Bethie.”
There was a silence. A warm hand clasped mine and Karen squatted close beside me.
“She’s sorting her,” she whispered. “Going into her mind. To teach her control. It’s so simple. How could it happen that she doesn’t know-?”
I heard a soft wondering “Oh!” from Bethie, followed by a breathless “Oh, thank you, Valancy, thank you!”
I heaved myself up onto my elbow, fire streaking me from head to foot, and peered over at Bethie. She was looking at me, and her quiet face was happier than smiles could ever make it. We stared for the space of two relieved tears, then she said softly, “Tell them now, Peter. We can’t go any farther until you tell them.”
I lay back again, blinking at the sky where the scattered raindrops were still falling, though none of them reached us. Karen’s hand was warm on mine and I felt a shiver of reluctance. If they sent us away … ! But then they couldn’t take back what they had given to Bethie, even if-I shut my eyes and blurted it out as bluntly as possible.
“We aren’t of the People-not entirely. Father was not of the People. We’re half-breeds.”
There was a startled silence.
“You mean your mother married an Outsider?” Valancy’s voice was filled with astonishment. “That you and Bethie are-?’
“Yes she did and yes we are!” I retorted. “And Dad was the best-” My belligerence ran thinly out across the sharp edge of my pain. “They’re both dead now. Mother sent us to you.”
“But Bethie is a Sensitive-” Valancy’s voice was thoughtful
“Yes, and I can fly and make things travel in the air and I’ve even made fire. But Dad-” I hid my face and let it twist with the increasing agony.
“Then we can!” I couldn’t read the emotion in Valancy’s voice. “Then the People and Outsiders-but it’s unbelievable that you-” Her voice died.
In the silence that followed, Bethie’s voice came fearful and tremulous, “Are you going to send us away?” My heart twisted to the ache in her voice.
“Send you away! Oh, my people, my people! Of course not! As if there were any question.” Valancy’s arm went tightly around Bethie, and Karen’s hand closed warmly on mine. The tension that had been a hard twisted knot inside me dissolved, and Bethie and I were home.
Then Valancy became very brisk.
“Bethie, what’s wrong with Peter?”
Bethie was astonished. “How did you know his name?” Then she smiled. “Of course. When you were sorting me!” She touched me lightly along my sides, along my legs. “Four of his ribs are hurt. His left leg is broken. That’s about all. Shall I control him?”
“Yes,” Valancy said. “I’ll help.”
And the pain was gone, put to sleep under the persuasive warmth that came to me as Bethie and Valancy came softly into my mind.
“Good,” Valancy said. “We’re pleased to welcome a Sensitive. Karen and I know a little of their function because we are Sorters. But we have no full-fledged Sensitive in our Group now.”
She turned to me. “You said you know the inanimate lift?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know the words for lots of things.”
“You’ll have to relax completely. We don’t usually use it on people. But if you let go all over we can manage.”
They wrapped me warmly in our blankets and lightly, a hand under my shoulders and under my heels, lifted me carrying-high and sped with me through the trees, Bethie trailing from Valancy’s free hand.
Before we reached the yard the door flew open and warm yellow light spilled out into the dusk. The girls paused on the porch and shifted me to the waiting touch of two men. In the wordless pause before the babble of question and explanation I felt Bethie beside me draw a deep wondering breath and merge like a raindrop in a river into the People around us.
But even as the lights went out for me again, and I felt myself slide down into comfort and hunger-fed belongingness, somewhere deep inside of me was a core of something that couldn’t quite-no, wouldn’t quite dissolve-wouldn’t yet yield itself completely to the People.
III
LEA SLIPPED soundlessly toward the door almost before Peter’s last words were said. She was halfway up the steep road that led up the canyon before she heard the sound of Karen coming behind her. Lifting and running, Karen caught up with her.
“Lea!” she called, reaching for her arm.
With a twist of her shoulder Lea evaded Karen and wordlessly, breathlessly ran on up the road.
“Lea!” Karen grabbed both her shoulders and stopped her bodily. “Where on earth are you going!”
“Let me go!” Lea shouted. “Sneak! Peeping Tom! Let me go!” She tried to wrench out of Karen’s hands.
“Lea, whatever you’re thinking it isn’t so.”
“Whatever I’m thinking!” Lea’s eyes blazed. “Don’t know what I’m thinking? Haven’t you done enough scrabbling around in all the muck and mess-?” Her fingernails dented Karen’s hands. “Let me go!”
“Why do you care, Lea?” Karen’s cold voice jabbed mercilessly. “Why should you care? What difference does it make to you} You left life a long time ago.”
