The oil lamp on the kitchen frame stand was trimmed down to a single thread of cotton, throwing a greasy yellow disc against the salt-stained pine. Outside the heavy timbers of the tram shed, the sulfur fog rolling off the River Ward sump was thick enough to drown the red warning lanterns on the rail cut. It smelled of boiled river silt, wet coal screenings. The sour copper damp that crept up through the floor beams whenever the drainage pumps jammed.
Len Vey sat on an overturned lard tub. His left forearm was bound rigid between two curved laths of seasoned cedar. Doma had re-tied the linen wraps three nights ago after the courtyard collapse. It soaked the outer canvas in melted beeswax to stiffen the casing. The wood smelled of turpentine and pine resin. He held his fractured radius unmoving from mid-palm to the crook of his elbow. His left fingers were swollen, greyish-yellow at the cuticles, curled like dried horn against the sling pinned to his postal waistcoat. Every breath pulled on the deep between-rib bruise along his fourth rib. That dull ache spiked into hot iron whenever he shifted his weight.
With his right hand, Len held a thumb-wide strip of emery cloth against the lip of his father’s brass bell. He worked the gritty back and forth with a slow, grinding rhythm. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. The hairline fracture running from the sound bow up into the waist of the casting was black with seven years of…
