The scream pierced the silence of the house. Rita shot up in bed, wide awake and Taylor, though groggy got out of bed too,
"Char's room," Rita whispered.
Taylor nodded. The screams went on and on. They moved towards Charlotte's room cautiously. Some of the other kids had moved into the hallway.
"Go back to sleep," Taylor said. "We'll stop Char's screams."
Charlotte was shaking violently. She was sitting in her bed in a sweat, and when her parents entered the screams dissolved into great sobs.
"Char?" asked Rita. "Char, what's wrong? What happened honey?"
Charlotte could only cry. Rita pulled her close and Taylor put his arms around her.
"Shh, it's okay, it's okay."
"It's not okay," Charlotte wept. "It'll never be okay again! He's dead, oh man, He's dead."
**********
Despite Taylor and Rita's assurances that her dream boy was probably okay and would turn up in her next nights sleep, He didn't. Charlotte's nights were harassed by replays of His death for the next couple of weeks. She hadn't spoken another word since.
Charlotte's drawings were graphic depictions of His death. Taylor and Rita quickly realised that if these were at all accurate, there was no way He would have lived through it.
She spent a lot of time crying. Crying until it felt like she had no tears left.
"It makes me wonder what I would have been like if you had died one night," Taylor said to Rita at one point. "I was really screwed up at one stage as it is."
"I don't know how I would have reacted. Oh, why's this have to happen? Where is my beautiful little girl?"
Charlotte's siblings tried to be sympathetic, although the whole dream guy thing was a little beyond their comprehension.
Everybody did what they could to help Charlotte. They took her on outings, invited her to join them in various activities, everything they could think of. Including helping Charlotte to get it out musically.
And yet she still refused to speak. She even stopped signing. She walked around with a bleak expression on her face and it got to the point where Taylor and Rita discussed therapy.
Charlotte was the last one to enter the dining room one night for dinner. She stood at her place. There was silence.
"Won't you sit down honey?" asked Rita tentatively.
Charlotte met her eyes, then lifted her hands. For the first time in weeks she actually made a point of communicating with her family.
"Thank you for being patient with me. I love you all," she signed. "But I can't utter another word. He never heard me, and now He can't. So no one else will ever hear me speak again."
"What's going on?" Rose asked as Charlotte sat down. Rita gulped and looked at her husband.
"Rose... Char signed us something. She ahh..." Taylor hesitated, his eyes flickering towards Charlotte. "She's just taken a vow of silence."