Unsealed.
Location of damage.
Clara used charcoal on a board to record them.
When she finished, dawn light was entering through the barn slats.
She had not slept.
The next day she began building her warming room.
She had no commercial incubator.
So she made one.
Wooden boxes lined with wool.
Shallow pans for moisture.
Shelves above the stove.
Cloth curtains to hold warmth.
A thermometer borrowed from the town doctor after she promised not to break it.
She moved the eggs constantly, searching for the warmest and most stable places in the room.
Every few hours she turned them by hand.
Morning.
Midday.
Evening.
Night.
Again before dawn.
Three days passed.
Then five.
Clara barely left the barn except to milk the cow and feed the hens.
Neighbors began visiting.
At first they came to laugh.
Then they came because curiosity was stronger than ridicule.
Mrs. Carter from the neighboring farm leaned over one of the warming boxes.
“You truly think they’re alive?”
“Some are.”
“How can you know?”
Clara held one carefully near a lamp in the darkened room.
“Look.”
Mrs. Carter squinted.
Inside the pale shell, fine veins showed against the light.
Her expression changed.
“Well.”
Clara smiled faintly.
“Exactly.”
News traveled again.
This time differently.
Not all the eggs were dead.
People began asking how many were developing.
Clara did not answer.
She did not know yet.
Each day she removed failures.
Some stopped developing.
Some spoiled.
Others dried despite the wax.
By the end of the second week, she had lost more than a hundred.
That hurt.
Every failed egg felt like proof that Harold Briggs had been right.
But then she candled another batch.
Life moved inside.
Tiny shadows.
Veins.
Embryos shifting.
Clara counted twice.
Two hundred eighty-nine looked strong.
Forty more were uncertain.
For the first time since bringing the eggs home, she allowed herself to imagine actual goslings.
The third week became exhausting.
The stove needed constant feeding.
A cold rain lowered the barn temperature.
One night the chimney draft failed and smoke filled the warming room.
Clara carried crates into the kitchen one by one until the air cleared.
She slept on the floor beside them.
Two hours at a time.
Her hands became red from washing.
Her eyes burned from lack of sleep.
People stopped calling the project foolish.
Now they called it impossible.
There was a difference.