“I know the family casually,” Low said. “They don’t know about Lucine and me. She caught my imagination once last year when I was passing the school. The kids were pestering her. I never felt such heartbroken bewilderment in all my life. Poor little Earth kid. She’s a three-year-old in a twelve-year-old body-“
“Four-year-old,” I murmured. “Or almost five. She’s learning a little.”
“Four or five,” Low said. “It must be awful to be trapped in a body-“
“Yes,” I sighed. “To be shut in the prison of yourself.”
Tangibly I felt again the warm running of his finger around my face, softly, comfortingly, though he made no move toward me. I turned away from him in the dusk to hide the sudden tears that came.
It was late when we got home. There were still lights in the bars and a house or two when we pulled into Kruper, but the hotel was dark, and in the pause after the car stopped I could hear the faint creaking of the sagging front gate as it swung in the wind. We got out of the car quietly, whispering under the spell of the silence, and tiptoed up to the gate. As usual the scraggly rosebush that drooped from the fence snagged my hair as I went through, and as Low helped free me we got started giggling. I suppose neither of us had felt young and foolish for so long, and we had both unburdened ourselves of bitter tensions, and found tacit approval of us as the world refused to accept us and as we most wanted to be; and, each having at least glimpsed a kindred soul, well, we suddenly bubbled over. We stood beneath the upstairs porch and tried to muffle our giggles.
“People will think we’re crazy if they hear us carrying on like this,” I choked.
“I’ve got news for you,” said Low, close to my ear. “We are crazy. And I dare you to prove it.”
“Hoh! As though it needed any proof!”
“I dare you.” His laughter tickled my cheek.
“How?” I breathed defiantly.
“Let’s not go up the stairs,” he hissed. “Let’s lift through the air. Why waste the energy when we can-?”
He held out his hand to me. Suddenly sober I took it and we stepped back to the gate and stood hand in hand, looking up.
“Ready?” he whispered, and I felt him tug me upward.
I lifted into the air after him, holding all my possible fear clenched in my other hand.
And the rosebush reached up and snagged my hair.
“Wait!” I whispered, laughter trembling again. “I’m caught.”
“‘Earth-bound!” he chuckled as he tugged at the clinging strands.
“Smile when you say that, podner,” I returned, feeling my heart melt with pleasure that I had arrived at a point where I could joke about such a bitterness-and trying to ignore the fact that my feet were treading nothing but air. My hair freed, he lifted me up to him. I think our lips only brushed, but we overshot the porch and had to come back down to land on it. Low steadied me as we stepped across the railing.
“We did it,” he whispered.
“Yes,” I breathed. “We did.”
Then we both froze. Someone was coming into the yard. Someone who stumbled and wavered and smashed glassily against the gatepost.
“‘Ay! Ay! Madre mia!” Severeid Swanson fell to his knees beside the smashed bottle, “Ay, virgen purisima!”
“Did he see us?” I whispered on an indrawn breath.
“I doubt it.” His words were warm along my cheek. “He hasn’t seen anything outside himself for years.”
“Watch out for the chair.” We groped through the darkness into the upper hall. A feeble fifteen-watt bulb glimmered on the steady drip of water splashing down into the sagging sink from the worn faucets that blinked yellow through the worn chrome. By virtue of these two leaky outlets we had bathing facilities on the second floor.
Our good nights were subvocal and quick.
I was in my nightgown and robe, sitting on the edge of my bed, brushing my hair, when I heard a shuffle and a mutter outside my door. I checked the latch to be sure it was fastened and brushed on. There was a thud and a muffled rapping and my doorknob turned.
“Teesher!” It was a cautious voice. “Teesher!”
“Who on earth!” I thought and went to the door. “Yes?” I leaned against the peeling panel.
“Lat-me-een.” The words were labored and spaced.
“What do you want?”
“To talk weeth you, teesher.”
Filled with astonished wonder I opened the door. There was Severeid Swanson swaying in the hall! But they had told me he had no English …. He leaned precariously forward, his face glowing in the light, years younger than I’d ever seen him.
“My bottle is broken. You have done eet. It is not good to fly without the wings. Los angeles santos, si, pero not the lovers to fly to kiss. It makes me drop my bottle. On the ground is spilled all the dreams.”
He swayed backward and wiped the earnest sweat from his forehead. “It is not good. I tell you this because you have light in the face You are good to my Esperanza. You have dreams that are not in the bottle. You have smiles and not laughing for the lost ones. But you must not fly. It is not good. My bottle is broken.”
“I’m sorry,” I said through my astonishment. “I’ll buy you another.”
“No,” Severeid said. “Last time they tell me this, too, but I cannot drink it because of the wondering. Last time, like birds, all, all in the sky-over the hills-the kind ones. The ones who also have no laughter for the lost.”
“Last time?” I grabbed his swaying arm and pulled him into the room, shutting the door, excitement tingling along the insides of my elbows. “Where? When? Who was flying?”
He blinked owlishly at me, the tip of his tongue moistening his dry lips.
“It is not good to fly without wings,” he repeated.
‘“Yes, yes, I know. Where did you see the others fly without wings? I must find them-I must!”
“Like birds,” he said, swaying. “Over the hills.”
“Please,” I said, groping wildly for what little Spanish I possessed.
“I work there a long time. I don’t see them no more. I drink some more. Chinee Joe give me new bottle.”
“Por favor, senor,” I cried, “dondé-dondé-?”
All the light went out of his face. His mouth slackened. Dead eyes peered from under lowered lids.
“No comprendo.” He looked around, dazed. “Buenas noches, senorita.” He backed out of the door and closed it softly behind him.
“But-!” I cried to the door. “But please!”
Then I huddled on my bed and hugged this incredible piece of information to me.
“Others!” I thought. “Flying over the hills! All, all in the sky! Maybe, oh maybe one of them was at the hotel in town. Maybe they’re not too far away. If only we knew … !”
Then I felt the sudden yawning of a terrifying chasm. If it was true, if Severeid had really seen others lifting like birds over the hills, then Low was right-there were others! There must be a Canyon, a starship, a Home. But where did that leave me? I shrank away from the possibilities. I turned and buried my face in my pillow. But Mother and Dad! And Granpa Josh and Gramma Malvina and Great-granpa Benedaly and-I clutched at the memories of all the family stories I’d heard. Crossing the ocean in steerage. Starting a new land. Why, my ancestors were as solid as a rock wall back of me, as far back as-as Adam, almost. I leaned against the certainty and cried out to feel the stone wall waver and become a curtain stirring in the winds of doubt.
“No, no!” I sobbed, and for the first time in my life I cried for my mother, feeling as bereft as though she had died.
Then I suddenly sat up in bed. “It might not be so!” I cried. “He’s just a drunken wino. No telling what he might conjure out of his bottle. It might not be so!”
“But it might,” one of me whispered maliciously. “It might !”