No Different Flesh by Zenna Henderson Read Free Book Online

she hovered, sitting on air, crooning to Deeko, until she drifted slowly down to the floor. "It's all there! It's been written! It's a whole thing! All you have to do is put it again on paper. Your word scriber-"
    "I don't have total recall," said Mark. "Even if I did, just to put it on paper again-come see our 'word scriber.'" He smiled a small bent smile as Johannan poked fingers into the mechanism of the typewriter and clucked unhappily, sounding so like Lala that Meris almost laughed. "Such slowness!
    Such complications!"
    Johannan looked at Mark. "If you want, my People can help you get your manuscript back again."
    "It's finished," said Mark. "Why agonize over it any more?" He turned to the blank darkness of the window.
    "Was it worth the effort of writing?" asked Johannan.
    "I thought so," said Mark. "And others did, too."
    "Would it have served a useful purpose?" asked Johannan.
    "Of course it would have!" Mark swung angrily from the window. "It covered an area that needs to be covered. It was new-the first book in the field!" He turned again to the window.
    "Then," said Johannan simply, "we will make it again. Have you paper enough?"
    Mark swung back, his eyes glittering. Meris stepped between his glare and Johannan. "This summer I have come back from the dead," she reminded. "And you caught a baby for me, pulling her down from the sky by one ankle. Johannan went looking for his people through the treetops. And a three-year-old called him back by leaning against the window. If all these things could happen, why can't Johannan bring your manuscript back?"
    "But if he tries and can't-" Mark began.
    "Then we can let the dead past bury the dead," said Meris sharply, "which little item you have not been letting happen so far!"
    Mark stared at her, then flushed a deep, painful flush.
    "Okay, then," he said. "Stir the bones again! Let him put meat back on them if he can!"
    The next few hours were busy with patterned confusion. Mark roared off through the gathering darkness to persuade Chip to open the store for typing paper.
    And people arrived. Just arrived, smiling, at the door, familiar friends before they spoke, and Meris, glancing out to see if the heavens them selves had split open from astonishment saw, hovering treetop high, a truly vintage car, an old pickup that clanked softly to itself, spinning a wheel against a branch as it waited.
    "If Tad could see that!" she thought, with a bubble of laughter nudging her throat.
    She hurried back indoors further to make welcome the newcomers-Valancy, Karen, Davy, Jemmy. The women gathered Lala in with soft cries and shining eyes and she wept briefly upon them in response to their emotions, then leaped upon the fellows and nearly strangled them with her hugs.
    Johannan briefed the four in what had happened and what was needed. They discussed the situation, glanced at the few salvaged pages on the desk and sent, eyes closed briefly, for someone else. His name was Remy and he had a special "Gift" for plans and diagrams. He arrived just before Mark got back, so the whole group of them confronted him when he flung the door open and stood there with his bundle of paper.
    He blinked, glanced at Meris, then, shifting his burden to one arm, held out a welcoming hand. "I hadn't expected an invasion," he smiled. "To tell the truth, I didn't know what to expect." He thumped the package down on the table and grinned at Meris. "Chip's sure now that writers are psychos," he said.
    "Any normal person could wait till morning for paper or use flattened grocery bags!" He shrugged out of his jacket. "Now."
    Jemmy said, "It's really quite simple. Since you wrote your book and have read it through several times, the thing exists as a whole in your memory, just as it was on paper. So all we have to do is put it on paper again." He gestured.
    "That's all?" Mark's hands went back through his hair.
    "That's all? Man, that's all I had to do after my notes were organized, months ago! Maybe I should have