The first sound was not a note.
It was a breath.
Taken by someone who had never been allowed to sing.
A girl on the edge of the Garden's southern rootline opened her mouth—not with confidence, but with curiosity. What came out was cracked, raw, a melody without key or rhythm.
But it was heard.
The trees shifted. The wind tilted.
And from the listening came answer.
A thread hummed in the sky.
Not in response—but in resonance.
It didn't correct her.
It didn't complete her.
It sang with her.
The Song wasn't made of words.
It was made of welcomes.
Of pages once burned but now rewritten.
Of voices not layered atop each other but woven through.
And wherever it passed, the Garden shifted—not in shape, but in mood.
Laughter returned to corners that had only known grief.
Hands reached across differences no longer measured by sides, but by stories shared.
Children began humming in unison—not because they were taught, but because they remembered.