The Coyote Road by Ellen Datlow; Terri Windling

Author:Ellen Datlow; Terri Windling
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2009-01-08T06:00:00+00:00

When Rangy awoke, Sophie was patting his mottled fur. He winced when she touched where his ears had been. Oh, great . . . there was Dinah. It sounded as if his volume was on its lowest setting when Sophie said, “Dinah! You chewed up Rangy! You ate his ears!”

What was Martha saying? She was smiling. Balloons bobbed near the ceiling—red and blue, like the colors of the blood that goes in and out of the heart—and on every one of the Cinderellas was a cobalt ribbon, as if Rangy were at a children’s party, where everyone wins a prize so no one’s feelings get hurt. “It’s a miracle,” Martha said. Philip’s face was flushed, but he was sitting up and grinning.

Right when Rangy thought he’d faint, Sophie set him next to Philip, who draped one of Rangy’s arms over himself and the other over Martha and said, “I don’t need Europe, Mom” . . . and then something about having the world right there with him. Rangy couldn’t make out the words, because Sophie clicked him on to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and as the soaring faded to nothing, Rangy understood that, like the great composer, he, too, was deaf now.

Sophie patched his fur with reddish brown yarn, and she sewed apricot-colored silk ears onto him. They didn’t cure his deafness, but he felt very attractive in them. He was put on the shelf over Philip’s bed, and often he tumbled forward so that Philip could keep him near. A pulse, a heartbeat: these go through the skin, and though the deaf cannot hear music, they can feel it. Beat and beat; quicken and slow; close enough, close enough. You are mine.

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