Ingathering - The Complete People Stories

by Zenna Henderson

“Ah, ah!” Karen laughed. “Remember, you don’t care! You don’t care! Now I’ll have to blindfold you for a minute. Stand up. Here, let me tie this scarf around your eyes. There, I guess that isn’t too tight, but tight enough—” Her chatter poured on and Lea grabbed suddenly, feeling as though the world were dissolving around her. She clung to Karen’s shoulder and stumbled from sand to solidness. “Oh, does being blindfolded make you dizzy?” Karen asked. “Well, okay. I’ll take it off then.” She whisked the scarf off. “Hurry, we have to catch the bus. It’s almost due.” She dragged Lea along the walk on the bridge, headed for the far bank, away from the town.

  “But—” Lea staggered with weariness and hunger, “how did we get up on the bridge again? This is crazy! We were down—”

  “Wondering, Lea?” Karen teased back over her shoulder. “If we hurry we’ll have time for a hamburger for you before the bus gets here. My treat.”

  A hamburger and a glass of milk later, the InterUrban roared up to the curb, gulped Lea and Karen in, and roared away. Twenty minutes later the driver, expostulating, opened the door into blackness.

  “But, lady, there’s nothing out there! Not even a house for a mile!”

  “I know,” Karen smiled. “But this is the place. Someone’s waiting for us.” She tugged Lea down the steps. “Thanks!” she called. “Thanks a lot!”

  “Thanks!” the driver muttered, slamming the doors. “This isn’t even a corner! Screwballs!” And roared off down the road.

  The two girls watched the glowworm retreat of the bus until it disappeared around a curve.

  “Now!” Karen sighed happily. “Miriam is waiting for us somewhere around here. Then we’ll go—”

  “I won’t.” Lea’s voice was flatly stubborn in the almost tangible darkness. “I won’t go another inch. Who do you think you are, anyway? I’m going to stay here until a car comes along—”

  “And jump in front of it?” Karen’s voice was cold and hard. “You have no right to draft someone to be your executioner. Who do you think you are that you can splash your blood all over someone else?”

  “Stop talking about blood!” Lea yelled, stung to have had her thoughts caught from her. “Let me die! Let me die!”

  “It’d serve you right if I did,” Karen said unsympathetically. “I’m not so sure you’re worth saving. But as long as I’ve got you on my hands, shut up and come on. Cry babies bore me.”

  “But—you—don’t—know!” Lea sobbed tearlessly, stumbling miserably along, towed at arm’s length behind Karen, dodging cactus and greasewood, mourning the all-enfolding comfort of nothingness that could have been hers if Karen had only let her go.

  “You might be surprised,” Karen snapped. “But anyway God knows, and you haven’t thought even once of Him this whole evening. If you’re so all-fired eager to go busting into His house uninvited you’d better stop bawling and start thinking up a convincing excuse.”

  “You’re mean!” Lea wailed, like a child.

  “So I’m mean.” Karen stopped so suddenly that Lea stumbled into her. “Maybe I should leave you alone. I don’t want this most wonderful thing that’s happening to be spoiled by such stupid goings on. Good-by!”

  And she was gone before Lea could draw a breath. Gone completely. Not a sound of a footstep. Not a rustle of brush. Lea cowered in the darkness, panic swelling in her chest, fear catching her breath. The high arch of the sky glared at her starrily and the suddenly hostile night crept closer and closer. There was nowhere to go—nowhere to hide—no corner to back into. Nothing—nothing!

  “Karen!” she shrieked, starting to run blindly “Karen!”

  “Watch it.” Karen reached out of the dark and caught her. “There’s cactus around here.” Her voice went on in exasperated patience. “Scared to death of being alone in the dark for two minutes and fourteen seconds—and yet you think an eternity of it would be better than living—

  “Well, I’ve checked with Miriam. She says she can help me manage you, so come along.

  “Miriam, here she is. Think she’s worth saving?”

  Lea recoiled, startled, as Miriam materialized vaguely out of the darkness.

  “Karen, stop sounding so mean,” the shadow said. “You know wild horses couldn’t pull you away from Lea now. She needs healing—not hollering at.”

  “She doesn’t even want to be healed,” Karen said.

  “As though I’m not even here,” Lea thought resentfully. “Not here. Not here.” The looming wave of despair broke and swept over her. “Oh, let me go! Let me die!” She turned away from Karen, but the shadow of Miriam put warm arms around her.

  “She didn’t want to live either, but you wouldn’t accept that—no more than you’ll accept her not wanting to be healed.”

  “It’s late,” Karen said. “Chair-carry?”

  “I suppose so,” Miriam said. “It’ll be shock enough, anyway. The more contact the better.”

  So the two made a chair, hand clasping wrist, wrist clasped by hand. They stooped down.

  “Here, Lea,” Karen said, “sit down. Arms around our necks.”

  “I can walk,” Lea said coldly. “I’m not all that tired. Don’t be silly.” “You can’t walk where we’re going. Don’t argue. We’re behind schedule now. Sit.”

  Lea folded her lips but awkwardly seated herself, clinging tightly as they stood up, lifting her from the ground.

  “Okay?” Miriam asked.

  “Okay,” Karen and Lea said together.

  “Well?” Lea said, waiting for steps to begin.

  “Well,” Karen laughed, “don’t say I didn’t warn you, but look down.”

  Lea looked down. And down! And down! Down to the scurrying sparks along a faded ribbon of a road. Down to the dew-jeweled cobweb of street lights stretching out flatly below. Down to the panoramic perfection of the whole valley, glowing magically in the night. Lea stared, unbelieving, at her two feet swinging free in the air—nothing beneath them but air—the same air that brushed her hair back and tangled her eyelashes as they picked up speed. Terror caught her by the throat. Her arms convulsed around the two girls’ necks.

  “Hey!” Karen strangled. “You’re choking us! You’re all right. Not so tight! Not so tight!”

  “You’d better Still her,” Miriam gasped. “She can’t hear you.”

  “Relax,” Karen said quietly. “Lea, relax.”

  Lea felt fear leave her like a tide going out. Her arms relaxed. Her uncomprehending eyes went up to the stars and down to the lights again. She gave a little sigh and her head drooped on Karen’s shoulder.

  “It did kill me,” she said. “Jumping off the bridge. Only it’s taken me a long time to die. This is just delirium before death. No wonder, with a stub of a tamarisk through my shoulder.” And her eyes closed and she went limp.

  ~ * ~

  Lea lay in the silvery darkness behind her closed eyes and savored the anonymous unfeeling between sleep and waking. Quietness sang through her, a humming stillness. She felt as anonymous as a transparent seaweed floating motionless between two layers of clear water. She breathed slowly, not wanting to disturb the mirror-stillness, the transparent peace. If you breathe quickly you think, and if you think— She stirred, her eyelids fluttering, trying to stay closed, but awareness and the growing light pried them open. She lay thin and flat on the bed, trying to be another white sheet between two muslin ones. But white sheets don’t hear morning birds or smell breakfasts. She turned on her side and waited for the aching burden of life to fill her, to weigh her down, to beset her with its burning futility.

  “Good morning.” Karen was perched on the window sill, reaching out with one cupped hand. “Do you know how to get a bird to notice you, short of being a crumb? I wonder if they do notice anything except food and eggs. Do they ever take a deep breath for the sheer joy of breathing?” She dusted the crumbs from her hands out the window.

  “I don’t know much about birds.” Lea’s voice was thick and rusty. “Nor about joy either, I gu
ess.” She tensed, waiting for the heavy horror to descend.

  “Relax,” Karen said, turning from the window. “I’ve Stilled you.”

  “You mean I’m—I’m healed?” Lea asked, trying to sort out last night’s memories.

  “Oh, my, no! I’ve just switched you off onto a temporary siding. Healing is a slow thing. You have to do it yourself, you know. I can hold the spoon to your lips but you’ll have to do the swallowing.”

  “What’s in the spoon?” Lea asked idly, swimming still in the unbeset peace.

  “What have you to be cured of?”

  “Of life.” Lea turned her face away. “Just cure me of living.”

  “That line again. We could bat words back and forth all day and arrive at nowhere—besides I haven’t the time. I must leave now.” Karen’s face lighted and she spun around lightly. “Oh, Lea! Oh, Lea!” Then, hastily: “There’s breakfast in the other room. I’m shutting you in. I’ll be back later and then—well, by then I’ll have figured out something. God bless!” She whisked through the door but Lea heard no lock click.

  Lea wandered into the other room, a restlessness replacing the usual sick inertia. She crumbled a piece of bacon between her fingers and poured a cup of coffee. She left them both untasted and wandered back into the bedroom. She fingered the strange nightgown she was wearing and then, in a sudden breathless skirl of action, stripped it off and scrambled into her own clothes.

  She yanked the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn. She hammered softly with her fists on the unyielding door. She hurried to the open window and sitting on the sill started to swing her legs across it. Her feet thumped into an invisible something. Startled, she thrust out a hand and stubbed her fingers. She pressed both hands slowly outward and stared at them as they splayed against a something that stopped them.

  She went back to the bed and stared at it. She made it up, quickly, meticulously, mitering the corners of the sheets precisely and plumping the pillow. She melted down to the edge of the bed and stared at her tightly clasped hands. Then she slid slowly down, turning and catching herself on her knees. She buried her face in her hands and whispered into the arid grief that burned her eyes, “Oh, God! Oh, God! Are You really there?”

  For a long time she knelt there, feeling pressed against the barrier that confined her, the barrier that, probably because of Karen, was now an inert impersonal thing instead of the malicious agony-laden frustrating, deliberately evil creature it had been for so long.

  Then suddenly, incongruously, she heard Karen’s voice. “You haven’t eaten.” Her startled head lifted. No one was in the room with her. “You haven’t eaten,” she heard the voice again, Karen’s matter-of-fact tone. “You haven’t eaten.”

  She pulled herself up slowly from her knees, feeling the smart of returning circulation. Stiffly she limped to the other room. The coffee steamed gently at her although she had poured it out a lifetime ago. The bacon and eggs were still warm and uncongealed. She broke the warm crisp toast and began to eat.

  “I’ll figure it all out sometime soon,” she murmured to her plate. “And then I’ll probably scream for a while.”

  ~ * ~

  Karen came back early in the afternoon, bursting through the door that swung open before she reached it.

  “Oh, Lea!” she cried, seizing her and whirling her in a mad dance. “You’d never guess—not in a million years! Oh, Lea! Oh, Lea!” She dumped the two of them onto the bed and laughed delightedly. Lea pulled away from her.

  “Guess what?” Her voice sounded as dry and strained as her tearless eyes.

  Karen sat up quickly. “Oh, Lea! I’m so sorry. In all the mad excitement I forgot.

  “Listen, Jemmy says you’re to come to the Gathering tonight. I can’t tell you—I mean, you wouldn’t be able to understand without a lengthy explanation, and even then—” She looked into Lea’s haunted eyes. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “Even Stilled, it comes through like a blunt knife hacking, doesn’t it? Can’t you cry, Lea? Not even a tear?”

  “Tears—” Lea’s hands were restless. “ ‘Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.’ “ She pressed her hands to the tight constriction in her chest. Her throat ached intolerably. “How can I bear it?” she whispered. “When you let it come back again how can I even bear it?”

  “You don’t have to bear it alone. You need never have borne it alone. And I won’t release you until you have enough strength.

  “Anyway—” Karen stood up briskly, “food again—then a nap. I’ll give sleep to you. Then the Gathering. There will be your new beginning.”

  ~ * ~

  Lea shrank back into her corner, watching with dread as the Gathering grew. Laughter and cries and overtones and undercurrents swirled around the room.

  “They won’t bite!” Karen whispered. “They won’t even notice you, if you don’t want them to. Yes,” she answered Lea’s unasked question. “You must stay—like it or not, whether you can see any use in it or not. I’m not quite sure myself why Jemmy called this Gathering, but how appropriate can you get—having us meet in the schoolhouse? Believe it or not, this is where I got my education—and this is where— Well, teachers have been our undoing—or doing according to your viewpoint. You know, adults can fairly well keep themselves to themselves and not let anyone else in on their closely guarded secrets—but the kids—” She laughed. “Poor cherubs—or maybe they’re wiser. They pour out the most personal things quite unsolicited to almost any adult who will listen—and who’s more apt to listen than a teacher? Ask one sometime how much she learns of a child’s background and everyday family activities from just what is let drop quite unconsciously. Kids are the key to any community—which fact has never been more true than among us. That’s why teachers have been so involved in the affairs of the People. Remind me sometime when we have a minute to tell you about—well, Melodye, for instance. But now—”

  The room suddenly arranged itself decorously and stilled itself expectantly and waited attentively.

  Jemmy half sat on one corner of the teacher’s desk in front of the Group, a piece of paper clutched in one hand. All heads bowed. “We are met together in Thy Name,” Jemmy said. A settling rustle filled the room and subsided. “Out of consideration for some of us the proceedings here will be vocal. I know some of the Group have wondered that we included all of you in the summons. The reasons are twofold. One, to share this joy with us—” A soft musical trill of delight curled around the room, followed by faint laughter. “Francher!” Jemmy said. “The other is because of the project we want to begin tonight.

  “In the last few days it has become increasingly evident that we all have an important decision to make. Whatever we decide there will be good-bys to say. There will be partings to endure. There will be changes.”

  Sorrow was tangible in the room, and a soft minor scale mourned over each note as it moved up and down, just short of tears. “The Old Ones have decided it would be wise to record our history to this point. That’s why all of you are here. Each one of you holds an important part of our story within you. Each of you has influenced indelibly the course of events for our Groups. We want your stories. Not reinterpretations in the light of what you now know, but the original premise, the original groping, the original reaching—” There was a murmur through the room. “Yes,” Jemmy answered. “Live it over, exactly the same—aching and all.

  “Now,” he smoothed out his piece of paper, “chronologically— Oh, first, where’s Davey’s recording gadget?”

  “Gadget?” someone called. “What’s wrong with our own memories?”

  “Nothing,” Jemmy said, “but we want this record independent of any of us, to go with whoever goes and stay with whoever stays. We share the general memories, of course, but all the little details—well, anyway. Davey’s gadget.” It had arrived on the table unobtrusively, small and undistinguished. “Now chronologically—Karen, you’re first—”

  “Who, me?” Karen straightened up, surprised. “Well,
yes,” she answered herself, settling back, “I guess I am.”

  “Come to the desk.” Jemmy said. “Be comfortable.”

  Karen squeezed Lea’s hand and whispered, “Make way for wonder!” and, after threading her way through the rows of desks, sat behind the table.

  “I think I’ll theme this beginning,” she said. “We’ve remarked on the resemblance before, you know.

  “ And the Ark rested...upon the mountains of Ararat.’ Ararat’s more poetical than Baldy, anyway!

  “And now,” she smiled, “to establish Then again. Your help, please?”

  Lea watched Karen, fascinated against her will. She saw her face alter and become younger. She saw her hair change its part and lengthen. She felt years peel back from Karen like thin tissue and she leaned forward, listening as Karen’s voice, higher and younger, began...