This giant man.
Afraid.
Clara touched his cheek.
Waited until his eyes met hers.
She wrote:
I stop if you tell me.
Then:
Always.
He stared at the word.
Always.
The same promise he had effectively given her since their marriage.
After a long moment, Elias nodded.
Clara boiled water.
Sterilized sewing tweezers.
Washed her hands.
Her heart hammered.
She held the lamp close.
Inside the ear canal, beneath blood and swelling, something dark appeared.
Not skin.
Not wax.
Something fibrous.
Clara carefully gripped it.
Elias’s fingers crushed the table edge.
She pulled.
The material moved.
Long.
Blackened.
Perhaps old cloth.
Maybe leather.
Then resistance.
Clara stopped.
Elias panted.
She showed him her hand.
Continue?
He nodded.
She pulled again.
Something metallic scraped.
Elias slammed his fist against the table.
Clara nearly stopped.
Then a small piece of copper emerged.
Blood-coated.
Thin.
Curved.
It dropped onto white cloth.
The sound was tiny.
Clara stared.
Elias stared too.
Then his entire body changed.
Color vanished from his face.
His hands began shaking.
Clara looked at the copper.
An engraved symbol.
Simple.
A circle cut through by three short diagonal lines.
She had seen it before.
Where?
Elias grabbed the cloth.
He pointed.
Then toward a wooden trap hanging beside the door.
Clara looked.
Same mark.
She walked closer.
Carved into the metal plate.
Circle.
Three lines.
She returned.
“Yours?”
Elias shook his head.
He wrote.
His handwriting barely legible.
Father.
Clara looked at him.
His mark.
Then another line.
Every trap. Every tool.
Clara sat.
The cabin seemed colder.
She wrote:
How did this get inside you?
Elias stared at the copper.
His breathing changed.
Then fragments came.
He began writing.
Stopped.
Crossed words out.
Started again.
Room underground.
Clara watched.
Men arguing.
He pressed the pencil too hard.
It snapped.
Clara gave him another.
Father angry.
Someone held me.
His hand stopped.
Clara touched his wrist.
Elias looked at her.
Absolute fear.
Then wrote:
Metal hot.
Clara’s stomach turned.