Until the age of seven, Lilith Lockwood never spoke a word.
She was taken to so many doctors and speech therapists, and even though there was nothing wrong with her vocal chords, she just never used them. She played with her toy trains next to her mother, quietly, lost in her world.
"Mom, you have something in your hair," Lilith said. She pointed to her mother's hair, patiently waiting for her to take care of it.
Her mother's eyes widened. She almost stumbled back, like a ghost just spoke to her.
It took a couple of seconds for her face to finally morph into so much ecstasy that she started laughing, calling for everyone in the house to come look at what had just happened. Her husband rushed in, and then, her brother-in-law and his wife.
"She spoke!" her mom exclaimed, pointing at the child with both her hands.
Lilith smiled sweetly at everyone.
"She spoke! She said that I had something in my hair! I – she called me 'mom'! Her first words are 'Mom...'" She looked around at her family, searching to see if anyone believed her.
They looked at her carefully, waiting to see if she was right. Most of them didn't believe her just yet, because they had accepted the fact that they had a mute child.
Lilith's dad crouched down to their level, looking at the adorable child. "Lilly?" He cooed.
The child looked back at her dad with an even more mischievous smile. She reached out and squeezed her dad's nose.
"Say something, Lillypie," her mom prompted again.
Lilith stayed quiet, going back to her train tracks as if there wasn't a huge crowd around them.
"We love you Lilly, we don't care that you can't speak," the dad said, and shook his head at his wife. People started leaving to do their own work, until there was just Lilith and her mother left in the room.
"It was just an experiment, silly," Lilith spoke again. Her smile dropped, and she stared at her mother for a second longer before going back to her toy.
Her mother went quiet, watching her carefully attach the train tracks. After a few more seconds of silence, Lilith spoke again, very quietly.
"What a painful way to live."
Then she got up, dusted her little frock, and ran away to another room, leaving her mother to clean up the toy trains on the floor.
