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there's lots of other places to go."
"Maybe I'll see some of the children," Lea said. "Davy or Lizbeth or Kiah."
Karen laughed. "It isn't very likely-not under the circumstances, and 'the
children' would be vastly insulted if they heard you. They've grown up-at
least they think they have. My story was years ago, Lea."
"Years ago! I thought it just happened!"
"Oh, my golly, no! What made you think-?"
"You remembered so completely! Such little things. And the way Jemmy looked at
Valancy and Valancy at him-"
"The People have their special memory. And Jemmy was only looking love at
Valancy. Love doesn't die-"
"Love doesn't-" Lea's mouth twisted. "Come, then, let us define love-" She
stood up briskly. "I do want to walk a little-" She hesitated. "And maybe wade
a little? In real wet water, free-running-"
"Why, sure," Karen said. "The creek is running. Wade to your heart's content.
Lunch will be here for you and I'll be back by supper. We'll go to the school
together for Peter's installment."
Lea came upon the pool, her bare feet bruised, her skirt hem dabbled with
creek water, and her stomach empty of the lunch she had forgotten.
The pool was wide and quiet. Water murmured into it at one end and chuckled
out at the other. In between the surface was like a mirror. A yellow leaf fell
slowly from a cottonwood tree and touched so gently down on the water that the
resultant rings ran as fine as wire out to the sandy edge. Lea sighed,
gathered up her skirts and stepped cautiously into the pool. The clean cold
bite of the water caught her
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breath, but she waded deeper. The water crept up to her knees and over them.
She stood under the cottonwood tree, waiting, waiting so quietly that the
water closed smoothly around her legs and she could feel its flow only in the
tiny crumblings of sand under her feet. She stood there until another leaf
fell, brushed her cheek, slipped down her shoulder and curved over her
crumpled blouse, catching briefly in the gathered-up folds of her skirt before
it turned a leisurely circle on the surface of the shining water.
Lea stared down at the leaf and the silver shadow behind it that was herself,
then lifted her face to the towering canyon walls around her. She hugged her
elbows tightly to her sides and thought, "I am becoming an entity again. I
have form and proportion. I have boundaries and limits. I should be able to
learn how to manage a finite being. The burden of being a nothing in infinite
nothingness was too much-too much-"
A restless stirring that could turn to panic swung Lea around and she started
for shore. As she clambered up the bank, hands encumbered by her skirt, she
slipped and, flailing wildly for balance, fell backward into the pool with a
resounding splat. Dripping and gasping she scrambled wetly to a sitting
position, her shoulders barely out of the water. She blinked the water out of
her eyes and saw the man.
He had one foot in the water, poised in the act of starting toward her. He was
laughing. She spluttered indignantly, and the water sloshed up almost to her
chin.
"I might have drowned!" she cried, feeling very silly and very wet.
"If you go on sitting there you can drown yet!" he called.
"'High water comes in October.'"
"At the rate you're helping me out," she answered. "I'll make it! I can't get
up without getting my head all wet."
"But you're already wet all over," he laughed, wading toward her.
"That was accidental," she sputtered. "It's different, doing it on purpose!"
"Female logic!" He grabbed her hands and hoisted her to her feet, pushed her
to shore and shoved her up the bank.
Lea looked up into his smiling face and, smiling back, started to thank him.
Suddenly his face twisted all out of focus-and retreated a thousand miles
away. Faintly, faintly from afar, she heard his voice and her own gasping
breath. Woodenly she turned away and started to grope away from him. She felt
him catch her hand, and as she tugged away from him she felt all her being
waver and dissolve and nothingness roll in, darker and darker.
"Karen!" she cried. "Karen! Karen!" And she lost herself.
"I won't go." She turned fretfully away from Karen's proffered hand. The bed
was soft.
"Oh, yes, you will," Karen said. "You'll love Peter's installment. And Bethie!
You must hear about
Bethie."
"Oh, Karen, please don't make me try any more," Lea pleaded.
"I can't bear the slipping back after-after-" She shook her head" mutely.
"You haven't even started to try yet," Karen said, coolly.
"You've got to go tonight. It's lesson two for you, so you'll be ready to go
on."
"My clothes," Lea groped for an excuse. "They must be a mess."
"They are," Karen said, undisturbed. "You're about Lizbeth's size. I brought
you plenty. Choose."
"No." Lea turned away.
"Get up." Karen's voice was still cool but Lea got up. She fumbled wordlessly
into the proffered clothes.
"Hmm!" Karen said. "You're taller than I thought. You slump around so
since you gave up."
Lea felt a stir of indignation but stood still as Karen knelt and tugged at
the hem of the dress. The material stretched and stayed stretched, making the
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skirt a more seemly length for Lea.
"There," Karen said, standing and settling the dress smoothly around Lea's
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