A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (11 page)

The shadows were swirling in the crystal again, and as they cleared Meg began to recognize her mother’s lab at home. Mrs. Murry was sitting perched on her high stool, writing away at a sheet of paper on a clipboard on her lap. She’s writing Father, Meg thought. The way she always does. Every night.

The tears that she could never learn to control swam to her eyes as she
watched. Mrs. Murry looked up from her letter, almost as though she were looking toward the children, and then her head drooped and she put it down on the paper, and sat there, huddled up, letting herself relax into an unhappiness that she never allowed her children to see.

And now the desire for tears left Meg. The hot, protective anger she had felt for Calvin when she looked into his home she
now felt turned toward her mother.

“Let’s go!” she cried harshly. “Let’s
do
something!”

“She’s always so right,” Mrs Whatsit murmured, looking towards Mrs Which. “Sometimes I wish she’d just say I told you so and have done with it.”

“I only meant to help—” the Medium wailed.

“Oh, Medium, dear,
don’t
feel badly,” Mrs Whatsit said swiftly. “Look at something cheerful, do. I can’t bear to have
you distressed!”

“It’s all right,” Meg assured the Medium earnestly. “Truly it is, Mrs. Medium, and we thank you very much.”

“Are you sure?” the Medium asked, brightening.

“Of course! It really helped ever so much because it made me mad, and when I’m mad I don’t have room to be scared.”

“Well, kiss me good-bye for good luck, then,” the Medium said.

Meg went over to her and gave her a quick
kiss, and so did Charles Wallace. The Medium looked smilingly at Calvin, and winked. “I want the young man to kiss me, too. I always did love red hair. And it’ll give you good luck, Laddie-me-love.”

Calvin bent down, blushing, and awkwardly kissed her cheek.

The Medium tweaked his nose. “You’ve got a lot to learn, my boy,” she told him.

“Now, good-bye, Medium dear, and many thanks,” Mrs Whatsit
said. “I dare say we’ll see you in an eon or two.”

“Where are you going in case I want to tune in?” the Medium asked.

“Camazotz,” Mrs Whatsit told her. (Where and what was Camazotz? Meg did not like the sound of the word or the way in which Mrs Whatsit pronounced it.) “But please don’t distress yourself on our behalf. You know you don’t like looking in on the dark planets, and it’s very upsetting
to us when you aren’t happy.”

“But I must know what happens to the children,” the Medium said. “It’s my worst trouble, getting fond. If I didn’t get fond I could be happy all the time.
Oh
, well,
ho
hum, I manage to keep pretty jolly, and a little snooze will do wonders for me right now. Good-bye, everyb—” and her word got lost in the general b-b-bz-z of a snore.

“Ccome,” Mrs Which ordered, and
they followed her out of the darkness of the cave to the impersonal grayness of the Medium’s planet.

“Nnoww, cchilldrenn, yyouu musstt nott bee frrightennedd att whatt iss ggoingg tto hhappenn,” Mrs Which warned.

“Stay angry, little Meg,” Mrs Whatsit whispered. “You will need all your anger now.”

Without warning Meg was swept into nothingness again. This time the nothingness was interrupted
by a feeling of clammy coldness such as she had never felt before. The coldness deepened and swirled all about her and through her, and was filled with a new and strange kind of darkness that was a completely tangible thing, a thing that wanted to eat and digest her like some enormous malignant beast of prey.

Then the darkness was gone. Had it been the shadow, the Black Thing? Had they had to
travel through it to get to her father?

There was the by-now-familiar tingling in her hands and feet and the push through hardness, and she was on her feet, breathless but unharmed, standing beside Calvin and Charles Wallace.

“Is this Camazotz?” Charles Wallace asked as Mrs Whatsit materialized in front of him.

“Yes,” she answered. “Now let us just stand and get our breath and look around.”

They were standing on a hill and as Meg looked about her she felt that it could easily be a hill on earth. There were the familiar trees she knew so well at home: birches, pines, maples. And though it was warmer than it had been when they so precipitously left the apple orchard, there was a faintly autumnal touch to the air; near them were several small trees with reddened leaves very like sumac,
and a big patch of goldenrod-like flowers. As she looked down the hill she could see the smokestacks of a town, and it might have been one of any number of familiar towns. There seemed to be nothing strange, or different, or frightening, in the landscape.

But Mrs Whatsit came to her and put an arm around her comfortingly. “I can’t stay with you here, you know, love,” she said. “You three children
will be on your own. We will be near you; we will be watching you. But you will not be able to see us or to ask us for help, and we will not be able to come to you.”

“But is Father here?” Meg asked tremblingly.

“Yes.”

“But where? When will we see him?” She was poised for running, as though she were going to sprint off, immediately, to wherever her father was.

“That I cannot tell you. You will
just have to wait until the propitious moment.”

Charles Wallace looked steadily at Mrs Whatsit. “Are you afraid for us?”

“A little.”

“But if you weren’t afraid to do what you did when you were a star, why should you be afraid for us now?”

“But I was afraid,” Mrs Whatsit said gently. She looked steadily at each of the three children in turn. “You will need help,” she told them, “but all I am
allowed to give you is a little talisman. Calvin, your great gift is your ability to communicate, to communicate with all kinds of people. So, for you, I will strengthen this gift. Meg, I give you your faults.”

“My faults!” Meg cried.

“Your faults.”

“But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!”

“Yes,” Mrs Whatsit said. “However, I think you’ll find they’ll come in very handy on Camazotz.
Charles Wallace, to you I can give only the resilience of your childhood.”

From somewhere Mrs Who’s glasses glimmered and they heard her voice. “Calvin,” she said, “a hint. For you a hint. Listen well:

. . . For that he was a spirit too delicate
To act their earthy and abhorr’d commands,
Refusing their grand hests, they did confine him
By help of their most potent ministers,
And in their
most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprisoned, he didst painfully remain. . . .

Shakespeare.
The Tempest
.”

“Where are you, Mrs Who?” Charles Wallace asked. “Where is Mrs Which?”

“We cannot come to you now,” Mrs Who’s voice blew
to them like the wind. “
Allwissend bin ich nicht; doch viel ist mir bewisst
. Goethe.
I do not know everything; still many things I understand
. That is for you, Charles. Remember that you do not know everything.” Then the voice was directed to Meg. “To you I leave my glasses, little blind-as-a-bat. But do not use them except as a last resort. Save them for the final moment of peril.” As she spoke there was another shimmer of spectacles, and then it was gone, and the voice faded out with it. The spectacles were in Meg’s hand. She put
them carefully into the breast pocket of her blazer, and the knowledge that they were there somehow made her a little less afraid.

“Tto alll tthreee off yyou I ggive mmy ccommandd,” Mrs Which said. “Ggo ddownn innttoo tthee ttownn. Ggo ttogetherr. Ddoo nnott llett tthemm ssepparate yyou. Bbee sstrongg.” There was a flicker and then it vanished. Meg shivered.

Mrs Whatsit must have seen the shiver,
for she patted Meg on the shoulder. Then she turned to Calvin. “Take care of Meg.”

“I can take care of Meg,” Charles Wallace said rather sharply. “I always have.”

Mrs Whatsit looked at Charles Wallace, and the creaky voice seemed somehow both to soften and to deepen at the same time. “Charles Wallace, the danger here is greatest for you.”

“Why?”

“Because of what you are. Just exactly because
of what you are you will be by far the most vulnerable. You
must
stay with Meg and Calvin. You must
not
go off on your own. Beware of pride and arrogance, Charles, for they may betray you.”

At the tone of Mrs Whatsit’s voice, both warning and frightening, Meg shivered again. And Charles Wallace butted up against Mrs Whatsit in the way he often did with his mother, whispering, “Now I think I know
what you meant about being afraid.”

“Only a fool is not afraid,” Mrs Whatsit told him. “Now go.” And where she had been there was only sky and grasses and a small rock.

“Come
on
,” Meg said impatiently. “Come on, let’s
go!
” She was completely unaware that her voice was trembling like an aspen leaf. She took Charles Wallace and Calvin each by the hand and started down the hill.

Below them
the town was laid out in harsh angular patterns. The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of lawn in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door. Meg had a feeling that if she could count the flowers there would be exactly the same number for each house. In front of all the houses children
were playing. Some were skipping rope, some were bouncing balls. Meg felt vaguely that something was wrong with their play. It seemed exactly like children playing around any housing development at home, and yet there was something different about it. She looked at Calvin, and saw that he, too, was puzzled.

“Look!” Charles Wallace said suddenly. “They’re skipping and bouncing in rhythm! Everyone’s
doing it at exactly the same moment.”

This was so. As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers.

Then the doors of all the houses opened
simultaneously, and out came women like a row of paper dolls. The print of their dresses was different, but they all gave the appearance of being the same. Each woman stood on the steps of her house. Each clapped. Each child with the ball caught the ball. Each child with the skipping rope folded the rope. Each child turned and walked into the house. The doors clicked shut behind them.

“How can
they do it?” Meg asked wonderingly. “We couldn’t do it that way if we tried. What does it mean?”

“Let’s go back.” Calvin’s voice was urgent.

“Back?” Charles Wallace asked. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Back to the hill. Back to Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Who and Mrs Which. I don’t like this.”

“But they aren’t there. Do you think they’d come to us if we turned back now?”

“I don’t like it,” Calvin
said again.

“Come
on
.” Impatience made Meg squeak. “You
know
we can’t go back. Mrs Whatsit
said
to go into the town.” She started on down the street, and the two boys followed
her. The houses, all identical, continued, as far as the eye could reach.

Then, all at once, they saw the same thing, and stopped to watch. In front of one of the houses stood a little boy with a ball, and he was bouncing
it. But he bounced it rather badly and with no particular rhythm, sometimes dropping it and running after it with awkward, furtive leaps, sometimes throwing it up into the air and trying to catch it. The door of his house opened and out ran one of the mother figures. She looked wildly up and down the street, saw the children and put her hand to her mouth as though to stifle a scream, grabbed the
little boy and rushed indoors with him. The ball dropped from his fingers and rolled out into the street.

Charles Wallace ran after it and picked it up, holding it out for Meg and Calvin to see. It seemed like a perfectly ordinary, brown rubber ball.

“Let’s take it in to him and see what happens,” Charles Wallace suggested.

Meg pulled at him. “Mrs Whatsit said for us to go on into the town.”

“Well, we
are
in the town, aren’t we? The outskirts anyhow. I want to know more about this. I have a hunch it may help us later. You go on if you don’t want to come with me.”

“No,” Calvin said firmly. “We’re going to stay together. Mrs Whatsit said we weren’t to let them separate us. But I’m with you on this. Let’s knock and see what happens.”

They went up the path to the house, Meg reluctant,
eager
to get on into the town. “Let’s hurry,” she begged, “
please!
Don’t you want to find Father?”

“Yes,” Charles Wallace said, “but not blindly. How can we help him if we don’t know what we’re up against? And it’s obvious we’ve been brought here to help him, not just to find him.” He walked briskly up the steps and knocked at the door. They waited. Nothing happened. Then Charles Wallace saw
a bell, and this he rang. They could hear the bell buzzing in the house, and the sound of it echoed down the street. After a moment the mother figure opened the door. All up and down the street other doors opened, but only a crack, and eyes peered toward the three children and the woman looking fearfully out the door at them.

“What do you want?” she asked. “It isn’t paper time yet; we’ve had
milk time; we’ve had this month’s Puller Prush Person; and I’ve given my Decency Donations regularly. All my papers are in order.”

“I think your little boy dropped his ball,” Charles Wallace said, holding it out.

The woman pushed the ball away. “Oh, no! The children in our section
never
drop balls! They’re all perfectly trained. We haven’t had an Aberration for three years.”

All up and down
the block, heads nodded in agreement.

Charles Wallace moved closer to the woman and looked past her into the house. Behind her in the shadows he could see the little boy, who must have been about his own age.