Three nights later, during supper, Gideon’s chair crashed backward.
He folded over, hands clamped against his skull.
Rosalie grabbed the oil lamp; his right ear was inflamed.
She raised the light and saw it: deep inside was something black, wet, moving.
Rosalie boiled water, poured alcohol, set a porcelain bowl on the table, and retrieved her tweezers.
Gideon caught her wrist, writing: Dangerous.
Rosalie took the pencil: More dangerous if it stays.
Do you trust me?
Gideon nodded.
Rosalie carefully inserted the tweezers.
Metal touched something firm.
Gideon groaned against the wood.
She adjusted her grip and pulled again.
Something released.
A long, black object slid from his ear and dropped into the porcelain bowl with a faint click.
The thing in the bowl began to move, its wet, segmented black casing unwinding beneath the lantern light, revealing a delicate coil of brass gears and tiny, pulsing copper wires.
