Page 44 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A Bird Broken

Birdie’s world explodes.

She’s plunged into the sun itself, burning and exploding and whooshing around her, not just light but noise, noise so terrible and bright she can see it, she can feel it through her whole body, and it’s too much.

Birdie—the Birdie she was, the Birdie she is, her hopes and thoughts and feelings and memories—disintegrates, lost in the maelstrom of noise with no way back.