page: It happens often.

Nothing about it looked ordinary.

Clara brought water, pressed a damp cloth to his face, and stayed with him until the spasm ebbed.

When his breathing finally slowed, he opened his eyes and wrote one more thing.

Thank you.

After that night she began to notice what she had missed.

His hand touched the side of his head when the weather changed.

There were rust-colored stains on his pillow some mornings.

He sometimes paused in the yard with his eyes shut, as if waiting for a bolt of pain to pass before he could take another step.

One evening she asked how long it had been happening.

He answered that it had been that way since he was a child.

The doctors had said it was connected to his deafness.

They had said nothing could be done.

Did you believe them, Clara wrote.

He looked at the page for so long she thought he might refuse to answer at all.

Then he wrote one word.

No.

Three nights later, while they were halfway through supper, Elias pitched sideways out of his chair.

The bowl shattered.

The chair legs struck the floor like a gunshot.

By the time Clara reached him, his whole body was rigid and his fingers were digging into the side of his head hard enough to leave crescents in the skin.

She pulled the lamp close and pushed back the dark hair around his right ear.

The skin was inflamed, glossy, and swollen.

Deep inside, where shadow should have been empty, she saw movement.

Something dark was alive in there.

Her stomach turned.

For one terrible second fear locked her in place.

Then something older and harder than fear took over.

She heated water, sterilized a pair of fine sewing tweezers in alcohol, wrapped a towel around Elias’s shoulders, and knelt in front of him.

He grabbed for the notebook and wrote one word with force enough to tear the paper.

Dangerous.

Clara took the pencil and wrote back, There is something in your ear.

Let me take it out.

He shook his head.

She wrote again, Leaving it there is worse.

Do you trust me?

The room held still.

Firelight moved across the walls.

Snow scratched softly at the window.

Elias searched her face for a long moment, then gave a small, deliberate nod.

Clara slid the tweezers in little by little.

Elias gripped the table until the tendons in his hand stood out like cords.

She felt resistance first, then a repulsive shifting, then a wet tug.

Something black and slick came free between the metal tips, writhing against the light.

It was a swollen earwig, slick with blood and wax.

Clara almost dropped it.

But before she could set the thing aside, she saw something else deeper in the canal.

A dull metallic glint, half-buried in scar tissue.

Before she could say a word, wheels ground through the snow outside.

Lantern light crossed the front window.

Clara went still.

Two men climbed onto the porch.

She knew the rhythm of her brother’s laugh before she heard the knock.

Tom pushed inside first with whiskey on his coat, Mercer close behind him in a dark overcoat powdered with snow.

Mercer smiled the way he did when he was trying to make