He hesitated. "The point is," he said to Amanda, "Cee never got to know me. I've never been anything more than a stranger to her, and she doesn't trust strangers. With good reason." " 'Good reason,' have anything to do with our friends, the Occupation troops?" asked Amanda.
Artur looked at her brilliantly. "I thought you might guess that," he said. "Yes, just after we'd hidden ourselves up here on the ledge, the Occupation went around killing all the relatives of people known to belong to the Guild. There was no warning for any of them. One day up here, we heard explosions and, using a scope screen, we found troops in the woods less than half a kilometer from here. Some of us went down to the place where my sister's home had been - this was before they destroyed all the country homes and moved people into town - but there was nothing left but a pile of rubble. We found enough of my sister and her husband to know they had been killed by the explosions that destroyed their house. We searched for Cee, found nothing there or anywhere near, and when she didn't show up, we checked and made sure there was no one alive under the rubble. The soldiers were going back and forth below us frequently in those days. It wasn't practical to really dig into the rubble without giving away the fact we'd been there. So we assumed she was dead under it somewhere. So we gave up temporarily, and then, some of us, slipping into the towns nearby for things we needed occasionally, began to hear about a wild little girl in the woods up this way. "
He stopped. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. "It wasn't until nearly a year later that I began to believe that the stories were anything more than that, and that the wild girl might be Cee. I went down to find out, and I soon found you could look forever and not locate her, because she'd be seeing you long before you saw her and keeping out of your way. So I started going down there and just sitting. I sat, and after a number of trips, when I was sitting, I began to catch glimpses of her, getting just close enough to watch-and gone at once, if I turned my head to get a square look at her."
He beat his fist softly on the chair arm again. He was looking past Amanda now, at nothing unless it was his own memories of those times he had sat, hoping that the little girl would move into his field of vision. "I kept that up. It was incredible she'd survived, all by herself that way, but as you know, you can live off the country, here, the year around. And we've got no real winter. The temperature hardly varies. The only problem is rain, which isn't a problem unless it comes in the winter months and then it comes down pretty steadily. But all she'd need would be some place to get in out of it, a cave, or even a hollow tree. Anyway, it was true. My little niece had become like a wild animal." "She was old enough when her parents died to know about other people," said Amanda. "You'd think she'd have gone looking for, if not you, for someone she knew who'd been a friend of her parents." "They hadn't - my sister and her husband weren't hermits by any means," said Artur. "But they believed in being as self-sufficient as possible, living off the land and making what little money they needed out of their wood carvings - they were both sculptors. Also, like me, my sister tended to tie into an idea and see nothing but that. They didn't have any close friends, they were off in the woods by themselves - and I really think that their deaths, the way it happened, did something to Cee. She's not really sane, I suppose. Still" He fell silent. "Go on," said Amid gently, "tell them the rest of it." There were beads of sweat still on Artur's forehead. Aside from that, his face showed no particular expression. But now his hands clenched on the ends of the chair arms beneath them. " I sat for weeks, " he said, "and gradually she began to come closer to me, a little at a time. She'd stay at a certain distance for days, and then, one day, she'd be just a bit nearer. I'd learned by that time not to watch her, except out of the corners of my eyes, and I never showed in any way that I knew she was gradually closing the distance between us."
He laughed, a little shortly, but his forehead was still damp and his hands still gripped the ends of the chair arms. "I got to be very good at pretending not to notice - so good I could almost convince myself I wasn't the least bit interested in her - and all the while, day and night, I was carrying around a load of guilt because I hadn't searched harder for her after the explosion that killed my sister and her husband. I got very good at listening. I could hear her, quiet as she was, when she started to get very close behind me. And still I never moved, I didn't give her any cause to suspect that I was just waiting for her to get within arm's reach."
He stopped and wiped his brow with the back of one hand. "She finally came right up to me," he said. His voice had acquired a strange deadness, as if what he was starting to tell them now was beyond emotion. "She came up right behind me, and I felt a touch - oh, what a light little touch it was - against the back of my robe. Just a moment's touch, and no more. But still I didn't move. I was still waiting, and, after a long while I began to see something out of the corner of my left eye. She was inching around to look at my face up close. And I let her come...
He stopped. This time Amid said nothing. They merely all waited. After a long moment, he went on. "She came around. She was moving by twitching her heels a tiny distance sideways, then twitching the front ends of her feet next, in the same direction. I didn't move. I hardly breathed. When she came around by my left knee, so that she was in plain view, just inches away, I still kept staring straight ahead, as if she was unimportant, as if she wasn't there. And so she came all the way round in front of me, so that I had to look into her face or move my eyes. And we looked at each other .
He broke off. "Go on, man. TelI them!" said Amid, as the silence went on and on. "Wonderingly-" The word came out like a gasp. "She looked at me so... wonderingly, as if she was searching my face for something to find that she'd know. I never should have tried what I did. I should have known better. From the beginning I should have realized it'd take someone more patient. Old Man could have done it. He'd have waited. He knows how to wait. I've seen him put the tip of one of his fingers slowly under a moth perched on a twig and pick it up on that finger, off the twig, so softly and easily that the moth doesn't fly away. But she belonged to me... she was my niece, all that was left of my sister's family."
He stopped talking for a moment. Then brought his gaze back to focus on Amanda, and went on. "And so," he said, "when she finally stood there in front of' me, right in reach, searching my face with those eyes of hers - hazel eyes they are and large - without really thinking, supposing that somehow she'd come to understand later and everything would be all right once I'd brought her up here - I reached for her. I grabbed at her."
He hesitated, but just long enough to draw a deep breath, this time. "She was fast," he said. "I can't believe how fast she was. I could have sworn no human being could come that close within my reach and not be caught. But my hand barely touched her. And she was gone."
He stopped. He breathed, another si-h that this time was so deep it seemed to empty him, and his large body slumped in its chair. "And since then, she won't come near you," said Amanda.
He nodded. "I sit - I've sat for two years since then," Artur said. "And she comes. Sometimes I just catch a glimpse of her, but whether I see her or not, I know it' she's there. But she's never come within ten meters of me, since. And sooner or later, something'll go wrong. Something will bring soldiers by, and one of them - she always comes to look at anyone who goes by - some soldier'll shoot her. Or she'll get sick and hide herself in some hole where no one can find her, and die. She's all alone down there-"