Conscious decision to leave it. Content-aware healing tool could have easily eliminated it, but it is such an odd effect that I decided to let it be. Almost like the glowing-eye cliche that fantasy film-makers use when the wiz turns to magick.
A telling situation and a very well executed black and white work. Absolutely an interesting picture. One complaint though. The picture is very large here and I have to scroll up and down to really assess the picture and that is to me a little inconvenient.