Read An Extract From Little Girl Gone By Alexandra Burt

Remember that. How funny. My hand moves up to my ear, almost like a reflex. ‘You said there’s damage to my ear. What happened to it?’

He pauses ever so slightly.‘Gone. Completely gone.

The area was infected and we had to make a decision.’ He watches me intently. ‘It could have been worse, like I said, you were lucky.’

‘That’s some luck,’ I say but when I think about my ear I don’t really care.

‘There’s reconstructive surgery.’

‘What’s there now, I mean, is there a hole?’

‘There’s a small opening draining fluids, other than that, there’s a flap of skin stretched over the wound.’

An opening that drains fluids. I’m oddly untouched by the fact that a flap of skin is stretched over a hole in my head where my ear used to be. I have amnesia. I forgot to lock my car. I lost my umbrella. My ear is gone. It’s all the same; insignificant.

‘And you call that lucky?’

‘You’re alive, that’s what counts.’

There’s that buzzing sound again and then his voice goes from loud to muffled, as if someone’s turned a volume dial.

‘What about my ear?’

He looks at me, puzzled. ‘I remember you told me it was gone.’

Completely gone, were the words he used. ‘I mean my hearing, what about my hearing? Everything sounds muffled.’

‘We did an electrophysiological hearing test while you were unconscious.’ He grabs my file from the nightstand and opens it. He flips through the pages. ‘You’ve lost some audio capacity, but nothing major. We’ll order more tests, depending on the next CAT scan, we just have to wait it out.’

‘My ear, did that happen during the accident?’

‘They recovered a gun in the car. They are not sure how the injury came about, if someone shot you or you shot yourself. Hopefully you’ll remember soon.’

Bullet. Was shot or I did I shoot myself? That explains the police officer sitting outside my door and I wonder if he’s guarding me or if he’s guarding someone from me. This talk of bullets and guns and ravines, my missing ear. I’m blank, completely blank. Except . . .

‘I remembered something.’

The words come spilling out and take on a life of their own.