The next few days did not get mixed up, but they may have seemed so to any observer at a distance. To Ethan James each of them had its hourly weight, which was rated not in hours but in sensations: how his joints would stiffen before he woke, how his muscles would slowly fray as he pushed them to action, how pain would be warning and pain would be annihilating. He was taught to differentiate between them since he had to. One false step would almost have lost him his position, and he was clinging to walls or kneeling in the dust, with his breath coming harshly and his eyes blurred, until his body should tell again how to co-operate.
Rises were survival ceremonies. He rose early, when no one was going about in the city, when the air was cool and truthful, when the eyes could not find him too slumberous or too frequent. It was no longer an ordeal that robbed him of his breath to sit up but required patience. It was standing, followed by walking, every move being calculated, intentional, as though he were reacquainting himself with a body which had been originally that of another man altogether. When he went out he was usually covered with sweat before he could get out of the house, his shirt becoming sticky against his body, his heart beating as hard as it had no right to beat with such easy work.
The patch of dirt behind the shack was now well known. He was aware of the locations of the stones and where the ground went down, and where the weeds were rooted deep in the ground. He dropped himself down there daily, not caring whether his knees hurt or not, and sat down in a position which admitted of no strain and at the same time no instability. Breathing came first, always. Through the nose, slow and regular, out through the mouth, steady and regular. He never sought peace, but he permitted it to visit him.
Then only did he look back within himself.
The weak warmth which he had found was not always visible. It was flickering, now and then, barely perceivable, and he had to spend many minutes sitting there with only discomfort and doubt as companions. On other days it rose more easily, a low throb in his stomach that brought to his mind what could exist. He was taught not to be too noisy in his celebrations not even in his mind. The expectation was a kind of spoiler of delicate things.
Rather, he dwelled on consciousness.
He had mapped his body as though it were a foreign land, and followed with his mind sensations as a traveller followed roads on parchment. In this case, a clog that was unaffordable to the lightest attention was encountered. A passage there that answered with the dead rather than the quick. The improvement was not made in bounds, but in little movements: a cramp, which seemed to relax the sooner, a trembling which settled the faster, a warmth, which remained a moment longer before it passed.
It all was accompanied by pain, and it was no longer a foe. It already was a language, which he was gradually learning to know.
Lily James was looking at him with silent worry which slowly yielded to something different. She did not run to prevent him as she used to run, but she did chide him moderately when he did too much. Her hands had been so constant, cleaning up his wounds, or bringing him food, that there seemed a growing reliance that he was not going to cut himself and take care. On other nights she lingered still, and, sitting by the door when he slept, talked of small, trivial things: the market prices, an argument of a neighbor, a rumor of city. Ethan was a better listener than he was a speaker and based himself on the sound of life that moved on whether he was struggling or not.
And at night fatigue brought him more readily down. There was less noise in his dreams. The biting points of betrayal bluntened, and images took the place of them, images of long roads and slow climbs, of getting on your feet again after falling without anyone paying attention. Victor Hale still every now and then showed his face, although it no longer spoke of his chest with uncouth pain. Rather, it was a reminder about being on guard, of the price of false security. He did not dwell on it. Learning, he was reflecting, did not need fixation.
On day six the body again resisted.
He experienced it when he attempted to sit, a stiffness in the spine and hip, that was stiflingly deep. As he pushed himself to a sitting position, his sight swam, and a wave of nausea after him was so great as to induce him to pause, and hold on to the edge of the bed till it had gone. The air was heavier outside, the earth less accommodating. He sat down where he was accustomed to sit and proceeded with his breathing, but the heat failed to respond. Minutes elapsed, then more, and he became frustrated although he tried to hold it in.
"Fine," he muttered quietly. "Then we wait."
He remained much longer than it ought to have been, pressing beyond the irritable soreness until it changed to an acute one, until his muscles began to tremble with weariness. He stood up, when he at last stood, with knees almost losing strength, and was obliged to rest his back against the shack, heart palpitating, and perspiration streaming down his eyes. He meekly took it without a grain of complaint that night as Lily condemned him with such vehemence, her voice filled with concern. There were lessons which he knew could not be learnt in one direction.
The next morning, he adjusted.
Instead of stamina, he cut his sessions and was more consistent. He was more attentive to the messages his body was making, and withdrawing before he fell rather than afterwards. The pace was slowed down, but it did not decrease. The warmth came back, slight, yet undying, and no longer was it chastising to him that he did not punish himself. It was a minor triumph, but one of his own.
On the ninth day he saw something new.
The warmness changed as he sat and breathed, following the awareness of his lower abdomen. It was not an explosion, but a diffusion, like the diffusion of heat into chilled stone. It was a sensitive feeling, nearly painfully sensitive, and his instinct was at first to stop, to make no movement at all, in order to leave it undisturbed. Then he stopped his breath a fraction of a second, and slowly, carefully, following his consciousness without coercion, he continued.
Tingling in its turn, but a quiet one, far off, a tolerable smoldering, more than a screaming. He tensed his shoulders, closed his jaw, but did not lose position. The heat continued, growing by twenties so minute he could have overlooked it had he not been so attentive.
As it faded he rose and opened his eyes and exhaled, with hands trembling.
"That's new," he whispered.
He did not laugh. He did not celebrate. He just sat there a little more and assimilated the reality of it. His body had not only endured. It had adapted.
The news of his perseverance began to spread around, but he received it in bits. Passing whispers. Inquisitive glances which lingered slightly. The majority of them turned a blind eye to him and thought him a shattered object who was clinging persistently to the illusions of his dream, though some looked at him with an expression that could be called bewilderment. Ethan did not care. He could not afford attention as yet.
Marcus Reed never showed his face the rest of the week, but the thought of him was like an injury that could not be healed. Ethan reenacted the experience in his mind but without anger, but with analysis. The blows had stung, but something had been discovered. Others no longer caused him pain that would break his concentration. He was able to be there when conscious even during beating. this discovery made him feel more than he had been made to feel at ease, but he did not shrink from making it.
He now knew that strength was not just about being able to retaliate. The ability to sustain itself upon impact was its attribute.
On the twelfth day his movements were smoother. And yet again slow, yet again labored, yet less hesitant. It was no longer a gamble to stand. The walking was not to be calculated at all times. His breathings were deeper, his heart rate grew more rapidly following activity. The warmth, in its turn, was more reliable, and it manifested itself with a kind of gentleness as opposed to unpredictable outbursts.
One night, as Lily was changing the cloth at his side, she stopped looking at him with a narrowed eye. You are different again, mum, she said in her low voice.
He glanced at her, curious. "How so?"
You are heavier, she answered after a moment, and blushed. "Not like weight. Like... presence. As you sit, you feel that you are there.
Ethan considered that. He experienced it, but he had not known how to express it. A grounding. The feeling of living in his body, not being in control of it. I believe I am, I believe I am, just catching up on myself, he thought.
She smiled at that but there was concern in her eyes.
Later that night, when he was lying there listening to the low traffic of the night, Ethan gave himself a rare chance to reflect. He imagined the way he was going to go, which was a long and unpredictable one, full of difficulties he was not yet able to encounter. The academy. Marcus Reed. The broader world which had already condemned him and discovered him wanting. The conception no longer oppressed him as it used to.
He was not ready. But he was becoming ready.
The shattered and forsaken body was learning to react, to recollect more than agony. It was the recall of struggle, counteraction, struggle. Every day made those lessons imprinted on the flesh, on the physique, on the breathing and the pulse.
Ethan shut his eyes and fatigue tugged at him and he permitted himself a murmur of conviction. This was not stagnation. This was foundation and foundations, when established, had no need to hurry.