Ingathering

by Zenna Henderson

  “Remy,” said Jemmy, “are you sure it’s wrong or is it just another earlier version of what we know now?”

  “No!” said Remy. “This time it’s not that. This is a real mistake. He couldn’t possibly have meant it to be like that—”

  “Okay.” Jemmy nodded to Karen and she touched Mark’s forehead. He opened his eyes and half sat up. The scriber flipped across the paper and Karen stilled it with a touch. “What is it?” he asked. “Something go wrong?”

  “No, it’s this diagram.” Remy brought it to him. “I think you have an error here. Look where this goes—”

  The two bent over the paper. Meris looked around the cabin. Valancy was rocking a sleeping Lala in her arms. Davy was sound asleep in the upper bunk. At least his dangling leg looked very asleep. Johannan was absorbed in two books simultaneously. He seemed to be making a comparison of some sort. Meris lay back again, sliding down to a more comfortable position. For the first time in months and months the cabin was lapped from side to side with peace and relaxation. Even the animated discussion going on was no ruffling of the comfortable calmness. She heard, on the edge of her ebbing consciousness, “Why, no! That’s not right at all!” Mark was astonished. “Hoo boy! If I’d sent that in with an error like that! Thanks, fella—” And sleep flowed over Meris.

  She awoke later to the light chatter of Lala’s voice and opened drowsy eyes to see her trailing back from the bathroom, her feet tucked up under her gown away from the chilly floor as she drifted back to Valancy’s arms. The leg above Meris’s head swung violently and withdrew, to be replaced by Davy’s dangling head. He said something to Lala. She laughed and lifted herself up to his outstretched arms. There was a stirring around above Meris’s head before sleeping silence returned.

  Valancy stood and stretched widely. She moved over to the table and thumbed the stack of paper.

  “Going well,” she said softly.

  “Yes,” said Jemmy. “I feel a little like a midwife, snatching something new-born in the middle of the night.”

  “Dern shame to stop here, though,” said Remy. “With such a good beginning—oh, barring a few excursions down dead ends—if we could only tack on a few more chapters.”

  “Uh-uh!” Jemmy stood and stretched, letting his arms fall around Valancy’s shoulders. “You know better than that—”

  “Not even one little hint?”

  “Not even.” Jemmy was firm.

  Sleep flowed over Meris again until pushed back by Davy’s sliding over the edge of the upper bunk.

  “Right in the stomach!” he moaned as he dropped to the floor. “Such a kicking kid I never met. How’d you survive?” he asked Valancy.

  “Nary a kick,” she laughed. “Technique—that’s what it takes.”

  “I was just wondering,” said Davy, opening the stove and probing the coals before he put in another chunk of oak. “That kid Johannan was talking about—the one that’s got interested in vintage cars. What about that place up on Bearcat Flat? You know, that little box canyon where we put all our old jalopies when we discarded them. Engines practically unused. Lifting’s cheaper and faster. Of course the seats and the truck beds are kinda beat up, and the paint. Trees scratch the daylights out of paint. How many are there? Let’s see. The first one was about 19-ought-something—”

  Johannan looked up from his books. “He said something about selling parts or cars to get money for college—”

  “Or restoring them!” Davy cried. “Hey, that could be fun! If he’s the kind that would—”

  “He is,” said Johannan and went back to his reading.

  “It’s almost daylight.” Davy went to the window and parted the curtains. “Wonder how early a riser he is?”

  Meris turned her back to the light and slid back under sleep again.

  Noise and bustle filled the cabin.

  Coffee was perking fragrantly, eggs cracking, bacon spitting itself to crispness. Remy was cheerfully mashing slices of bread down on the hot stove lid and prying up the resultant toast. Lala was flicking around the table, putting two forks at half the places and two knives at the others, then giggling her way back around with redistribution after Johannan pointed out her error.

  Meris, reaching for a jar of peach marmalade on the top shelf of the cupboard, wondered how a day could feel so new and so wonderful. Mark sat at his desk opening and closing the box wherein lay the finished manuscript. He opened it again and fingered the top edge of the stack. He caught Jemmy’s sympathetic grin and grinned back.

  “Just making sure it’s really there,” he explained. “Magic put it in there. Magic might take it out again.”

  “Not this magic. I’ll even ride shotgun for you into town and see that it gets sent off okay,” said Jemmy.

  “Magic or no,” said Mark, sobering, “once more I can say Thank God! Thank God it’s done!”

  “Amen!” said a hovering Lala, and, laughing, Jemmy scooped her out of the air as they all found places at the table.

  Tad was an early riser. He was standing under the hovering pickup, gaping upward in admiring astonishment.

  “Oops!” said Davy, with a sidewise glance at Jemmy. Tad was swept up in a round of introductions during which the pickup lowered slowly to the ground.

  Tad turned from the group back to the pickup. “Look at it!” he said. “It must be at least forty years old!” His voice pushed its genesis back beyond the pyramids.

  “At least that,” said Davy. “Wanta see the motor?”

  “Do I!” He stood by impatiently as Davy wrestled with the hood. Then he blinked. “Hey! How did it get way up there? I mean, how’d it get down—”

  “Look,” said Davy hastily, “see this goes to the spark—”

  The others, laughing, piled into Mark’s car and drove away from the two absorbed autophiles-in-embryo.

  The car pulled over onto a pine flat halfway back from town and the triumphal mailing of the manuscript. This was the parting place. Davy would follow later with the pickup.

  “It’s over,” said Meris, her shoulders sagging a little as she put Lala’s small bundle of belongings into Valancy’s hands. “All over.” Her voice was desolate.

  “Only this little episode,” comforted Valancy. “It’s really only begun.” She put Lala into Meris’s arms. “Tell her good-by, Lala.”

  Lala hugged Meris stranglingly tight saying, “Love you, Meris!”

  “Love you, Lala!” Meris’s voice was shaken with laughter and sorrow.

  “It’s just that she filled up the empty places so wonderfully well,” she explained to Valancy.

  “Yes,” said Valancy softly, her eyes tender and compassionate. “But, you know,” she went on, “you are pregnant again!”

  Before Meris could produce an intelligible thought, good-bys were finished and the whole group was losing itself in the tangle of creek-side vegetation. Lala’s vigorous waving of Deeko was the last sign of them before the leaves closed behind them.

  Meris and Mark stood there, Meris’s head pressed to Mark’s shoulder, both too drained for any emotion. Then Meris stirred and moved toward the car, her eyes suddenly shining. “I don’t think I can wait,” she said. “I don’t think—”

  “Wait for what?” asked Mark, following her.

  “To tell Dr. Hilf—” She covered her mouth, dismayed. “Oh, Mark! We never did find out that doctor’s name!”

  “Not that Hilf is drooling to know,” said Mark, starting the car, “but next time—”

  “Oh, yes,” Meris sat back, her mouth curving happily, “next time, next time!”

  Interlude: Mark & Meris 1

  The next time wasn’t so long by the calendar, but measured by the anticipation and the marking time, it seemed an endless eternity. Then one night Meris, looking down into the warm, moistly fragrant blanket-bundle in the crook of her elbow, felt time snap back into focus. It snapped back so completely and satisfyingly that the long, empty time of grief dwindled to a memory-ache tucked back in the fading
past.

  “And the next one,” she said drowsily to Mark, “will be a brother for her.”

  The nurse laughed. “Most new mothers feel, at this point, that they are through with childbearing. But I guess they soon forget because we certainly get a lot of repeaters!”

  The Saturday before the baby’s christening, Meris felt a stir of pleasure as she waited for her guests to arrive. So much of magic was interwoven with her encounters with them, the magic of being freed from grief, of bringing forth a new life, and the magic of the final successful production of Mark’s book. She was wondering, with a pleasurable apprehension, what means of transportation the guests would use, treetop high, one wheel spinning lazily! when a clanging clatter drew her to the front window.

  There in all its glory, shining with love, new paint, and dignity, sailed the Overland that had been moldering behind Tad’s barn. Flushed with excitement and pride, Tad, with an equally proud Johannan seated beside him, steered the vehicle ponderously over to the curb. There it hiccoughed, jumped, and expired with a shudder.

  In the split second of silence after the noise cut off, there was a clinking rattle and a nut fell down from somewhere underneath and rolled out into the street.

  There was a shout of relieved and amused laughter and the car erupted people apparently through and over every door. Meris shrank back a little, still tender in her social contact area. Then calling, “Mark, they’re here,” she opened the door to the babble of happy voices.

  All the voices turned out to be female-type voices and she looked around and asked, “But where—?”

  “The others?” Karen asked. “Behold!” And she gestured toward the old car, where the only signs of life were three sets of feet protruding from under it, with a patient Jemmy leaning on a brightly black fender above them. “May I present, the feet, Tad, Davy, and Johannan?” Karen laughed. “Johannan is worse than either of the boys. You see, he’d never ever seen a car before he rode in yours!”

  Finally everyone was met and greeted and all the faces swam up to familiarity again out of the remoteness of the time Before the Baby.

  Lala—forever Lala in spite of translations!—peered at the bundle on Valancy’s lap. “It’s little,” she said.

  Meris was startled. Valancy smiled at her. “Did you expect her to un-English forever?” she teased. “Yes, Lala, it’s a girl baby, very new and very little.”

  “I’m not little,” said Lala, straightening from where she leaned against Meris and tightening to attention, her tummy rounding out in her effort to assume proportions. “I’m big!” She moved closer to Meris. “I had a birthday.”

  “Oh, how nice!” said Meris.

  “We don’t know what year to put on it, though,” said Lala solemnly. “I want to put six, but they want to put five.”

  “Oh, six, of course!” exclaimed Meris.

  Lala launched herself onto Meris and hugged her hair all askew. “Love you, Meris!” she cried. “Six, of course!”

  “There has been a little discussion about the matter,” said Valancy. “The time element differs between here and the New Home. And since she is precocious—”

  “The New Home,” said Meris thoughtfully. “The New Home. You know, I suspended all my disbelief right at the beginning of chis Lala business, but now I feel questions bubbling and frothing—”

  “I thought I saw question marks arising in both your eyes,” laughed Valancy. “After church tomorrow, after this cherub receives her name before God and the congregation, we’ll tackle a few of those questions. But now—” she hugged the wide-eyed, moist-mouthed child gently “—now this is the center of our interest.”

  The warm Sunday afternoon was slipping into evening. Davy, Tad, and Johannan were—again—three pairs of feet protruding from under the Overland. The three had managed to nurse it along all the way to the University City, but now it stubbornly sat in the driveway and merely rocked, voiceless, no matter how long they cranked it.

  The three of them had been having the time of their lives. They had visited the Group’s auto boneyard up-canyon and then, through avid reading of everything relevant that they could put their hands on, had slowly and bedazzledly come to a realization of what a wealth of material they had to work with.

  Tad, after a few severe jolts from working with members of the People, such as seeing cars and parts thereof clattering massively unsupported through the air and watching Johannan weld a rip in a fender by tracing it with a fingertip, then concentrating on the task, had managed to compartmentalize the whole car business and shut it off securely from any need to make the methods of the People square with Outsiders’ methods. And his college fund was building beautifully.

  So there the three of them were under the Overland that was the current enthusiasm, ostensibly to diagnose the trouble, but also to delight in breathing deeply of sun-warmed metal and to taste the oily fragrance of cup grease and dust.

  Mark and Jemmy were perched on the patio wall, immersed in some point from Mark’s book. Lala was wrapped up in the wonder of Alicia’s tiny, flailing fist, that if intercepted, would curl so tightly around a finger or thumb.

  Meris smiled at Valancy and shifted the burden of ’Licia to her other arm. “I think I’d better park this bundle somewhere. She’s gained ten pounds in the last five minutes, so I think that a nap is indicated.” With the help of Valancy, Karen, and Bethie, Meris gathered up various odds and ends of equipment and carried the already sleeping ’Licia into the house.

  Later, in the patio, the women gathered again, Lala a warm weight in Valancy’s lap.

  “Now,” said Meris, comfortably. “Now’s the time to erase a few of my question marks. What is the Home? Where is the Home? Why is it the New Home?”

  “Not so fast—not so fast!” laughed Valancy. “This is Bethie’s little red wagon. Let her drag it!”

  “Oh, but—!” Bethie blushed and shook her head. “Why mine? I’d rather—”

  “But you have been wanting to Assemble for Shadow, anyway, so that she’d have a verbalized memory of the Crossing. It’s closer through your line.” Her smile softened as she turned to Meris. “My parents were in the Crossing, but they were Called during the landing. Bethie’s mother was in the Crossing and survived. Karen’s grandparents did, too, but that’s a step farther back. And, Bethie, haven’t you already—”

  “Yes,” said Bethie softly, “from the Home to the beginning of the Crossing. Oh, how strange! How strange and wonderful! Oh, Valancy! To have lost the Home!”

  “Now you’re question-marking my eyes,” laughed Valancy. “I’ve never gone by chapter and verse through that life myself. Jemmy—Mark—we’re ready!”

  “It’ll be better, subvocal,” said Bethie shyly. “Karen, you could touch Meris’s hand so she can see, too. And Jemmy, you and Mark.” The group settled comfortably.

  “I went back through my mother’s remembrances,” Bethie’s soft voice came through a comfortable dimming and fading of the patio. “Her grandmother before her verbalized a great deal. It was a big help. We can take it from her. We will begin on one happy morning—”

  Deluge

  ... and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.

  Gen. 7:17

  “The children are up already, Eva-lee?” asked David, lounging back in his chair after his first long, satisfying swallow from his morning cup.

  “Foolish question, David, on Gathering Day,” I laughed. “They’ve been up since before it was light. Have you forgotten how you used to feel?”

  “Of course not.” My son cradled his cup in his two hands to warm it and watched idly until steam plumed up fragrantly. “I just forgot—oh, momentarily, I assure you—that it was Gathering Day. So far it hasn’t felt much like failova weather.”

  “No, it hasn’t,” I answered, puckering my forehead thoughtfully. “It has felt—odd—this year. The green isn’t as—Oh, good morning, ’Chell,” to my daughter-of-love, “I suppose the little imps waked you first thing?�
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  “At least half an hour before that,” yawned ’Chell. “I suppose I used to do it myself. But just wait—they’ll have their yawning time when they’re parents.”

  “Mother! Mother! Father! Gramma!”

  The door slapped open and the children avalanched in, all talking shrilly at once until David waved his cup at them and lifted one eyebrow. ’Chell laughed at the sudden silence.

  “That’s better,” she said. “What’s all the uproar?”

  The children looked at one another and the five-year-old Eve was nudged to the fore, but, as usual, David started talking. “We were out gathering panthus leaves to make our Gathering baskets, and all at once—” He paused and nudged Eve again. “You tell, Eve. After all, it’s you—”

  “Oh, no!” cried ’Chell. “Not my last baby! Not already!”

  “Look,” said Eve solemnly. “Look at me.”

  She stood tiptoe and wavered a little, her arms outstretched for balance, and then she lifted slowly and carefully up into her mother’s arms.

  We all laughed and applauded and even ’Chell, after blotting her surprised tears on Eve’s dark curls, laughed with us.

  “Bless-a-baby!” she said, hugging her tight. “Lifting all alone already—and on Gathering Day, too! It’s not everyone who can have Gathering Day for her Happy Day!” Then she sobered and pressed the solemn ceremonial kiss on each cheek. “Lift in delight all your life, Eve!” she said.

  Eve matched her parents’ solemnity as her father softly completed the ritual. “By the Presence and the Name and the Power, lift to good and the Glory until your Calling.” And we all joined in making the Sign.

  “I speak for her next,” I said, holding out my arms. “Think you can lift to Gramma, Eve?”

  “Well...” Eve considered the gap between her and me—the chair, the breakfast table—all the obstacles before my waiting arms. And then she smiled. “Look at me,” she said. “Here I come, Gramma.”