Within days of P'att taking up residence in the home, strange things began happening. When he came to me, I could see that his shirt and pants were in tatters, having been soiled with the sweat and dirt that came from consecutive use on the streets. So I made him put on some of my clothes as I washed his things. I was several inches taller than him, and probably had twenty pounds on him besides, so the clothes fit a bit loose when he first put them on. But several days later, after he had returned them to me, I was surprised to find that they no longer fit me.
"How have you done this?" I asked him, smiling. "What trick or craft is this?"
But he seemed puzzled at my questions, and claimed to have done nothing.
"Look, P'att! This shirt now hugs so closely upon my chest! The pant legs now hover two inches above the ground. What have you done to shrink them so?"
He frowned at me. "Those clothes were too large for me. How can they be so small on you?"
I stared at him in bewilderment. "Here, let you have them, for they are no longer of any use to me."
And then P'att left my presence at once to don these mysterious articles. He returned several minutes with a smile upon his face. "Good Fe'n, they fit just perfectly. How can this be?"
Just as he said, the clothes fit his body as though they had been sewn for him. "Have you altered them?" I asked. "Have we both grown?"
But P'att was at just as much of a loss as I. "It is but one of many, many wonders we encounter in a day," he shrugged. I thought he must have arranged for this in some manner, but I could not figure out what, and he refused to betray any proof of it.
The following day, the new mechanical clock that Yhako had imported from Acrola stopped working. I went to wind it just as he had taught me, but this did nothing but produce a strange ticking sound. I did not know of a single clocksmith in the country, let alone one that complied with the Parebhur, so I took to opening the thing up and poking around. I had seen inside of it a few times before under Yhako's supervision, so I knew at once that what I saw before me was false. The iron cogs that exercised their influence over the timepiece had all fallen out of place, and a few even rolled out of the clock and towards me as I opened the pane. There was nothing I could do, so I merely scooped up all of the loose gears and placed them back within the clock.
I would not have thought much of the clock, but that it happened the very day after the shrinking clothes. I immediately suspected P'att, only because I knew that such things required human agency, and he was the only person who had access to the clock. Did he sabotage me? Did his gentle, gracious demeanor conceal something dark? Perhaps he had not forgiven me for what Ma't had done after all, and he had merely infiltrated my home in order to harm me. Of course, one could do many worse things than alter a pair of clothes or break a clock, but I could think of no other explanation for it, so I found P'att to have him speak about the clock.
Once again, he expressed his gentle innocence perfectly. "I have never touched that machine before, for I do not even know what purpose it serves."
"You did not meddle with the cogs within?" I demanded.
"No, good Fe'n," he shook his head. "I do not even know what a cog is."
There was absolutely no explanation for this beyond his sabotage, and yet, I found that I believed him. His nature was so calm, his innocence so gentle, that I had trouble believing he could even have conceived of such tricks. "Very well, then," I said. "I suppose it is another of your wonders." I shook my head and he shrugged his shoulders--a little dance that would become a defining move of our relationship.
In fact, we would repeat it not four days later. In the weeks since Yhako's departure, I had attempted to arrange the Defilor Papers--a series of documents written by the clerks of the first Anotus, Helatat. the documents had been lost for many years, but over the years had come back into public knowledge. They had since come by Grontinion, where Sirlay and many others of the theologians had had them translated and attempted to put them in order. To my knowledge, dozens of Deshilva satellites of Grontinion toiled on these documents all across Yafia and Hihaythea. To the Kapabaj they were useless documents, but to the Deshilva they represented important insight about the rationale for the creation of the office of Anotus, and whether Helatat and his confidants truly believed it was divinely ordained.
The hundreds of pages sat upon a table in the library, and every morning following my meal, I went with the intent of placing them in order. The order was lost and unknown, but would allow us to track beliefs as they changed over the years. I had made very little progress, and in fact, one night, despairing that anything I had done thus far had been worthless, I shuffled the papers in search of new perspective.
The following morning, P'att and I took our meal as we usually did, and then he accompanied me to the study. To our surprise, we found the Defilor Papers scattered about the floor, having all somehow fallen off the table in the night. P'att knew that I had labored long on the papers, and rushed to collect them.
"It is no great loss," I told him. "I have recently shuffled them, and there is no order to recover."
But he collected every last document on the floor and placed them in a large pile upon the table. Then, he took a seat at a stool and began to practice his copying as I had encouraged him.
I began to look through the papers, preparing to begin anew. However, I noticed that the page on top began with "first". It was the known and established first page. Perhaps P'att had seen it and intentionally placed it on top. But as I continued reading pages beneath it, I noticed that all of the first pages--whose order was clear and established--were also correct. How had he known?
That afternoon, as I looked through the papers one by one, I was dumbstruck as I began to believe that every single one was exactly in its chronological place. Indeed, I could not find anything to suggest the contrary. "P'att, how have you done this?"
"Done what, good Fe'n? I do nothing but practice my letters."
"These papers. You have placed them in order. The work I have spent weeks at is now complete by your hands, and all in but a minute."
"If I have done such a thing, it is merely by chance, for I do not recognize but a dozen of the words in that entire collection, and have only scooped them up as I came to them."
He shrugged at me and smiled, and I could little nothing more than shake my head. "It is a miracle," I whispered.
From that day on, I regarded Fe'n as a gifted being with divinely-granted powers, for if the clock and clothes could be due to worldy chance, the Defilor Papers could only be from his gentle touch. I regarded him as the true noble laborer, with the ability to make perfect judgment on any matter. I considered his advice to be absolute truth, and trusted him in all things. I was to discover later that he was, in fact, the man who broke the mechanical clock, although not by design. At dinner one evening, I watched as a fork wriggled slowly toward him. At first, I watched with wide eyes as I thought the fork to be possessed.
"P'att, behold the fork! It is drawn unto you!"
As usual, the man merely shrugged. "As it should, for as many forks have," he remarked.
I stood and picked up the utensil and found it devoid of life as always. But as I slowly moved it toward P'att, I felt it pulling itself along. I placed it against his chest, and it rested there for a moment, before he shook and it fell loose. Then I grabbed my fork and we repeated these same wonders. "P'att, you have the lure! You hold sway over iron as though a magnet."
"So it has been," he said, smiling. I have never been able to shake it although, mercifully, it has not incurred a dramatic impact upon me."
Indeed, it could not have been particularly strong, as I had never seen a cluster of irons trailing him about the house. But I determined that it had been strong enough to damage the clock. His presence as he had walked past it many times, perhaps standing before it for several minutes to divine its function, has surely been enough to draw the cogs out of their place. This power, of course, had little practical use that I could discover, but it was yet another sign his marked blessedness.
Yet, when I spoke of this to him, he deferred it, and refused to believe that there was anything special about him. "I am but a simple man who has learned very little in life. I possess a rare quality in the lure, but this is merely a purposeless chance of birth, just as you have lighter skin and greater stature. I have never been in awe of you for those things, and so you should not be in awe of me for this."
"But my coloring and size are not coincidences, but due to my family. I am of pale complexion and larger build because so was my father, and so were my brothers Sirlay and Ansidrion. Did your father or brothers possess the lure?"
"I have never met another who has it, but what does it matter? Have your brothers healed other men the way that you have healed me?"
"I have done nothing more than take you into my home, which is exactly as they would have done. I am sure that they have taken many men into their care, and that Yhako will do so many more times."
"No, not merely that," P'att smiled at me. "You are a particular man of miracles, and have wrought miracles far greater than I. In the years since I first received my injuries, I have scarcely recovered at all, and could not have walked without use of a cane. But in these days, not two weeks in your home, my recovery has begun and accelerated greatly." And at this, just as I had begun to frown in confusion, he put himself to his feet. With seeming effortlessness, he walked from his seat to the door, and then back. He did not use the cane or any other aid.
“P’att, this is a miracle! How can you have achieved such a thing?”
“I have done nothing,” he insisted with a smile. “But your gracious care and wondrous presence has allowed me to heal fully, and regain my strength. I can walk again, Fe’n. And look here upon my leg,” he adjusted his pants such that I could see his thigh where he had been struck. “The wound and its scar are gone. It is exactly as though I never met that priest.”
I stood beside him in awe, unable to believe the many miracles that had come to happen all around me.
