“Yes,” I moaned, twisting my hands. “I killed him. If we’d only stayed Home. If I hadn’t-“
I lay in the dusk, my head pillowed on Thann’s grave. Thann’s grave-The words had a horrible bitterness on my tongue. “How can I bear it, Thann?” I whimpered. “I’m lost. I can’t go Home. The People are gone. What’ll I do with Child Within? How can we ever bear it, living with Outsiders? Oh, Call me too, Call me too!” I let the rough gravel of the grave scratch against my cheek as I cried.
And yet I couldn’t feel that Thann was there. Thann was a part of another life-a life that didn’t end in the mud and misery of a lakeside. He was part of a happy adventure, a glad welcome back to the Earth we had thought was a thing of the past, a tumultuous reunion with all the dear friends we had left behind-the endless hours of vocal and subvocal news exchange-Thann was a part of that. Not a part of this haggard me, this squalid shack teetering on the edge of a dry creek, this bulging, unlovely, ungainly creature muddying her face in the coarse gravel of a barren hillside.
I roused to the sound of footsteps in the dark, and voices.
“-nuttier than a fruitcake,” said Glory. “It takes some girls like that, just getting pregnant, and then this here other shock-“
“What’s she off on now?” It was Seth’s heavy voice.
“Oh, more of the same. Being magic. Making things fly. She broke that lookin’ glass Davy gave me the Christmas before the cave-in.” She cleared her throat. “I picked up the pieces. They’re in the drawer.”
“She oughta have a good hiding!” Anger was thick in Seth’s voice.
“She’ll get one if’n she does anything like that again! Oh, and some more about the Home and flying through space and wanting them people again.”
“You know,” said Seth thoughtfully, “I heard stuff about some folks used to bye around here. Funny stuff.”
“All people are funny.” Glory’s voice was nearer. “Better get her back into the house before she catches her death of live-forevers.”
I stared up at the ceiling in the dark. Time was again a word without validity. I had no idea how long I had huddled myself in my sodden misery. How long had I been here with Glory and Seth? Faintly in my consciousness, I felt a slight stirring of wonder about Seth and Glory. What did they live on? What were they doing out here in the unfruitful hills? This shack was some forgotten remnant of an old ghost town-no electricity, no water, four crazy walls held together by, and holding up, a shattered roof. For food- beans, cornbread, potatoes, prunes, coffee.
I clasped my throbbing temples with both hands, my head rolling from side to side. But what did it matter? What did anything matter any more? Wild grief surged up in my throat and I cried out, “Mother! Mother!” and felt myself drowning in the icy immensity of the lonely space I had drifted across-Then there were warm arms around me and a shoulder under my cheek, the soft scratch of hair against my face, a rough hand gently pressing my head to warmth and aliveness.
“There, there!” Glory’s voice rumbled gruffly soft through her chest to my ear. “It’ll pass. Time and mercy of God will make it bearable. There, there!” She held me and let me blot my tears against her. I didn’t know when she left me and I slept dreamlessly.
Next morning at breakfast-before which I had washed my face and combed most of the tangles out of my hair-I paused over my oatmeal and canned milk, spoon poised.
“What do you do for a living, Seth?” I asked.
“Living?” Seth stirred another spoonful of sugar into the mush. “We scratch our beans and bacon outa the Skagmore. It’s a played-out mine, but there’s a few two-bittin’ seams left. We work it hard enough, we get by-but it takes both of us. Glory’s as good as a man-better’n some.”
“How come you aren’t working at the Golden Turkey or the Iron Duke?” I wondered where I had got those names even as I asked.
“Can’t,” said Glory. “He’s got silicosis and arthritis. Can’t work steady. Times are you’d think he was coughing up his lungs. Hasn’t had a bad time though since you came.”
“If I were a Healer,” I said, “I could cure your lungs and joints. But I’m not. I’m really not much of anything.” I blinked down at my dish. I’m nothing. I’m nothing without Thann. I gulped. “I’m sorry I broke your window and your mirror, Glory. I shouldn’t have. You can’t help being an Outsider.”
“Apology accepted,” Glory grinned dourly. “But it’s still kinda drafty.”
“There’s a whole window in that shack down-creek a ways,” said Seth. “When I get the time, I’ll go get it. Begins to look like the Skagmore might last right up into winter, though.”
“Wish we could get some of that good siding-what’s left of it-and fill in a few of our holes,” said Glory, tipping up the scarred blue and white coffee pot for the last drop of coffee.
“I’ll get the stuff soon’s this seam pinches out,” promised Seth.
I walked down-creek after breakfast, feeling for the first time the sun on my face, seeing for the first time the untidy tangle and thoughtless profusion of life around me, the dream that had drawn me back to this tragedy. I sat down against a boulder, clasping my knees. My feet had known the path to this rock. My back was familiar with its sun-warmed firmness, but I had no memory of it. I had no idea how long I had been eased of my homesickness.
Now that that particular need was filled and that ache soothed, it was hard to remember how vital and how urgent the whole thing had been. It was like the memory of pain-a purely intellectual thing. But once it had been acute-so acute that Thann had come to his death for it.
I looked down at myself and for the first time I noticed I was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt-Glory’s, indubitably. The jeans were precariously held together, bulging under the plaid shirt, by a huge blanket pin. I smiled a little. Outsider makeshift-well, let it stay. They don’t know any better.
Soon I aroused and went on down-creek until I found the shack Seth had mentioned. It had two good windows left. I stood in front of the first one, reaching into my memory for my informal training. Then I settled to the job at hand.
Slowly, steadily, nails began to withdraw from around the windows. With toil and sweat and a few frustrated tears, I got the two windows out intact, though the walls around them would never be the same again. I had had no idea how windows were put into a house. After the windows, it was fairly simple to detach the few good lengths of siding left. I stacked them neatly, one by one, drifting them into place. I jumped convulsively at a sudden crunching crash, then laughed shakily to see that the poor old shack had disintegrated completely, having been deprived of its few solid members. Lifting the whole stack of my salvage to carrying height, I started back up-creek, panting and sweating, stumbling and pushing the load ahead of me until I got smart and, lifting, perched on the pile
