With a target now fixed in his mind, the mysterious, dangerous figure of Alistair Finch, Lysander's world sharpened into a field of strategic operation. His early attempts at communication through garbled speech had been a failure of brute force. He had tried to use a cannon where a scalpel was required. Now, he would become a surgeon of fate, making small, precise incisions in the fabric of the predetermined.
His parents, Edmund and Clara, were his primary subjects and his unwitting instruments. He studied them as a general studies the terrain of a battlefield. He learned the subtle signs of his father's moods: the way he hummed a particular sea shanty when business was good, the tight set of his jaw when a debt was owed. He learned his mother's rhythms: her sigh of contentment when the bread rose perfectly, the worried furrow in her brow when the household accounts were lean.
He began a series of subtle experiments. The first involved a purely physical manipulation. He remembered that his mother had a fondness for a particular blue ceramic bowl, but that it was kept on a high shelf and rarely used. One afternoon, as she was bustling about, he fixed his gaze on the shelf and let out a short, sharp cry. When she looked at him, he pointed, not with a flailing infant's gesture, but with a single, deliberate finger.
"What is it, my love? The pretty bowl?" she asked, smiling. She humored him, taking it down and showing it to him. He reached out and touched the cool glaze, cooing appreciatively. The next day, he did the same thing. And the next. Within a week, the blue bowl had found a permanent home on the lower table, where he could see it. It was a tiny, insignificant change, but it was a change he had orchestrated. He had altered the physical landscape of his prison.
His next test was more ambitious. It involved memory and the power of association. He remembered a specific event from his original childhood with the strange clarity that often accompanies trivial memories. A friendly tinker named Old Jem would come through the neighborhood every few weeks, sharpening knives and repairing pots. His mother always gave him a cup of small ale, and in return, Jem would leave a twisted piece of scrap metal that he called a "luck-piece" for the baby. It was a meaningless ritual, but it was a fixed point.
Lysander waited. On the day he knew Jem would arrive, he began a campaign of focused agitation. When he heard the distant call of "Knives to grind! Pots to mend!" he didn't just cry; he turned his head towards the door, his body straining in Clara's arms, his babbling taking on a specific, demanding tone.
"You hear the tinker, don't you?" Clara said, bouncing him. "He's a noisy fellow."
But Lysander would not be distracted. He pointed, he fussed, he made it clear that his desire was connected to the sound outside. Puzzled, Clara carried him to the door and opened it, just as Old Jem was passing by.
"Well, good day to ye, Mistress," Jem said, tipping his ragged hat. "And to the little master."
Lysander immediately fell silent, staring at the tinker with an intensity that made the old man chuckle. "He's a bold one, ain't he? Got the look of a scholar."
Clara, slightly flustered, found herself inviting Jem in for his usual cup of ale. The ritual played out exactly as Lysander remembered, culminating in Jem placing the cool, twisted piece of metal in his tiny hand. He closed his fist around it, a sense of profound victory washing over him. He had not just predicted the event; he had actively pulled the threads of circumstance to ensure it happened on his terms. He was not just reading the map; he was drawing small, new paths in the margins.
But his most significant and emotionally charged test was yet to come. It revolved around his father, Edmund, and the toothache. He remembered the incident vividly: the three days of grinding pain that made his normally jovial father short-tempered and miserable. The barber-surgeon, a man named Mr. Higgs, was away for the first two days, and the delay had led to a nasty infection that prolonged the suffering.
Lysander could not prevent the toothache. He was a baby, not a dentist. But he could potentially alter the response. The stakes were higher here; this was not about a bowl or a trinket, but about alleviating real suffering. It was a chance to use his knowledge for a tangible good, a flicker of light in the grim purpose of his mission.
The first signs appeared one evening. Edmund winced visibly while eating a piece of bread, his tongue probing a back molar. "Blasted tooth," he muttered.
Clara was instantly concerned. "Is it bad again?"
"It's nothing," Edmund grumbled, but the pain was already etching lines around his eyes.
The next morning, the swelling had begun. This was the day Higgs was supposed to leave. Lysander's plan was simple but risky. He had to force a confrontation between his father and the barber-surgeon today. He began his performance as soon as his father sat down for breakfast, wincing over his porridge.
Lysander didn't just cry; he launched a full-scale, strategic tantrum. He cried with a purpose, his eyes fixed on his father, his cries punctuated by pointed gestures towards the door. It was not the sound of a hungry or tired infant; it was the sound of frantic, desperate demand.
"Lysander, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Clara pleaded, trying to soothe him.
Edmund, his own pain making him irritable, snapped, "Can you not quiet him, woman?"
"This is not his usual cry, Edmund! Look at him! He's trying to tell us something."
Lysander saw his opening. He renewed his efforts, his face turning red, his tiny body rigid with effort. He was pouring every ounce of his will, his frustration, his love for this man who was his father into this display. He was a lighthouse, and his tantrum was the beam, trying to guide his father to safety.
Frustrated, in pain, and desperate for peace, Edmund slammed his hand on the table. "Enough! Very well! Perhaps the cold air will shock us both into silence. I'll take him for a walk. A long one."
It was not the perfect scenario, but it was movement. It was a deviation from the script. As Edmund strode through the streets, his irritation palpable, Lysander clung to his shoulder, his cries subsiding into sniffles as he scanned the crowd with a hunter's focus. And then he saw him: the burly, aproned figure of Mr. Higgs, carrying a travel bag, about to enter a coaching inn.
This was the moment. Lysander let out a piercing, attention-grabbing shriek and thrust his arm out, his finger pointing like an arrow directly at the barber-surgeon.
Edmund, startled, followed his son's unwavering gaze. "Mr. Higgs!" he called out, his voice cutting through the street noise. He hurried over, his hand cradling his swollen jaw. "By God, man, your timing is divine! Or rather," he added, looking down at the now-silent, intensely focused baby in his arms, "my son's is."
Mr. Higgs, surprised, agreed to take a look then and there. He led them to a back room of the inn, where he lanced the abscess and, with a terrifying pair of pliers, extracted the offending tooth. The procedure was swift, and the relief on Edmund's face was immediate.
That evening, back in the warm, quiet house, Edmund held his son, who was now exhausted but serene. He looked down at the baby, his eyes no longer holding just love and pride, but a deep, abiding wonder, tinged with a hint of fear.
"Clara," he said, his voice low and serious. "It was no accident. He knew. He knew I was in pain, and he knew Higgs was there. He led me right to him."
Clara came and stood beside him, her hand resting on Lysander's back. She looked from her husband's healed face to her son's peaceful one. "He is not just a child, Edmund," she whispered, her voice filled with a kind of reverent terror. "He is a gift. Or a mystery. Perhaps both."
Lysander, drifting into a well-earned sleep, felt the cold weight of the "luck-piece" clutched in his hand. He had moved a mountain. Not a great, world-altering mountain, but the mountain of his father's pain. He had confirmed that the timeline was not a solid block of marble, but something softer, something that could be carved, however slightly, with enough will and a precise enough tool.
He had found his first, real tool. And he knew, with a certainty that chilled and exhilarated him, that he would need many more for the work that lay ahead.