I knelt beside him and tried to comfort him in the circle of my arms.

“There, there, there,” I soothed.

He clung like a terrified child. “No anesthetics!” he cried.

“She kept him asleep. And no bleeding when I went through the scalp! They stopped it. And the impossible things I did with the few instruments I have with me! And the brain starting to mend right before my eyes! Nothing was right!”

“‘But nothing was wrong,” I murmured. “Abie will be all right, won’t he?”

“How do I know?” he shouted suddenly, pushing away from me. “I don’t know anything about a thing like this. I put his brain back together and he’s still breathing, but how do I know!”

“There, there,” I soothed. “It’s over now.”

“It’ll never be over!” With an effort he calmed himself, and we helped each other up from the floor. “You can’t forget a thing like this in a lifetime.”

“‘We can give you forgetting,” Valancy said softly from the door. “If you want to forget. We can send you back to the Tumble A with no memory of tonight except a pleasant visit to Bendo.”

“You can?” He turned speculative eyes toward her. “You can,” he amended his words to a statement.

“‘Do you want to forget?” Valancy asked.

“Of course not,” he snapped. Then, “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t often work miracles in the wilderness. But if I did it once, maybe-’”

“Then you understand what you did?” Valancy asked, smiling.

“Well, no, but if I could-if you would-There must be some way-“

“Yes,” Valancy said, “but you’d have to have a Sensitive working with you, and Bethie is it as far as Sensitives go right now.”

“You mean it’s true what I saw-what you told me about the-the Home? You’re extraterrestrials?”

“Yes,” Valancy sighed. “‘At least our grandparents were.” Then she smiled. “But we’re learning where we can fit into this world. Someday-someday we’ll be able-” She changed the subject abruptly.

“You realize, of course, Dr. Curtis, that we’d rather you wouldn’t discuss Bendo or us with anyone else. We would rather be just people to Outsiders.”

He laughed shortly, “Would I be believed if I did?”

“Maybe no, maybe so,” Valancy said. “Maybe only enough to start people nosing around. And that would be too much. We have a bad situation here and it will take a long time to erase-” Her voice slipped into silence, and I knew she had dropped into thoughts to brief him on the local problem. How long is a thought? How fast can you think of hell-and heaven? It was that long before the doctor blinked and drew a shaky breath.

“Yes,” he said. “A long time.”

“If you like,” Valancy said, “I can block your ability to talk of us.”

“Nothing doing!” the doctor snapped. “I can manage my own censorship, thanks.”

Valancy flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be condescending.”

“You weren’t,” the doctor said. “I’m just on the prod tonight. It has been a day, and that’s for sure!”

“Hasn’t it, though?” I smiled and then, astonished, rubbed my cheeks because tears had begun to spill down my face. I laughed, embarrassed, and couldn’t stop. My laughter turned suddenly to sobs and I was bitterly ashamed to hear myself wailing like a child. I clung to Valancy’s strong hands until I suddenly slid into a warm welcome darkness that had no thinking or fearing or need for believing in anything outrageous, but only in sleep.

It was a magic year and it fled on impossibly fast wings, the holidays flicking past like telephone poles by a railroad. Christmas was especially magical because my angels actually flew and the glory actually shone round about because their robes had hems woven of sunlight-I watched the girls weave them. And Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, complete with cardboard antlers that wouldn’t stay straight, really took off and circled the room. And as our Mary and Joseph leaned raptly over the manger, their faces solemn and intent on the miracle, I felt suddenly that they were really seeing, really kneeling beside the manger in Bethlehem.

Anyway the months fled, and the blossoming of Bendo was beautiful to see. There was laughter and frolicking and even the houses grew subtly into color. Green things crept out where only rocks had been before, and a tiny tentative stream of water had begun to flow down the creek again. They explained to me that they had to take it slow because people might wonder if the creek filled overnight! Even the rough steps up to the houses were being overgrown because they were so seldom used, and I was becoming accustomed to seeing my pupils coming to school like a bevy of bright birds, playing tag in the treetops. I was surprised at myself for adjusting so easily to all the incredible things done around me by the People, and I was pleased that they accepted me so completely. But I always felt a pang when the children escorted me home-with me, they had to walk.

But all things have to end, and one May afternoon I sat staring into my top desk drawer, the last to be cleaned out, wondering what to do with the accumulation of useless things in it. But I wasn’t really seeing the contents of the drawer, I was concentrating on the great weary emptiness that pressed my shoulders down and weighted my mind. “It’s not fair,” I muttered aloud and illogically, “to show me heaven and then snatch it away.”

“That’s about what happened to Moses, too, you know.”

My surprised start spilled an assortment of paper clips and thumbtacks from the battered box I had just picked up.

“Well, forevermore!” I said, righting the box. “Dr. Curtis! What are you doing here?”

“Returning to the scene of my crime,” he smiled, coming through the open door. “Can’t keep my mind off Abie. Can’t believe he recovered from all that-shall we call it repair work? I have to check him every time I’m anywhere near this part of the country-and I still can’t believe it.”

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