John Wyndham - The Chrysalids

It seemed about time I took a hand.

‘I’d have thought everyone for miles around would have heard it,’ I said. ‘The pony was screaming, too, poor little brute.’

I led him round the clump of bushes and showed him the savaged pony and the dead creature. He looked surprised, as if he’d not expected that evidence, but he wasn’t altogether appeased. He demanded to see Rosalind’s and Petra’s tags.

‘What’s this all about?’ I asked in my turn.

‘You didn’t know that the Fringes have got spies out?’ he said.

‘I didn’t,’ I told him. ‘Anyway, do we look like Fringes people?’

He ignored the question. ‘Well, they have. There’s an instruction to watch for them. There’s trouble working up, and the clearer you keep of the woods, the less likely you are to meet it before we all do.’

He still was not satisfied. He turned to look at the pony again, then at Sally.

‘I’d say it’s near half an hour since that pony did any screaming. How did you two manage to come straight to this spot?’

Sally’s eyes widened a little.

‘Well, this was the direction it came from, and then when we got nearer we heard the little girl screaming,’ she said simply.

‘And very good it was of you to follow it up,’ I put in. ‘You would have saved her life by doing it if we hadn’t happened to be a little nearer. It’s all over now, and luckily she wasn’t hurt. But she’s had a nasty fright and I’d better get her home. Thank you both for wanting to help.’

They took that up all right. They congratulated us on Petra’s escape, hoped she would soon get over the shock, and then rode off. The man lingered. He still seemed dissatisfied and a little puzzled. There was, however, nothing for him to take a firm hold of. Presently he gave the three of us a long, searching stare, looking as if he were about to say something more, but he changed his mind. Finally he repeated his advice to keep out of the woods, and then rode off in the wake of the other two. We watched him disappear among the trees.

‘Who is he?’ Rosalind asked, uneasily.

I could tell her that the name on his tag had been Jerome Skinner, but no more. He was a stranger to me, and our names had not seemed to mean much to him. I would have asked Sally but for the barrier that Petra was still putting up. It gave me a strange, muffled feeling to be cut off from the rest like that, and made me wonder at the strength of purpose which had enabled Anne to withdraw herself entirely for those months.

Rosalind, still with her right arm round Petra, started homewards at a walk. I collected the dead pony’s saddle and bridle, pulled the arrows out of the creature, and followed them.

They put Petra to bed when I brought her in. During the late afternoon and early evening the disturbance she was making fluctuated from time to time, but it kept up naggingly until almost nine o’clock when it diminished steeply and disappeared.

‘Thank goodness for that. She’s gone to sleep at last,’ came from one of the others.

‘Who was that man Skinner?’ Rosalind and I inquired anxiously and simultaneously.

Sally answered: ‘He’s fairly new here. My father knows him. He has a farm bordering on the woods near where you were. It was just bad luck his seeing us, and of course he wondered why we were making for the trees at a gallop.’

‘He seemed very suspicious. Why?’ asked Rosalind. ‘Does he know anything about thought-shapes? I didn’t think any of them did.’

‘He can’t make them, or receive them himself — I tried him hard,’ Sally told her.

Michael’s distinctive pattern came in, inquiring what it was all about. We explained. He commented:

‘Some of them do have an idea that something of the kind may be possible — but only very roughly of the kind — a sort of emotional transfer of mental impressions. They call it telepathy — at least, those who believe in it do. Most of them are pretty doubtful whether it exists at all.’

‘Do they think it’s deviational, those who do believe it exists, I mean?’ I asked.

‘It’s difficult to say. I don’t know that the question has ever been straightly put. But academically, there’s the point that since God is able to read men’s minds, the true image ought to be able to do so, too. It might be argued that it is a power that men have temporarily lost as a punishment, part of Tribulation — but I’d not like to risk myself on that argument in front of a tribunal.’

‘This man had the air of smelling a rat,’ Rosalind told him. ‘Has anybody else been inquisitive?’

They all gave her a ‘ No ‘ to that.

‘Good,’ she replied. ‘But we must be careful this doesn’t happen again. David will have to explain to Petra in words and try to teach her to use some self-control. If this distress of hers does occur, you must all of you ignore it, or, anyway, not answer it. Just leave it to David and me. If it is compulsive, like it was the first time, whoever reaches her first will have to try to make her unconscious somehow, and the moment the compulsion breaks you must turn back and cover up as best you can. We have to make sure we are not drawn together into a group again. We could easily be a lot less lucky than we were today. Does everybody understand and agree?’

Their assents came in, then presently the rest of them withdrew, leaving Rosalind and me to discuss how I could best tackle Petra.

I woke early the next morning, and the first thing I was aware of was Petra’s distress once more. But it was different in quality now; her alarm had quite subsided, but given way to a lament for the dead pony. Nor did it have anything like the intensity of the previous day.

I tried to make contact with her, and, though she did not understand, there was a perceptible check and a trace of puzzlement for some seconds. I got out of bed, and went along to her room. She was glad to have company; the distress-pattern faded a lot as we chatted. Before I left I promised to take her fishing that afternoon.

It is not at all easy to explain in words how one can make intelligible thought-shapes. All of us had first found out for ourselves; a very crude fumbling to begin with, but then more skilful when we had discovered one another and begun to learn by practice. With Petra it was different. Already, at six and a half, she had had a power of projection in a different class from ours, and quite overwhelming — but without realization, and therefore with no control whatever. I did my best to explain to her, but even at her present age of almost eight the necessity of putting it in words that were simple enough presented a difficulty. After an hour of trying to make it clear to her while we sat on the river-bank watching our floats, I still had not got anywhere much, and she was growing too bored to try to understand what I said. Another kind of approach seemed to be required.

‘Let’s play a game,’ I suggested. ‘You shut your eyes. Keep them shut tight, and pretend you’re looking down a deep, deep well. There’s nothing but dark to see. Right?’

‘Yes,’ she said, eyelids tightly clenched.

‘Good. Now, don’t think of anything at all except how dark it is and how far, far away the bottom is. Just think of that, but look at the dark. Understand that?’

‘Yes,’ she said again.

‘Now, watch,’ I told her.

I thought a rabbit for her, and made it twitch its nose. She chuckled. Well, that was one good thing: at least, it made sure that she could receive. I abolished the rabbit, and thought a puppy, then some chickens, and then a horse and cart. After a minute or two she opened her eyes, and looked bewildered.

“Where are they?’ she asked, looking round.

‘They aren’t anywhere. They were just think-things,’ I told her. ‘That’s the game. Now I’ll shut my eyes, too. We’ll both look down the well and think of nothing but how dark it is. Then it’s your turn to think a picture at the bottom of the well, so that I can see it.’