The clinic doctor came through the yard gate in mid-morning with a folder under her arm.
She was the same doctor who had examined Mara after Lorn, a small brisk woman with grey in her hair and cold hands, who had put the tuning forks against Mara’s skull one after another and written down what Mara heard and what she missed. She had taken the measurements again two days ago, before the moon. She had said she would bring the report when the tests came back from the guild’s audiologist.
She sat down at the common bench across from Mara and opened the folder and turned it around so Mara could read it.
Mara read it.
It was two pages. Figures, mostly. Frequencies, thresholds, a chart with two lines on it that sloped down from left to right, one sloping further than the other. And at the bottom of the second page, a paragraph in plain words.
Findings consistent with permanent sensorineural damage. Partial. Not expected to resolve.
It did not say which ear.
Mara went back over it. The chart had two lines. One was marked L and one was marked R. But the paragraph at the bottom, the plain words, the part anyone would read, said only damage, and permanent, and left the ear unnamed.
