Silence again.
Then Katie-Mary: “Oh, no! Not another kook! What’s with me that every—” Her surrendering sigh was long and wavery, clearly audible to me. “Okay, then, okay. Maybe this is my thing I’ve been waiting here all this time to do. Okay, you do that.” She was resigned. “If you think you can make me have total recall, okay, we’ll give it a try. I don’t think my total will be very, but I’m too tired to fight with you. One kook more—”
I scrambled down the ladder.
They were waiting for me just outside the door, already on the bike, helmets in hand. Katie-Mary looked at me helplessly. “I’ll be back,” she said. “He says I will.” She nodded against the back of the Listener and pulled the helmet down and busied herself with the fastenings.
The Listener smiled at me—like an eager child bursting with anticipation—maybe for Christmas. “Thanks, Frederic,” he said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, “I think. But what for?”
“Your floor was comfortable. The water was cool.” He grinned at me. “And Katie-Mary was here.” He pulled on his face-covering helmet. Light ran across the dark blankness where his face had been. I caught myself looking down at his hands to see if they were green—a little green man from—where? But he had gloves on.
I didn’t see them after they left the rectangle of lamplight by the open door. I stood there a long time in the cold slant of light until the stuttering roar of their going was long gone.
Sometimes I think it was a century—other times it was maybe ten minutes before Katie-Mary was standing there again in the lamplight, her face quiet and unsmiling. Actually, it was about a week. I think.
“Hi, chick!” I said. “Come on in.” If I hadn’t stepped back, she would have walked right into me. She was like a dream walker.
“I took him,” she said. “On that chopper of his. We split all that lovely, horrible silence. It was like sharp splinters all around us when we finally stopped at the Canyon. Degal was there at the entrance to the Canyon, waiting. And the Old Ones, Jemmy and Valancy. And the girl with big eyes. How could they have known?
“The Listener sat there waiting—even after I got down. Then Degal said, ‘Hi, Katie-Mary. Hi, Listener!’ ” Something rippled across Katie-Mary’s face. He never even met the Listener before, but he knew him.
“Then the Listener got down. Just left his bike standing there, and it didn’t fall. He looked at those People from the Canyon. Then he—he—the Listener, all black in his biking outfit, lifted up in the air and stumbled toward them, as awkward as those little kids just learning to fly. They lifted up to him and they all touched hands and he didn’t stumble any more.
“ ‘Home?’ asked the Listener as they settled slowly back down on the hillside.
“ ‘Home,’ said Jemmy. Tm Jemmy and this is—’
“ ‘Valancy and Robelyn,’ said the Listener. He smiled. He was another person. You—you’d hardly recognize him. All at once he was way too big for how small I remembered him.” Katie-Mary suddenly sagged to the floor and sat, her empty hands palm up on the floor on each side of her, her hair falling forward and hiding her turned-down face. After a while her voice woke again.
“It was so—so warm that I nearly froze to death outside. Forever outside. Waiting. They were talking. All of them. So fast—so fast! And all at the same time. And—not—one—sound!
“When they finally stopped and looked at me, I had to look twice before I could tell which was the Listener and which was Degal. They had the same shiningness. The same—you know? —they’d put it all together.
“ ‘Thank you, Katie-Mary,’ said the Listener. ‘All my life I’ve been looking, not even knowing if I’d ever find. Thank you. We’ll send you home again—’ ” She peered up through her hair at me. “We, not ‘they’ or ‘I,’ but we’ll send you home again,’ he said. ‘And give you forgetfulness after you tell Frederic. You’ll be happier so. Frederic needs to know the ending. Loose ends distress him.’
“They sent me back.” Katie-Mary’s face was tilted up, eyes closed, her hand tangled in her hair. “They dosed my eyes and sent me back all by myself—no chopper, no car. A little while ago they sent me back. The wind was cold on my cheeks and nose. There was a feeling of farness below me and above me. And speed. How fast! How fast!” She almost sang it, drowsily, softly, fading to silence.
“Where is this Canyon?” I asked roughly, suddenly homesick for—something.
Katie-Mary’s eyes opened. “What Canyon?”
“The one where you took the Listener,” I insisted. “Where he flew to his People.”
“Flew!” Katie-Mary grimaced. “Man, what you on?” She came up from the floor in that one smooth surging motion she has.
We will give you forgetfulness after—
“Doos spilled soup on your floor,” I told her, giving it up.
“That Doos!” said Katie-Mary but made no motion toward getting cleaning things. “You know, Frederic,” she said thoughtfully. “I’m being a zero sort of creature, but a zero on the other side of a number can change it into tens or hundreds or thousands. And maybe counting counts—you know?” She lingered at the hall door, looking back at me. “I’m thinking maybe I’ll move around to the other side—you know? I better get started looking for a side I’d like to get counting on. Not that it hasn’t been nice here, but after all, I can’t scrub a floor forever.”
Well—
Katie-Mary’s pale rectangle of floor isn’t so pale any more, since she left. Anyone walks on it or sleeps on it, but no one scrubs it now. And the restless and rootless still surge in and out, in and out, like feverish breathing.
I don’t know why I’m staying. The juice has gone out of the whole deal. But if I went—where would I go? None of this can kid me into thinking that there’s a warm, loving home waiting anywhere on this earth for me—
But then, maybe, like Katie-Mary, I’ll just move over to the other side. Two zeros on the other side of that numeral—
The People Series
Zenna Henderson wrote this summary of the People series and of her life in 1980 for the anthology The Great Science Fiction Series edited by Frederik Pohl, Martin H Greenberg, and Joseph Olander.
By profession, I am a school teacher. My avocation is writing. I have just about taught myself into retirement. Almost all my teaching has been in the first grade, though I have, at one time or another, taught all elementary grades and a little high school.
I am a native Arizonian and have lived most of my life in this state. However, I taught for two years in France. During this time, my first book, Pilgrimage, was put together. And I taught a year in Connecticut, with my feet almost in Long Island Sound. In Arizona, I’ve taught at a Japanese relocation camp during World War II and, much later, at a military post—Fort Huachuca. I’ve taught at a semi-ghost mining town where the kids brought jars of water to school when the water pressure was too low to make it up to the hill-top school house, and we had to unlock the Little Houses left over from a much earlier era. That’s where I taught high school typing and journalism. We had either four or five high school graduates that year.
The first story of the People, “Ararat,” was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in October 1952. It was the second science fiction story of mine that they had published and the second science fiction story I ever had published.
“Ararat” in 1952 was followed by “Gilead” in 1954 (the first time I had my name on the magazine cover), and “Pottage” in 1955. “Wilderness” was published in 1957, “Captivity” in 1958, and “Jordan” in 1959. These six stories, tied together by the narrative of Lea, were published by Doubleday as Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, in 1961.
The reason there was a fairly wide gap between the two books of the People is it took that long to accumulate enough stories to make another book-length narrative.
“Return” was published in 1961, “Shadow on the Moon” in 1962, “Angels Unawares” i
n March 1966, and “Troubling of the Water” in September 1966. These stories were tied together with the Assembling idea after being rearranged into the People chronological order, titled The People: No Different Flesh, and published by Doubleday in 1967.
Both of the People books were later brought out in Avon paperbacks and are still in print.
The interval between the People stories usually indicated other science fiction or fantasy stories—non-People stories—but usually only one or maybe two. The interval between the publishing of the two People books was occupied by compiling these miscellaneous stories into a short story collection, The Anything Box.
After the second People book, another collection of miscellaneous stories titled Holding Wonder was published. Both of these volumes also were brought out as Avon paperbacks and Holding Wonder is still in print. A second edition of The Anything Box is currently being arranged.
All four of the books were published in England by Gollancz, and the People books in Germany also.
When I first started writing “Ararat,” the People were supposed to be a weird group crossing, by magic, the Atlantic Ocean as refugees from a Transylvania-type country. However, I have difficulty writing about unpleasant people, so my characters got People-er and People-er until I discarded the original idea and developed, instead, the refugees from another world idea.
I had trouble naming the first story. I forget whether it was J. Francis McComas or Anthony Boucher—they were co-editors of the magazine at that time—who suggested “Ararat.” That was the beginning of a train of thought that resulted in all the People stories. Both Boucher and McComas were very helpful and friendly. I never got a printed rejection slip from them. When I sent something that bombed completely, they let me know, firmly, but were always most encouraging to me. When the first book was just beginning to be an idea, they helped me find an agent to take care of the complicated business. They were both midwives to my career as a writer.
Readers not familiar with the Bible miss many nuances to the People stories. Many of my titles come from there, and most of my character names. “Deluge” was the Flood after which the ark finally came to rest on Mount Ararat. All the stories in Pilgrimage plus “Deluge” have themes from the Old Testament and applied to individuals or small groups: selling a birthright for a mess of “Pottage”; wandering hopeless years in the “Wilderness”; seeking healing in the balm of “Gilead”; being carried off into an alien “Captivity”; crossing the river “Jordan” into the Promised Land.
I enjoyed writing the People stories because I often started with only a first sentence and surprised and engrossed myself in the new characters that emerged and the new Gifts, Signs, and Persuasions that developed.
I think one of the appeals of the People is that they are a possible forgotten side of the coin that seems always to flip to evil, violence, and cruelty.
I have received a vast—to me—amount of fan mail since I started writing about the People. Some letters were wild and far-out. One said only, “What do you do and what do you know.” I was saddened by others who insisted that the People were real and that, if I wanted to, I could tell them where the People were. They had to know because they were one of the un-found-yet People.
In the last few years, I have begun to receive fan letters from teenagers whose parents were former teenage fans—
Well, it’s nice to gee fan letters, anyway.
The People Chronology
by Mark & Priscilla Olson
Zenna Henderson never published a chronology of the People stories, nor was she in the habit of putting explicit references to dates in them. Nonetheless, the People stories happen to real people in our real world and are embedded in our world. Between that evidence and the characters and events which link the stories, a clear chronology emerges.
1875 Lytha, Timmy born
They are early teens in “Deluge”.
1880 Simon born
He is about ten years old in “Deluge”.
1885 Eve born
In “Deluge” she is a small girl at the time of the destruction of the Home.
1890 Deluge, Angels Unawares, Troubling of the Waters
Stories take place at destruction of the Home or immediately upon landing on Earth.
1890 The Home is destroyed; the People’s ship crashes in Arizona While narrating “Troubling of the Water”, which seems to have occurred a few years after the events themselves, the boy thinks about how it will be only seven years to the new century. There is no evidence that the trip from the Home to Earth took a very long time. The lack of mention of supplies for a long trip and the lack of comment on the length of the trip suggest that it was not long.
1890 David, ’Chelle, Simon, and many other characters from “Deluge” die as ship crashes or in the aftermath.
“In Angels Unawares”, Lytha says that David, ’Chelle and Lytha’s brothers died in crash or at hands of fundamentalists.
1891 Tell Us a Story
Story takes place mostly in the first winter and spring after the ship crashes. The People have been on Earth long enough to have grown a crop of corn. Eliada is Lytha’s cousin.
1902 That Boy
The evidence is ambiguous: Cars are still unknown, at least in Arizona. Theo was probably born on Earth. Theo is around 12.
1912 Tell Us a Story (ending frame)
Ending frame of story takes place when Nathan is grown with young children of his own.
1916 Peter born
Peter was Eve’s first child. He is nine years older than Bethie. This means that Eve had her first child at 30 which isn’t unbelievable, particularly considering that she probably was reluctant to take a chance with an Earth-human father.
1916 Jemmy born
Jemmy was 24 during “Ararat”.
1918 Valancy Carmody born
In “Ararat”, we learn that Valancy’s parents were babies or very small children when the People’s ship crashed. They were adopted by an elderly couple of the People (who also survived the crash), grew up, and married.
1921 Karen born
Karen was 19 during “Ararat”.
1925 Bethie born
Bethie was Eve’s second child and in “Gilead” she is stated as being nine years younger than Peter. It appears that she was in her late teens in “Gilead.”
1931 Jake Kroginold and Lizbeth born
They are ten or eleven in “Ararat” and at least in their thirties in “The Indelible Kind”.
1938 Bram born
Bram is a late teen in “Jordan”.
1939 Francher Kid born
He was a mid-teen in “Captivity”.
1940 Karen’s father becomes an Old One
It happened a year before “Ararat”.
1941 Valancy comes to Cougar Canyon
Valancy was 23 when she came to Cougar Canyon in “Ararat”.
1941 Ararat
Jake Kroginold is about 10 years old.
1942 Explosion maims Obla and kills Bram’s parents
The explosion happened at such a young age that Bram doesn’t remember it in “Jordan” where he is a mid-teen.
1942 Karen spends a year in teacher’s college and befriends Melodye Amerson.
She was ready to go to college when Valancy arrived in Cougar Canyon. Melodye’s remembrance in “Pottage” says that she was many years out of school, so Karen’s schooling needs to be as early as possible.
1943 Valancy and Jemmy marry
1943 Gilead
Bethie was about 18 in “Gilead”. Valancy already was part of the Cougar Canyon Group, and Karen is obviously an adult, though still quite young, so it has to be at least a couple of years after “Ararat”.
1945 Remy born
Remy is Bethie’s first child, and he was 17 in “Shadow on the Moon” which takes place in 1962.
1947 Shadow (Bethie-too) born
She’s about two years younger than Remy, and is Bethie’s second child.
1950 Wilderness
Fairly arbitrary date based on it happening before “Jordan” (Dita and Low participate in remembering) and after “Ararat” (Valancy is part of the Cougar Canyon Group.) Saddle shoes also date story to 40s or 50s.
1951 Pottage
Karen has adult responsibilities. Melodye Amerson had heard of the People from Karen quite a few years previously when Karen was in teacher’s college with her. It is remembered in “Jordan”.
1954 Captivity
Fairly arbitrary date based on it happening before “Jordan” and a few years after “Pottage”. (Dr. Curtis has been working with the People for some time.) Jeeps are in common use, and rock ‘n’ roll is preferred teen music.
1955 Jordan
Ship from new Home arrives
Lea is succored by Karen
Lea framing story
The ship from New Home has just arrived and is the reason for the remembering. Jemmy and Valancy have their first child which seems a matter for inordinate rejoicing. This fits their having been trying to have a child for thirteen years. Jemmy is also an Old One.
1956 Michal Without
Very hard to assign, but general flavor suggests definitely post-WW II. Jemmy and Karen are adults.
1958 Cougar Canyon abandoned
The Group moves out of Cougar Canyon because it will be flooded by rising waters from dam. (There’s not a whole lot of reason for this specific date—it could be any time between about 1955 and 1962 or ‘63. We picked this date to keep Jemmy from being too old in “Return”, see below.)
1961 Return
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