IT COULD NEVER BE sure it would get back home precisely where it should. It had focused its power-of-being on the chestnut tree. And it imagined the scent of that shade buckeye, where the real, breathing bodies of Dorian, Thomas, Levi and Justice sat beneath its branches, hands joined.
The turbulence of the Crossover between future and past echoed with sighs and whispers of mind-travelers come and gone. Gradually the unit came to know that multi-beings infested the Crossover in mental swarms. The t’beings, as Justice and the others would come to call them, had at one time been individual mind-travelers. But the individual had failed to hold its concentration while completing the mind-jump from one time to another. Trapped in the no-end and no-start between times, it would never again find the way back to its proper moment. An individual found others like itself caught in the Crossover. It and the others cooperated, joined and became multi-beings gathered in base swarms to capture new individual time-travelers. In this way, t’beings intended to become strong enough to fix on some place. Forever without bodies, they could well become power on the loose to cause havoc at any time.
Justice had divined early on that she, Thomas, Levi and Dorian had best become a unit for strength of mind and self-defense. And the unit had been lucky not to have been uncovered by t’being swarms until the return trip on the second time-travel to the future. The unit knew by then not to lose its concentration, nor break connection with the single obsession it had in mind: getting home. And now the unit whirled and dived, dodging the swarms. It massed its psyche on the past and home. The Watcher observed for it in the anti-where of the Crossover, surrounding it with utmost attention and clear purpose. This the Watcher accomplished while the unit held fast and dared not dream. Only once was the Watcher seriously challenged. A foot-wide swarm drove a wedge of ferocious need into the Watcher’s first level of awareness.
I will have you me, warned the swarm, with unflagging force.
The unit streaked and dived. It outmaneuvered the swarm, and felt safe enough to indulge in longing for home. It pondered whether it would arrive in time. It lengthened and shortened its worrying in no time. Laughed inwardly at the confusion words caused itself. It thought it might be losing its mental balance, that perhaps the t’beings had got through the Watcher. It laughed again, this time at how foolish it was to transmit itself through the non-dimension of Crossover. It cried out against the fierce turbulence. It worried that it might not have the strength of mind to set itself free. For an anti-moment it lost faith, it loosened its hold on its proper place and instant in the past. It felt it was doomed.
But the Watcher was true, was power. It guided. The Watcher lit the unit’s way through flights of ideas and awful misconceptions. Through the anti-where of nothing, the Watcher never wavered, never did not know.
Until the unit experienced the sweet sensation of cool hand holding cool hand. The Watcher was incandescence as It felt the weight of children’s flesh and bone.
Bodies, alive again!
The unit opened its eyes on lands teeming with life and sound and odor. Its mouths filled with saliva at the overpowering scents. It gagged. But soon the discomfort passed as its stomachs settled down. Still the unit could not comprehend much around it. It recognized little. It gazed up into darkness. Saw a far light. It came to know the light. The moon was shining down, fleeing behind swift clouds.
At last the unit had come to its proper time and place. But all was night, with periodic rains. Winds came up over the Trace lands, warm and wet, sweeping tall weeds. The winds brought pouring rain before they and the rains died down again.
i am the Watcher, willed the unit.
The Watcher faded from its eyes. Its mind separated into conscious and unconscious conditions—four of them—one sentient condition for each child. As the separation process took place, the Watcher sensed that Thomas touched It and persuaded It toward himself. The Watcher chose to ignore this proposition. It would keep within the child Justice as the balance for all.
Thomas released the hands he held. They all dropped their hands and slumped back against the tree trunk. They were cold, shivering and wet. The tree branches dripped on them. They were uncomfortable and afraid. They were also relieved, but still frightened, with the Crossover not yet out of their minds.
One of them whimpered and sobbed uncontrollably for a short time. It was Thomas. None of them thought it strange that so strong and, sometimes, so bad a boy should cry. One of them usually did on the return. One crying was a kind of release for all.
Justice put her hand on his shoulder. All of them pulled close, feeling the sudden pain of sore muscles, until Thomas ceased crying. He was at once uncomfortable with them. The next moment he could not tolerate any of them touching him, particularly Justice. That was all right. Thomas was Thomas. Whatever he was; good or bad, much of both or more of one than the other, he was one of them.
“Th-that w-was aw-awful,” he whispered, speaking of the Crossover. He realized he had stuttered. In the present he always stuttered, unless he was drumming or tracing.
“But the best was that the Watcher got us through,” Justice said.
“B-but b-being helpless l-l-like that!” Thomas said. “W-weee have to-to s-st-stop it. One-ce we’re l-locked in con-concen-t-tration, an-any-th-thing can g-get t-t-to us.”
“But the Watcher—,” she began.
Damn the Watcher! he traced, in order to speak more quickly. You can’t keep doing this!
Yet he knew she could keep doing whatever she wanted to do. The Watcher, although It was for all of them, was hers. Like some shining light turning on and off, It came from her genes. It was immense, unlike anything in the life of minds. And It was willful, just as Justice was.
“I was sure them t’beings was going to get us,” Dorian said. “I’m scared they’ll follow us back here sometime. Could it happen?”
“It could,” Justice said, “if they follow our energy flow closely enough. I’ll think about that before we go to the future again.” At once she was sorry she’d had to mention going. “Thomas, believe me, I don’t want to go either, not really.”
I don’t want to think about it, he traced to her. Just let’s get home.
But none of them moved. They all had felt someone creeping near. In no time they knew it was the Sensitive, Dorian’s mother. She must have been frantic when they hadn’t returned in daylight. And she had waited, terrified they would not make it back, guarding their flesh and blood all through the night.
“Come on in, Mrs. Jefferson,” Justice called out beyond the shield the tree branches made, sweeping low to the ground. Justice smiled in the dark.
Mrs. Jefferson came, her feet smacking through wet grasses.
“Shoo! Shoo!” she cried out as she came. For there were snakes all around them. There were snake beds throughout the Quinella Trace lands. Garter snakes had lived, raised young ones and died here for as long as anyone could remember.
Mrs. Jefferson stooped low and came through the branches. “Child!” she said. “Chil’ren!” She grabbed Justice’s hand, and Dorian around the neck. She hugged and kissed her only child, Dorian, as if he’d been gone a lifetime.
“Aw, Mom!” he said, sounding like the boy he was. Yet he did not pull away from his mother, and barely managed to hide the smile of happiness on his face.
Mrs. Jefferson released Justice and Dorian to grab and pump Thomas’ hand. He pulled back from her as far as he could against the tree trunk. Mrs. Jefferson grabbed anyway. “Glad to have you back, son,” she said, her voice husky with feeling.
Thomas said not a word to her. He did not speak to her if he could help it. He would not speak and stutter and have her think she was better than he was. She, in turn, didn’t take to heart his disrespect, this Number One Child, as she called Thomas. But she was mindful lest he harm the Justice child or his brother, the Number Two Child. Number One Child could be dangerous, she was sure of it. Yet, so far, bloodlines and the power of the Watcher held him in check.
Mrs. Jefferson turned her attention to Levi, lying so still. His languid pose spoke to her of illness.
“Oh, child!” she said, grabbing both his hands in hers. “I rubbed these stone-cold hands and arms till I thought to rub they skin off. Had to keep the blood circulating, had to. And ’bout had the worst time to keep the blood warm. Goodness to mercy, you scared me to death not half an hour ago!” She pictured again his shallow breathing, his burning skin and how his eyes had stared wide and empty when the hand-chain had been broken.
Now she saw that he perspired. His skin was almost cool.
Levi grinned at her. “Thanks for everything,” he said softly. “It’s good to be back home.”
“Well, then, let’s get yall ready,” she told them. “It’s the middle of the night. Comin’ dawn not too far from now, too.”
“The same dawn of our leaving?” Dorian wanted to know.
“Couldn’t be,” said Justice. “Has to be a day or two later.”
“Oh, Lawd,” Mrs. Jefferson said. “Been most of twenty-four hour—dawn of yestiddy. Yall recall how you did come out here before even the sun was ’bout up. And that day. And the night come down and rain clouds gatherin’. I said to mysel’ to get on down here, see if yall was still all right. I wasn’t worryin’ mysel’, exactly, but I keep getting this feeling that I ought to get down here. So I comes down in the full dark of nine o’clock at night. Shouldn’t be dark by then. Know it shouldn’t. But they be rain clouds. Rain not come down yet. But it’s thunderin’ and thinkin’ on it. And I hurry on down. Not mindin’ for thunder or lightnin’, nothing. Just had to make it down here and fast. And rightful I did, too. Mercy. Found Number One”—pointing at Thomas—“clutched up as tight to that water as he could get himsel’. On his knees, and I ain’t lyin’. On his knees! Like he was to hide behind the air if that was possible. And the other one, Number Two”—pointing at Levi—“right over there, his eyes wide open and starin’ on the dark. And scare me so. I lifted them boys single-handed, tremblin’ even in my throat, too. And laid ’em out right back here under this tree again. Done broke the chain of hands, yes they did. And I join the chain back. Didn’t know if and when you might be tryin’ to get home. Knew you couldn’t get home without the hands be joined. And scare me so again, when hours and hours do pass. I thought yall never was coming home. So I’m ‘bout to leave here for some blankets to cover yall. And started off, too. I like to died, wonderin’ how’m I to explain four empty-headed bodies sittin’ holdin’ hands in the dark under a shade tree. Glory. Glad I never had to ask somebody to come on down here and he’p me with them corpses!”
They stared at her, struck by the picture she had drawn of their deaths. Empty-headed bodies! But they were thankful for her. Justice tried to get up, and Mrs. Jefferson was there to help.
“We’ll start with you, baby-child, oh, Justice, since you always be the most anxious.”
She lifted Justice up on her legs, only to see them buckle with no strength. Mrs. Jefferson took hold of Justice before she could fall again. “Now,” she said. “Lean on me. We gone take one little-bitty step at a time, that’s all they is. Just one at a time.”
The Sensitive carried Justice’s weight until Justice could feel pinpricks of sensation that forced her up on her toes.
“Ooh! Oh, man, brother, let me sit down,” Justice cried.
“Chile, you keep on walkin’ or you won’t walk, no more. We got to get on outta here pretty soon now.”
“It feels like my backbone is turned to wood!” Justice moaned.
But it was not long before she and the Sensitive were helping Thomas and Dorian to their feet. The boys stood the pain of leg cramps quite well. An awful cramp curled Thomas’ toes under. Justice had to take his foot between her hands and massage it.
“Here, let me do that,” Mrs. Jefferson said, taking hold of Thomas.
He telepathed a truce to Mrs. Jefferson. Not in so many words, but in attitude. His attitude spoke volumes to her and it was not necessary for her to read his mind. A relaxation of her face muscles gave her agreement. She and Thomas would get along for the greater good, as long as it was possible. It upset Levi when the two of them argued or nearly came to blows.
All felt the urgency of what they must do for Levi. But they must be in condition themselves before they began it. All would need to pull together for Levi. And Thomas was still up too high, too agitated, to work out effectively.
Wish he’d get rid of some of that hatefulness he come back here with, Mrs. Jefferson thought. She was careful to veil her thinking from Thomas and the rest of them. How come he got to be so bitter all the time? Who gone allow him near the Two Child with him bein so hateful? The Sensitive never could keep her thoughts and the art of tracing separate.
Thomas had sensed her thinking and had caught her tracing. You shut up! he traced back. Just shut up. And why do you have to give with that phoney Southern accent? We know you can talk just as regular as anybody. So why do you have to pretend?
Not pretendin’ nothin’, Mrs. Jefferson traced. Maybe I do it as a reminder to you of what has gone before—humm? Your origins, so to speak. Not to forget them. Past is important. You take the past on along with you to the future, don’t you, Number One?
I never take it anywhere, Thomas traced. I am taken under force. And whatever is in me when I go also goes through force.
Times when we all have to cooperate, she traced.
But I have a right not to want to cooperate, Thomas traced. I have a right to say no, I won’t play.
Times when one for one is not enough, traced the Sensitive serenely. Times when two be one, when three be one is better. But best come the only way, come when all be for one.
Yeah, sure. The unit, he traced. I know I have no civil rights. I’m enslaved! But give me a cigarette and I’ll help you with Lee. Smirking.
The Sensitive drew back.
I know you have them, Thomas traced. Give me one, I need a cigarette!
Give it to him, came a tracing. It was Justice. Give him what he needs to calm him down, Mrs. Jefferson.
He don’t need nothin, makin out how he’s so trapped.
But he is trapped, Justice traced. We are all trapped.
And that’s what I mean, came the Sensitive, right back. How he gone be more so trapped than anybody else? We all trapped with the gift. Be trapped to know what lies ahead. Cain’t none of us let the sensory go. Know how to see and to see again; and not a one of us be able to let loose of it.
So give me a cigarette, traced with a less heavy humor. Letting them know his feelings always seemed to ease Thomas. I better look after Lee for you now.
Right, Justice traced.
None of them could see into the human structure the way Thomas could. And he could read his identical’s flesh and blood without fail. It was necessary that Thomas treat Levi after every Crossover.
“Give Thomas a cigarette,” Justice commanded.
Without another word, the Sensitive produced a pack from the folds of her skirt.
Thomas, smoking, seated himself cross-legged under the buckeye next to Levi, who had lain in the same place for almost twenty-four hours. Occasionally Lee rolled his head from side to side. Otherwise he lay still and outwardly showed little discomfort. Mrs. Jefferson had draped her coat over him.
“Wish I’d a thought first to bring some blankets. Lawd! How’d I come way down here without thinkin’ ’bout how cold yall had to be? And without no car, too. But I was scared Buford might wake up. He’d think somebody stealin’ his automobile. Never learned to drive it, but I see how it’s done.”
Justice and Dorian and Mrs. Jefferson came close around Thomas and Levi. Justice, crouched beside Thomas, kept quiet. They all did.
Thomas smoked a second cigarette sitting there, looking at his brother. He inhaled the smoke deeply and turned his head clear away to let it out. Some of the smoke drifted back down on his brother anyway. Thomas had placed the palm of his right hand on Lee’s bare chest under the shirt. At times he stared straight ahead at the tree trunk. His hand on Lee’s chest would then become electrified with tremors, and the rest of them would know he was seeing into Lee’s vital organs.
It was not essential that Thomas physically touch Levi in order to scan him. But the touching connected the two of them with infeeling. It was not even necessary for them to trace to each other while in touch, with Thomas opening the corridor between them as he scanned. They knew how far one felt for and lived in the other. In touch, they were not just close. They were one, and one for one, without malice, despair or desperation. They were brother; and brother was an abiding comfort to himself.
Thomas smiled thoughtfully down on Lee. The same smile, tired but grateful for Thomas, as Thomas was deep down for Lee, smiled back.
“Even if you turn your head,” spoken by Dorian, “you still cause him to breathe your smoke. You can still contaminate his lungs with it. And you ought to stop.”
Thomas slowly turned his head to stare at the boy. His look of coldness swept Dorian from head to foot, steely eyes never wavering. It was night out beyond the tree, and heavy darkness within the wet boughs. Yet they could divine the slightest detail of each other. Divining was like seeing through space that had no shine or light to it, and also no darkness. It was a thing opaque through which they knew how to see.
A gentle rain began coming down on the Trace lands.
Healer? Thomas traced. He would not speak and risk stuttering. You ever wonder why you never can quite heal Lee? Ever think about why he stays sick, no matter what you do for him?
“That’s not true,” Justice said, breaking in.
Why don’t you let the healer answer? Thomas traced.
“Because he doesn’t know everything I know about it,” she said.
Thomas grinned a deadly smile at her. Quite so. I know what you’re going to say. I can read minds, too, you’ll remember. You were going to say that making Lee go to the future weakens him, and so much so, it takes away all the healer can do for him. Right? He didn’t wait for an answer. But you make him go there anyway, and that’s your crime.
“You read what I want you to read,” she said softly.
I hate your guts, he traced, with a most dangerous calm.
I know that. But it doesn’t change one thing, she traced. You still read what I want you to read.
Hope to see you dead, too, he traced flatly.
Chil’ren! Believer, this brother and sister!
Oh, the hell with you, too, Thomas traced to the Sensitive. You make me sicker’n anything, listening in on us.
Abruptly he grew quiet. He could feel Lee pulling back from him. Only a moment ago they had been brother. Now the infeeling let them loose and their fates took on their separate courses. Seeing Lee’s look of defeat, Thomas let his anger and his enemies go until the task at hand was finished.
There was silence as Thomas worked. He never told what he found at these times of treatment. He closed his concentration within chambers of cold so that even Justice would have difficulty getting through. For he would find again what he had found before. There was no doubt. Lee’s was a grave illness which, in normal humans, grew progressively worse. Its most obvious symptoms were weakness, fatigue and weight loss. Heavy bleeding might occur from superficial wounds. Thomas discovered that Lee’s liver had become enlarged.
He sighed. Removed his hand from Lee. “D-Dorian,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. He did not care that he stuttered. “N-need him t-t-to p-prod-duce theee c-cure,” he said. “A-all of y-you b-besst con-concen-t-trate on thee abb-d-domen.”Justice, if you would transfer the Watcher …
“But I can’t do that.”
You mean, you won’t do it, not even for Lee, Thomas traced.
Once Justice transferred the Watcher to Dorian, she had no power over It, in the sense that if she willed It, It would will out. She wasn’t at all certain she could transfer It, since It was a condition of her mutant genetic material.
Finally she said, “We’ll use the Watcher through me. Since It’s the power of light, what we have to do is focus It to the right wavelength. Then Dorian will use his healant within the light.”
“You transfer the healant to the light,” Levi said, agreeing with Justice. “The healant will radiate with the X-rays.”
“Or we could become the unit again and use the Watcher through all of us,” she said.
“Y-y-youu c-can’t d-do that,” Thomas said. “Y-youu want t-to k-k-k-ill him?”
“Hush now!” Mrs. Jefferson said. “Talkin’ in front of him that way—the idea!”
Look, spirit woman, he’s my brother, Thomas traced, and I’ll say what I want to. And you are nothing, so keep out of it.
Levi had hold of Thomas’ arm and knew he was tracing meanly to the Sensitive.
“Please … I want to get … home.”
Thomas looked worried. Sorry. Really, I’m sorry, Lee, he traced. He crawled from under the tree, turning his back on them. Let Justice do it. She’s got the power down. He moved off toward the Quinella River.
We need you here, Justice telepathed to him. You know Levi needs you close.
I can do it from over here. I can concentrate just as well from right here.
Levi lifted his head, looking all around him. “Tom-Tom? Tom-Tom, come back.”
I’m right over here, Lee. Just go on with it. Lay back down. I’ll be right here.
“Cruel, that’s all it is,” whispered Mrs. Jefferson under her breath. “Ought to be downright ashamed. And be his brother wantin’, too.”
“Let’s get on with it,” Justice said. “We’ll use the Watcher through me, focusing the light the way you first taught Dorian and me, Mrs. Jefferson.”
“Why, certainly, Justice chile,” Mrs. Jefferson said. “I be right here for you if and when you need me.”
“Right,” Justice said, and began to trace, Dorian, be ready.
Dorian was very still. He concentrated his power at once. They all concentrated, fixing their sensory on Levi’s abdomen. They sensed Levi gathering their strength to him, as well as whatever was left of his own strength. He managed an encouraging smile before Justice began. Then Levi turned his head away, unwilling to witness his sister’s transmutation.
For Justice was about to change. The change had first started the moment the Watcher had revealed Itself. And a subtle transformation of her continued whenever the Watcher was called upon. By now the change had reached her surface qualities, where it appeared to have altered the skeletal structure of her head. Bones enclosing the brain in the solid box of the cranium seemed to have shifted in the formation of the eyesockets. Justice’s forehead appeared longer; her ears were smaller.
At the times of the Watcher, those around her felt they might touch her awesome power. Its effect on them was such that they couldn’t quite grasp that she was forever different; yet they knew she was, knew that what was happening was real.
That was why Levi turned away. He could not bring together such a divine process there under the tree with the down-to-earth around him. It was too much to comprehend that Justice of the Watcher was thousands of years apart from them. He wondered where it would all end. And closed his eyes, unwilling even to attempt to see so far into the depths of time.
The gloaming of the Watcher came through pinpoints in Justice’s eyes. Dorian’s hands on Levi glowed before the ghostly bones of them became visible as the X-rays passed through his tissue. He administered the healant and it flowed with the rays through Levi.
Their concentration, the Watcher and the healant, were at work for no longer than a moment or two. Then the Watcher dimmed and vanished.
“Done,” Justice said, breaking the spell of unearthliness that had surrounded them like a mist.
Slowly, Levi turned to them. He saw Justice and was glad her alteration was no longer so pronounced. But he knew, as they all did, that the change was permanent, although gradual. They couldn’t tell how much of it was normal development and how much was not. They didn’t want to know; they had had no time to prepare themselves. They didn’t want to think about it now.
Swiftly, Justice read their denials and their wish not to know. She was alone in her difference. In her growing solitude. She said nothing, keeping her attention on her brother.
He began stirring back to life, as it were. In fifteen minutes they were helping him to his feet and out from under the tree. He stood there in the open, looking all around him. Strength came to him from air and earth. He grew stronger before their eyes.
“Careful when you move,” Justice told him. “Remember the snake beds. Ready to go?”
“Ready as I’m gonna be,” he said.
They started out. All was quiet. They went single file through the field of weeds that led to the winding Quinella Road. No matter that the field was wet; they were already soaked to the bone.
They climbed through the barbed-wire fence of the field one at a time, each helping the others. And made it to the road. They stood there in a bunch, savoring the road’s hard surface, no dust anywhere. In one day and one night the future had given them up to the past, which at last became the present.
No one said it, but they all were thankful to be where they were. And now they moved on, homeward bound.