Pilgrimage by Zenna Henderson Read Free Book Online Page B

swallowed a scream. A surge of fear swept through our huddled group and shoved me back out from under the tarp.
    Till I die I'll never forget Valancy standing there tense and taller than life against the rolling convulsive clouds of smoke, both her hands outstretched, fingers wide apart as the measured terror of her voice went on and on in words that plagued me because I should have known them and didn't. As I watched I felt an icy cold gather, a paralyzing unearthly cold that froze the tears on my tensely upturned face.
    And then lightning leaped from finger to finger of her lifted hands. And lightning answered in the clouds above her. With a toss of her hands she threw the cold, the lightning, the sullen shifting smoke upward, and the roar of the racing fire was drowned in a hissing roar of down-drenching rain.
    I knelt there in the deluge, looking for an eternal second into her drained despairing hopeless eyes before I caught her just in time to keep her head from banging on the granite as she pitched forward, inert.
    Then as I sat there cradling her head in my lap, shaking with cold and fear, with the terrified wailing of the kids behind me, I heard Father shout and saw him and Jemmy and Darcy Clarinade in the old pickup, lifting over the steaming streaming manzanita, over the trackless mountainside through the rain to us. Father lowered the truck until one of the wheels brushed a branch and spun lazily; then the three of them lifted all of us up to the dear familiarity of that beat-up old jalopy.
    Jemmy received Valancy's limp body into his arms and crouched in back, huddling her in his arms, for the moment hostile to the whole world that had brought his love to such a pass.
    We kids clung to Father in an ecstasy of relief. He hugged us all tight to him; then he raised my face.
    "Why did it rain?" he asked sternly, every inch an Old One while the cold downpour dripped off the ends of my hair and he stood dry inside his shield.
    "I don't know," I sobbed, blinking my streaming eyes against his sternness. "Valancy did it-with lightning-it was cold-she talked-" Then I broke down completely, plumping down on the rough floor boards and, in spite of my age, howling right along with the other kids.
    It was a silent solemn group that gathered in the schoolhouse that evening. I sat at my desk with my hands folded stiffly in front of me, half scared of my own People. This was the first official meeting of the Old Ones I'd ever attended. They all sat in desks, too, except the Oldest who sat in Valancy's chair.
    Valancy sat stony-faced in the twins' desk, but her nervous fingers shredded one Kleenex after another as she waited.
    The Oldest rapped the side of the desk with his cane and turned his sightless eyes from one to another of us.
    "We're all here," he said, "to inquire-'"
    "Oh, stop it!" Valency jumped up from her seat. "Can't you fire me without all this rigmarole? I'm used to it. Just say go and I'll go!" She stood trembling.
    "Sit down, Miss Carmody," said the Oldest. And Valancy sat down meekly.
    "Where were you born?" the Oldest asked quietly.
    "What does it matter?" Valancy flared. Then resignedly,
    "It's in my application. Vista Mar, California."
    "And your parents?"
    "I don't know."
    There was a stir in the room.
    "Why not?"
    "Oh, this is so unnecessary!" Valency cried. "But if you have to know, both my parents were foundlings.
    They were found wandering in the streets after a big explosion and fire in Vista Mar. An old couple who lost everything in the fire took them in. When they grew up, they married. I was born. They died. Can I go now?"
    A murmur swept the room.
    "Why did you leave your other jobs?" Father asked.
    Before Valancy could answer the door was flung open and Jemmy stalked defiantly in.
    "Go!" the Oldest said.
    "Please," Jemmy said, deflating suddenly. "Let me stay. It concerns me, too."
    The Oldest fingered his cane and then nodded. Jemmy half smiled with relief and sat down in a back seat.
    "'Go on,"