their crying out-all without a word. They poured out all their longing and uncertainty and protest and rebellion. Only the young could build up such a burden and have the strength to bear it. Finally Timmy came to words.
"We only want a chance. Is that too much to ask? Why should this happen, now, to us?"
"Who are we," I asked sternly, "to presume to ask why of the Power? For all our lives we have been taking happiness and comfort and delight and never asking why, but now that sorrow and separation, pain and discomfort are coming to us from the same Power, we are crying why. We have taken unthinkingly all that has been given to us unasked, but now that we must take sorrow for a while, you want to refuse to take, like silly babies whose milk is cold!"
I caught a wave of desolation and lostness from the two and hurried on. "But don't think the Power has forgotten you. You are as completely enwrapped now as you ever were. Can't you trust your love-or your possible love to the Power that suggested love to you in the first place? I promise you, I promise you, that no matter where you go, together or apart if the Power leaves you life, you will find love. And even if it turns out that you do not find it together, you'll never forget these first magical steps you have taken together towards your own true loves."
I let laughter into my voice. "Things change! Remember, Lytha, it wasn't so long ago that Timmy was a-if you'll pardon the expression-'gangle-legged, clumsy poodah that I'd rather be caught dead than ganging with, let alone two-ing.'"
"And he was, too!" Lytha's voice had a hiccough in it, but a half smile, too.
"You were no vision of delight, yourself," said Timmy. "I never saw such stringy hair-"
"I was supposed to look like that-"
Their wrangling was a breath of fresh air after the unnatural, uncomfortable emotional binge they had been on.
"It's quite possible that you two might change-" I stopped abruptly. "Wait!"
I said. "Listen!"
"To what?" Lytha's face was puzzled. How could I tell her I heard Simon crying. "Gramma! Gramma!" Simon at home, in bed miles and miles-
"Out, quick!" I scrambled up from the floor. "Oh, hurry!" Panic was welling up inside me. The two snatched up their small personal bundles as I pushed them, bewildered and protesting ahead of me out into the inky blackness of the violent night. For a long terrified moment I stood peering up into the darkness, trying to interpret! Then I screamed, "Lift! Lift!" and, snatching at them both, I launched us upward, away from the edge of the lake. The clouds snatched back from the moon and its light poured down onto the convulsed lake.
There was a crack like the loudest of thunder-a grinding, twisting sound-the roar and surge of mighty waters, and the lake bed below us broke cleanly from one hill to another, pulling itself apart and tilting to pour all its moon-bright waters down into the darkness of the gigantic split in the earth.
And the moon was glittering only on the shining mud left behind in the lake bottom. With a frantic speed that seemed so slow I enveloped the children and shot with them as far up and away as I could before the earsplitting roar of returning steam threw us even farther. We reeled drunkenly away, and away, until we stumbled across the top of a hill. We clung to each other in terror as the mighty plume of steam rose and rose and spilt the clouds and still rose, rolling white and awesome. Then, as casually as a shutting door, the lake bed tilted back and closed itself. In the silence that followed, I fancied I could hear the hot rain beginning to fall to fill the emptiness of the lake again-a pool of rain no larger than my hand in a lake bottom.
"Oh, poor Home," whispered Lytha. "poor hurting Home! It's dying!" And then, on the family band, Lytha whispered to me Timmy's my love, for sure, Gramma, and I am his, but we're willing to let the Power hold our love for us, until your promise is kept.
I gathered the two to me and I
"We only want a chance. Is that too much to ask? Why should this happen, now, to us?"
"Who are we," I asked sternly, "to presume to ask why of the Power? For all our lives we have been taking happiness and comfort and delight and never asking why, but now that sorrow and separation, pain and discomfort are coming to us from the same Power, we are crying why. We have taken unthinkingly all that has been given to us unasked, but now that we must take sorrow for a while, you want to refuse to take, like silly babies whose milk is cold!"
I caught a wave of desolation and lostness from the two and hurried on. "But don't think the Power has forgotten you. You are as completely enwrapped now as you ever were. Can't you trust your love-or your possible love to the Power that suggested love to you in the first place? I promise you, I promise you, that no matter where you go, together or apart if the Power leaves you life, you will find love. And even if it turns out that you do not find it together, you'll never forget these first magical steps you have taken together towards your own true loves."
I let laughter into my voice. "Things change! Remember, Lytha, it wasn't so long ago that Timmy was a-if you'll pardon the expression-'gangle-legged, clumsy poodah that I'd rather be caught dead than ganging with, let alone two-ing.'"
"And he was, too!" Lytha's voice had a hiccough in it, but a half smile, too.
"You were no vision of delight, yourself," said Timmy. "I never saw such stringy hair-"
"I was supposed to look like that-"
Their wrangling was a breath of fresh air after the unnatural, uncomfortable emotional binge they had been on.
"It's quite possible that you two might change-" I stopped abruptly. "Wait!"
I said. "Listen!"
"To what?" Lytha's face was puzzled. How could I tell her I heard Simon crying. "Gramma! Gramma!" Simon at home, in bed miles and miles-
"Out, quick!" I scrambled up from the floor. "Oh, hurry!" Panic was welling up inside me. The two snatched up their small personal bundles as I pushed them, bewildered and protesting ahead of me out into the inky blackness of the violent night. For a long terrified moment I stood peering up into the darkness, trying to interpret! Then I screamed, "Lift! Lift!" and, snatching at them both, I launched us upward, away from the edge of the lake. The clouds snatched back from the moon and its light poured down onto the convulsed lake.
There was a crack like the loudest of thunder-a grinding, twisting sound-the roar and surge of mighty waters, and the lake bed below us broke cleanly from one hill to another, pulling itself apart and tilting to pour all its moon-bright waters down into the darkness of the gigantic split in the earth.
And the moon was glittering only on the shining mud left behind in the lake bottom. With a frantic speed that seemed so slow I enveloped the children and shot with them as far up and away as I could before the earsplitting roar of returning steam threw us even farther. We reeled drunkenly away, and away, until we stumbled across the top of a hill. We clung to each other in terror as the mighty plume of steam rose and rose and spilt the clouds and still rose, rolling white and awesome. Then, as casually as a shutting door, the lake bed tilted back and closed itself. In the silence that followed, I fancied I could hear the hot rain beginning to fall to fill the emptiness of the lake again-a pool of rain no larger than my hand in a lake bottom.
"Oh, poor Home," whispered Lytha. "poor hurting Home! It's dying!" And then, on the family band, Lytha whispered to me Timmy's my love, for sure, Gramma, and I am his, but we're willing to let the Power hold our love for us, until your promise is kept.
I gathered the two to me and I
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