Pilgrimage: the book of the people by Zenna Henderson

Author:Zenna Henderson [Henderson, Zenna]
Format: epub
Tags: General, Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780839824985
Publisher: Boston : Gregg Press, 1978, c1961.
Published: 1978-06-15T07:00:00+00:00

V

“OH, BUT! Oh, but!” Lea thought excitedly. “Maybe, maybe—!” She turned at the pressure of a hand on her shoulder and met Melodye’s understanding eyes.

“No,” she said, “we’re still Outsiders. It’s like the color of your eyes. You’re either brown-eyed or you’re not. We’re not the People. Welcome to my bakery window.”

“Seems to me you’re fattening on just the sight and smell then.” It was Dr. Curtis.

“Fattening!” Melodye wailed. “’Oh, no! Not after all my efforts—”

“Well, perhaps being nourished would be a more tactful way of saying it, as well as being more nearly exact. You don’t seem to be wasting away.”

“Maybe,” Melodye said, sobering, “maybe it’s because knowing there can be this kind of communication between the People, and trying to reach it for myself, I have made myself more receptive to communication from a source that knows no Outsiders—no East or West—no bond or free—”

“Hmm,” Dr. Curtis said. “There you have a point for pondering.”

Karen and Lea separated from the happily chattering groups as they passed the house. The two girls lingered, huddling in their jackets, until the sound of the other voices died in shadowy echoes down-canyon. Lea lifted her chin to a sudden cool breeze.

“Karen, do you think I’ll ever get straightened out?” she asked.

“If you’re not too enamored of your difficulties,” Karen said, her hand on the doorknob. “If you’re not too firmly set on remodeling ‘nearer to your heart’s desire.’ We may think this is a ‘sorry scheme of things’ but we have to learn that our own judgment is neither completely valid nor the polestar for charting our voyage. Too often we operate on the premise that what we think just has to be the norm for all things. Really, you’d find it most comforting to admit that you aren’t running the universe—that you can’t be responsible for everything, that there are lots of things you can and must relinquish into other hands—”

“To let go—” Lea looked down at her clenched hands. “I’ve held them like this so much it’s a wonder my nails haven’t grown through my palms.”

“Sneaky way to keep from having to use nail polish!” Karen laughed. “But come—to bed, to bed. Oh, I’ll be so glad when I can take you over the hill!” She opened the door and went in, tugging at her jacket. “I just ache to talk it over with you, good old Outsider-type talking. I acquired quite a taste for it that year I spent Outside—” Her voice faded down the hall. Lea looked up at the brilliant stars that punctuated the near horizon.

“The stars come down,” she thought, “down to the hills and the darkness. The darkness lifts up to the hills and the stars. And here on the porch is a me-sized empty place trying to Become. It’s so hard to reconcile darkness and the stars—but what else are we but an attempt at reconciliation?”

Night came again. It seemed to Lea that time was like a fan. The evenings were the carefully carved, tangible bones of the fan that held their identity firmly.

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