February Waters
February attributes the uniqueness of her name to her deaf parents having no concept of the potential for bullies to create a variety of rhymes with which to tease her. In a span of two pages, February goes from a young child who purposely stabs herself in the ear with a pencil in the middle of a classroom to being headmistress at the River Valley School for the Dead. During the uncovered period in between, she watched as the world of deaf changed in ways that made the world her parents grew up in almost unrecognizable. Of more pressing importance is the future of the world she’s known, which is suddenly in doubt as a result of committing the cardinal sin for anyone charged with the care of other people’s kids. She’s lost two students and has no idea what’s become of them. On top of that is the increasing pressure of marital difficulties between February and her wife, Mel.
Austin Workman
Austin is a sophomore and one of the missing students. He’s a Golden Boy student everybody loves and who is only capable of causing trouble because he has enjoyed a life of privilege at home and comes to suspect that the entire world will treat him the same way. Growing up amidst a family of prominence and already generationally versed in dealing with issues related to communicating with deaf members, he is fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). Everything has persistently been coming up Austin for him until unexpectedly a new baby sister arrives with no hearing impairment at all. He is one of the missing students.
Eliot Quinn
Eliot is the other missing student and, not coincidentally, Austin’s most recent roommate, despite being a year younger and grade lower. This situation had been arranged by February at the close of the previous school year when she asked Austin to approve of the new living conditions. Like everyone else in the school, he’d heard all the terrible rumors about what supposedly happened to Eliot. In full Golden Boy mode, however, Austin readily agreed with the full intention of sticking by his rule roomies should just remain roomies and not try to become best friends. Quickly learning that Eliot enjoys a smoke behind closed doors did nothing to put that rule in jeopardy.
Charlie
Charlie is the newest kid in school and has a rebellious influence. She never learned to sign and deal with a cochlear implant that is less than reliable. Her grades are failing. And now she’s been transferred into a school filled with deaf students out of a school where she was the entire deaf population. And the entire reason for the transfer is that her parents breaking up and she’s gone to live with her dad who realizes that her mom’s insistence on giving her a “normal” upbringing has just not worked out as intended.
Kayla
Charlie is assigned Kayla as her roommate. They instantly have communication trouble partly caused by Charlie’s lack of experience with other deaf people and partly by Kayla’s habit of randomly switching from ASL to Black ASL and back again. Kayla doesn’t seem to notice that Charlie enjoys a weed gummy behind closed doors.
