Pilgrimage

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 her 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