“The rain is raining,” said Thann, his voice choked with laughter, his head rolling on the sharp shale of the bank.
“The rain is raining-and don’t go near the water!” His nonsense ended with a small moan that tore my heart.
“Thann, Thann! Let’s get out of this mess. Come on. Can you lift? Help me-“
He lifted his head and let it fall back with a thunk against the rocks. His utter stillness panicked me. I sobbed as I reached into my memory for the inanimate lift. It seemed a lifetime before I finally got him up out of the mud and hovered him hand high above the bank. Cautiously I pushed him along, carefully guiding him between the bushes and trees until I found a flat place that crunched with fallen oak leaves. I “platted” him softly to the ground and for a long time I lay there by him, my hand on his sleeve, not even able to think coherently about what had happened.
The sun was gone when I shivered and roused myself. I was cold and Thann was shaken at intervals by an icy shuddering. I scrambled around in the fading fight and gathered wood together and laid a fire. I knelt by the neat stack and gathered myself together for the necessary concentration. Finally, after sweat had gathered on my forehead and trickled into my eyes, I managed to produce a tiny spark that sputtered and hesitated and then took a shining bite out of a dry leaf. I rubbed my hands above the tiny flame and waited for it to grow. Then I lifted Thann’s head to my lap and started the warmth circulating about us.
When our shivering stopped, I suddenly caught my breath and grimaced wryly. How quickly we forget! I was getting as bad as an Outsider! And I clicked my personal shield on, extending it to include Thann. In the ensuing warmth, I looked down at Thann, touching his mud-stained cheek softly, letting my love flow to him like a river of strength. I heard his breathing change and he stirred under my hands.
“Are we Home?” he asked.
“We’re on Earth,” I said.
“We left Earth years ago,” he chided. “Why do I hurt so much?”
“We came back.” I kept my voice steady with an effort.
“Because of me-and Child Within.”
“Child Within-” His voice strengthened. “Hippity-hop to the candy shop,” he remembered. “What happened?”
“The Canyon isn’t here any more,” I said, raising his shoulders carefully into my arms. “We crashed into water. Everything’s gone. We lost everything.” My heart squeezed for the tiny gowns Child Within would never wear.
“Where are our People?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“When you find them, you’ll be all right,” he said drowsily.
“We’ll be all right,” I said sharply, my arms tightening around him “In the morning, we’ll find them and Bethie will find out what’s wrong with you and we’ll mend you.”
He sat up slowly, haggard and dirty in the upflare of firelight, his hand going to his bandaged head. “I’m broken,” he said. “A lot of places. Bones have gone where bones should never go. I will be Called.”
“Don’t say it!” I gathered him desperately into my arms.
“Don’t say it, Thann! We’ll find the People!” He crumpled down against me, his cheek pressed to the curve of Child Within.
I screamed then, partly because my heart was being torn shred by shred into an aching mass-partly because my neglected little fire was happily crackling away from me, munching the dry leaves, sampling the brush, roaring softly into the lower branches of the scrub oak. I had set the hillside afire! And the old terror was upon me, the remembered terror of a manzanita slope blazing on Baldy those many forgotten years ago.
I cradled Thann to me. So far the fire was moving away from us, but soon, soon-
“No! No!” I cried. “Let’s go home. Thann! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Let’s go home! I didn’t mean to bring you to death! I hate this world! I hate it! Thann, Thann!”
I’ve tried to forget it. It comes back sometimes. Sometimes again I’m so shaken that I can’t even protect myself any more and I’m gulping smoke and screaming over Thann. Other times I hear again the rough, disgusted words, “Gel-dinged tenderfoots! Setting fire to the whole gel-dinged mountain. There’s a law!”
Those were the first words I ever heard from Seth. My first sight of him was of a looming giant, twisted by flaring flames and drifting smoke and my own blurring tears.
It was another day before I thought again. I woke to find myself on a camp cot, a rough khaki blanket itching my chin. My bare arms were clean but scratched. Child Within was rounding the blanket smoothly. I closed my eyes and lay lapped in peace for a moment. Then my eyes flew open and I called, “Thann! Thann!” and struggled with the blanket.
“Take it easy! Take it easy!” Strong hands pushed me back against the thin musty pillow. “You’re stark, jay- nekkid under that blanket. You can’t go tearing around that way.” And those were the first words I heard from Glory.
She brought me a faded, crumpled cotton robe and helped me into it. “Them outlandish duds you had on’ll take a fair-sized swatch of fixing ‘fore they’re fit t’ wear.” Her hands were clumsy but careful. She chuckled. “Not sure there’s room for both of yens in this here wrapper.”
I knelt by the cot in the other room. There were only three rooms in the house. Thann lay, thin and unmoving as paper, under the lumpy comforter.
“He wants awful bad to go home.” Glory’s voice tried to moderate to a sick room tone. “He won’t make it,” she said bluntly.
“Yes, he will. Yes, he will! All we have to do is find The People-“
