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 bad 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 hack 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. Before moonrise the next night Lea stood on the dark porch hugging her small bundle to her, shivering from excitement and the wind that strained icily through the pinion trees on the canyon's rim. The featureless bank of gray clouds had spread and spread over the sky since sundown. Moonrise would be a private thing for the upper side of the growing grayness. She started as the shadows above her stirred and coagulated and became a figure. 'Oh, Karen,' she cried softly, 'I'm afraid. Can't I wait and go by bus? It's going to rain. Look-look!' She held her hand out and felt the sting of the first few random drops. 'Karen sent me.' The deep amused voice shook Lea back against the railing. 'She said she was afraid your toothbrush and nightgown might have compounded themselves. For some reason or other she seems to have suddenly developed a Charley horse in her lifting muscles. Will I do?' 'But-but-' Lea clutched her bundle tighter. 'I can't lift! I'm afraid! I nearly died when Karen transported me last time. Please let me wait and go by bus. It won't take much longer. Only overnight. I wasn't even thinking when Karen told me last night.' She squeezed her eyes shut. 'I'm going to cry,' she choked, 'or cuss, and I don't do either gracefully, so please go. I'm just too darn scared to go with you' She felt him pry her bundle gently out of her spasmed fingers. 'It's not all that bad,' he said matter-of-factly. 'Darn you People!' Lea wanted to yell. 'Don't you ever understand? Don't you ever sympathize?' 'Sure we understand.' The voice held laughter. 'And we sympathize when sympathy is indicated, but we don't slop all over everyone who has a qualm. Ever see a little kid fall down? He always looks around to see whether or not he should cry. Well, you looked around. You found out and you're not crying, are you?' 'No, darn you!' Lea half laughed. 'But honestly I really am too scared-' 'Well-say, my name is Deon in case you'd like to personalize your cussing. Anyway we have ways of managing. I can sleep you or opaque my personal shield so you can't see out-only you'd miss so much either way. I should have brought the jalopy after all.' 'The jalopy?' Lea clutched the railing. 'Sure, you know the jalopy. They weren't planning to use it tonight.' 'if you were thinking I'd feel more secure in that bucket of bolts-' Lea hugged her arms above the elbows. 'I'd still be afraid.' 'Look.' Deon lifted Lea's bundle briskly. 'It's going to rain in about half a minute. We're a long way from home. Karen's expecting you tonight and I promised her. So let's make a start of some kind, and if you find it unbearable we'll try some other way. It's dark and you won't be able to see-' A jab of lightning plunged from the top of the sky to the depth of the canyon below them, and thunder shook the projecting porch like an explosion. Lea gasped and clutched Deon. His arms closed around her as she buried her face against his shoulder, and she felt his face pressed against her hair.
