''Want to die,' Lea echoed distantly. Then suddenly she jerked away from the gentle hands and twisted away from the encircling arm. 'I do want to die! Go away!' Her voice sharpened as she spoke and she almost spat the last word. 'But I told you!' The dim glow from the nearest light of the necklace of lights that pearled the bridge shone on a smiling girl-face, not much older than Lea's own. 'You'd goof it up good if you tried to commit suicide here. Probably lie down there in the sand all night, maybe with a sharp stub of a tamarisk stuck through your shoulder and your broken leg hurting like mad. And tomorrow the ants would find you, and the flies-the big blowfly kind. Blood attracts them, you know. Your blood, spilling onto the sand.' Lea hid her face, her fingernails cutting into her hairline with the violence of the gesture. This-this creature had no business peeling the oozing bleeding scab off, she thought. It's so easy to think of lumping into darkness- into nothingness, but not to think of blowflies and blood-your own blood. 'Besides-' the arm was around her again, gently leading her back to the bench, 'you can't want to die and miss out on everything.' 'Everything is nothing,' Lea gasped, grabbing for the comfort of a well-worn groove. 'It's nothing but gray chalk writing gray words on a gray sky in a high wind. There's nothing! There's nothing !' 'You must have used that carefully rounded sentence often and often to have driven yourself such a long way into darkness,' the voice said, unsmiling now. 'But you must come back, ' you know, back to wanting to live.' 'No, no!' Lea moaned, twisting. 'Let me go!'' 'I can't.' The voice was soft, the hands firm. 'The Power sent me by on purpose. You can't return to the Presence with your life all unspent. But you're not hearing me, are you? Let me tell you. 'Your name is Lea Holmes. Mine, by the way, is Karen. You left your home in Clivedale two days ago. You bought a ticket for as far as your money would reach. You haven't eaten in two days. You're not even quite sure what state you're in, except the state of utter despair and exhaustion-right?' 'How-how did you know?' Lea felt a long-dead something stir inside her, but it died again under the flat monotone of her voice. 'It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. You don't know anything about it!' A sick anger fluttered in her empty stomach. ''You don't know what it's like to have your nose pressed to a blank wall and still have to walk and walk, day after day, with no way to get off the treadmill-no way to break through the wall-nothing, nothing, nothing! Not even an echo! Nothing!' She snatched herself away from Karen's hands and, in a mad flurry of motion, scraped her way across the concrete railing and flung herself over into the darkness. Endlessly tumbling-endlessly turning-slowly, slowly. Did it take so long to die? Softly the sand received her. 'You see,' Karen said, shifting in the sand to cradle Lea's head on her lap. 'I can't let you do it.' 'But-I-I-jumped!' Lea's hands spatted sideways into the sand, and she looked up to where the lights of the passing cars ran like sticks along a picket fence. 'Yes, you did.' Karen laughed a warm little laugh. 'See, Lea, there is some wonder left in the world. Not everything is bogged down in hopelessness. What's that other quote you've been using for an anesthesia?' Lea turned her head fretfully and sat up. 'Leave me alone.' 'What was that other quote?' Karen's voice was demanding now. ' 'There is for me no wonder more,' ' Lea whispered into her hands, ' 'Except to wonder where my wonder went, And why my wonder all is spent-' ' Hot tears stung her eyes but could not fall. ' '-no wonder more-' ' The big emptiness that was always waiting, stretched and stretched, distorting-'No wonder?' Karen broke the bubble with her tender laughter. 'Oh, Lea, if only I had the time! No wonder, indeed! But I've got to go. The most incredibly wonderful-' There was a brief silence and the cars shh-ed by overhead, busily, busily. 'Look!' Karen took Lea's hands. 'You don't care what happens to you any more, do you?' 'No!' Lea said dully, but a faint voice murmured protest somewhere behind the dullness. 'You feel that life is unlivable, don't you?' Karen persisted. 'That nothing could be worse?' 'Nothing,' Lea said dully, squelching the murmur. 'Then listen.' Karen hunched closer to her in the dark. 'I'll take you with me. I really shouldn't, especially right now, but they'll understand. I'll take you along and then-then-if when it's all over you still feel there's no wonder left in the world, I'll take you to a much more efficient suicide-type place and push you over!' 'But where-' Lea's hands tugged to release themselves. 'Ah, ah!' Karen laughed, 'Remember, you don't care! You don't care! Now I'l1 have to blindfold you for a minute. Stand up. Here, let me tie this scarf around your eyes. There, I guess that isn't too tight, but tight enough-' Her chatter poured on and Lea grabbed suddenly, feeling as though the world were dissolving around her. She clung to Karen's shoulder and stumbled from sand to solidness. 'Oh, does being blindfolded make you dizzy?' Karen asked. 'Well, okay. I'll take it off then.' She whisked the scarf off. 'Hurry, we have to catch the bus. It's almost due.' She dragged Lea along the walk on the bridge, headed for the far bank, away from the town. 'But-' Lea staggered with weariness and hunger, 'how did we get up on the bridge again? This is crazy! We were down-' 'Wondering, Lea?' Karen teased back over her shoulder. 'If we hurry we'll have time for a hamburger for you before the bus gets here. My treat.' A hamburger and a glass of milk later, the InterUrban roared up to the curb, gulped Lea and Karen in and roared away. Twenty minutes later the driver, expostulating, opened the door into blackness. 'But, lady, there's nothing out there! Not even a house for a mile!' 'I know,' Karen smiled. 'But this is the place. Someone's waiting for us.' She tugged Lea down the steps. 'Thanks!' she called. 'Thanks a lot!' 'Thanks!' the driver muttered, slamming the doors. 'This isn't even a corner! Screwballs!'' And roared off down the road. The two girls watched the glowworm retreat of the bus until it disappeared around a curve. 'Now!' Karen sighed happily. 'Miriam is waiting for us somewhere around here. Then we'll go-' 'I won't.' Lea's voice was flatly stubborn in the almost tangible darkness. 'I won't go another inch. Who do you think you are, anyway? I'm going to stay here until a car comes along-' 'And jump in front of it?' Karen's voice was cold and hard. 'You have no right to draft someone to be your executioner. Who do you think you are that you can splash your blood all over someone else?' 'Stop talking about blood!' Lea yelled, stung to have had her thoughts caught from her. 'Let me die! Let me die!' 'It'd serve you right if I did,' Karen said unsympathetically. 'I'm not so sure you're worth saving. But as long as I've got you on my hands, shut up and come on. Cry babies bore me.' 'But-you-don't-know!' Lea sobbed tearlessly, stumbling miserably along, towed at arm's length behind Karen, dodging cactus and greasewood, mourning the all-enfolding comfort of nothingness that could have been hers if Karen had only let her go. 'You might be surprised,' Karen snapped. 'But anyway God knows, and you haven't thought even once of Him this whole evening. If you're so all-fired eager to go busting into His house uninvited you'd better stop bawling and start thinking up a convincing excuse.' 'You're mean!' Lea wailed, like a child. 'So I'm mean.'' Karen stopped so suddenly that Lea stumbled into her. 'Maybe I should leave you alone. I don't want this most wonderful thing that's happening to be spoiled by such stupid goings on. Good-by!' And she was gone before Lea could draw a breath. Gone completely. Not a sound of a footstep. Not a rustle of brush. Lea cowered in the darkness, panic swelling in her chest, fear catching her breath. The high arch of the sky glared at her starrily and the suddenly hostile night crept closer and closer. There was nowhere to go-nowhere to hide-no corner to back into. Nothing-nothing! 'Karen!' she shrieked, starting to run blindly. 'Karen!' 'Watch it.' Karen reached out of the dark and caught her. 'There's cactus around here.' Her voice went on in exasperated patience. 'Scared to death of being alone in the dark for two minutes and fourteen seconds-and yet you think an eternity of it would be better than living'Well, I've checked with Miriam. She says she can help me manage you, so come along. 'Miriam, here she is. Think she's worth saving?' Lea recoiled, startled, as Miriam materialized vaguely
