Lea fought her terror and slowly, slowly, it withdrew before a faint dawning wonder. “Oh!” she thought. “Oh!” as Karen’s forgotten words welled softly up out of memory-“arms remember when eyes forget.” “Oh, my goodness!” And her eyes flew open only to wince shut again against the outpouring of the full moon.
“Wasn’t it-didn’t you-?” she faltered, peering narrowly up into Dean’s moon-whitened face.
“That’s just what I was going to ask you,” Deon smiled.
“Seems to me I should have recognized you before this, but remember, the first time I ever saw you you were neck-deep in water and stringy in the hair-one piece of it was plastered across your nose-and Karen didn’t even clue me!”
“But look now! Just look now!”
They had broken out of the shadows, and Lea looked below her at the serene tumble of clouds-the beyond-words wonder of a field of clouds under the moon. It was a beauty that not only fed the eyes but made all the senses yearn to encompass it and comprehend it. It sorrowed her not to be able to fill her arms with it and hold it so tight that it would melt right into her own self.
Silently the two moved over acres and acres of the purity of curves, the ineffable delight of depth and height and changing shadows-a world, whole and complete in itself, totally unrelated to the earth below in the darkness.
Finally Lea whispered, “Could I touch one? Could I actually put my hands into one of those clouds?”
“Why, sure,” Deon said. “But, baby, it’s cold out there. We have considerable altitude to get over the storm. But if you like-“
“Oh, yes!” Lea breathed. “It would be like touching the hem of heaven!”
Not even feeling the bite of cold when Deon opened the shield, Lea reached out gently to touch the welling flank of the cloud. It closed over her hands, bodiless, beautiful, as intangible as light, as insubstantial as a dream, and, like a dream, it dissolved through her fingers. As Deon closed the shield again, Lea found herself gasping and shivering. She looked at her hands and saw them glisten moistly in the moonlight. She looked up at Deon, turning in his arms. “Share my cloud,” she said, and touched his cheek softly.
It was hard to gauge time, moving above a wonderland of clouds like that below them, but it didn’t seem very long before Deon’s voice vibrated against Lea’s cheek where it rested against his shoulder. “We’re going down now. Stand by for turbulence. We’ll probably get tossed around a little.”
Lea stirred and smiled. “I must have slept. I’m only dreaming all this.”
“Pleasant dreams?”
“Pleasant dreams.”
“Here we go! Hang on!”
Lea gasped as they plunged down toward the whiteness. All the serenity and beauty was gone with the snuffing out of the moon. Darkness and tumult were all around them. Wind grabbed them roughly and tossed them raggedly through the clouds, up, impossibly fast, down, incredibly far, twisting and tumbling, laced about by lightning, shaken by the blare of thunder, deafened-even though protected-by the myriad shrieking voices of the wind.
“It’s death!” Lea thought frantically. “Nothing can live! It’s madness! It’s chaos!”
And then, in the middle of the terrifying tumult, she became conscious of warmth and shelter and, more personally, the awareness of someone-the nearness of another’s breathing, the strength of arms.
“This,” she thought wistfully, “must be like that love Karen mentioned. Out there all the storms of the world. In here, strength, warmth and someone else.”
A sudden down-draft flung them bodily out of the storm cloud, spinning them down to a staggering landing in the depth of Cougar Canyon, finally scraping them to a halt roughly against a yellow pine.
“Hoosh!” Deon leaned against the trunk and sagged. “Now I’m glad I didn’t take the jalopy. That would have unscrewed every bolt in it. Thunderstorms are violent!”
“I should say so.” Lea stirred in the circle of his arms. “But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. It’d be better than cussing or crying any time! Such wonderful slam-banging!” She stepped away from him and looked around.
“Where are we?” She prodded with her foot at the edge of a long indentation that ran darkly in the bright flush of lightning across the flat.
“Just over the hill from the schoolhouse.”
“Over the hill?” Lea looked around her in startled interest.
“But there’s nothing here.”
“How true.” Deon kicked a small clod into the darkness.
“Nothing here but me. And this time last week I’d have sworn-Oh, well-“
“You had me worried.” The two jumped, startled at the sudden voice from the darkness above. “I thought maybe you might have been dumped miles away or maybe that Lea’s toothbrush had slowed you down. Everyone’s waiting.” Karen touched down on the flat beside them.
“Then it came?” Deon surged forward eagerly. “Did it work? What was-?”
Karen laughed. “Simmer down, Deon. It arrived. It works. The Old Ones have called the Gathering and it’s all ready to go except for three empty seats we’re not filling. Alley-ooop!”
And Lea found herself snatched into the air and over the hill beyond the flat before she could gasp or let fear catch up with her. And she was red-cheeked and laughing, her hair sparkling with the first of a sudden shower, when they landed on the school porch and let the sudden snarl of thunder and shout of wind push them through the door. They threaded their way through the chattering groups and found seats. Lea looked over at the corner where she usually sat-almost afraid she might see herself still sitting there, hunched over the miserly counting of the coins of her misery.
She felt wonder and delight flood out into her arms and legs, and could hardly contain a wordless cry of joy. She spread her fingers on both hands, reaching, reaching openhanded, for what might be ahead.
“Darkness will come again,” she admitted to herself. “This is just a chink in my prison-a promise of what is on the other side of me. But, oh! how wonderful-how wonderful!” She curled her fingers softly to hold a handful of the happiness and found it not strange that another hand closed warmly over hers. “These are people who will listen when I cry. They will help me find my answers. They will sustain me in the long long way that I must grope back to find myself again. But I’m not alone! Never alone again!”
She let everything but the present moment shudder away on a happy shaken sigh as she murmured with the Group, “We are met together in Thy Name.”
No one was at the desk. In the middle of it was the same small gadget, or one very like it, that had always been there. Valancy, tenderly burdened on one arm with the flannelly bundle of Our Baby, leaned over and touched the gadget.
“I told you it would arrive okay.” The voice came so lifelike that Lea involuntarily searched the front of the room for the absent speaker.
“And I’m to have the last say, after all.
“Well, I suppose you’d like a theme, just to round out things for you-so here it is.
“‘For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God giveth you and ye shall possess it and dwell therein….’ “
JORDAN
I GUESS I was the first to see it-the bright form among the clouds above Baldy. There seemed to be no interval of wondering or questioning in my mind. I knew the moment I caught the metallic gleam-the instant the curl-back of the clouds gave a brief glimpse of a long sleek curve. I knew and I gave a shout of delight. Here it was! What more direct answer to a prayer could any fellow want? Just like that! My release from rebellion, the long-awaited answer to my protests against restrictions! There above me was release! I emptied my two hands of the gravel I had made of two small rocks during the time I had brooded on my boulder, dusted my palms against my Levi’s and lifted myself above the brush. I turned toward home, the tops of the underbrush ticking off the distance against my trailing toes. But oddly I felt a brief remote pang-almost of-regret?