melody of a sweet birdsong, but with a hush, as though the land itself knew the world of the deaf.

Smoke curled lazily from the chimneys of the stone cottages, mingling with the low cloud that swirled across the glen. It was a place where silence was not only common, but expected this early in the day. And yet, for Owen MacLeod, silence had never been a choice. It was the air he breathed, the world he had always lived in.

He stood at the edge of the loch at the break of the day, where the frost had encrusted the reeds like a fine white lace, and the world lay still. His fingers, calloused and dusted with pine shavings, moved over the scroll of a violin, the latest he’d carved from the split heart of a spruce tree. His hands moved with the care of someone tuning a memory rather than a fine instrument. Though he could not hear the bow against the strings, but he felt it, every vibration, subtle and secretive, thrumming through his fingertips and caressing his bones.

Behind him, the village of Drumfearn stirred to life slowly. The blacksmith’s bellows hissed, a dog barked at nothing in particular, and the faint toll of the chapel bell counted out time as if it actually mattered. But Owen heard nothing.

He turned back toward the path leading to his home; the violin nestled in the crook of his arm like a child. It had taken him weeks, perhaps months, to carve the curves, inlay the purfling, and polish the wood until it gleamed like sunlit honey. This one was not for sale. This one had a name, though he had never spoken it aloud.

At the workshop, the door creaked open as he stepped forth to open it. A shadow filled the frame.

“Still fiddling with that thing?” his uncle barked. A man of few words and fewer smiles, Donal MacLeod had the build of a man forged by cold winters and sharp granite. His mouth was a single stubborn line under a silver-streaked beard.

Owen offered no reply. He tilted his head slightly, watching Donal’s mouth move, then nodded once to show he had understood. The violin loosening in his arms.

Donal’s face twitched with something unsaid. He stepped aside, waving him in with a brusque motion, already turning that way.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of sawdust and oil. Wooden forms, chisels, and unfinished bows were strewn across the workbenches. In this place, Owen found rhythm, one not of sound, but of pattern. Here, wood could be coaxed into life with patience and an artist's touch.

But the workshop had grown colder recently. Not from the winter creeping in through the gaps in the windows, but from Donal’s gaze, which lingered too long on the dwindling piles of wood, the half-empty shelves, the sealed crate tucked under the bench. Owen had hoped he wouldn’t notice, but that wasn’t the case.

Later that afternoon, the inevitable arrived, as it always did, with a knock at the door that wasn’t so much a knock as it was the hammering of fate.

He opened the door to find the merchant standing there, soaked in rain, holding one of Owen’s violins like it was an accusation carved in wood.

“You sold this… to Fergus Matheson,” the man spat, his face red from cold and rage. “Behind my back.”

Owen stared at him, trying to hold the man’s gaze, trying to read the lips, but couldn’t catch them clearly in the gloom. He shook his head slowly, then reached for his satchel, retrieving a folded piece of parchment, an agreement, signed and sealed, yes, but one he hadn’t meant to break trust over. His eyes flicked toward Donal, now standing in the doorway, his arms folded, his mouth a hard white line.

“He sold them?” Donal said, voice low and thunderous. “To that worm Matheson of all people?”

Owen felt the shame, long before he saw it reflected in their faces. The parchment trembled in his hand. He reached out to offer it over, to explain in gestures, to somehow show them that he had meant no betrayal. That he was saving to building something bigger for himself than this damp village and its empty days. The village was dying slowly, he didn’t want to be there when it did.

But Donal didn’t look at the paper. He looked straight at Owen, as if searching through him for something that had gone missing long ago.

“I gave you my trade, I gave you my name, and this is how you repay it?”

Owen tried to sign, I needed to, I had to leave. I want... more. But his hands fell still. There was no understanding to be had here, not today.

The merchant stormed off, violin tucked under his coat, and Donal walked away without another word.

That night, Owen stood by the hearth, staring into the fire until the logs burned down to soft glowing embers. His crate was packed now, his tools carefully wrapped in cloth, his journal tucked between a spare shirt and a tin of biscuits. Atop it lay the violin with the honeyed finish.

He had already purchased his passage more than a week ago in secret, hiding the receipt beneath a loose floorboard under his cot. A ship was leaving from Glasgow, The Hibernia, bound for Nova Scotia. The name had felt like a beacon of hope.

At dawn, the sky wept snow instead of rain. The road was grey and empty. Owen walked it with steady steps, the crate lashed over his shoulders. He did not look back.

The journey to Glasgow took two days, and he spoke to no one, though he listened in the way he always did, watching the faces, reading the silences, feeling the world rather than hearing it.

At the docks, the ship loomed like a great dark beast, its ropes groaning, gulls flying overhead. Men barked orders, though he never heard them. Children clung to mothers, and horses steamed in the cold. He showed the purser his pass, and the man nodded but said nothing. Perhaps he recognised something in the look of Owen’s eyes.

As the ship pulled away from the harbour, and the land shrank into a soft blur of green and grey behind them, Owen stood at the rail, fingers resting on the violin case like it was the only piece of home worth carrying with him on this journey to a new life.

He could not hear the waves crashing against the hull, of course, nor the cries of the gulls overhead. But he could feel the ship tremble beneath his boots. He could feel the thrum of distance, and the pull of something else, something bigger than silence.

Something waiting.

It didn’t take long for the stench of humanity to settle thickly on the Hibernia. Salt, sweat, sickness, and the sour breath of too many people cramped into far too small space. Owen had known discomfort in his life, the cold winters, the long hours working at his bench, the isolation that pressed like wool against the skull, but nothing had prepared him for this: the damp press of bodies in the belly of the ship, the flickering oil lamps casting uneasy shadows, and the constant lurch of the sea that had already begun to claim the weaker stomachs.

He kept to himself. He had no choice.

Every attempt at communication was a pointless dance, misread gestures, impatient mouths that moved far too fast for him to follow, the expressions that turned cold once they realised he couldn’t hear them. And when the first joke was made at his expense, something about him being cursed, or daft, or both, he didn’t need to hear the laughter. He saw it in the sneers, the nudges, the glances passed like secret notes between them.

Owen turned away. He let them speak; he let them laugh. They may have sound, but he had silence, and silence had never betrayed him.

Three days out from port, the Hibernia was swallowed by the Atlantic’s open throat. The horizon vanished into a grey expanse. Wind howled through the rigging like wolves too long caged. Rain slashed sideways, as the timbers cried in protest at the angry sea.

Below, the air thickened with fear, children whimpered while the men cursed the storm. Women crossed themselves and clutched their rosaries like lifelines, as Owen sat there, legs braced wide, violin case securely resting on his lap.

A commotion broke out near the rear of the hold. Someone shouting and shoving. He turned to look. Two men squared off. A third, a large man with a cruel mouth in a sailor’s cap, pulled them apart with relish, barking something that ended in laughter from the surrounding crowd.

Owen caught one of them glance his way. Then another. It was subtle, but not enough to go unnoticed.

That morning, he found that someone had pissed over his blanket, and his water ration was gone.

He said nothing, did nothing, he simply wiped the salt from his face and moved through the narrow corridors like a ghost among the throng.

It was on the fifth night that he saw her, or rather, he saw movement in the dark. Maybe a rat, he thought.

Between two barrels near the cargo hatch, there lay something small and unmoving. His first thought was a bundle of old clothes, forgotten or tossed aside. But then the bundle moved, curling tighter. Then he knew.

A child.

He crouched low, ignoring the way the wood pressed into his knees. The girl, no more than six, watched him with wide, wild eyes. Her hair was a mess of tangles, her cheeks hollow, her clothes soaked through to her skin. She looked like she had crawled out of the belly of the ocean itself.

He raised his hands slowly, his palms out to show no threat.

Her gaze upon his hands. Then to his eyes.

He pointed gently to himself. Owen.

She said nothing.

He tried again. Owen. This time, tapping his chest.

The girl’s lips moved, but no sound came out. She then pointed to her own chest.

Beata.

Owen felt something shift inside him, a strange feeling in his chest. It was not pity. It was recognition.

He signed, slowly, clumsily. Are you hurt?

She stared at his hands for a long moment, then mimicked one of the signs, hurt, with a sharp flick of her fingers, and shook her head.

He reached into his coat, pulling out the crust of bread he’d saved from breakfast. She grabbed it with both hands, cramming it into her mouth before he could offer the rest.

She was starving, there was no doubt of that, and she was here all alone.

And she was like him. She lived in a silent world.

Beata became his shadow. He would find her each morning, sometimes asleep beside his bunk, sometimes perched at the edge of the lower deck, watching the sea like it might swallow her whole. She never spoke, not a sound, but her eyes missed nothing. She watched him work with his carving knife, shaping small scraps of wood into animals or boats and the occasional angel. He gave her a rabbit. She gave him a drawing of a tree, scratched in charcoal on the back of an old, discarded shipping manifest.

They didn’t speak. But they understood.

At night, when the ship quieted, and the storm had lost its fury, Owen would tighten the strings on the violin, place it between them, and let her rest her palm on the wood as he drew the bow. Her eyes would flutter shut, as she felt the wonder of it. The music moved through her as it did him.

And in those moments, he didn’t feel so alone.

Trouble found them again a week later. The steward, a hulking man with heavy boots and a face like boiled mutton, had long taken a dislike to Owen. Perhaps it was the silence. Perhaps it was the fact that Owen never bowed his head like the others always did.

Whatever the reason, it boiled over when the steward caught Beata sitting by the storage crates, gnawing on a piece of dried apple.

He roared, snatching her by the wrist. Lifted her clear off the ground like a rag.

Owen saw red.

He was on his feet before he realised it, hand clamping around the steward’s forearm, wrenching it downward with a force that surprised them both. The girl dropped, scrambling behind Owen like a cub returning to its den.

“You thieving bastard,” the steward spat, gesturing wildly. “She’s with you, isn’t she? Been stealing from the kitchens, filthy beggars, the both of you.”

Owen’s hands flew, faster than the man could comprehend. She didn’t steal. I gave it to her. She’s just a child. Let her be.

But it meant nothing to the brute standing there.

The crowd gathered again, as they always did, drawn to the scent of confrontation. One woman, a matron with iron-grey hair and an apron stained with flour, stepped forward and pulled Beata behind her.

“I’ve seen him feed her,” she stated, loud enough for all to hear. “He carves toys for her. The girl’s mute. He’s the only one who treats her like she matters. Now off with you.”

The steward’s face twisted. But with the crowd watching, he backed off, muttering curses as he stormed away.

Owen stood very still as Beata reached for his hand.

And for the first time, he felt it, truly felt it. Not pity. Not curiosity.

But respect from someone. Something he had never felt before.

Two weeks later, land rose like a phantom out of the horizon.

Nova Scotia. The name passed from mouth to mouth like prayer. Eyes brimmed. Voices cracked. The ship groaned as it pulled into the harbour, bearing the weight of so many dreams.

Owen stood at the rail, Beata glued to his side, her small fingers hooked firmly into his coat pocket. The sea breeze lifted her hair, tangled and wild, and he felt her trembling, not with fear, but with something else.

Anticipation.

The docks were lined with people, some looking for family, others simply there to witness. Among them stood a man. He signed just four words, time and again:

I welcome you all.

Owen blinked, unbelieving.

The man was old and signed slowly. But there he was, and it was real. People just like them. It felt like something they could finally call home.

And for the first time in his life, he felt as if something had been signed just for him, but no, it was for them both.

He turned to Beata, tapped his chest.

Home, he signed.

She looked up, her eyes wide, her face came to life, and then, tentatively, mimicked the motion.

Home.

She clutched his hand tightly and together, without a word spoken between them, they stepped off the ship with a smile and into the unknown.