Oh gosh I’m so close! And the ending of the story finally revealed itself to me as well. It’s been so much fun and the finish line is in sight! For now, here’s where I’m at.
Word Count: 49,342
Excerpt:
“I want,” he began, using sharp, clear motions as he curled his hands towards himself. It was one of the trickier signs to teach them, he’d discovered, without the benefit of any context or even an analogy to give them. He repeated it in case they needed to jog their memory on what the desperate motion meant.
“To go home,” came next. He’d never signed that to them before.
“I just want to go home,” he said it aloud along with the signs then, all at once and with even more yearning on his face. How much they could read from an expression was unclear; they’d never had to read body language like that before. But they’d learned sign.