The People

"And he is still here," I thought comfortably. "The grass still bends to his feet, the leaves still part to his passing, the waters still ripple to his touch, and my heart still cradles his name.
"Oh, Thann, Thann!" I wouldn't let tears form in my eyes. I smiled. "I wonder what kind of a grampa you'd have made!" I leaned my forehead on my folded arms briefly, then turned to busy myself with straightening the rooms for the day.
I was somewhat diverted from routine by finding six mismated sandals stacked, for some unfathomable reason, above the middle of Simon's bed, the top one, inches above the rest, bobbing in the breeze from the open window.
The oddness we had felt about the day turned out to be more than a passing uneasiness and we adults were hardly surprised when the children came straggling back hours before they usually did.
We hailed them from afar, lifting out to them expecting to help with their burdens of brightness, but the children didn't answer our hails. They plodded on toward the house, dragging slow feet in the abundant grass.
"What do you suppose has happened?" breathed 'Chell.
"Surely not Eve-"
"Adonday veeah!" murmured David, his eyes intent on the children. "Something's wrong, but I see Eve."
"Hi, young ones," he called cheerfully. "How's the crop this year?"
The children stopped, huddled together, almost fearfully.
"Look." Davie pushed his basket at them. Four misshapen failova glowed dully in the basket. No flickering, glittering brightness. No flushing and paling of petals. No crisp, edible sweetness of blossom. Only a dull glow, a sullen winking, an unappetizing crumbling.
"That's all," said Davie, his voice choking. "That's all we could find!" He was scared and outraged-outraged that his world dared to be different from what he had expected-had counted on.
Eve cried, "No, no! I have one. Look!" Her single flower was a hard-clenched flahmen bud with only a smudge of light at the tip.
"No failova?" 'Chell took Davie's proffered basket. "No flahmen? But they always bloom on Gathering Day. Maybe the buds-"
"No buds," said Simon, his face painfully white under the brightness of his hair. I glanced at him quickly. He seldom ever got upset over anything. What was there about this puzzling development that was stirring him?
"David!" 'Chell's face turned worriedly to him. "What's wrong? There have always been failova!"
"I know," said David, fingering Eve's bud and watching it crumble in his lingers. "Maybe it's only in the meadows. Maybe there's plenty in the hills."
"No," I said. "Look." Far off toward the bills we could see the teeners coming, slowly, clustered together, panthus baskets trailing.
"No failova," said Lytha as they neared us. She turned her basket up, her face troubled. "No failova and no flahmen. Not a flicker on all the hills where they were so thick last year. Oh, Father, why not? It's as if the sun hadn't come up! Something's wrong."
"Nothing catastrophic, Lytha." David comforted her with a smile. "We'll bring up the matter at the next meeting of the Old Ones. Someone will have the answer. It is unusual, you know." (Unheard of, he should have said.) "We'll find out then." He boosted Eve to his shoulder. "Come oh, young ones, the world hasn't ended. It's still Gathering Day! I'll race you to the house. First one there gets six koomatka to eat all by himself! One, two, three-"
Off shot the shrieking, shouting children, Eve's little heels pummeling David's chest in her excitement. The teeners followed for a short way and then slanted off on some project of their own, waving good-by to 'Chell and me. We women followed slowly to the house, neither speaking.
I wasn't surprised to find Simon waiting for me in my room. He sat huddled on my bed, his hands clasping and unclasping and trembling, a fine, quick trembling deeper than muscles and tendons. His face was so white it was almost luminous and the skiff of golden freckles across the bridge of his nose looked metallic.
"Simon?" I touched him briefly on his hair that was so like Thann's had been.
"Gramma." His breath caught in a half hiccough. He cleared his throat carefully as though any sudden movement would break something fragile. "Gramma," he whispered. "I can See!"
"See!" I sat down beside him because my knees suddenly evaporated. "Oh, Simon! You don't mean-"
"Yes, I do, Gramma." He rubbed his hands across his eyes. "We had just found the first failova and wondering what was wrong with it when everything kinda went away and I was-somewhere-Seeing!" He looked up, terrified.
"It's my Gift!"
I gathered the suddenly wildly sobbing child into my arms and held him tightly until his terror spent itself and I felt his withdrawal. I let him go and watched his wet, flushed face dry and peal back to normal.
"Oh, Gramma," he said, "I don't want a Gift yet. I'm only ten. David hasn't found his Gift and he's twelve already. I don't want a Gift-especially this one " He closed his eyes and shuddered. "Oh, Gramma, what I've seen already! Even the Happy scares me because it's still in the Presence!"
"It's not given to many," I said, at a loss how to comfort him. "Why, Simon, it would take a long journey back to our Befores to find one in our family who was permitted to See. It is an honor-to be able to put aside the curtain of time-"
"I don't want to!" Simon's eyes brimmed again. "I don't think it's a bit of fun. Do I have to?"
"Do you have to breathe?" I asked him. "You could stop if you wanted to, but your body would die. You can refuse your Gift, but part of you would die-the part of you the Power honors-your place in the Presence-your syllable of the Name." All this he knew from first consciousness, but I could feel him taking comfort from my words. "Do you realize the People have had no one to See for them since-since-why, clear back to the Peace! And now you are it! Oh, Simon, I am so proud of you!" I laughed at my own upsurge of emotion. "Oh, Simon! May I touch my thrice-honored grandson?"
With a wordless cry, he flung himself into my arms and we clung tightly, tightly, before his deep renouncing withdrawal He looked at me then and slowly dropped his arms from around my neck, separation in every movement. I could see growing in the topaz tawniness of his eyes, his new set-apartness. It made me realize anew how close the Presence is to us always and how much nearer Simon was than any of us. Also, naked and trembling in my heart was the recollection that never did the People have one to See for them unless there lay ahead portentous things to See.
Both of us shuttered our eyes and looked away, Simon to veil the eyes that so nearly looked on the Presence, I, lest I be blinded by the Glory reflected in his face.
"Which reminds me," I said in a resolutely everyday voice, "I will now listen to explanations as to why those six sandals were left on, over, and among your bed this morning."
"Well," he said with a tremulous grin. "The red ones are too short-" He turned stricken, realizing eyes to me. "I won't ever be able to tell anyone anything any more unless the Power wills it!" he cried. Then he grinned again, "And the green ones need the latchets renewed-"
A week later the usual meeting was called and David and I-we were among the Old Ones of our Group-slid into our robes. I felt a pang as I smoothed the shimmering fabric over my hips, pressing pleats in with my thumb and finger to adjust for lost weight. The last time I had worn it was the Festival the year Thann was Called. Since then I hadn't wanted to attend the routine Group meetings-not without Thann. I hadn't realized that I was losing weight.
'Chell clung to David. "I wish now that I were an Old One, too," she said. "I've got a nameless worry in the pit of my stomach heavy enough to anchor me for life. Hurry home, you two!"
I looked back as we lifted just before the turnoff. I smiled to see the warm lights begin to well up in the windows. Then my smile died. I felt, too, across my heart the shadow that made 'Chell feel it was Lighting Time before the stars had broken through the last of the day.