Chapter 1: The Thing in the Porcelain Bowl M018

removed maggots from a sheep after a summer injury.

But this was different.

Because Gideon had suffered since childhood.

She dipped the tweezers into alcohol and carefully turned the creature over.

It moved again.

Rosalie wrote beneath his question.

Alive.

For the first time since their wedding, genuine fear appeared in Gideon Rook’s eyes.

He touched his ear.

Then wrote:

Inside me?

Rosalie nodded.

His face drained of color.

She examined his ear again and noticed something else.

The swelling had partially collapsed after the creature’s removal, exposing a narrow pocket of damaged tissue she had not seen before.

Inside that pocket was a tiny hard edge.

Not flesh.

Not bone.

Something metallic.

Rosalie brought the lamp closer.

Gideon stiffened.

“What happened to you when you were a child?” she whispered, forgetting he could not hear.

He understood from her expression.

His pencil moved slowly.

Horse accident. Age nine.