The Language of Sand

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For my parents.

With love.

 abecedarian (ā´bē sē dâr´ē ən), n. 1. a person who is learning the letters of the alphabet. 2. a beginner in any field of learning. —adj. 3. of or pertaining to the alphabet. 4. arranged in alphabetical order. 5. rudimentary; elementary; primary. Also, abecedary. [1595–1605; < ML abecedāriānus. See ABECEDARY, -AN]

Never was a word she didn’t care for. Not because of the infiniteness it implied or because it sounded so stubbornly unforgiving, but because it was, by definition, improbable. Improbability bothered her.

The consummate hyperbole, never was a nervy word, especially for an adverb. Limitless and indiscriminate, never did what few words could. It refused to be qualified, to succumb to rationality or be bridled by it for longer than a single sentence. Never defied logic, and for Abigail Harker, there was nothing more perturbing than that.

Logic was, in a manner, her job. She was a lexicographer. She edited dictionaries for a living. Greek in origin, the term lexicographer was a marriage of lexicon, meaning dictionary, and graphos, signifying a writer or writing. The pleasing precision of its etymology translated to the profession as a whole. It was a career in which Abigail’s syllogistic nature served her well.

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