And slowly, as always, quietly, the profound pain and beauty of true literature began to work its haunting and healing magic upon him. His thought no longer bounded by the physical reality around him, he found in books a way to escape and look beyond himself, into worlds he had never dreamed of, and to empathize with struggles and disillusioning he had imagined did not exist outside himself. Simply put, he became connected to the souls, singular and collective, of humanity. And to know the woman held all these things in her mind and in her heart, put him almost in awe of her. And in truth, she herself received more from the living pages than she had ever done before. Now that her own life had become so real, she discovered (probably something she knew, deep down) that the truly great writers did not exaggerate the intensity of human drama, or the power of their own emotions, but only spoke honestly and without dilution of the worlds that they had known. Dickens especially she loved, because he made her feel the joys and terrors of children, who from the outset of life had experienced sorrow and loss, when her own childhood had been so safe and full, the death of her mother notwithstanding. And she, too, began to see Kalus differently, and to understand some measure of the invisible pain he felt. At times it was almost too much, for both of them, to look at life so closely in the midst of danger, and he would ask her to stop, or she would set down the book she read silently to herself. Such was the power of those days. With the intensity of Nature's relentless backdrop, emotions were tested like ship's rigging in a gale. And both knew, despite the woman's stubborn optimism, that it would take more than all their courage for the ship to still float brokenly at the morning of calm sea's return. Invaluable time was passing, and Kalus' illness refused to heal. His body had been pushed beyond its limits, and a virus for which he had no defense (for it was carried by the girl) had entrenched itself in his lungs and intestines, spreading pain and chill weakness throughout. An unfair battle had been joined inside him, one in which will alone was not enough. The man-child's hand was forced, and all power to choose taken from him. He must learn patience in the face of starvation. Chapter 22 Two weeks passed, following much the same pattern: Kalus trying to fight back against sickness and despair, his inner fire burning ever lower, a continuing downward spiral. And the girl, trying to hold on to hope enough for both of them. But despite the books and her new-found courage, she too began to feel numbed by the incessant howling of Winter, that raged like a mindless brute outside their doors, reaching in with deadly fingers at the slightest opportunity. She was puzzled also by Kalus' inability to recover from what seemed to her a simple, if severe, virus.