Virginia Hamilton (15 page)

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.

T
HEY ALL CARRIED THEIR
shoes, even Mrs. Jefferson. The Sensitive walked beside her son, swinging her Mexican huaraches. The huarache sandals were made of woven leather strips that smelled to heaven when they got wet. Mrs. Jefferson waved the huaraches around so everyone could get a good whiff.

“Ain’t that somethin’? Hee, hee, hee,” she laughed.

That’s rank,
Thomas traced, moving away from her.

“Bet nothin’ in the future smell like them of my shoes,” she said.

“I don’t remember smelling many different smells there,” Dorian said.

“W-welll, I d-do,” Thomas said darkly. And had a clear vision of far-off, filthy Slakers.

Justice had her mind on the road. The hard feel of the blacktop surface deserved her full attention. The pavement was still warm from the day’s blistering heat and felt deliciously wet under her toes. Moisture steamed up from it like ghostly breaths. The whole night was thoroughly warm. It had dark fluffs of cloud with sudden rushes of wind, and a moon blinking on and off. This had to be the best night in all of their lives, she thought. They had returned.

She, along with Thomas, entertained on the long, exhilarating homeward hike, while Levi pondered the future’s whereabouts.

On a steep turn of the winding road Thomas planted a McDonald’s with its golden arches, and with cars pulling up, full of happy teenagers. Astonished, Justice and the others laughed, then applauded loudly. They groaned as the bright and perfect illusion faded away in the darkness. Kindly Thomas did leave them with the mouth-watering aroma of Big Macs.

“No kidding, man,” Dorian said, “couldn’t we stop off at the chicken place on the way home? I’m so hungry. I ain’t eaten in a million years!”

They burst out laughing again, for it could have been true, considering where they had just been.

“What’ll we do for money?” Justice asked him.

“Mom, did you bring any?” Dorian asked, then noticed his mother wasn’t carrying a pocketbook.

“I never thought once …” she said. “Bet it ain’t open this time of night, that chicken place—no way. But the truck stop, the Grill, now it’s most likely open still. About a mile out of the way, though.”

“Hey, man!” Dorian said to Thomas. “You could make up the money! Just give the dude some green
magic.
Let him put
that
in his cashbox. He won’t know it’s gonna fade.”

Again they laughed. Except for Thomas.

Justice glanced at him. She knew he hadn’t once considered using illusions in that way until now. And now he would think about never using real money again. She would have to give him a counter-suggestion deep within the fabric of his mind; she was quick to shield the thought from him.

At the very top of the final Quinella Road hill, the B&O Railroad tracks cut across the road like two silver scars. Beyond these tracks was Morrey Street, running parallel to the tracks where the Quinella Road came to an end. They would travel Morrey to Tyler Street, which would take them clear across town.

Ten minutes later they reached the top of the hill. Justice projected an image there on the night. Sitting on the tracks and blocking the entire end of the Quinella Road appeared an image of a huge Justice smiling up at the stars. Her head alone was twenty feet high on massive shoulders that dwarfed the tangle of forest trees on either side. They could see her face shining up there as clearly as they saw the moon caught in the black ripples of her curly hair. Hair like an ocean now.

“Wow!” Dorian said. “Wow-weee!”

The Justice projection was something like watching a movie screen. Unlike one of Thomas’ illusions that beclouded their minds, which they accepted as absolutely real—no question—this was a picture of something, definitely, and an entertainment.

“Justice Grown Very Large,” Levi said.

Justice grinned, admiring her own handiwork. They paused at the foot of the image as it looked down and smiled on each one of them.

“Goodness gracious,” Mrs. Jefferson said, “that’s real pretty, isn’t it?”

Thomas couldn’t help adding to the Justice projection. All at once tiny arrows zipped around the image’s head. They pierced the Justice’s ears and nose and turned into golden rings.