“Doctor! It’s an emergency!”
Glenn had been organizing his records when he heard a pounding on the door. The voice was Illy’s.
“It’s open!” he called.
“What? Open? Oh!”
When Illy realized the door was unlocked, she flew into the waiting room. At first, Glenn thought she’d come alone. Then he realized she was carrying someone. It was Plum, soaking wet and listless.
“Doctor! Hurry!”
“Okay, fine! You were right, Doctor.” A lantern hung from Sapphee’s tail as she slithered into the waiting room.
Glenn shrugged into his lab coat and ran to join her.
“First of all, wipe the water from your body, Illy,” Glenn said.
“Y-yeah! Oh, but Plum! She’s hurt, on her head!”
“It’s okay, I’ll examine her right away.” Glenn took the vampire from Illy. As a flying monster, she was surprisingly light.
“Er…”
“Fairies, bring all the cloth we have. And disinfectant.” Glenn didn’t hesitate. He was already examining Plum’s head, where the blood was streaming from.
“How did this happen?”
“She ran into the Lind steeple!” Illy exclaimed. “She shouldn’t have been flying in this storm! She would have fallen if I wasn’t there!”
“Shut up!” Plum moaned. “You were out flying, too…”
“I was working! I was delivering medicine and food! My company was operating up until the last minute. Even as we speak, the Lady, Kay, and Lorna are still pulling heavy horse carts around!”
Plum grew quiet, embarrassed.
Glenn wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he knew that Plum had no reason for flying around in the middle of a storm.
“I’d just decided to go home!” Illy cried. “That’s when I saw you about to fall!”
“Er…” Plum looked down, unable to speak. Her long ears drooped.
“Okay, okay,” Glenn said. “That’s enough for now. Let me take a look at Plum’s wound. Illy, you dry yourself off.”
“I know! I don’t want the oil to come off again!” Illy shook her entire body, dispelling the water from her wings. The fairies dodged the flying droplets.
Since Glenn had reapplied the preen oil, her feathers were amply water-resistant. This was why she’d been able to fly in the storm, in addition to her natural intuition about air currents.
“Hey, now, you’re getting the floor all wet!” Sapphee scolded. “Let’s get you to the bath, Illy.”
“Oh, yes.” Illy obeyed.
Glenn watched them out of the corner of his eye as he turned back to Plum. “Now, then.”
Plum was bleeding from an open wound on her forehead, and the blood had run down into her eyes. The wound itself wasn’t that deep, but there was significant swelling.
“I’m going to treat you now.”
“Mmm,” Plum let out a moan.
After Glenn wiped away the blood, he disinfected the wound. Then he covered it with gauze.
“Okay, you should be fine now.”
“Oooh, thank you, Doctor.” Plum bowed her head apologetically.
The fairies wiped down her entire body, and she began to look a little better. She was probably lethargic because her body temperature had dropped.
She doesn’t seem to have a concussion. That’s something, at least.
Glenn heard she’d flown into a steeple, but she must not have been traveling very fast. Maybe she’d been a little lightheaded from the violent winds and had already reduced her speed. In any case, it could have been a lot worse.
But the more he thought about it, the more he realized there was something strange about the whole incident.
“Plum, can I ask you a question?”
She looked at him, waiting.
“Were you emitting sound waves when you were flying?”
Naturally, Glenn knew about echolocation. Long ago, a researcher had used an audible range greater than that of humans to ascertain that bats emitted sound waves as they flew. Glenn remembered reading that paper. Given the similarities between bats and vampires, it only made sense that the latter used echolocation, too.
“Y-yeah…but I didn’t sense that there was a tower there.”
“If you were unable to hear the echoes, then there might be a problem with your hearing.”
“Hmmm…” Plum cocked her head. “But I can hear you just fine right now, Doctor.”
“Hmph.” Glenn examined Plum’s ears.
They stuck straight up out of her head, like a bat’s ears. She was wearing earrings that had probably been made by Memé.
“Maybe you got some water in them?” Glenn suggested.
“They don’t hurt, though.”
“Hmmm.”
If she had water in her ears, then she would have experienced pain or at least an uncomfortable sensation.
“Can I look inside?”
“O-okay…”
Once he had Plum’s permission, Glenn began touching one of her long, slender ears. It twitched in response.
“There’s something in here.”
“Huh?! What do you mean?!”
“Something small and…round. It’s shining in the back of your auditory canal.”
Wax buildup was a common cause of issues like this, but Plum’s ears were clean. Considering the shape, whatever was stuck inside her probably wasn’t wax.
“Plum, you really don’t feel like there’s something in your ear that shouldn’t be?” Glenn asked again.
“N-no, not really…”
“I wonder if something fell in. It doesn’t look pointy, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t hurt. What could it be?”
Glenn took out his microscope goggles so he could examine the foreign object more closely. They’d come in handy when he was connecting Kunai’s nerves, and now they’d help him with Plum. He looked in her ear again.
“Oooh, I feel so…embarrassed.”
“Hold still,” he said. “If I don’t take this out, then you’ll crash again if you try to fly.”
“Yeah,” Plum said, quivering. She couldn’t relax while he was examining her.
Glenn looked deep inside her ear with his goggles. The object looked like a piece of polished metal shaped into a perfect sphere, clearly manufactured.
“I wonder what it is. It’s round…and it’s metal, not stone…” Glenn muttered to himself.
“Er!” Plum suddenly twitched.
“D-Doctor! I’m sorry, but I need a minute!” Plum cried out, flustered.
Puzzled, Glenn moved away from her. She lifted her wings over her head, touching her own ears with her claws. After a moment, it became clear that she was removing her earring.
“Ahh! I was right!” Plum cried. “The top of this earring is missing! It must have come off in the storm!” Plum showed Glenn the jewelry.
The small sphere must have been connected to the rest of the earring. If she were a human with a standard lobe piercing, the piece might have fallen off, but not into the ear. However, Plum’s ears stretched straight up from the top of her head, so if something fell off of an earring, it would probably land in her ear.
“Ahhh, Memé made these earrings for me.”
Now Glenn understood. The metal had been intentionally processed into a smooth sphere so that it wouldn’t hurt the auditory canal. It was evidence of Memé’s skill.
“If we get the piece out, I’m sure Memé will fix the earring for you,” Glenn assured her.
“Yeah, if we do that… Ahhh!”
For a moment, Glenn thought Plum was happy, but her expression quickly grew dark.
“No, um, I…” Plum averted her eyes, looking like she was about to cry.
“Memé said she won’t sell me anything until I make up with Illy…so she probably won’t fix it for me.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to make up with Illy,” Glenn said. “With the wind as strong as it is, I bet she’ll be here in the clinic for a while. This is your chance to apologize.”
As if in response, the shutters rattled. Illy clearly wouldn’t be flying in this weather.
“But first things first, we need to take this out.”
“Er…”
The reason for Plum’s crash was clear now. A metal sphere was blocking her ability to hear echoes. In the past, accessories she’d worn had damaged the webbing of her wings. It didn’t bother Glenn that she cared so much about her appearance, but he wished she’d pay a bit more attention to her health.
I can’t overlook the fact that she went out flying in a storm.
Glenn heaved a sigh. If she and Illy didn’t resolve things soon, something like this might happen again. They needed to make up, for both their sakes.
“Ooooh, how are you going to get it out? Would it help if I hung upside down?”
Now that Plum was aware of the object, it had started to bother her. Since bats slept upside down, Glenn suddenly wondered if vampires did the same. It seemed like all the blood would rush to their heads. But no…they probably slept in coffins, as was tradition.
“It’s really stuck in the canal. I don’t think it will fall out easily. Shall I use a special tool to take it out?” Glenn asked.
“Aggh…that sounds kind of scary.”
Plum’s ears were standing at attention. She scared more easily than Glenn had expected. But if they tried to take it out with claws or fingers, there was a risk of it getting lodged even deeper and damaging her ear. Glenn decided it would be better to act with caution.
Ideally, they would have let it come out on its own, but there was no telling when that might happen, and Plum wouldn’t be able to fly until it did. The inside of her ear was wet, so if they weren’t careful, mold might start to grow around the foreign object.
“It will be fine. I won’t hurt you.” Glenn smiled reassuringly.
“O-okay…” Plum sat in the exam chair.
In order to get a better angle, Glenn stood up and stared down into her ear. Plum’s face was now at the height of Glenn’s chest.