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    Word Blind: A Tale of Two Readers
    Word Blind: A Tale of Two Readers
    Word Blind: A Tale of Two Readers
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Word Blind: A Tale of Two Readers

    By Victoria Olsen

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    About this ebook

    May and Annie are sisters living on the Isle of Wight at the end of the nineteenth century, but they couldn't be more different. May is a great reader while Annie is "word blind" or dyslexic. After their mother dies these Victorian girls are forced to pool their skills in order to understand the gaps in their family history. An encounter with a mysterious uncle in London puts Annie in charge for a change, and leads to a surprising reconciliation. 
    Includes an appendix with a reader's guide and sources.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVictoria Olsen
    Release dateAug 14, 2015
    ISBN9780996543019
    Word Blind: A Tale of Two Readers
    Author

    Victoria Olsen

    Victoria Olsen is Senior Lecturer in the Expository Writing Program at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Stanford University, where she specialized in Victorian literature and culture, and is the author of Word Blind, a middle-grade novel about a Victorian girl with dyslexia.

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      Book preview

      Word Blind - Victoria Olsen

      Part I

      MAY

      Prologue

      Why does anyone write a book? I expect I will find it difficult. My hand will cramp around the pen and I may waste more paper than I use. I shall have to stay alone in my room and sometimes pretend to be sick so that I can finish a chapter. I will have to postpone reading Mr. Thackeray’s complete works. I may have to neglect people I love. I have seen it happen. And when it is finally finished perhaps no one will read it. I know my sister will not, though she is a main character and I speak for her here. Perhaps I will be my only reader, but that answers my question: one writes when there is a book that one wants to read and no one has yet written it. I will write this for myself then – because I love books and I feel at home with words. In truth, this is the story of how I learned to read, in the truest sense of that word, and writing this down is a part of that story.

      1

      The day of my mother’s funeral had been windy and overcast. I remember the trees bending under the force of the wind, shaking their branches as if nodding their heads at me. Yes, they said, she’s gone. Or maybe they were saying no, things would never be the same again. It’s hard to read trees. My father, in his best black coat, leaned hard on my shoulder. I heard rustling, of winter coats and leaves, and the whistling wind. I counted twenty-two people. Some I didn’t know, but most I did. There was Mr. Abbott, the postman, Mr. Hopkins, the Tunleys, the Overstones, Mrs. King, Lucy, and Dr. Cassidy, of course. And the McKays came too, though Jimmy was still far from well. One stranger stood apart, under the trees. In my sister’s photograph the trees would end look like black lines on a gray field. I don’t know why she bothered.

      When my father saw Annie taking pictures he gave her a look that would have frozen my blood if it hadn’t been frozen already. The look said she would hear from him later. Weren’t you scared? I asked her when we got back home. No, she shrugged. That’s how it is with Annie. She never seems to understand the trouble she is in. After supper, Father lectured her on propriety and respect for the dead. He told her she was an unfeeling wretch.

      You didn’t tell me not to take photos, Annie had said.

      The impudence! Must I tell you to cover your head when it’s raining? Think, girl! Use your brains! Are you foolish or wicked? Annie had gazed at him in silence.

      That was two months ago, but I still thought about mother every day. I missed her weight on my bed when she sat down to tuck me in. I missed the absent way she chewed her thumbnail when she was thinking. I even missed Dr. Cassidy’s visits and his hushed conversations with Father in the hallway. She had been taken so suddenly that I still expected to see her in her chair, at her writing desk, pulling weeds in the garden. At least the parade of visitors was over. At first we had spent long days in the front parlor with the curtains closed, listening to the clock tick while everyone in the village of Freshwater had stopped by to share our sorrow. There was nothing to say to them. Father had sat in his chair with his eyes on the floor and his hands clasped, uttering an occasional groan. I had studied the familiar knickknacks on the mantel until I had grown to hate them. The high, tight collar had made my neck itch but I was not allowed to scratch. I had poured thirty-five cups of tea. Annie had bitten her nails until her fingers bled.

      I remember that the night of mother’s funeral neither Annie nor I could sleep. I went down to Father’s study looking for a book to read and plucked Mr. Dickens’s Great Expectations out of a row of matched volumes. I had read it before, of course, but something that night drew me to it again, as to an old friend. I took it upstairs and read aloud to Annie about how Pip never saw his parents and how he thought they looked like the letters on their tombstones.

      Are we orphans now, May? Annie had asked me, as we lay in the dark listening to each other’s breathing.

      I snorted. Don’t be ridiculous! Father is still very much alive.

      There was a long silence and I could tell Annie was chewing the end of her hair, though Mrs. King threatened to shear it as close as a lamb’s if she did not break that disgusting habit.

      Annie, an orphan is someone who has no parents. We have no mother now, but we still have a father. I swallowed. It was the first time I had said those words, even to myself.

      There was silence from the other side of the bed, then a stifled sob. Annie turned to me, her face wet.

      I wish it was Father who had died, and not Mother, she whispered.

      Annie! Never say such things! I was shocked.

      But the seed was planted in my head that night and it took root by itself. In the quietest, stillest, darkest part of my mind I asked myself, whom did I love more?

      2

      R ead! Father said.

      I eyed him dubiously, then looked down at the dog-eared notebooks on the plain table before me. Father was taking over our lessons now that Miss Young was gone and we were sitting in his book-lined study facing the back of the house. If there had been anyone in the garden to see us through the window we would have made a picturesque composition: the serious gentleman flanked by two earnest pupils. A proud father and his two dutiful daughters. Annie huddled in her oversized chair. I leaned forward, spine straight. Mother used to insist on that.

      Well? Father frowned. The hand on the table was ink-stained and calloused. His hair was shaggy and his nails uncut. He needs taking care of, I thought. Has he eaten? He must have come in very early to continue on the letter M. Jermyn’s work was rubbish. I had seen that for myself. And more parcels and envelopes arrived every day.

      Miss Young read aloud to us, then asked us questions about the book, I offered. That is, until Annie drove her away. Annie could drive anyone away. I looked at her. She might look angelic with her yellow hair, but she couldn’t fool me.

      Aha! Well, then. Father picked up a book from the stacks on the

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