The Training

I installed the chain on the third day.

The ring was driven into the stone wall with a masonry bit; the chain purchased from the smith under the pretense of securing a gate. The cuff was iron, too large because her ankles were thinner than my wrists. The wrongness of the cuff’s fit meant the iron slid loosely around the bone, and the sliding produced a sound a small, metallic percussion, that became the cellar’s clock.

She resisted the chain.

Not violently. She resisted the way a wild animal resists a halter by pulling. The pulling was the application of a consistent force against a constraint. She pulled until the chain went taut. Then she assessed.