Ingathering - The Complete People Stories

by Zenna Henderson

  “I know,” I said, looking at my answer for lowering Bub. “I know, Bethie.” And I took the pattern from her. It strained between my fingers and flowed into darkness.

  ~ * ~

  The years that followed were casual uneventful years. I finished high school, but college was out of the question. I went to work in the plant that provided work for most of the employables in Socorro.

  Mother built up quite a reputation as a midwife—a very necessary calling in a community which took literally the injunction to multiply and replenish the earth and which lay exactly seventy-five miles from a hospital, no matter which way you turned when you got to the highway.

  Bethie was in her teens and with Mother’s help was learning to control her visible reactions to the pain of others, but I knew she still suffered as much as, if not more than, she had when she was smaller. But she was able to go to school most of the time now and was becoming fairly popular in spite of her quietness.

  So all in all we were getting along quite comfortably and quite ordinarily except—well, I always felt as though I were waiting for something to happen or for someone to come. And Bethie must have, too, because she actually watched and listened—especially after a particularly bad spell. And even Mother. Sometimes as we sat on the porch in the long evenings she would cock her head and listen intently, her rocking chair still. But when we asked what she heard, she’d sigh and say, “Nothing. Just the night.” And her chair would rock again.

  Of course I still indulged my differences. Not with the white fire of possible discovery that they had kindled when I first began, but more like the feeding of a small flame just “for pretty.” I went farther afield now for my “holidays,” but Bethie went with me. She got a big kick out of our excursions, especially after I found that I could carry her when I flew, and most especially after we found, by means of a heart-stopping accident, that though she couldn’t go up she could control her going down. After that it was her pleasure to have me carry her up as far as I could and she would come down, sometimes taking an hour to make the descent, often weaving about her the intricate splendor of her sunshine patterns.

  ~ * ~

  It was a rustling russet day in October when our world ended— again. We talked and laughed over the breakfast table, teasing Bethie about her date the night before. Color was high in her usually pale cheeks, and, with all the laughter and brightness, the tingle of fall, everything just felt good.

  But between one joke and another the laughter drained out of Bethie’s face and the pinched set look came to her lips.

  “Mother!” she whispered, and then she relaxed.

  “Already?” asked Mother, rising and finishing her coffee as I went to get her coat. “I had a hunch today would be the day. Reena would ride that jeep up Peppersauce Canyon this close to her time.”

  I helped her on with her coat and hugged her tight.

  “Bless-a-mama,” I said, “when are you going to retire and let someone else snatch the fall and spring crops of kids?”

  “When I snatch a grandchild or so for myself,” she said, joking, but I felt her sadness. “Besides she’s going to name this one Peter—or Bethie, as the case may be.” She reached for her little black bag and looked at Bethie. “No more yet?”

  Bethie smiled. “No,” she murmured.

  “Then I’ve got plenty of time. Peter, you’d better take Bethie for a holiday. Reena takes her own sweet time and being just across the road makes it bad on Bethie.”

  “Okay, Mother,” I said. “We planned one anyway, but we hoped this time you’d go with us.”

  Mother looked at me, hesitated, and turned aside. “I—I might sometime.”

  “Mother! Really?” This was the first hesitation from Mother in all the times we’d asked her.

  “Well, you’ve asked me so many times and I’ve been wondering. Wondering if it’s fair to deny our birthright. After all, there’s nothing wrong in being of the People.”

  “What people, Mother?” I pressed. “Where are you from? Why can we—?”

  “Some other time, son,” Mother said. “Maybe soon. These last few months I’ve begun to sense—yes, it wouldn’t hurt you to know even if nothing could ever come of it; and perhaps soon something can come, and you will have to know. But no,” she chided as we clung to her. “There’s no time now. Reena might fool us after all and produce before I get there. You kids scoot, now!”

  We looked back as the pickup roared across the highway and headed for Mendigo’s Peak. Mother answered our wave and went in the gate of Reena’s yard, where Dalt, in spite of this being their sixth, was running like an anxious puppy dog from Mother to the porch and back again.

  It was a day of perfection for us. The relaxation of flight for me, the delight of hovering for Bethie, the frosted glory of the burning-blue sky, the russet and gold of grasslands stretching for endless miles down from the snow-flecked blue and gold Mendigo.

  At lunchtime we lolled in the pleasant warmth of our favorite baby box canyon that held the sun and shut out the wind. After we ate we played our favorite game, Remembering. It began with my clearing my mind so that it lay as quiet as a hidden pool of water, as receptive as the pool to every pattern the slightest breeze might start quivering across its surface.

  Then the memories would come—strange un-Earthlike memories that were like those Mother and I had had when Dad died. Bethie could not remember with me, but she seemed to catch the memories from me almost before the words could form in my mouth.

  So this last lovely “holiday” we remembered again our favorite. We walked the darkly gleaming waters of a mountain lake, curling our toes in the liquid coolness, loving the tilt and sway of the waves beneath our feet, feeling around us from shore and sky a dear familiarity that was stronger than any Earth ties we had yet formed.

  Before we knew it the long lazy afternoon had fled and we shivered in the sudden chill as the sun dropped westward, nearing the peaks of the Huachucas. We packed the remains of our picnic in the basket, and I turned to Bethie, to lift her and carry her back to the pickup.

  She was smiling her soft little secret smile.

  “Look, Peter,” she murmured. And flicking her fingers over her head, she shook out a cloud of snowflakes, gigantic whirling tumbling snowflakes that clung feather-soft to her pale hair and melted, glistening, across her warm cheeks and mischievous smile.

  “Early winter, Peter!” she said.

  “Early winter, punkin!” I cried, and snatching her up, boosted her out of the little canyon and jumped over her, clearing the boulders she had to scramble over. “For that you walk, young lady!”

  But she almost beat me to the car anyway. For one who couldn’t fly she was learning to run awfully light.

  Twilight had fallen before we got back to the highway. We could see the headlights of the scurrying cars that seldom even slowed down for Socorro. “So this is Socorro, wasn’t it?” was the way most traffic went through.

  We had topped the last rise before the highway when Bethie screamed. I almost lost control of the car on the rutty road. She screamed again, a wild tortured cry as she folded in on herself.

  “Bethie!” I called, trying to get through to her. “What is it? Where is it? Where can I take you?”

  But her third scream broke off short and she slid limply to the floor.

  I was terrified. She hadn’t reacted like this in years. She had never fainted like this before. Could it be that Reena hadn’t had her child yet? That she was in such agony—but even when Mrs. Allbeg had died in childbirth Bethie hadn’t— I lifted Bethie to the seat and drove wildly homeward, praying that Mother would be...

  And then I saw it. In front of our house. The big car skewed across the road. The kneeling cluster of people on the pavement.

  The next thing I knew I was kneeling, too, beside Dr. Dueff, clutching the edge of the blanket that mercifully covered Mother from chin to toes. I lifted a trembling hand to the dark trickle of blood that threaded crookedly down from h
er forehead.

  “Mother,” I whispered. “Mother!”

  Her eyelids fluttered and she looked up blindly. “Peter.” I could hardly hear her. “Peter, where’s Bethie?”

  “She fainted. She’s in the car,” I faltered. “Oh, Mother!”

  “Tell the doctor to go to Bethie.”

  “But, Mother!” I cried. “You—”

  “I am not called yet. Go to Bethie.”

  We knelt by her bedside, Bethie and I. The doctor was gone. There was no use trying to get Mother to a hospital. Just moving her indoors had started a dark oozing from the corner of her mouth. The neighbors were all gone except Gramma Reuther, who always came to troubled homes and had folded the hands of the dead in Socorro from the founding of the town. She sat now in the front room holding her worn Bible in quiet hands, after all these years no longer needing to look up the passages of comfort and assurance.

  The doctor had quieted the pain for Mother and had urged sleep upon Bethie, not knowing how long the easing would last, but Bethie wouldn’t take it.

  Suddenly Mother’s eyes were open.

  “I married your father,” she said clearly, as though continuing a conversation. “We loved each other so, and they were all dead—all my People. Of course I told him first, and oh, Peter! He believed me! After all that time of having to guard every word and every move I had someone to talk to—someone to believe me. I told him all about the People and lifted myself and then I lifted the car and turned it in mid-air above the highway—just for fun. It pleased him a lot but it made him thoughtful and later he said, ‘You know, honey, your world and ours took different turns way back there. We turned to gadgets. You turned to the Power.’ “

  Her eyes smiled. “He got so he knew when I was lonesome for the Home. Once he said, ‘Homesick, honey? So am I. For what this world could have been. Or maybe—God willing—what it may become.’

  “Your father was the other half of me.” Her eyes closed, and in the silence her breath became audible, a harsh straining sound. Bethie crouched with both hands pressed to her chest, her face dead white in the shadows.

  “We discussed it and discussed it,” Mother cried. “But we had to decide as we did. We thought I was the last of the People. I had to forget the Home and be of Earth. You children had to be of Earth, too, even if—That’s why he was so stern with you, Peter. Why he didn’t want you to—experiment. He was afraid you’d do too much around other people if you found out—” She stopped and lay panting. “Different is dead,” she whispered, and lay scarcely breathing for a moment.

  “I knew the Home.” Her voice was heavy with sorrow. “I remember the Home. Not just because my People remembered it but because I saw it. I was born there. It’s gone now. Gone forever. There is no Home. Only a band of dust between the stars!” Her face twisted with grief and Bethie echoed her cry of pain.

  Then Mother’s face cleared and her eyes opened. She half propped herself up in her bed.

  “You have the Home, too. You and Bethie. You will have it always. And your children after you. Remember, Peter? Remember?”

  Then her head tilted attentively and she gave a laughing sob. “Oh, Peter! Oh, Bethie! Did you hear it? I’ve been called! I’ve been called!” Her hand lifted in the Sign and her lips moved tenderly.

  “Mother!” I cried fearfully. “What do you mean? Lie down. Please lie down!” I pressed her back against the pillows.

  “I’ve been called back to the Presence. My years are finished. My days are totaled.”

  “But, Mother,” I blubbered like a child, “what will we do without you?”

  “Listen!” Mother whispered rapidly, one hand pressed to my hair. “You must find the rest. You must go right away. They can help Bethie. They can help you, Peter. As long as you are separated from them you are not complete. I have felt them calling the last year or so, and now that I am on the way to the Presence I can hear them clearer, and clearer.” She paused and held her breath. “There is a canyon—north. The ship crashed there, after our life slips—here, Peter, give me your hand.” She reached urgently toward me and I cradled her hand in mine.

  And I saw half the state spread out below me like a giant map. I saw the wrinkled folds of the mountains, the deceptively smooth roll of the desert up to the jagged slopes. I saw the blur of timber blunting the hills and I saw the angular writhing of the narrow road through the passes. Then I felt a sharp pleasurable twinge, like the one you feel when seeing home after being away a long time.

  “There!” Mother whispered as the panorama faded. “I wish I could have known before. It’s been lonely—

  “But you, Peter,” she said strongly. “You and Bethie must go to them.”

  “Why should we, Mother?” I cried in desperation. “What are they to us or we to them that we should leave Socorro and go among strangers?”

  Mother pulled herself up in bed, her eyes intent on my face. She wavered a moment and then Bethie was crouched behind her, steadying her back.

  “They are not strangers,” she said clearly and slowly. “They are the People. We shared the ship with them during the Crossing. They were with us when we were out in the middle of emptiness with only the fading of stars behind and the brightening before to tell us we were moving. They, with us, looked at all the bright frosting of stars across the blackness, wondering if on one of them we would find a welcome.

  “You are woven of their fabric. Even though your father was not of the People—”

  Her voice died, her face changed. Bethie moved from in back of her and lowered her gently. Mother clasped her hands and sighed.

  “It’s a lonely business,” she whispered. “No one can go with you. Even with them waiting it’s lonely.”

  In the silence that followed we heard Gramma Reuther rocking quietly in the front room. Bethie sat on the floor beside me, her cheeks flushed, her eyes wide with a strange dark awe.

  “Peter, it didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all. It—healed!”

  ~ * ~

  But we didn’t go. How could we leave my job and our home and go off to-—where? Looking for—whom? Because—why? It was mostly me, I guess, but I couldn’t quite believe what Mother had told us. After all, she hadn’t said anything definite. We were probably reading meaning where it didn’t exist. Bethie returned again and again to the puzzle of Mother and what she had meant, but we didn’t go.

  And Bethie got paler and thinner, and it was nearly a year later that I came home to find her curled into an impossibly tight ball on her bed, her eyes tight shut, snatching at breath that came out again in sharp moans.

  I nearly went crazy before I at last got through to her and uncurled her enough to get hold of one of her hands. Finally, though, she opened dull dazed eyes and looked past me.

  “Like a dam, Peter,” she gasped. “It all comes in. It should—it should! I was born to—” I wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. “But it just piles up and piles up. It’s supposed to go somewhere. I’m supposed to do something! Peter Peter Peter!” She twisted on the bed, her distorted face pushing into the pillow.

  “What does, Bethie?” I asked, turning her face to mine. “What does?”

  “Glib’s foot and Dad’s side and Mr. Tyree-next-door’s toe—” and her voice faded down through the litany of years of agony.

  “I’ll go get Dr. Dueff,” I said hopelessly.

  “No.” She turned her face away. “Why build the dam higher? Let it break. Oh, soon soon!”

  “Bethie, don’t talk like that,” I said, feeling inside me my terrible aloneness that only Bethie could fend off now that Mother was gone. “We’ll find something—some way—”

  “Mother could help,” she gasped. “A little. But she’s gone. And now I’m picking up mental pain, too! Reena’s afraid she’s got cancer. Oh, Peter Peter!” Her voice strained to a whisper. “Let me die! Help me die!”

  Both of us were shocked to silence by her words. Help her die? I leaned against her hand. Go back into the Presence with the w
eight of unfinished years dragging at our feet? For if she went I went, too.

  Then my eyes flew open and I stared at Bethie’s hand. What Presence? Whose ethics and mores were talking in my mind?

  And so I had to decide. I talked Bethie into a sleeping pill and sat by her even after she was asleep. And as I sat there all the past years wound through my head. The way it must have been for Bethie all this time and I hadn’t let myself know.

  Just before dawn I woke Bethie. We packed and went. I left a note on the kitchen table for Dr. Dueff saying only that we were going to look for help for Bethie and would he ask Reena to see to the house. And thanks.

  ~ * ~

  I slowed the pickup over to the side of the junction and slammed the brakes on.

  “Okay,” I said hopelessly. “You choose which way this time. Or shall we toss for it? Heads straight up, tails straight down! I can’t tell where to go, Bethie. I had only that one little glimpse that Mother gave me of this country. There’s a million canyons and a million side roads. We were fools to leave Socorro. After all, we have nothing to go on but what Mother said. It might have been delirium.”