“I’m sorry, Lytha,” said David. “There was no other way to do it. Ships fell by lot and Timmy’s family and ours will be in different ships.”
“Then let me go to his ship or let him come to mine!” she cried, her cheeks flushing and paling.
“Families must remain together,” I said, my heart breaking for her. “Each ship leaves the Home with the assumption that it is alone. If you went in the other ship, we might never all be together again.”
“But Timmy and I-we might someday be a family! We might-” Lytha’s voice broke. She pressed the backs of her hands against her cheeks and paused. Then she went on quietly. “I would go with Timmy, even so.”
‘Chell and David exchanged distressed glances. “There’s not room for even one of you to change your place. The loads are computed, the arrangements finished,” I said, feeling as though I were slapping Lytha.
“And besides,” said ‘Chell, taking Lytha’s hands, “it isn’t as though you and Timmy were loves. You have only started two-ing. Oh, Lytha, it was such a short time ago that you had your Happy Day. Don’t rush so into growing up!”
“And if I told you Timmy is my love!” cried Lytha.
“Can you tell us so in truth, Lytha?” said ‘Chell, “and say that Timmy feels that you are his love?”
Lytha’s eyes dropped. “Not for sure,” she whispered. “But in time-” She threw back her head impetuously, light swirling across her dark hair. “It isn’t fair! We haven’t had time!” she cried. “Why did all this have to happen now? Why not later? Or sooner?” she faltered, “before we started two-ing! If we have to part now, we might never know-or live our lives without a love because he is really-I am-” She turned and ran from the room, her face hidden.
I sighed and eased myself up from the chair. “I’m old, David,” I said. “I ache with age. Things like this weary me beyond any resting.”
It was something after midnight the next night that I felt Neil call to me. The urgency of his call hurried me into my robe and out of the door, quietly, not to rouse the house.
“Eva-lee.” His greeting hands on my shoulders were cold through my robe and the unfamiliar chilly wind whipped my hems around my bare ankles. “Is Lytha home?”
“Lytha?” The unexpectedness of the question snatched the last web of sleepiness out of my mind. “Of course. Why?”
“I don’t think she is,” said Neil. “Timmy’s gone with all our camping gear and I think she’s gone with him.”
My mind flashed back into the house, Questing. Before my hurried feet could get there, I knew Lytha was gone. But I had to touch the undented pillow and lift the smooth spread before I could convince myself. Back in the garden that flickered black and gold as swollen clouds raced across the distorted full moon, Neil and I exchanged concerned looks.
“Where could they have gone?” he asked. “Poor kids. I’ve already Quested the whole neighborhood and I sent Rosh up to the hillplace to get something-he thought. He brought it back but said nothing about the kids.”
I could see the tightening of the muscles in his jaws as he tilted his chin in the old familiar way, peering at me in the moonlight.
“Did Timmy say anything to you about-about anything?” I stumbled.
“Nothing-the only thing that could remotely-well, you know both of them were upset about being in different ships and Timmy-well, he got all worked up and said he didn’t believe anything was going to happen to the Home, that it was only a late spring and he thought we were silly to go rushing off into Space-“
“Lytha’s words Timmyized,” I said. “We’ve got to find them.”
“Carla’s frantic.” Neil shuffled his feet and put his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders as the wind freshened. “If only we had some idea. If we don’t find them tonight we’ll have to alert the Group tomorrow. Timmy’d never live down the humiliation-“
“I know-‘Touch a teener-touch a tender spot.’” I quoted absently, my mind chewing on something long forgotten or hardly noticed. “Clearance,” I murmured. And Neil closed his mouth on whatever he was going to say as I waited patiently for the vague drifting and isolated flashes in my mind to reproduce the thought I sought.
-Like white lace around their bare brown ankles-
“I have it,” I said. “At least I have an idea. Go tell Carla I’ve gone for them. Tell her not to worry.”
“Blessings,” said Neil, his hands quick and heavy on my shoulders. “You and Thann have always been our cloak against the wind, our hand up the hill-” And he was gone toward Tangle-meadows and Carla.
You and Thann-you and Thann. I was lifting through the darkness, my personal shield activated against the acceleration of my going. Even Neil forgets sometimes that Thann is gone on ahead, I thought, my heart lifting to the memory of Thann’s aliveness. And suddenly the night was full of Thann-of Thann and me-laughing in the skies, climbing the hills, dreaming in the moonlight. Four-ing with Carla and Neil. Two-ing after Gathering Day. The bittersweet memories came so fast that I almost crashed into the piny sighings of a hillside. I lifted above it barely in time. One treetop drew its uppermost twig across the curling of the bare sole of my foot.
Maybe Timmy’s right! I thought suddenly. Maybe Simon and the Oldest are all wrong. How can I possibly leave the Home with Thann still here-waiting. Then I shook myself, quite literally, somersaulting briskly in mid-air. Foolish thoughts, trying to cram Thann back into the limitations of an existence he had outgrown!
I slanted down into the cup of the hills toward the tiny lake I had recognized from Lytha’s thought. This troubled night it had no glitter or gleam. Its waves were much too turbulent for walking or dancing or even for daring. I landed on a pale strip of sand at its edge and shivered as a wave dissolved the sand under my feet into a shaken quiver and then withdrew to let it solidify again.
“Lytha!” I called softly, Questing ahead of my words.
“Lytha!” There was no response in the wind-filled darkness, I lifted to the next pale crescent of sand, feeling like a driven cloud myself. “Lytha! Lytha!” Calling on the family band so it would be perceptible to her alone and Timmy wouldn’t have to know until she told him. “Lytha!”
“Gramma!” Astonishment had squeezed out the answer.
