Celia needed to refill her medication. In another day, the withdrawal would mean what voice she had left would start to break apart. Her brain might do worse, which was just barely a more terrible thought than going into the pharmacy.

The stretch of parking lot between her car door and the store entrance was an ocean of black asphalt, stormy and uncertain. Inside the car, alone, she only had to press buttons to make herself understood. Outside, she might have to try to talk to anyone, for any reason, using what was now her voice. Celia swallowed hard.

Her phone pinged a message from “Hubby”: “How’s it going? Is the Herald working ok?”

Glad for the delay, she messaged Matt that she just got to the store. 

“You can do it this time! <3”

At first, he’d done errands for her, then gone with her or arranged for someone else to help. He didn’t offer any alternatives today. He agreed with Celia’s therapist when she suggested it was time for Celia to really try using the Herald. Celia stalled until the pill bottle was empty, but Matt didn’t give in. There was no way around it now. The personalized medication that kept the machine in her brain happy came straight from the lab as part of the prototype program. It couldn’t be delivered via mail or a surrogate. 

A woman and her three kids walked by the car. Celia’s stomach flipped and she looked down at her phone until they drove away.

If she tried to talk, she would speak with someone else’s voice, her lips not moving. Trying to sync her mouth to the Herald had been the worst option. People better understood the speaker strapped like a choker to her throat. They’d see the scar, which she couldn’t totally hide because it muffled the speaker. Then came their realization, pity, disgust, and awkward silence.

At least the pharmacist had probably seen worse.

Celia straightened and sucked in her diaphragm, like she used to do before going on stage. Practice would help. Run some lines. She reactivated the Herald’s speaker through the app on her phone and thought hard, to make sure it would recognize the words and not fail her when she needed it. Celia Rogalski. Celia Rogalski. Celia Rogalski. 

“See lee rug ouch ski.” A female voice came from the Herald’s speaker. A real, human-sounding voice, but neutral and not hers. It was supposed to recognize the thought pattern around her name, but she hadn’t been using it to reinforce the neural pathways.

Celia tried again. Hello.

“Hello.” The Herald didn’t identify emotion, so to avoid misinterpreting tone, everything came out sounding pleasant. She’d chosen the most musical voice. After the accident that crushed her trachea and destroyed her vocal cords, she would have agreed to anything to speak on her own. There were other ways; text-to-talk, sign language, voice synthesizers - Celia refused. She wanted an actual voice, direct from her brain.

Since high school, she was the girl with the lovely alto. The one who could sing so effortlessly, the star of all the theater productions. The “you sound familiar” from the commercials or audiobooks. People knew my voice.

“My voice,” the Herald said.

Celia blinked back sharp tears and stopped the familiar spiral of thought. If she didn’t get out of her car now, she never would. She focused on the motions, like a rehearsal. Pull the handle. Close the door. Lock the car. Just walk in, walk past everyone, smile-

“Walk, smile,” the herald said.

Shit—

“Poop.”

In another situation, she would have laughed. The Herald didn’t swear. It didn’t laugh either. Celia scrambled for the mute button. Frustration curled her hands. The words weren’t coming out right, and she couldn’t even swear about it. 

And she couldn’t go back. Celia straightened her shoulders and pretended she had just heard her cue. She walked onto the parking lot like it was a stage. One line at a time. The pharmacy doors slid away like curtains.

She kept her eyes locked on the counter in the back and ignored the aisles she used to browse. A song came on, a classic by Taylor Swift. It was one of the last songs Celia had sung in public. She remembered the show. People watched her, envy on their faces, as she held the notes longer than necessary, because she could. Grief took her by the neck and ached along her scar. The Herald didn’t sing. She’d thought being able to talk would be enough.

The pharmacist beamed a plastic smile at Celia.

“Picking up?”

Celia nodded.

“Name?”

Rogalski. Nothing. Rogalski. The pharmacist’s brow furrowed in concern. Celia felt her skin turning red. Her other hand fumbled with her phone as she remembered the Herald was muted. Her fingers trembled, pressing too hard. Please please.

“Please please,” it said. “No, say my name.”

“What?” The smile departed the pharmacist’s face. “Are you all right?”

Celia gave up on the thought-to-voice function and mashed her finger into her phone screen to switch it over to text-to-talk. 

“Rogalski, Celia.” The Herald read it. 

For the rest of this transaction the pharmacist acted as if nothing had gone wrong and Celia avoided eye contact until she slid into the car. Before she got home she turned the Herald back to thought-to-speech and trudged up the steps from the garage into the house. 

Matt was there, bustling in the kitchen. It smelled like spaghetti. Her favorite. No doubt a reward for her first solo errand in two years. Celia breathed in garlic and oregano and set the pills on the table.

“You got them,” he said, with a big smile. “Did you use the Herald?”

A small amount, she indicated with a pinch of her fingers

“You need to practice more.” His blue eyes were soft, understanding, but his lips turned downward. She looked away, frustration bubbling back up. It was only a trip to pick up pills and she’d barely managed that. 

“I should do more,” she said, using the Herald. It spoke awkwardly because of the lack of reinforcement, “I want it to work better.”

“You made progress. You’re using it, at least.” He turned to the stove and adjusted the knobs.

She wanted to tell him, just saying words isn’t the same as having a voice. The Herald didn’t translate it. She must not have thought hard enough. Silence stretched over the boiling of the water for the spaghetti noodles.

“I miss going out.” Matt spoke before she could try to fill the awkward pause. “You’ll see - once you get used to it, it’ll be fine. We can go places where they won’t even notice. There’s a speakeasy in Coventry, I heard their Manhattans are perfect. And a new Russian place that does amazing things with sour cream.”

A restaurant, where everyone would stare. Matt’s shoulders were hunched, braced for her usual denials. She sucked in a breath and gave her best, brave smile and carefully thought about the words of her response.

“We can try it,” she said. 

“That doesn’t exactly sound like a yes.” 

Celia didn’t know what else to say. It was the best she could do. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d refused to leave the house since the accident, but she couldn’t force her feelings. Her palms started to sweat as he stayed silent. Matt stopped and turned to face her.

“I have something to show you,” he said. The corner of his mouth twisted in a nervous smile.

He went to the back door and stepped outside. Celia trailed behind him. She didn’t like going into the yard, since it was a lawnmower that had sent the shrapnel into her neck. In November there wasn’t enough grass to cut, no sound of mower bots from neighboring yards. She hoped this didn’t have anything to do with the mower. Her stomach turned cold as they headed to the shed.

A plastic crate sat inside. Her gut relaxed. Had he captured something? A racoon? A jingle, movement, and Matt crouched down to open the door. Celia took a step back as something tumbled out. Something shorter than her knees. It snuffled at the floor, then wagged its tail and a pink tongue lolled from its smile. A dog. A puppy?

“What did you do?” The Herald said, Celia already sinking to one knee. A bundle of brown and tan fur galloped over and started sniffing her, its nose tangled in her hair.

“I thought it might be good to have someone home more with you,” he said. “And this will give you a way to practice.”

Big brown eyes and a wet tongue and the soft feel of fur - an inadvertent warmth unraveled from the knot in her stomach.

“Why do you say practice?” Celia looked back at her husband.

“She’s a service dog.” His mouth quirked. “Well, she was a service dog. She flunked out. Couldn’t calm down enough. She’s got a Herald.”

Celia stood, reluctant to let the puppy go, but not sure what this gift meant.

“I do not need a dog to talk for me.”

“No, it’s not like that. It’s a newer thing. People can talk directly to the dogs, Herald to Herald.”

Celia looked from him to the wagging tail disappearing around the shed.

“But I thought you want me to talk to people?” 

“I do. But - I don’t know what else to do to help you get there.” Matt came over and put an arm around her. She leaned into him, thinking furiously, too jumbled to speak aloud. “You’ve made no progress in a year. Since they stopped checking in on you so much.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. His eyes stayed sympathetic, but his lips pressed together hard. Dancing on the edge of having a fight. She’d known, and tried to ignore, that eventually her refusal to go out would lead to a breaking point. Her lip started to tremble. She focused on the sympathy in his eyes. There was still time.

“You are right,” the Herald read the desperate thought.

His posture didn’t change, not yet.

“She’s housebroken and everything, but you’ll have to do some training. Just like a normal dog. And you could talk out loud to her, too. That’d still be practice. She won’t care if you don’t get it right.”

She returned his hug. Too many words mixed with emotions for the Herald to speak until she focused on one thought above the others.

“Why did you not ask me?”

“You would have said no.”

She would have. 

“Celia,” he started, voice a warning of what might come next. “You’ve got to try again to live the life that makes you happy. When was the last time you were happy?”

“My old life is not possible to make me happy now,” she said.

“Then you have to find a new one. Please.”

Her voice had been her life. There was no more performing at the Taphouse or recording love songs for Matt. No more giggling with her nephews and collaborating on a new jingle by singing the notes back and forth.

She met his eyes again, the pleading there, the words unsaid about what path they were going down. Celia swallowed. She changed her thoughts, gave them certainty.

“It would be nice to have company,” she said. 

His smile relaxed and she breathed out a sigh. They smiled at each other, aligned, for that moment. A frantic, high-pitched whine announced the arrival of the puppy with the hose in her mouth. She dropped it in the faded grass and immediately started wrestling with it. Celia’s mouth twitched.

“Plus, it’s a puppy,” he said.

“It is a little dog,” the Herald agreed.

-

“No,” Celia’s Herald said, clearly, but without the emotion the situation deserved.

The dog froze, shoe dangling from its mouth. Celia took it and waved a rubber bone in front of Jett’s face. 

“Play,” the Herald on the dog’s collar said. Jett’s voice was higher pitched than Celia’s, more upbeat.

“Yes,” Celia said, and at the same time sent the thought through the link. Jett took the toy and pranced away with her prize. Emotions didn’t travel through their linked Heralds, only words, a limited list that consisted mostly of their commands. Whether Jett understood the significance of the bone instead of the shoe was anyone’s guess.

Celia gathered the latest victim. Matt was down to only two chew-free pairs of shoes, and those were with him in Nashville. What Jett needed was a long walk. To keep her energy contained she and Matt went every chance they got, and it had been four days without one since Matt left. Celia did not want to risk running into a neighbor on her own. Her plan was to keep tempting the dog with toys and let her run in the yard as much as possible. That might get her through the two days until Matt returned.

With Jett on the loose, she didn’t dare use headphones and kept the volume on low. Celia tapped along to “Mr. Brightside”. She’d almost finished putting the song to a montage of her client, a streaming starlet, learning how to drive. The 00’s were huge on Jingle right now and the 19-year-old wanted 10 shorts of something “different but representative of the era.” New wave revival wasn’t used up. It was out of Celia’s usual sugary pop library, but she found herself liking the music. 

Celia bolted from her chair as a crash from downstairs confirmed a dog-related disaster. 

“No.” 

She sent the word through the link before she caught up to Jett. One benefit of the Heralds was being able to associate what the dog had done to the reinforcement without being in the room. Otherwise the trainer said you had to wait until you caught them in the act. Dogs are too in the moment to realize you’re correcting them for something in the past. So they said. Jett was an expert at not being in the same place at the same time as Celia found her transgressions Good thing the Herald couldn’t translate what she was feeling.

Especially when she saw the kitchen. Barstools all knocked over and the slow cooker on the ground. Red sauce poured out of it. A trail of tomato-colored paw prints led to the living room. She followed and saw Jett, half a couch pillow in a stained mouth, wagging her tail. The stuffing was already leaking out of it. 

“Drop it!”

She tried to send the thought, but there was too much emotion and the Herald didn’t understand it through her anger. There was nothing wrong with Celia’s body language, though. Jett jumped and darted around her back to the kitchen. Celia stomped after, trying to sort the storm of feelings into a single, concrete command. The thunder of a German Shepherd running up the stairs told her there would be sauce over the entire house. People would think she’d killed Matt. Although killing the dog was more likely. 

“Play,” Jett said from the top of the stairs.

Celia sighed. If she didn’t get out of the house she might start smashing things herself.

By the time she changed her shoes and put on a coat, she was calm enough to send a command through the Herald.

“Come.” Celia sent the command to wherever the dog was hiding.

It might have been the sound of the leash, but Jett re-emerged and danced in front of the door. Brown eyes wide and liquid, big tongue lolling out from a toothy smile. Celia felt her heart melt and hooked the leash on. 

-

In the parking lot at the trailhead Celia’s hands clenched the steering wheel. She and Matt had walked the same trail in the popular park dozens of times, but this time she’d be alone, with only Jett and the Herald.

A cold, wet nose pressed her arm. Jett whined. In the rearview Celia saw the dog’s big eyes, her wagging tail. 

“Walk,” Jett said.

There were no other cars in the lot, so no other people to worry about talking to. If she did this, she could tell Matt about it. Worst case, she had her phone to use instead of the Herald, and she couldn’t imagine what Jett would do if she went back to the house un-walked.

“One step at a time,” the Herald voiced her thoughts.

Mist hung in the air, a remnant of the day’s rain and promise of more to come. Jett danced at the end of the leash. Celia had to focus on her steps, over roots and rocks and around puddles, which meant not going as fast as the dog would have liked. 

They broke out of the trees and onto the rim of the canyon. Dramatic tumbles of boulders, lit with bright green lichen, filled the valley below and the hills across from them. This was the kind of thing she should be enjoying again. Walking had always meant singing, or at least humming. She’d never noticed the gentle rustle of dead leaves or the creaking of branches.

Something moved out of the corner of her eye. Jett spotted it at the same time and raised her head. Before Celia could tighten her grip on the leash, Jett lunged. 

Unprepared, Celia wrenched forward, stumbling in a clumsy jog. A fox’s bushy tail disappeared over the rim of the trail, Jett pulling for it. 

“No.” Celia’s entire mind focused on the one thought.

The dog paused, but momentum carried Celia past her. A thud jarred her foot and she stumbled and fell forward into open air. Even if she’d had a voice, she was too shocked to scream.

Her hands hit with a jolt of pain. The rest of her followed, rolling and then skidding down the slope. One leg crashed into something unyielding and kept going. The ankle twisted and Celia felt a snap. She couldn’t stop her fall, bouncing over rocks and twigs until she finally slid to a stop and opened her eyes. 

Above, the dark sky threatened, framed by the tips of trees. When the world stopped spinning she slowly straightened her arms, and then her legs. A spike of agony shot through her right leg. She sucked in air and lay still. 

One corner of her jaw ached fiercely but none of the sore points hurt as much as the ankle. Tears came, making her nose run. A swipe of her hand across her face left grit behind. Celia held her breath and looked down. No white of bone or organs on the outside. Her body appeared to be intact. Leaves rustled and Celia craned her head towards the noise, hoping for rescue. Brown and black fur rubbed against her, followed by a wet tongue on her face. 

Jett. The sound didn’t play, but it was less a thought and more a wash of gratitude. The dog kept licking her until Celia raised an arm to push her away. Jett nudged her nose into Celia’s armpit, snuffling at something. Celia huffed and focused on a command to get the dog to stop agitating her bruised body. The Herald didn’t speak.

The trickle of fear she’d been ignoring widened. A few deep breaths focused on one thought.

Sit.

No sound came, but Jett sat. Which meant the Bluetooth connection was working, so the chip in her head wasn’t damaged. Celia reached for the speaker and felt a bend in the mesh cover. No sound. No sound at all. Her heart thudded so hard she could see her pulse in her eyelids. A low moan, inhuman, made itself heard over the pumping blood in her ears. Her sound. She held her breath and tried to calm down. Like the moment before you get on stage. Don’t think about it. Just keep singing.

She propped herself up, decaying leaves mashed between her fingers. Careful, Celia pushed herself off the ground, putting her weight on the left leg. There was nothing to lean on and she hopped forward, lost her balance, and touched down her right toe. The pain was immediate and unforgiving, pushing her back to the ground.

She couldn’t see any sticks big enough or long enough to use for a crutch. In the open, they were all twigs and brambles, or too large to lift. Celia tried to use Jett, who endured patiently, but the dog was too short. 

Time to call for help. Half sitting, she reached for the phone in her pack. And found nothing. No pack at all. Cold flooded her veins and she looked up the hillside. A path of crushed plants and churned earth marked her passage. She didn’t see the pack. It was black, but the bright embroidered canary should stand out.

Nothing. Her breath started to come in hot gasps as she struggled to maintain clarity under the heavy, pregnant weight of the rain in the clouds pressed down on the world. Rain meant no one would come walking by and find them. She wiped her nose again and flipped over to crawl back the way she’d come. Jett whimpered and followed, sniffing the ground as if she knew what to look for. The pack had to be somewhere along her route, so Celia dragged herself up the hillside. 

The incline increased. She tried to push and pull her body but couldn’t get purchase. Earth, loosened by her fall, tumbled away under her hands and feet. Celia tried and tried again, losing ground instead of gaining. There was no getting up the gulley. 

Celia gave up and lay flat on her back, watching the clouds tumble in. Jett lay down and started chewing on a stick, close enough for Celia to reach out and touch her fur. Celia’s sniffling started again as she thought about the dog’s trainers and thanked them for doing what they could so Jett stayed with her.

Training. Jett had training as a service dog. They’d never used any of the support commands, just general obedience, but there had to be something useful.  Celia struggled to remember what words had been on the list. “Help” made sense, but the dog hadn’t moved when she’d thought it before. 

Jett get help. The dog looked over at her name but stayed where she was. Go get help.

Celia cleared her mind and tried again. Jett cocked her head at her name but didn’t move. She tried thinking of other words: assist, aid, assemble. Jett went back to her stick. 

Celia let out a whoosh of air and lay back. When the rain came the temperature would drop. She didn’t know if it would be cold enough for her to freeze to death. If she’d die there, alone, with no voice.

Her hands trembled, and then her arms, and then her entire body shook with great, wracking, sobs. Silent, except for the air and the groaning sound she hadn’t gotten used to, despite all the tears she’d shed since the accident. She usually held in her weeping to avoid hearing it. Celia let it out, mouth gaping and drooling as she howled noiselessly at the uncaring sky.

A wet nose pushed against her hand and then a tongue began to lick away her tears. Jett whined, and when she had Celia’s attention, went and got a stick to drop next to her. Jett wagged her tail, hopeful. No wonder she’d flunked out of service dog training.

“Play,” Jett said.

No. Celia scowled. No time to play fetch.

Her heart beat a few more times as she stared at the stick. Jett sat and waited, expectant. Celia stared back. Fetch. Jett knew that word. Celia grabbed the stick and threw it.

Fetch. Help.

Jett ran after the stick and trotted back to drop it next to Celia’s head. 

Fetch. Help.

This time she waited to throw. Still nothing from the dog, who whined, eager. Celia closed her eyes and grabbed the stick to throw it in frustration. She stopped. Jett understood the concept of fetch, and hopefully the concept of “help.” If she could get the dog to put the two together… Celia wound her arm back and thought the words as she released.

Fetch. Help.

Jett’s ears vibrated while the rest of her froze. Celia held her breath. 

“Fetch,” Jett said. Then she leapt out of Celia’s hands and up the slope. She stopped at the top and looked down.

Speak. Celia thought it as hard as she could. Jett let out a sharp, echoing bark. Help, Celia thought.

“Help,” she heard Jett’s Herald say. It was so quiet, and she had no way to turn it up.

Speak, Celia tried again.

Jett turned in a circle, happily barking. The noise broke the heavy air and carried across the park in a way the Herald couldn’t. Jett was speaking for her now. Celia’s heart leapt, hearing it, even as the furry tail disappeared. She wanted to call her dog back, fearful of being left alone, but held back even as the barks grew more distant. 

Celia leaned back and let the earth cradle her. A drop fell on her forehead. 

Another drop fell. Her fingers started tapping out “Mr. Brightside” to focus on that instead of the pain. She imagined it slowed down and sad, an alto. Something like Adele.

Wind rustled the dead grass and set the trees to creaking. Cold seeped down through her muscles and settled in her bones. She wanted to sleep. Waiting alone, in the dark.

The words twanged in her brain like fingers on a guitar string. A hint of music that took hold and refused to let go. She had always written music with her voice in mind. Now she had none, but the song came anyway. 

Celia found herself smiling. While the music threaded through her she stopped feeling the cold. When the barking started again, she had two stanzas and a chorus worked out. Celia stopped tapping to listen. The barking got louder. Definitely Jett. Celia pushed herself back up and strained to see, but it was too dark. White circles of light appeared at the top of the gorge.

She waved her arm frantically. The lights, two of them, bobbed across the ravine, sweeping back and forth. One light paused then returned to stop on her face. 

“There’s someone down there!” A voice said.

She kept waving. 

“Help,” Jett’s herald said. “Come.”

Jett bounded down the slope and into Celia’s waiting hands. The dog licked her face and pulled away to snuffle at the ground. She found a new stick and dropped it in Celia’s lap.

“Fetch,” Jett said. Celia smiled and opened her mouth, for once not minding that no laughter came out. Maybe “Fetch” would be the name of her song. She picked up the stick and threw it, already imagining notes that arced in the same way, rushing with hope towards a new destination.