‘It isn’t just that,’ I told him. ‘If it were Alan you were talking about, if it would help to throw him overboard, we’d do it. But it’s Anne you’re meaning, and we can’t do it — not because she’s a girl, it’d be the same with any of us; we just couldn’t do it. We’re all too close together. I’m much closer to her and the others than’ I am to my own sisters. It’s difficult to explain—’ I broke off, trying to think of a way of showing him what we meant to one another. There didn’t seem to be any clear way of putting it into words. I could only tell him, not very effectively.
‘It wouldn’t be just murder, Uncle Axel. It’d be something worse, as well; like violating part of ourselves for ever…. We couldn’t do it….’
‘The alternative is the sword over your heads,’ he said.
‘I know,’ I agreed unhappily. ‘But that isn’t the way. A sword inside us would be worse.’
I could not even discuss that solution with the others for fear that Anne might catch our thoughts; but I knew with certainty what their verdict on it would be. I knew that Uncle Axel had proposed the only practical solution; and I knew, too, its impossibility meant recognizing that nothing could be done.
Anne now transmitted nothing whatever, we caught no trace of her, but whether she had the strength of will not to receive we were still uncertain. From Rachel, her sister, we learnt that she would listen only to words, and was doing her best to pretend to herself that she was a norm in every way, but that could not give us enough confidence for us to exchange our thoughts with freedom.
And in the following weeks Anne kept it up, so that one could almost believe that she had succeeded in renouncing her difference and becoming a norm. Her wedding-day arrived with nothing amiss, and she and Alan moved into the house which her father gave them on the edge of his own land. Here and there one encountered hints that she might have been unwise to marry beneath her, but otherwise there was little comment.
During the next few months we heard scarcely anything of her. She discouraged visits from her sister as though she were anxious to cut even that last link with us. We could only hope that she was being more successful and happier than we had feared.
One of the consequences, as far as Rosalind and I were concerned, was a more searching consideration of our own troubles. Quite when it was that we had known we were going to marry one another, neither of us has been able to remember. It was one of those things that seem ordained, in such proper accord with the law of nature and our own desires, that we felt we had always known it. The prospect coloured our thoughts even before we acknowledged it to ourselves. To me, it had never been thinkable that anything else should happen, for when two people have grown up thinking together as closely as we had, and when they are drawn even closer together by the knowledge of hostility all round them they can feel the need of one another even before they know they are in love.
But when they do know they are in love they suddenly know, too, that there are ways in which they differ not at all from norms…. Also, they face the same obstacles that norms would….
The feud between our families which had first come into the open over the matter of the great-horses had now been established for years. My father and half-uncle Angus, Rosalind’s father, had settled down to a regular guerilla. In their efforts to score points, each kept a hawk-like watch upon the other’s land for the least Deviation or Offence, and both had been known for some time now to reward the informer who would bring news of irregularities in the other’s territory.
My father, in his determination to maintain a higher level of rectitude than Angus, had made considerable personal sacrifices. He had, for instance, in spite of his great liking for tomatoes, given up growing the unstable solonaceae family at all; we bought our tomatoes now, and our potatoes. Certain other species, too, were blacklisted as unreliable at some inconvenience and expense, and though it was a state of affairs which promoted high normality rates on both farms, it did nothing whatever to make for good neighbourliness.
It was perfectly clear that neither side would be anything but dead-set against a union of the families.
For both of us the situation was bound to grow more difficult. Already Rosalind’s mother had attempted some matchmaking; and I had seen my mother measuring one or two girls with a calculating, though so far unsatisfied, eye.
We were sure that, at present, neither side had an idea of anything between us. There was no more than acrid communication between the Strorms and the Mortons, and the only place where they could be found beneath the same roof was church. Rosalind and I met infrequently and very discreetly.
For the present there was an impasse, and it looked like an impasse of indefinite duration unless we should do something to force the situation. There was a possible way, and could we have been sure that Angus’ wrath would have taken the form of forcing a shotgun wedding we would have taken it; but we were by no means certain about that. Such was his opposition to all Strorms that there was, we considered, a strong likelihood that he might be prompted to use the gun another way. Moreover, we were sure that even if honour were forcibly preserved we should both of us be disowned by our families thereafter.
We discussed and explored lengthily for some pacific way out of the dilemma, but even when half a year had passed since Anne’s marriage we were no nearer reaching it.
As for the rest of our group, we found that in that six months the first alarm had lost its edge. That is not to say that we were easy in our minds: we had never been that since we discovered ourselves, but we had had to get used to living with a degree of threat, and once the crisis over Anne had passed we got used to living with a slightly-increased degree of threat.
Then, one Sunday at dusk, Alan was found dead in the field-path that led to his home, with an arrow through his neck.
We had the news first from Rachel, and we listened anxiously as she tried to make contact with her sister. She used all the concentration she could manage, but it was useless. Anne’s mind remained as firmly closed against us as it had been for the last eight months. Even in distress she transmitted nothing.
‘I’m going over to see her,’ Rachel told us. ‘She must have someone by her.’
We waited expectantly for an hour or more. Then Rachel came through again, very perturbed.
‘She won’t see me. She won’t let me into the house. She’s let a neighbour in, but not me. She screamed at me to go away.’
‘She must think one of us did it,’ came Michael’s response. ‘Did any of you do it — or know anything about it?’
Our denials came in emphatically, one after another.
‘We’ve got to stop her thinking that,’ Michael decided. ‘She mustn’t go on believing it. Try to get through to her.’
We all tried. There was no response whatever.
‘No good,’ Michael admitted. ‘You must get a note to her somehow, Rachel,’ he added. ‘Word it carefully so that she’ll understand we had nothing to do with it, but so that it won’t mean anything to anyone else.’
‘Very well. I’ll try,’ Rachel agreed doubtfully. Another hour passed, before we heard from her once more. ‘It’s no good. I gave the note to the woman who’s there, and waited. When the woman came back she said Anne just tore it up without opening it. My mother’s in there now, trying to persuade her to come home.’ Michael was slow in replying to that. Then he advised:
‘We’d best be prepared. All of you make ready to run for it if necessary — but don’t rouse any suspicions. Rachel, keep on trying to find out what you can, and let us know at once if anything happens.’