And by the time dawn arrived Lea was sleeping, her face smoothing out from the agony of the black night. There was almost triumph upon it.
That evening Karen and Lea walked through the gathering twilight to the schoolhouse. The softly crisp evening air was so clear and quiet that voices and far laughter echoed around them.
“Wait, Lea.” Karen was waving to someone. “Here comes Santhy. She’s just learning to lift. Bet her mother doesn’t know she’s still out.” She laughed softly.
Lea watched with wonder as the tiny five-year-old approached them in short abrupt little arcs, her brief skirts flattening and flaring as she lifted and landed.
“She’s using more energy lifting than if she walked,” Karen said softly, “but she’s so proud of herself. Let’s wait for her. She wants us.”
By now Lea could see the grave intent look on Santhy’s face and could almost hear the little grunts as she took off until she finally landed, staggering, against Lea. Lea steadied her, dropping down beside her, holding her gently in the circle of her alms.
“You’re Lea,” Santhy said, smiling shyly.
“Yes,” Lea said. “How did you know?”
“Oh, we all know you. You’re our new God-bless every night.”
“Oh.” Lea was taken aback.
“I brought you something,” Santhy said, her hand clenched in a bulging little pocket. “I saved it from our ‘joicing party for the new baby. I don’t care if you’re an Outsider. I saw you wading in the creek and you’re pretty.” She pulled her hand out of her pocket and deposited on Lea’s palm a softly glowing bluey-green object. “It’s a koomatka,” she whispered. “Don’t let Mama see it. I was s’posed to eat it but I had two-” She spread her arms and lifted up right past Lea’s nose.
“A koomatka,” Lea said, getting up and holding out her hand wonderingly, the glow from it deepening in the dusk.
“Yes,” Karen said. “She really shouldn’t have. It’s forbidden to show to Outsiders, you know.”
“Must I give it back?” Lea asked wistfully. “Can’t I keep it even if I don’t belong?”
Karen looked at her soberly for a moment, then she smiled.
“You can keep it, or eat it, though you probably won’t like it. It tastes like music sounds, you know. But you may have it-even if you don’t belong.”
Lea’s hand closed softly around the koomatka as the two turned toward the schoolhouse. “Speaking of belonging-” Karen said, “it’s Dita’s turn tonight. She knows plenty about belonging and not belonging.”
“I wondered about tonight. I mean not waiting for Valancy-” Lea shielded her eyes against the bright open door as they mounted the steps.
“Oh, she wouldn’t miss it,” Karen said. “She’ll listen in from home.”
They were the last to arrive. Invocation over, Dita was already in the chair behind the desk, her hands folded primly in front of her. “Valancy,” she said, “we’re all here now. Are you ready?”
“Oh, yes.” Lea could feel Valancy’s answer. “Our Baby’s asleep now,”
The group laughed at the capitals in Valancy’s voice.
“You didn’t invent babies,” Dita laughed.
“Hah!” Jemmy’s voice answered triumphantly. “This one we did!’”
Lea looked around the laughing group. “They’re happy!” she thought. “In a world like this they’re happy anyway! What do they have as a touchstone?” She studied the group as Dita began, and under the first flow of Dita’s words she thought, “Maybe this is the answer. Maybe this is the touchstone. When any one of them cries out the others hear-and listen. Not just with their ears but with their hearts. No matter who cries out-someone listens-“
“My theme,” Dita said soberly, “is very brief-but oh, the heartbreak in it. It’s “And your children shall wander in the wilderness.’ ” Her clasped hands tightened on each other.
“I was wandering that day…”
WILDERNESS
“WELL, HOW do you expect Bruce to concentrate on spelling when he’s so worried about his daddy?” I thumbed through my second graders” art papers, hoping to find one lift out of the prosaic.
” ‘Worried about his daddy’?” Mrs. Kanz looked up from her spelling, tests. “What makes you think he’s worried about him?”
“Why, he’s practically sick for fear he won’t come home this time.” I turned the paper upside down and looked again.
“I thought you knew everything about everyone,” I teased.
“You’ve briefed me real good in these last three weeks. I feel like a resident instead of a newcomer.” I sighed and righted the paper. It was still a tree with six apples on it.
“But I certainly didn’t know Stell and Mark were having trouble.” Mrs. Kanz was chagrined.
“They had an awful fight the night before he left,” I said. “Nearly scared the waddin’ out of Bruce.”
“How do you know?” Mrs. Kanz’s eyes were suddenly sharp. “You haven’t met Stell yet and Bruce hasn’t said a word all week except yes and no.”
I let my breath out slowly. “Oh, no!” I thought. “Not already! Not already!”
“Oh, a little bird told me,” I said lightly, busying myself with my papers to hide the small tremble of my hands.
“Little bird, toosh! You probably heard it from Marie, though how she-“
“Could be,” I said, “could be.” I bundled up my papers hurriedly. “Oops! Recess is almost over. Gotta get downstairs before the thundering herd arrives.”
The sound of the old worn steps was hollow under my hurried feet, but not nearly so hollow as the feeling in my stomach.
Only three weeks and I had almost betrayed myself already. Why couldn’t I remember! Besides, the child wasn’t even in my room. I had no business knowing anything about him. Just because he had leaned so quietly, so long, over his literature book last Monday-and I had only looked a little ….
At the foot of the stairs I was engulfed waist-deep in children sweeping in from the playground. Gratefully I let myself be swept with them into the classroom.
That afternoon I leaned with my back against the window sill and looked over my quiet class. Well, quiet in so far as moving around the room was concerned, but each child humming audibly or inaudibly with the untiring dynamos of the young-the mostly inarticulate thought patterns of happy children. All but Lucine, my twelve-year-old first grader, who hummed briefly to a stimulus and then clicked off, hummed again and clicked off. There was a short somewhere, and her flat empty eyes showed it.
I sighed and turned my back on the room, wandering my eyes up the steepness of Black Mesa as it towered above the school, trying to lose myself from apprehension, trying to forget why I had run away-nearly five hundred miles-trying to forget those things that tugged at my sanity, things that could tear me loose from reality and set me adrift …. Adrift? Oh, glory! Set me free! Set me free! I hooked my pointer fingers through the old wire grating that protected the bottom of the window and tugged sharply. 01d nails grated and old wire gave, and I sneezed through the dry acid bite of ancient dust.
I sat down at my desk and rummaged for a Kleenex and snoozed again, trying to ignore, but knowing too well, the heavy nudge and tug inside me. That tiny near betrayal had cracked my tight protective shell. All that I had packed away so resolutely was shouldering and elbowing its way …
I swept my children out of spelling into numbers so fast that Lucine poised precariously on the edge of tears until she clicked on again and murkily perceived where we had gone.