“There’s need,” Jethro yelled.
I put down my book. “I’m sorry, Valancy. I’ll go see what’s eating him.”
“Should I come, too?” she asked. “If something’s wrong-“
“It’s probably just some silly thing,” I said, edging out fast.
When one of the People says, “There’s need,” that means Group business.
“Adonday Veeah!” I muttered at Jethro as we rattled down the steep rocky path to the creek. “What are you trying to do? Get us all in trouble? What’s the matter?”
“Look,” Jethro said, and there were the boys standing around an alarmed but proud Jerry, and above their heads, poised in the air over a half-built rock dam, was a huge boulder.
“‘Who lifted that?” I gasped.
“I did,” Jerry volunteered, blushing crimson.
I turned on Jethro. “Well, why didn’t you platt the twishers on it? You didn’t have to come running-“
“On that?” Jethro squeaked. “You know very well we’re not allowed to lift anything that big, let alone platt it. Besides,” shamefaced, “I can’t remember that dern girl stuff.”
“Oh, Jethro! You’re so stupid sometimes!” I turned to Jerry. “How on earth did you ever lift anything that big?”
He squirmed. “I watched Daddy at the mine once.”
“Does he let you lift at home?” I asked severely.
“I don’t know.” Jerry squashed mud with one shoe, hanging his head. “I never lifted anything before.”
“Well, you know better. You kids aren’t allowed to lift anything an Outsider your age can’t handle alone. And not even that if you can’t platt it afterward.”
“I know it.” Jerry was still torn between embarrassment and pride.
“Well, remember it.” And taking a handful of sun I platted the twishers and set the boulder back on the hillside where it belonged.
Platting does come easier to the girls-sunshine platting, that is. Of course only the Old Ones do the sun-and- rain one, and only the very Oldest of them all would dare the moonlight-and-dark, which can move mountains. But that was still no excuse for Jethro to forget and run the risk of having Valency see what she mustn’t see.
It wasn’t until I was almost back to the schoolhouse that it dawned on me. Jerry had lifted! Kids his age usually lift play stuff almost from the time they walk. That doesn’t need platting because it’s just a matter of a few inches and a few seconds, so gravity manages the return. But Jerry and Susie never had.
They were finally beginning to catch up. Maybe it was just the Crossing that slowed them down-and maybe only the Clarinades. In my delight I forgot and lifted to the school porch without benefit of the steps. But Valancy was putting up pictures on the high old-fashioned molding just below the ceiling, so no harm was done. She flushed from her efforts and asked me to bring the step stool so she could finish them. I brought it and steadied it for her- and then nearly let her fall as I stared. How had she hung those first four pictures before I got there?
The weather was unnaturally dry all fall. We didn’t mind it much because rain with an Outsider around is awfully messy. We have to let ourselves get wet. But when November came and went and Christmas was almost upon us and there was practically no rain and no snow at all, we all began to get worried. The creek dropped to a trickle and then to scattered puddles and then went dry. Finally the Old Ones had to spend an evening at the Group reservoir doing something about our dwindling water supply. They wanted to get rid of Valancy for the evening, just in case, so Jemmy volunteered to take her to Kerry to the show. I was still awake when they got home long after midnight. Since I began to develop the Gift I have had long periods of restlessness when it seems I have no apartness but am of every person in the Group. The training I should start soon will help me shut out the others except when I want them. The only thing is that we don’t know who is to train me. Since Grandmother died there has been no Sorter in our Group, and because of the Crossing we have no books or records to help.
Anyway I was awake and leaning on my window sill in the darkness. They stopped on the porch-Jemmy is bunking at the mine during his stint there. I didn’t have to guess or use a Gift to read the pantomime before me. I closed my eyes and my mind as their shadows merged. Under their strong emotion I could have had free access to their minds, but I had been watching them all fall. I knew in a special way what passed between them, and I knew that Valancy often went to bed in tears and that Jemmy spent too many lonely hours on the crag that juts out over the canyon from high on Old Baldy, as though he were trying to make his heart as inaccessible to Outsiders as the crag is. I knew what he felt, but oddly enough I had never been able to sort Valancy since that first night. There was something very un-Outsiderish and also very un-Groupish about her mind and I couldn’t figure what.
I heard the front door open and close and Valancy’s light steps fading down the hall and then I felt Jemmy calling me outside. I put my coat on over my robe and shivered down the hall. He was waiting by the porch steps, his face still and unhappy in the faint moonlight.
“She won’t have me,” he said flatly.
“Oh, Jemmy! You asked her-“
“Yes. She said no.”
“I’m so sorry.” I huddled down on the top step to cover my cold ankles. “But, Jemmy-“
“Yes, I know” he retorted savagely. “She’s an Outsider. I have no business even to want her. Well, if she’d have me I wouldn’t hesitate a minute. This purity-of-the-Group deal is-“
“Is fine and right,” I said softly, “as long as it doesn’t touch you personally? But think for a minute, Jemmy. Would you be able to live a life as an Outsider? Just think of the million and one restraints that you would have to impose on yourself-and for the rest of your life, too, or lose her after all.
Maybe it’s better to accept ‘no’ now than to try to build something and ruin it completely later. And if there should be children-” I paused. “Could there be children, Jemmy?”
I heard him draw a sharp breath.
