Argosy, September 1955 — page 134: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

132 JOHN WYNDHAM ““ How can I be sure that this difference that you and Rosalind have doesn’t bring you nearer to the true image? After all, one of the things they say about the Old People is that they could talk to one another over great distances. Now, we can’t do that—but you and Rosalind and the others you spoke about, you can.” He paused awhile to let that sink in. Of course, I know now what he was doing. He did not call believe the. one any more likely than the other, but he had seen that I, as well as being frightened, was beginning to feel that the difference made me inferior to other people, and he meant to give me more confidence. He did, too. I stopped praying to be made like other people. Instead, I lay awake in the dark that night and told Rosalind and the others all he had said. It shocked them at first, but when they had thought » it over, I could feel that it helped to give them more confidence. There was another thing, as well, that helped us. Uncle Axel made inquiries and found that just about the time we had lost one set of thought-shapes a nine-year-old boy called Walter Brent on a farm ten miles away had been hit by a falling tree, and killed. We were sorry about Walter, of course, but it was a relief to know that it had been simply an accident. After that, we thought it wiser to find out one another’s names in case something should happen to one of us. We did, but I am not going to give their real names. Some of them still live near Waknuk: soon they may have children of their own, and it would — be bad for them if word should somehow get back there. ? There were five of us, in all—well, when I say that, I mean that there were five of us who could talk eastly in thought-shapes; there were some others, but they could do it only very weakly, so they scarcely counted. We just caught occasional shapes from them, nothing really connected. We kept on being very discreet and careful; I’m sure nobody really knew about us but Uncle Axel, and he knew no names but Rosalind’s and mine. We were able to strengthen one.another, and we almost ceased to worry about the warnings and texts against Mutants. We stopped being oppressed by the thought that we were Deviations of some kind. We were just us, but very secretly... ; And so it went on for almost six years until, suddenly, the five of us became six... It was a funny thing about my little sister Petra. She seemed so normal; we never suspected—not one of us. She was a pretty child, with close golden curls, a happy child, too. I can still picture her as a small, brightly dressed figure, con- stantly dashing hither and thither at a staggering run, clasping an atrociously cross-eyed doll that she loved with uncritical passion. A toy-like creature herself, prone as the next child to bumps, tears, chuckles, and solemn moments, and to a very sweet faith and trust. commicloolks.comn