A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet) (21 page)

The others waited until she slowed down. Then Mr. Murry said gravely, “We were trying to work out a plan to
rescue Charles Wallace. Since I made such a mistake in tessering away from IT, we feel that it would not be wise for me to try to get back to Camazotz, even alone. If I missed the mark again I could easily get lost and wander forever from galaxy to galaxy, and that would be small help to anyone, least of all to Charles Wallace.”

Such a wave of despondency came over Meg that she was no longer able to eat.

“Our friends here,” he continued, “feel that it was only the fact that I still wore the glasses your Mrs Who gave you that kept me within this solar system. Here are the glasses, Meg. But I am afraid that the virtue has gone from them and now they are only glass. Perhaps they were meant to help only once and only on Camazotz. Perhaps it was going through the Black Thing that did it.” He pushed the glasses across the table at her.

“These people know about tessering,” Calvin gestured at the circle of great beasts, “but they can’t do it onto a dark planet.”

“Have you tried to call Mrs Whatsit?” Meg asked.

“Not yet,” her father answered.

“But if you haven’t thought of anything else, it’s the
only
thing to do! Father, don’t you care about Charles at all!”

At that Aunt Beast stood up, saying, “Child,” in a reproving way. Mr. Murry said nothing, and Meg could see that she had wounded him deeply. She reacted as she would have reacted to Mr. Jenkins. She scowled down at the table, saying, “We’ve
got
to ask them for help now. You’re just stupid if you think we don’t.”

Aunt Beast spoke to the others. “The child is distraught. Don’t judge her harshly. She was almost taken by the Black Thing. Sometimes we can’t know what spiritual damage it leaves even when physical recovery is complete.”

Meg looked angrily around the table. The beasts sat there, silent, motionless. She felt that she was being measured and found wanting.

Calvin swung away from her and hunched himself up. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that we’ve been trying to tell them about our ladies? What do you think we’ve been up to all this time? Just stuffing our faces? Okay, you have a shot at it.”

“Yes. Try, child.” Aunt Beast seated herself again, and pulled Meg up beside her. “But I do not understand this feeling of anger I sense in you. What is it about? There is blame going on, and guilt. Why?”

“Aunt Beast, don’t you know?”

“No,” Aunt Beast said. “But this is not telling me about—whoever they are you want us to know. Try.”

Meg tried. Blunderingly. Fumblingly. At first she described Mrs Whatsit and her man’s coat and multicolored shawls and scarves. Mrs Who and her white robes and shimmering spectacles, Mrs Which in her peaked cap and black gown quivering in and out of body. Then she realized that this was absurd. She was describing them only to herself. This wasn’t Mrs Whatsit or Mrs Who or Mrs Which. She might as well have described Mrs Whatsit as she was when she took on the form of a flying creature of Uriel.

“Don’t try to use words,” Aunt Beast said soothingly.
“You’re just fighting yourself and me. Think about what they
are
. This
look
doesn’t help us at all.”

Meg tried again, but she could not get a visual concept out of her mind. She tried to think of Mrs Whatsit explaining tessering. She tried to think of them in terms of mathematics. Every once in a while she thought she felt a flicker of understanding from Aunt Beast or one of the others, but most of the time all that emanated from them was gentle puzzlement.

“Angels!” Calvin shouted suddenly from across the table. “Guardian angels!” There was a moment’s silence, and he shouted again, his face tense with concentration, “Messengers! Messengers of God!”

“I thought for a moment—” Aunt Beast started, then subsided, sighing. “No. It’s not clear enough.”

“How strange it is that they can’t tell us what they themselves seem to know,” a tall, thin beast murmured.

One of Aunt Beast’s tentacled arms went around Meg’s waist again. “They are very young. And on their earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space.”

“Oh,” the thin beast said. “Aren’t they
lonely?
”

Suddenly a thundering voice reverberated throughout the great hall:

“WWEEE ARRE HHERRE!”

Meg could see nothing, but she felt her heart pounding with hope. With one accord all the beasts rose to their feet, turned toward one of the arched openings, and bowed their heads and tentacles in greeting. Mrs Whatsit appeared, standing between two columns. Beside her came Mrs Who, behind them a quivering of light. The three of them were somehow not quite the same as they had been when Meg had first seen them. Their outlines seemed blurred; colors ran together as in a wet water color painting. But they were there; they were recognizable; they were themselves.

Meg pulled herself away from Aunt Beast, jumped to the floor, and rushed at Mrs Whatsit. But Mrs Whatsit held up a warning hand and Meg realized that she was not completely materialized, that she was light and not substance, and embracing her now would have been like trying to hug a sunbeam.

“We had to hurry so there wasn’t quite time. . . . You wanted us?” Mrs Whatsit asked.

The tallest of the beasts bowed again and took a step away from the table and toward Mrs Whatsit. “It is a question of the little boy.”

“Father left him!” Meg cried. “He left him on Camazotz!”

Appallingly, Mrs Whatsit’s voice was cold. “And what do you expect us to do?”

Meg pressed her knuckles against her teeth so that her braces cut her skin. Then she flung out her arms pleadingly. “But it’s Charles Wallace! IT has him, Mrs Whatsit! Save him, please save him!”

“You know that we can do nothing on Camazotz,” Mrs Whatsit said, her voice still cold.

“You mean you’ll let Charles be caught by IT forever?” Meg’s voice rose shrilly.

“Did I say that?”

“But we can’t do anything! You know we can’t! We tried! Mrs Whatsit, you have to save him!”

“Meg, this is not our way,” Mrs Whatsit said sadly. “I thought you would know that this is not our way.”

Mr. Murry took a step forward and bowed, and to Meg’s amazement the three ladies bowed back to him. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Mrs Whatsit said.

“It’s Father, you know it’s Father.” Meg’s angry impatience grew. “Father—Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which.”

“I’m very glad to—” Mr. Murry mumbled, then went on, “I’m sorry, my glasses are broken, and I can’t see you very well.”

“It’s not necessary to see us,” Mrs Whatsit said.

“If you could teach me enough more about the tesseract so that I could get back to Camazotz—”

“Wwhatt tthenn?” came Mrs Which’s surprising voice.

“I will try to take my child away from IT.”

“Annd yyou kknoww tthatt yyou wwill nnott ssucceeedd?”

“There’s nothing left except to try.”

Mrs Whatsit spoke gently. “I’m sorry. We cannot allow you to go.”

“Then let me,” Calvin suggested. “I almost got him away before.”

Mrs Whatsit shook her head. “No, Calvin. Charles has gone even deeper into IT. You will not be permitted to throw yourself in with him, for that, you must realize, is what would happen.”

There was a long silence. All the soft rays filtering into the great hall seemed to concentrate on Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and the faint light that must be Mrs Which. No one spoke. One of the beasts moved a tendril slowly back and forth across the stone tabletop. At last Meg could stand it no longer and she cried out despairingly, “Then what are you going to do? Are you just going to throw Charles away?”

Mrs Which’s voice rolled formidably across the hall. “Ssilencce, cchilldd!”

But Meg could not be silent. She pressed closely against Aunt Beast, but Aunt Beast did not put the protecting tentacles around her. “
I
can’t go!” Meg cried. “I can’t! You know I can’t!”

“Ddidd annybbodyy asskk yyou ttoo?” The grim voice made Meg’s skin prickle into gooseflesh.

She burst into tears. She started beating at Aunt Beast like a small child having a tantrum. Her tears rained down her face and spattered Aunt Beast’s fur. Aunt Beast stood quietly against the assault.

“All right, I’ll go!” Meg sobbed. “I know you want me to go!”

“We want nothing from you that you do without grace,” Mrs Whatsit said, “or that you do without understanding.”

Meg’s tears stopped as abruptly as they had started. “But I do understand.” She felt tired and unexpectedly peaceful. Now the coldness that, under Aunt Beast’s ministrations, had left her body had also left her mind. She looked toward her father and her confused anger was gone and she felt only love and pride. She smiled at him, asking forgiveness, and then pressed up against Aunt Beast. This time Aunt Beast’s arm went around her.

Mrs Which’s voice was grave. “Wwhatt ddoo yyou unndderrsstanndd?”

“That it has to be me. It can’t be anyone else. I don’t understand Charles, but he understands me. I’m the one who’s closest to him. Father’s been away for so long, since Charles Wallace was a baby. They don’t know each other. And Calvin’s only known Charles for such a little time. If it had been longer then he would have been the one, but—oh, I see, I see, I understand, it has to be me. There isn’t anyone else.”

Mr. Murry, who had been sitting, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists, rose. “I will not allow it!”

“Wwhyy?” Mrs Which demanded.

“Look, I don’t know what or who you are, and at this point I don’t care. I will not allow my daughter to go alone into this danger.”

“Wwhyy?”

“You know what the outcome will probably be! And she’s weak, now, weaker than she was before. She was almost killed by the Black Thing. I fail to understand how you can even consider such a thing.”

Calvin jumped down. “Maybe IT’s right about you! Or maybe you’re in league with IT.
I’m
the one to go if anybody goes! Why did you bring me along at all? To take care of Meg! You said so yourself!”

“But you have done that,” Mrs Whatsit assured him.

“I haven’t done anything!” Calvin shouted. “You can’t send Meg! I won’t allow it! I’ll put my foot down! I won’t permit it!”

“Don’t you see that you’re making something that is already hard for Meg even harder?” Mrs Whatsit asked him.

Aunt Beast turned tentacles toward Mrs Whatsit. “Is she strong enough to tesser again? You know what she has been through.”

“If Which takes her she can manage,” Mrs Whatsit said.

“If it will help I could go too, and hold her.” Aunt Beast’s arm around Meg tightened.

“Oh, Aunt Beast—” Meg started.

But Mrs Whatsit cut her off. “No.”

“I was afraid not,” Aunt Beast said humbly. “I just wanted you to know that I
would
.”

“Mrs—uh—Whatsit.” Mr. Murry frowned and pushed his hair back from his face. Then he shoved with his middle finger at his nose as though he were trying to get spectacles closer to his eyes. “Are you remembering that she is only a child?”

“And she’s backward,” Calvin bellowed.

“I resent that,” Meg said hotly, hoping that indignation would control her trembling. “I’m better than you at math and you know it.”

“Do you have the courage to go alone?” Mrs Whatsit asked her.

Meg’s voice was flat. “No. But it doesn’t matter.” She turned to her father and Calvin. “You know it’s the only thing to do. You know they’d never send me alone if—”

“How do we know they’re not in league with IT?” Mr. Murry demanded.

“Father!”

“No, Meg,” Mrs Whatsit said. “I do not blame your father for being angry and suspicious and frightened. And I cannot pretend that we are doing anything but sending you into the gravest kind of danger. I have to acknowledge quite openly that it may be a fatal danger. I know this. But I do not believe it. And the Happy Medium doesn’t believe it, either.”

“Can’t she see what’s going to happen?” Calvin asked.

“Oh, not in this kind of thing.” Mrs Whatsit sounded surprised at his question. “If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we’d be—we’d be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet.”

“Yes, yes,” Calvin said impatiently. “What’s that got to do with the Happy Medium?”

“Kindly pay me the courtesy of listening to me.” Mrs Whatsit’s voice was stern, and for a moment Calvin stopped pawing the ground like a nervous colt. “It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?”

“Yes.” Calvin nodded.

“And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?”

“No.”