The creature took another half-step forward. He extended an open, empty hand toward Len’s uninjured right shoulder.
On its left index finger, the silver wedding band Deren had worn was scratched across the face. Three distinct slanted gouges where the metal had caught in the cable winch at Cloudford seven years before his death. The fingernails were short, square. Then he embedded with the same black axle grease that never entirely washed out of a postal driver’s skin.
Every physical marker of the father Len had mourned for seven winters was present, tangible, and flawless by decay.
The silver ring on the copy’s index finger caught the amber glow of the copper lantern.
Len knew the story of those three slanted scratches by heart. When he was nine years old. He sat on the workbench in the Cloudford harness shop, Deren had let him hold the ring. Meanwhile, he cleaned the leather punches. That was the day the freight cable snapped on the upper winch, Len, his father had told him, showing him the scarred silver. The winch drum was spinning free, about to drop three hundred pounds of flour into the river gorge. I shoved my hand into the brake linkage to catch the pawl. The ring caught on the gear teeth and saved my finger from being snapped off at the joint. A piece of good silver will take the blow for you, boy, if you keep your hands steady.
