Pilgrimage

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."
"But he has."
"He has for sure! I had to fish him down from a treetop to look him over-" The doctor shuddered dramatically and laughed. "'To see him hurtling down from the top of that tree curdled my blood! But there's hardly even a visible scar left."
"I know," I said, jabbing my finger as I started to gather up the tacks. "'I looked last night. I'm leaving tomorrow, you know." I kept my eyes resolutely down to the job at hand. "I have this last straightening up to do."
"It's hard, isn't it?" he said, and we both knew he wasn't talking about straightening up.
"Yes," I said soberly. "Awfully hard. Earth gets heavier every day."
"I find it so lately, too. But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that you-"
I moved uncomfortably and laughed.
"Well, they do say: those as can, do; those as can't, teach."
"Umm," the doctor said noncommittally, but I could feel his eyes on my averted face and I swiveled away from groping for a better box to put the clips in.
"Going to summer school?" His voice came from near the windows.
"No," I sniffed cautiously. "No, I swore when I got my Master's that I was through with education-at least the kind that's come-every-day-and-learn-something."
"Hmm!" There was amusement in the doctor's voice. "Too bad. I'm going to school this summer. Thought you might like to go there, too,"
"Where?" I asked bewildered, finally looking at him.
"Cougar Canyon summer school," he smiled. "Most exclusive."
"Cougar Canyon! Why that's where Karen-"
"Exactly," he said. "That's where the other Group is established. I just came from there. Karen and Valancy want us both to come. Do you object to being an experiment?"
"Why, no-I cried, and then, cautiously, "What kind of an experiment?" Visions oЈ brains being carved up swam through my mind.
The doctor laughed. "Nothing as gruesome as you're imagining, probably." Then he sobered and sat on the edge of my desk. "I've been to Cougar Canyon a couple of times, trying to figure out some way to get Bethie to help me when I come up against a case that's a puzzler. Valancy and Karen want to try a period of training with Outsiders-" he grimaced wryly, "-that's us-to see how much oЈ what they are can be transmitted by training. You know Bethie is half Outsider. Only her mother was of the People."
He was watching me intently.
"Yes," I said absently, my mind whirling, "Karen told me."
"Well, do you want to try it? Do you want to go?"
"Do I want to go!" I cried, scrambling the clips into a rubber-band box. "How soon do we leave? Half an hour? Ten minutes? Did you leave the motor running?"
"Woops, woops!" The doctor took me by both arms and looked soberly into my eyes.
"We can't set our hopes too high," he said quietly. "It may be that for such knowledge we aren't teachable-"
I looked soberly back at him, my heart crying in fear that it might be so.
"Look," I said slowly. "If you had a hunger, a great big gnawing-inside hunger and no money and you saw a bakery shop window, which would you do? Turn your back on it? Or would you press your nose as close as you could against the glass and let at least your eyes feast? I know what I'd do."
I reached for my sweater.
"And, you know, you never can tell. The shop door might open a crack, maybe-someday-"
"I'D LIKE to talk with her a minute," Lea said to Karen as the chattering group broke up. "May I?"
"Why, sure," Karen said. "Melodye, have you a minute?"
"Oh, Karen!" Melodye threaded the rows back to Lea's corner.
"That was wonderful! It was just like living it for the first time again, only underneath I knew what was coming next. But even so my blood ran cold when Abie-" She shuddered.
"Bro-ther! Was that ever a day!"
"Melodye," Karen said, "this is Lea. She wants to talk with you."
"Hi, fellow alien," Melodye smiled. "I've been wanting to meet you."
"Do you believe-" Lea hesitated. "Was that really true?"
"Of course it was," Melodye said. "I can show you my scars-mental, that is-from trying to learn to lift." Then she laughed. "Don't feel funny about doubting it. I still have my 3 A.M-ses when I can't believe it myself." She sobered. "But it is true. The People are the People."
"And even if you're not of the People," Lea faltered, "could they-could they help anyway? I don't mean anything broken. I mean, nothing visible-" She was suddenly covered with a sense of shame and betrayal as though caught hanging out a black line of sins in the morning sun. She turned her face away.
"They can help." Melodye touched Lea's shoulder gently.
"And, Lea, they never judge. They mend where mending is needed and leave the judgment to God." And she was gone.
"Maybe," Lea mourned, "if I had sinned some enormous sins I could have something big to forgive myself so I could start over, but all these niggling nibbling little nothingnesses-"
"All these niggling little, nibbling little nothingnesses that compounded themselves into such a great despair," Karen said.
"And what is despair but a separation from the Presence-"
"Then the People do believe that there is-?"
"Our Home may be gone," Karen said firmly, "and all of us exiles if you want to look at it that way, but there's no galaxy wide enough to separate us from the Presence."
Later that night Lea sat up in bed. "Karen?"
"Yes?" Karen's voice came instantly from the darkness though Lea knew she was down the hall.
"Are you still shielding me from-from whatever it was?"
"No," Karen said. "I released you this morning."