Ingathering

by Zenna Henderson

“Miss Carolle!” I felt my eyes tingle to tears at his voice. “You’ve given me my music!” I could hear him swallow. “I want to give you something.” My hand moved in protest, but he went on quickly, “Please come outside.”

  “Like this? I’m in my robe and slippers.”

  “They’re warm enough. Here, I’ll help you through the window.”

  And before I knew it I was over the low sill and clinging dizzily to it from the outside.

  “My braces,” I said, loathing the words with a horrible loathing. “My crutches.”

  “No,” the Francher kid said. “You don’t need them. Walk across the yard, Miss Carolle, all alone.”

  “I can’t!” I cried through my shock. “Oh, Francher, don’t tease me!”

  “Yes, you can. That’s what I’m giving you. I can’t mend you but I can give you that much. Walk.”

  I clung frantically to the sill. Then I saw again Francher and Twyla spiraling down from the treetops, Francher upside down in the air with his midriff showing, Francher bouncing Balance Rock from field to field.

  I let go of the sill. I took a step. And another, and another. I held my hands far out from my sides. Glorious freedom from clenched hands and aching elbows! Across the yard I went, every step in the milky moonlight a paean of praise. I turned at the fence and looked back. The Francher kid was crouched by the window in a tight huddle of concentration. I lifted onto tiptoe and half skipped, half ran back to the window, feeling the wind of my going lift my hair back from my cheeks. Oh, it was like a drink after thirst! Like food after famine! Like gates swinging open!

  I fell forward and caught at the window sill. And cried out inarticulately as I felt the old bonds clamp down again, the old half-death seize hold of me. I crumpled to the ground beside the Francher kid. His tormented eyes looked into mine, his face pale and haggard. His forearm went up to wipe his sweat-drenched face. “I’m sorry,” he panted. “That’s all I can do now.”

  My hands reached for him. There was a sudden movement, so quick and so close that I drew my foot back out of the way. I looked up, startled. Dr. Curtis and a shadowy someone else were standing over us. But the surprise of their being there was drowned in the sudden upsurge of wonderment.

  “It moved!” I cried. “My foot moved. Look! Look! It moved!” And I concentrated on it again—hard, hard! After laborious seconds my left big toe wiggled.

  My hysterical laugh was half a shout. “One toe is better than none!” I sobbed. “Isn’t it, Dr. Curtis? Doesn’t that mean that someday—that maybe—?”

  He had dropped to his knees and he gathered my frantic hands into his two big quiet ones.

  “It might well be,” he said. “Jemmy will help us find out.”

  The other figure knelt beside Dr. Curtis. There was a curious waiting kind of silence, but it wasn’t me he was looking at. It wasn’t my hands he reached for. It wasn’t my voice that cried out softly.

  But it was the Francher kid who suddenly launched himself into the arms of the stranger and began to wail, the wild noisy crying of a child—a child who could be brave as long as he was completely lost but who had to dissolve into tears when rescue came.

  The stranger looked over the Francher kid’s head at Dr. Curtis. “He’s mine,” he said. “But she’s almost one of yours.”

  It could all have been a dream, or a mad explosion of imagination of some sort; but they don’t come any less imaginative than Mrs. McVey, and I know she will never forget the Francher kid. She has another foster child now, a placid plump little girl who loves to sit and listen to woman-talk—but the Francher kid is indelible in the McVey memory. Unborn generations will probably hear of him and his shoes.

  And Twyla—she will carry his magic to her grave, unless (and I know she sometimes hopes prayerfully) Francher someday goes back for her.

  Jemmy brought him to Cougar Canyon, and here they are helping him sort out all his many gifts and capabilities—some of which are unique to him—so that he will be able, finally, to fit into his most effective slot in their scheme of things. They tell me that there are those of this world who are developing even now in the footsteps of the People. That’s what Jemmy meant when he told Dr. Curtis I was almost one of his.

  And I am walking. Dr. Curtis brought Bethie. She only touched me softly with her hands and read me to Dr. Curtis. And I had to accept it then—that it was mostly myself that stood in my own way. That my doctor had been right: that time, patience, and believing could make me whole again.

  The more I think about it, the more I think that those three words are the key to almost everything.

  Time, patience, and believing—and the greatest of these is believing.

  Interlude: Lea 6

  Lea sat in the dark of the bedroom and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She groped for and shrugged into a robe and huddled it around her. She went softly to the window and sat down on the broad sill. A lopsided moon rolled in the clouds above the hills, and all the Canyon lay ebony and ivory under its lights. Lea could see the haphazard dotting of houses that made up the community. All were dark except for one far window near the creek cliff.

  Suddenly the whole scene seemed to take a sharp turn, completely out of focus. The hills and canyons became as strange as though she were looking at a moonscape or the hidden hills of Venus. Nothing looked familiar; even the moon suddenly became a leering frightening thing that could come closer and closer and closer. Lea hid her face in the bend of her elbow and drew her knees up sharply to support her shaking arms.

  “What am I doing here?” she whispered. “What on earth am I doing here? I don’t belong here. I’ve got to get away. What have I to do with all these—these—creatures? I don’t believe them! I don’t believe anything. It’s madness. I’ve gone mad somewhere along the way. This must be an asylum. All these evenings—just pooling madnesses to see if a sanity will come out of it!”

  She shuddered and lifted her head slowly, reluctantly opening her eyes. Determinedly she stared at the moon and the hills and the billowing clouds until they came back to familiarity. “A madness,” she whispered. “But such a comforting madness. If only I could stay here forever—” Wistful tears blurred the moon. “If only, if only!

  “Fool!” Lea buried her face fiercely on her knees again. “Make up your mind. Is this or isn’t this insanity? You can’t have it both ways—not at one time.” Then the wistful one whispered, “If this is insanity—I’ll take it anyway. Whatever it is it makes a wonderful kind of sense that I’ve never been able to find before. I’m so tired of suspecting everything. Miss Carolle said the greatest was believing. I’ve got to believe, whether I’m mistaken or not.” She leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window, her eyes intent on the far light. “I wonder what their wakefulness is,” she sighed.

  She shivered away from the chill of the glass and rested her cheek on her knees again.

  “But it’s time,” she thought. “Time for me to take a hand in my drifting. That’s all it is, my staying here. Drifting in the warm waters of prebirth. Oh, it’s lovely here. No worries about earning a living. No worries about what to do. No wondering which branch of the Yin the road to take. But it can’t last.” She turned her face and looked up at the moon. “Nothing is forever,” she smiled wryly, “though unhappiness comes pretty close to it.

  “How long can I expect Karen to take care of me? I’m no help to anyone. I have nothing to contribute. I’m a drag on her whatever she does. And I can’t—how can I ever get cured of anything in such a protected environment? I’ve got to go out and learn to look the world full in the face.” Her mouth twisted. “And even spit in its eye if necessary.”

  “Oh, I can’t, I can’t,” one of her wailed. “Pull the ground up over me and let me be quit of everything.”

  “Shut up!” Lea answered sternly. “I’m running things now. Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  She dressed hastily in the darkness beyond the reach of the moonlight, tears flooding down her face.
As she bent over to slip her shoes on, she crumpled against the bed and sobbed deep wrenching sobs for a moment, then finished dressing. She put on her own freshly laundered clothes. She shrugged into her coat—“nearly new”—and gathered up her purse.

  “Money—” she thought. “I have no money—”

  She dumped the purse on the bed. The few articles clinked on the bedspread. “I threw everything else away before I left—” able at last to remember leaving without darkness descending upon her, “and spent my last dollar—” She opened her billfold and spread it wide. “Not a cent.”

  She tugged out the miscellany of cards in the card compartment—little rectangles out of the past. “Why didn’t I throw these out, too? Useless—” She started to cram them back blindly into the compartment, but her fingers hesitated on a projecting corner. She pulled out a thin navy-blue folder.

  “Well! I did forget! My traveler’s checks—if there’s anything left.” She unsnapped the folder and fingered the thin crisp sheaf. “Enough,” she whispered. “Enough for running again—” She dumped everything back into her purse, then she opened the top dresser drawer. A faint blue light touched the outline of her face. She picked up the koomatka and turned it in her hand. She dosed her fingers softly over it as she tore the margin from a magazine on the dresser top. She scrawled on it, “Thank you,” and weighted the scrap of paper with the koomatka.

  The shadows were so black, but she was afraid to walk in the light. She stumbled down from the house toward the road, not letting herself think of the miles and miles to be covered before reaching Kerry Canyon or anywhere. She had just reached the road when she started convulsively and muffled a cry against her clenched fists. Something was moving in the moonlight. She stood paralyzed in the shadow.

  “Oh, hi!” came a cheerful voice, and the figure turned to her. “Just getting ready to leave. Didn’t know anyone was going in, this trip. You just about got left. Climb in—”

  Wordlessly Lea climbed into the battered old pickup.

  “Some old jalopy, isn’t it?” The fellow went on blithely, slamming the door and hooking it shut with a piece of baling wire. “I guess if you keep anything long enough it’ll turn into an antique. This turned long ago! That’s the only reason I can think of for their keeping it.”

  Lea made a vague noise and clutched the side of the car grimly as it took off and raced down the road a yard above the white gravelly surface.

  “I haven’t noticed you around,” the driver said, “but then there’s more people here than ever in the history of the Canyon with all this excitement going on. It’s my first visit. It’s comforting somehow, knowing there are so many of us, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.” Lea’s voice was a little rusty. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”

  “Nuisance, though, having to make all our trips in and out by night. They say that they used to be able to lift at least across Jackass Flat even in the daytime and then wheel in the rest of the way. But it’s getting mighty close to dude season and we have to be more careful than during the winter. Travel at night. Wheel in from Widow’s Peak. Lousy road, too. Takes twice as long. Have you decided yet?”

  “Decided?” Lea glanced at him in the moonlight.

  “Oh, I know I have no business asking,” he smiled, “but it’s what everyone is wondering.” He sobered, leaning his arms on the steering wheel. “I’ve decided. Six times. Thought I’d finally decided for sure. Then comes a moonlight night like this—” He looked out over the vast panorama of hills and plains and far reaches—and sighed.

  The rest of the trip was made in silence. Lea laughed shakily at her own clutching terror as the wheels touched down with a thud on the road near Widow’s Peak. After that, conversation was impossible over the jolting bumping bouncing progress of the truck.

  They arrived at Kerry Canyon just as the sunlight washed across the moon. The driver unhooked the door for her and let her out into the shivery dawn.

  “We’re in and out almost every morning and evening,” he said. “You coming back tonight?”

  “No.” Lea shivered and huddled into her coat. “Not tonight.”

  “Don’t be too long,” the driver smiled. “It can’t be much longer, you know. If you get back when no truck’s in, just call. Mmm. Karen’s Receptor this week. Bethie next. Someone’ll come in to get you.”

  “Thank you,” Lea said. “Thanks a lot.” And she turned blindly away from his good-by.

  The diner next to the bus stop was small and stuffy, clumsy still with the weight of the night, not quite awake in the bare drafty dawn. The cup of coffee was hot but hurried, and a little weak. Lea sipped and set it down, staring into its dark shaken depths.

  “Even if this is all,” she thought. “If I’m never to have any more of order and peace and sense of direction—why, I’ve at least had a glimpse, and some people never get even that much. I think I have the key now—the almost impossible key to my locked door. Time, patience, and believing—and the greatest of these is believing.”

  After a while she sipped again, not looking up, and found that the coffee had cooled.

  “Hot it up for you?” A new waitress was behind the counter, briskly tying her apron strings. “Bus’ll be along in just a little while.”

  “Thank you.” Lea held out her cup, firmly putting away the vision of a cup of coffee that had steamed gently far into the morning, waiting, patient.

  Time is a word—a shadow of an idea; but always, always, out of the whirlwind of events, the multiplicity of human activities or the endless boredom of disinterest, there is the sky—the sky with all its unchanging changeableness showing the variations of Now and the stability of Forever. There are the stars, the square-set corners of our eternities that wheel and turn and always find their way back. There are the transient tumbled clouds, the windy wisps of mares’ tails, the crackling mackerel skies, and the romping delightful tumult of the thunderstorms. And the moon—the moon that dreams and sets to dreaming—that mends the world with its compassionate light and makes everything look as though newness is forever.

  On such a night as this...

  Lea leaned on the railing and sighed into the moonlight. Was it two such moons ago or only one that she had been on the bridge or fainting in the skies or receiving in the crisp mountain twilight love’s gift of light from a child? She had shattered the rigidness of her old time-pattern and had not yet confined herself in a new one. Time had not yet paced itself into any sort of uniformity for her.

  Tomorrow Grace would be back from her appendectomy, back to her job at the Lodge, the job Lea had been fortunate enough to step right into. But now this lame little temporary refuge would be gone. It meant another step into uncertainty. Lea would be free again, free from the clatter of the kitchen and dining room, free to go into the bondage of aimlessness again.

  “Except that I have come a little way out of my darkness into a twilight zone. And if I take this next step patiently and believingly—”

  “It will lead you right back to the Canyon—” The laughing voice came softly.

  Lea whirled with an inarticulate cry. Then she was clutching Karen and crying, “Oh, Karen! Karen!”

  “Watch it! Watch it!” Karen laughed, her arms tender around Lea’s shaken shoulders. “Don’t bruise the body! Oh, Lea! It’s good to see you again! This is a better suicide-type place than that bridge.” Her voice ran on, covering Lea’s struggle for self-possession. “Want me to push you over here? Must be half a mile straight down. And into a river, yet—a river with water.”

  “Wet water,” Lea quavered, releasing Karen and rubbing her arm across her wet cheeks. “And much too cold for comfortable dying. Oh, Karen! I was such a fool! Just because my eyes were shut I thought the sun had been turned off. Such a f-fool!” She gulped.

  “Always last year a fool,” Karen said. “Which isn’t too bad if this year we know it and aren’t the same kind of fool. When can you come back with me?”

  “Back with you?” Lea
stared. “You mean back to the Canyon?”

  “Where else?” Karen asked. “For one thing you didn’t finish all the installments—”

  “But surely by now—”

  “Not quite yet,” Karen said. “You haven’t even missed one. The last one should be ready by the time we get back. You see; just after you left—Well, you’ll hear it all later. But I’m so sorry you left when you did. I didn’t get to take you over the hill—”

  “But the hill’s still there, isn’t it?” Lea smiled. “The eternal hills—?”

  “Yes,” Karen sighed. “The hill’s still there but I could take anyone there now. Well, it can’t be helped. When can you leave?”

  “Tomorrow Grace will be back,” Lea said. “I was lucky to get this job when I did. It helped tide me over—”

  “As tiding-over goes it’s pretty good,” Karen agreed. “But it isn’t a belonging-type thing for you.”

  Lea shivered, suddenly cold in the soul, fearing a change of pattern. “It’ll do.”

  “Nothing will do,” Karen said sharply, “if it’s just a make-do, a time-filler, a drifting. If you won’t fill the slot you were meant to, you might as well just sit and count your fingers. Otherwise you just interfere with everything.”

  “Oh, I’m willing to try to fill my slot. It’s just that I’m still in the uncomfortable process of trying to find out what rating I am in whose category, and, even if I don’t like it much, I’m beginning to feel that I belong to something and that I’m heading somewhere.”

  “Well, your most immediate somewhere is the Canyon,” Karen said. “I’ll be by for you tomorrow evening. You’re not so far from us as the People fly! Your luggage?”

  Lea laughed. “I have a toothbrush now, and a nightgown.”

  “Materialist!” Karen put out her forefinger and touched Lea’s cheek softly. “The light is coming back. The candle is alight again.”

  “Praised be the Power.” The words came unlearned to Lea’s lips.

  “The Presence be with you.” Karen lifted to the porch railing, her back to the moon, her face in shadow. Her hands were silvered with moonlight as she reached out to touch Lea’s two shoulders in farewell.