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of flame or water, danced on the rock, quick swaying sweeping movements, danced to the beach, to the crossing—and stopped short.
    In a circle of stones on the sand a few yards downriver from the crossing lay the ashes of a fire.
    Nearby, utensils and packets, half hidden under the drooping branches of an elder. Plastic, steel, paper.
    Noiseless, she took one step forward. The ashes were still hot: she caught the tang of burning.
    No one came here. No one ever. Her place alone. The gateway for her, the path for her, alone. Who, hiding, had watched her dance, and laughed? She turned, searching, rigid, to defy the enemy, “Come on, come out, then!” when, with a shock of pure fear that took all breath, she saw the pale enormous arm grope out towards her across the grass—seeing even as she saw the monstrous reaching thing what it was, a dun-colored sleeping bag, somebody in a sleeping bag on the grass there by the bushes. But the shock had been so hard that she sank down now, squatting, rocking her body a little, till her breath came back and the whiteness left the edges of her vision. Then, cautiously, she stood up once more and peered across the bushy edge of the riverbed. She could tell only that the sleeping bag was motionless. If she took another step here she must step on soft sand and leave a footprint. She drew back to the shelf-rock, stepped up from it to
the grass, and circled back behind the elder bushes till she got a clear view of the intruder. A white heavy face blanked out by sleep, jaw slack, light hair loose, the long mound of the bag like a sack of garbage, like a dog turd lying on the ground of the beloved place, the ground she had kissed, her own, the ain country.
    She stood there as motionless as the sleeper. Then she turned suddenly and went quick and light, noiseless in tennis shoes, to the crossing and across in the familiar pattern of rock to rock above the merry water, up the far bank, and off on the south road; going a traveler’s pace, not a run or trot but a fast, even, lightfoot walk that put the distances behind her. As she went she gazed straight ahead and for a long way, a long time there was no clear thought in her mind, only the backwash of terror and anger and, that gone, the dry emptiness she knew too well, whatever one called it, maybe it was grief.
    There was nowhere, nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Even here no peace or place.
    But the way she went itself said you are going home. Her skin touched the air of the ain country, her eyes looked into the dusk forests. The rhythm of walking, of the up-slopes, the downslopes, the rivers, the long rhythms of the land quieted grief, filled emptiness at last. The farther she went into the twilight the more wholly she belonged to it, till all thought of the daylight world was gone and even the memory of the intruder at the beginning place was dulled, her mind
tuned to what was about her as she walked and to the goal of her walking. The forests darkened, the way grew steep. It was a long time since she had come to Mountain Town.
    And a long way. She always forgot how long, how hard. When she had first found the way she used to break the journey with a sleep at Third River, at the foot of the mountain. Since she was sixteen she had been able to get to Tembreabrezi all in one pull, but a tough one, up the steep, dark slopes and up and on, always farther than she remembered. She was footsore, legweary, and very hungry when she came at last to the clear road and the long turning. But that was the joy of it, to come there worn out, craving food and warmth and rest, glad to the heart to see the lighted windows in the cold sweep of mountainside and sky, and smell the woodsmoke of the fires, the smell that from the ancient beginnings whispers, You are coming out of the wilderness, coming home. And to hear the voices speak her name.
    “Irena!” cried little Aduvan, in the street in front of the inn yard, startled at first, then breaking into a smile and a