Pilgrimage

"Yes," I said, closing my eyes against the nearness of his. "By the sheriff if they catch him. They'll discover the loss of the orchestra any minute now, if they haven't already."
"You made him think," he said. "He wouldn't have stood still for all that if you hadn't."
"Too late," I said. "A thought too late."
Alone in my room I huddled on my bed, trying not to think of anything. I lay there until I was stiff with the cold, then I crept into my warm woolly robe up to my chin. I sat in the darkness there by the window, looking out at the lacy ghosts of the cottonwood trees, in the dim moonlight. How long would it be before some kindly soul would come blundering in to regale me with the latest about the Francher kid?
I put my elbows on the window sill and leaned my face on my hands, the heels of my palms pressing against my eyes. "Oh, Francher My Child, My lonely lost Child-"
"I'm not lost." I lifted a startled face. The voice was so soft. Maybe I had imagined…
"No, I'm here." The Francher kid stepped out into the milky glow of the moon, moving with a strange new strength and assurance, quite divorced from his usual teen-age gangling.
"Oh, Francher-" I couldn't let myself sob, but my voice caught on the last of his name.
"It's okay," he said. "I took them all back."
My shoulders ached as the tension ran out of them.
"I didn't have time to get them all back in the hall but I stacked them carefully on the front porch." A glimmer of a smile crossed his face. "I guess they'll wonder how they got out there."
"I'm so sorry about your money," I said awkwardly.
He looked at me soberly. "I can save again. I'll get it yet. Someday I'll have my music. It doesn't have to be now."
Suddenly a warm bubble seemed to be pressing up against my lungs. I felt excitement tingle clear out to my fingertips. I leaned across the sill. "Francher," I cried softly, "you have your music. Now. Remember the harmonica? Remember when you danced with Twyla? Oh, Francher. All sound is is vibration.
"You can vibrate the air without an instrument. Remember the chord you played with the orchestra? Play it again, Francher!"' He looked at me blankly, and then it was as if a candle had been lighted behind his face. "Yes!" he cried. "Yes!"
Softly-oh, softly-because miracles come that way, I heard the chord begin. It swelled richly, fully, softly, until the whole back yard vibrated to it-a whole orchestra crying out in a whisper in the pale moonlight.
"But the tunes!" he cried, taking this miracle at one stride and leaping beyond it. "I don't know any of the tunes for an orchestra!"
"There are books," I said. "Whole books of scores for symphonies and operas and-"
"And when I know the instruments better!" Here was the eager alive voice of the-Francher-kid-who-should-be. "Anything I hear-" The back yard ripped raucously to a couple of bars of the latest rock 'n' roll, then blossomed softly to an "Adoramus Te" and skipped to "The Farmer in the Dell." "Then someday I'll make my own-" Tremulously a rappoor threaded through a melodic phrase and stilled itself.
In the silence that followed the Francher kid looked at me, not at my face but deep inside me somewhere.
"Miss Carolle!" I felt my eyes tingle to tears at his voice.
"You've given me my music!" I could hear him swallow. "I want to give you something." My hand moved in protest, but he went on quickly, "Please come outside."
"Like this? I'm in my robe and slippers."
"They're warm enough. Here, I'll help you through the window."
And before I knew it I was over the low sill and clinging dizzily to it from the outside.
"My braces," I said, loathing the words with a horrible loathing. "My crutches."
"No," the Francher kid said. "You don't need them. Walk across the yard, Miss Carolle, all alone."
"I can't!" I cried through my shock. "Oh, Francher, don't tease me!"
"Yes, you can. That's what I'm giving you. I can't mend you but I can give you that much. Walk."
I clung frantically to the sill. Then I saw again Francher and Twyla spiraling down from the treetops, Francher upside down in the air with his midriff showing, Francher bouncing Balance Rock from field to field.
I let go of the till. I took a step. And another, and another. I held my hands far out from my tides. Glorious freedom from clenched hands and aching elbows! Across the yard I went, every step in the milky moonlight a paean of praise. I turned at the fence and looked back. The Francher kid was crouched by the window in a tight huddle of concentration. I lifted onto tiptoe and half skipped, half ran back to the window, feeling the wind of my going lift my hair back from my cheeks. Oh, it was like a drink after thirst! Like food after famine! Like gates swinging open!
I fell forward and caught at the window till. And cried out inarticulately as I felt the old bonds clamp down again, the old half-death seize hold of me. I crumpled to the ground beside the Francher kid. His tormented eyes looked into mine, his face pale and haggard. His forearm went up to wipe his sweat-drenched face. "I'm sorry," he panted. "That's all I can do now."
My hands reached for him. There was a sudden movement, so quick and so close that I drew my foot back out of the way.
I looked up, startled. Dr. Curtis and a shadowy someone else were standing over us. But the surprise of their being there was drowned in the sudden upsurge of wonderment.
"It moved!" I cried. "My foot moved. Look! Look! It moved!" And I concentrated on it again-hard, hard! After laborious seconds my left big toe wiggled.
My hysterical laugh was half a shout. "One toe is better than none!" I sobbed. "Isn't it, Dr, Curtis? Doesn't that mean that someday-that maybe-?"
He had dropped to his knees and he gathered my frantic hands into his two big quiet ones.
"It might well be," he said. "Jemmy will help us find out."
The other figure knelt beside Dr. Curtis. There was a curious waiting kind of silence, but it wasn't me he was looking at. It wasn't my hands he reached for. It wasn't my voice that cried out softly.
But it was the Francher kid who suddenly launched himself into the arms of the stranger and began to wail, the wild noisy crying of a child-a child who could be brave as long as he was completely lost but who had to dissolve into tears when rescue came.
The stranger looked over the Francher kid's head at Dr. Curtis. "He's mine," he said. "But she's almost one of yours."
It could all have been a dream, or a mad explosion of imagination of some sort; but they don't come any less imaginative than Mrs. McVey, and I know she will never forget the Francher kid. She has another foster child now, a placid plump little girl who loves to sit and listen to woman-talk-but the Francher kid is indelible in the McVey memory. Unborn generations will probably hear of him and his shoes.
And Twyla-she will carry his magic to her grave, unless (and I know she sometimes hopes prayerfully) Francher someday goes back for her.
Jemmy brought him to Cougar Canyon, and here they are helping him sort out all his many gifts and capabilities-some of which are unique to him-so that he will be able, finally, to fit into his most effective slot in their scheme of things. They tell me that there are those of this world who are developing even now in the footsteps of the People. That's what Jemmy meant when he told Dr. Curtis I was almost one of his.
And I am walking. Dr. Curtis brought Bethie. She only touched me softly with her hands and read me to Dr. Curtis. And I had to accept it then-that it was mostly myself that stood in my own way. That my doctor had been right: that time, patience and believing could make me whole again.
The more I think about it the more I think that those three words are the key to almost everything.
Time, patience and believing-and the greatest of these is believing.