He stood so quickly the chair overturned.
The dog barked.
Elias backed against the wall.
Both hands came up around his head.
Not from pain now.
Memory.
Clara approached slowly.
He shook his head violently.
She stopped.
For several seconds he stared at the fragment.
Then turned and climbed toward the loft.
Clara waited.
He returned carrying the folded drawing she had found weeks earlier.
He opened it on the table.
Black tree.
Circle.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Dozens of times, drawn by the same hand at different ages.
Clara looked from paper to copper.
Identical.
Elias took the pencil.
His writing was almost unreadable.
Barn.
Clara waited.
He wrote:
Not ours.
Then:
Men.
His hand shook harder.
Hands on face.
Clara’s stomach turned.
He stopped.
Could not continue.
She reached toward him.
He flinched.
Clara pulled back immediately.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
Elias looked at her mouth.
She signed slowly with clumsy fingers.
I.
HERE.
His eyes closed.
He sat.
For the rest of the night neither slept.
By morning the pain in his right ear had eased slightly.
But the copper fragment remained on the white cloth between them.
Clara wrapped it in clean paper.
Elias objected.
She ignored him.
He wrote:
Throw away.
Clara wrote beneath it:
No.
He frowned.
Why?
She pointed toward his ear.
Then the mark.
Because somebody put it there.
Elias looked away.
Clara continued.
Not fever.
His jaw tightened.
Maybe accident.
Copper does not climb into ears.
His mouth almost twitched.
Not enough.
She wrote:
We need doctor.
He stood.
No.
Clara stood too.
Not Blackwood doctor. Another.
Still no.
She thought about the mountains.
The nearest proper physician outside Blackwood lived in Silver Junction, nearly thirty miles east.
Winter road.
Dangerous.
But possible if weather held.
Clara wrote:
You are afraid.
Elias glared.
She did not soften it.
So am I.
His expression changed.
Still go.
He looked toward the fragment.
Then toward Clara.
Finally he nodded.
They left two mornings later.
The doctor in Silver Junction was younger than Clara expected, with spectacles and a habit of touching his chin whenever confused.
He communicated with Elias by writing without once raising his voice unnecessarily.
That alone earned Clara’s trust.
The examination lasted nearly an hour.
The doctor inspected the right ear.
Then the left.
Then asked questions.
Childhood illnesses.
Injuries.
Blasts.
Falls.
Scarlet fever.
Measles.
Elias remembered no fever.
He remembered waking with blood on a pillow.
He remembered adults telling him sound was gone because sickness had taken it.
The doctor examined the copper fragment under magnifying glass.
Then sat very still.
Clara asked:
“What?”
He looked at Elias.
Wrote carefully.
Your hearing loss is permanent. Removing metal will not restore it. Damage old.