A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (51 page)

Richard
Llawcae opened the big, much-used Bible, and read aloud, “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name
of the Lord. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath
dealt bountifully with thee.”

“Amen,” Zylle said.

Richard Llawcae closed the Book. “You are my beloved daughter, Zylle. When Ritchie chose you for his betrothed, his mother and I were uncertain at first, as were your own people. But it seemed to your father, Zillo, and to me that two legends were coming together in this union. And time has taught us that it was a blessed inevitability.”

“Thank
you, Father.” She reached out to his leathery hand. “Goody Adams did not like it that I shed no tears.”

Goody Llawcae ran her hand gently over Zylle’s shining black hair. “She knows that it is the way of your people.”

—Savages, heathen savages, Brandon thought.—That’s what Goody Adams thinks of Zylle’s people.

When Bran went to do his evening chores a shadow materialized from behind the great
trunk of a pine tree. Maddok.

Brandon greeted him with joy. “I’m glad, glad to see you! Father was going to send me to the Indian compound after chores, but now I can tell you: the baby’s come! A boy, and all is well.”

The shadow of a smile moved across Maddok’s face, in which the blue eyes were as startling as they were in
Zylle. “My father will be glad. Your family will allow us to come tonight,
to see the baby?”

“Of course.”

Maddok’s eyes clouded. “It’s not ‘of course.’ Not any more.”

“It is with us Llawcaes. Maddok—how did you know to come, just now?”

“I saw Zylle yesterday. She told me it would be today.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“You weren’t alone. Davey Higgins was with you.”

“But you and Davey and I always played together. It was the three of us.”

“Not any more. Davey has been
forbidden to leave the settlement and come to the compound. Your medicine man’s gods do not respect our gods.”

Brandon let his breath out in a sigh that was nearly a groan. “Pastor Mortmain. It’s not our gods that don’t respect your gods. It’s Pastor Mortmain.”

Maddok nodded. “And his son is courting Davey’s sister.”

Brandon giggled. “I’d love to see Pastor Mortmain’s face if he heard himself
referred to as a medicine man.”

“He is not a good medicine man,” Maddok said. “He will cause trouble.”

“He already has. It’s his fault Davey can’t see you.”

Maddok looked intently into Brandon’s eyes. “My father also sent me to warn you.”

“Warn? Of what?”

“We have had runners out. In the town there is much talk of witchcraft.”

Witchcraft. It was an ugly word. “But not here,” Brandon said.

“Not yet. But there is talk among your people.”

“What kind of talk?” Brandon asked sharply.

“My sister shed no tears during the birth.”

“They know that it is the way of the Indian.”

“It is also the mark of a witch. They say that a cat ran screaming through the street at the time of the birth, and that Zylle put her pain into the cat.”

“That is nonsense.” But Brandon’s eyes were troubled.

“My father says there are evil spirits abroad, hardening men’s hearts. He says there is lust to see evil in innocence. Brandon, my friend and brother, take care of Zylle and the baby.”

“Zylle and I picked herbs for the birthing,” Brandon said in a low voice.

“Zylle was taught all the ways of a good delivery, and she has the healing gifts. But that, too, would be looked upon as magic. Black magic.”

“But it’s not magic—”

“No. It is understanding the healing qualities of certain plants and roots. People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs. My father is concerned for Zylle, and for you.”

Brandon protested. “But we are known as God-loving people. Surely they couldn’t think—”

“Because you are known as such, they will wish to think,” Maddok said. “My father says you should go more
with the other children of the settlement, where you can see and hear. It’s better to be prepared. I, too, will keep my ears open.” Without saying goodbye, he disappeared into the forest.

Late in the evening, when most of the settlement was sleeping, Zylle’s people came through the woods, silently, in single file, approaching the cabin from behind, as Maddok had done in the afternoon.

They clustered
around Zylle and the baby, were served Goody Llawcae’s special cold herb tea, and freshly baked bread, fragrant with golden cheese and sweet butter.

Zillo took his grandson into his arms, and a shadow of tenderness moved across his impassive face. “Brandon, son of Zylle of the Wind People and son of Ritchie of Llawcae, son of a prince from the distant land of Wales; Brandon, bearer of the blue,”
he murmured over the sleeping baby, rocking him gently in his arms.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon saw one of the Indian women go to his mother, talking to her softly. His mother put her hand to her head in a worried gesture.

And before the Indians left, he saw Zillo take his father aside.

Despite his joy in his namesake, there was heaviness in his heart when he went to bed, and it was
that, as much as the heat, which kept him from sleeping. He could hear his parents talking with Ritchie in the next room, and he shifted position so that he could hear better.

Goody Llawcae was saying, “People do not like other people to be different. It is hard enough for Zylle, being an Indian, without being part of a family marked as different, too.”

“Different?” Ritchie asked sharply. “We
were the first settlers here.”

“We come from Wales. And Brandon’s gift is feared.”

Richard asked his wife, “Did one of the Indians give you a warning?”

“One of the women. I had hoped this disease of witch-hunting would not touch our settlement.”

“We must try not to let it start with us,” Goodman Llawcae said. “At least the Higginses will stand by us.”

“Will they?” Ritchie asked. “Goodman
Higgins seems much taken with Pastor Mortmain. And Davey Higgins hasn’t come to do chores with Brandon in a long time.”

Richard said, “Zillo warned me of Brandon, too.”

“Brandon—” Goody Llawcae drew in her breath.

“He saw one of his pictures last night.”

On hearing this, Brandon hurried into the big room. “Zylle told you!”

“She did not, Brandon,” his father said, “and eavesdroppers
seldom
hear anything pleasant. You did give Zylle permission to speak to her father, and it was he who told me. Are you ashamed to tell us?”

“Ashamed? No, Father, not ashamed. I try not to ask for the pictures, because you don’t want me to see them, and I know it disturbs you when they come to me anyhow. That is why I don’t tell you. I thought you would prefer me not to.”

His father lowered his head.
“It is understandable that you should feel this way. Perhaps we have been wrong to ask you not to see your pictures if they are God’s gift to you.”

Brandon looked surprised. “Who else would send them?”

“In Wales it is believed that such gifts come from God. There is not as much fear of devils there as here.”

“Zylle and Maddok say my pictures come from the gods.”

“And Zillo warned me,” his
father said, “that you must not talk about your pictures in front of anybody, especially Pastor Mortmain.”

“What about Davey?”

“Not anybody.”

“But Davey knows about my pictures. When we were little, I used to describe them to Davey and Maddok.”

The parents looked at each other. “That was long ago. Let’s hope Davey has forgotten.”

Ritchie banged his fist against the hard wood of the bedstead.
Richard held up a warning hand. “Hush. You will wake your wife and son. Once the heat breaks, people’s temperaments will be easier. Brandon, go back to bed.”

Back in his room, Brandon tossed hotly on his straw pallet. Even after the rest of the household was quiet, he could not sleep. In the distance he heard the drums. But no rain came.

The next evening when he was bringing the cow home from
the day’s grazing, Davey Higgins came up to him. “Bran, Pastor Mortmain says I am not to speak to you.”

“You’re speaking.”

“We’ve known each other all our lives. I will speak as long as I can. But people are saying that Zylle is preventing the rain. The crops are withering. We do not want to offend the Indians, but Pastor Mortmain says that Zylle’s blue eyes prove her to be not a true Indian,
and that the Indians were afraid of her and wished her onto us.”

“You know that’s not true!” Brandon said hotly. “The Indians are proud of the blue eyes.”

“I know it,” Davey said, “and you know it, but we are still children, and people do not listen to children. Pastor Mortmain has forbidden us to go to the Indian compound, and Maddok is no longer welcome here. My father believes everything
Pastor Mortmain says, and my sister is being courted by his son, that pasty-faced Duthbert.
Bran, what do your pictures tell you of all this?” Davey gave Brandon a sidewise glance.

Brandon looked at him directly. “I’m twelve years old now, Davey. I’m no longer a child with a child’s pictures.” He left Davey and took the cow to the shed, feeling that denying the pictures had been an act of betrayal.

Maddok came around the corner of the shed. “My father has sent me to you, in case there is danger. I am to follow you, but not be seen. But you know Indian ways, and you will see me. So I wanted you to know, so that you won’t be afraid.”

“I am afraid,” Brandon said flatly.

“If only it would rain,” Maddok said.

“You know about weather. Will it rain?”

Maddok shook his head. “The air smells of
thunder, but there will be no rain this moon. There is lightning in the air, and it turns people’s minds. How is Zylle? and the baby?”

Now Brandon smiled. “Beautiful.”

At family prayers that evening the Llawcae faces were sober. Richard asked for wisdom, for prudence, for rain. He asked for faithfulness in friendship, and for courage. And again for rain.

The thunder continued to grumble. The
heavy night was sullen with heat lightning. And no drop fell.

* * *

The children would not talk with Brandon. Even Davey shamefacedly turned away. Mr. Mortmain, confronting Brandon, said, “There is evil under your roof. You had better see to it that it is removed.”

When Brandon reported this, Ritchie exploded. “The evil is in Mr. Mortmain’s own heart.”

The evil was as pervasive as the brassy
heat.

Pastor Mortmain came in the evening to the Llawcaes’ cabin, bringing with him his son, Duthbert, and Goodman Higgins. “We would speak with the Indian woman.”

“My wife—” Ritchie started, but his father silenced him.

“It is late for this visit, Pastor Mortmain,” Richard said. “My daughter-in-law and the baby have retired.”

“Then they must be wakened. It is our intention to discover if
the Indian woman is a Christian, or—”

Zylle walked into the room, carrying her child. “Or what, Pastor Mortmain?”

Duthbert looked at her, and his eyes were greedy. Goodman Higgins questioned her gently. “We believe you to be a Christian, Zylle. That is true, is it not?”

“Yes, Goodman Higgins. When I married Ritchie I accepted his beliefs.”

“Even though they were contrary to the beliefs of
your people?” Pastor Mortmain asked.

“But they are not contrary.”

“The Indians are pagans,” Duthbert said.

Zylle looked at the pasty young man over the baby’s head. “I do not know what pagan means. I only know that Jesus of Nazareth sings the true song. He knows the ancient harmonies.”

Pastor Mortmain drew in his breath in horror. “You say that our Lord and Saviour sings! What more do we need
to hear?”

“But why should he not sing?” Zylle asked. “The very stars sing as they turn in their heavenly dance, sing praise of the One who created them. In the meeting house do we not sing hymns?”

Pastor Mortmain scowled at Zylle, at the Llawcaes, at his son, who could not keep his eyes off Zylle’s loveliness, at Goodman Higgins. “That is different. You are a heathen and you do not understand.”

Zylle raised her head proudly. “Scripture says that God loves every man. That is in the Psalms. He loves my people as he loves you, or he is not God.”

Higgins warned, “You must not blaspheme, child.”

“Why,” demanded Pastor Mortmain, “are you holding back the rain?”

“Why ever should I wish to hold back the rain? Our corn suffers as does yours. We pray for rain, twice daily, at morning and at
evening prayer.”

“The cat,” Duthbert said. “What about the cat?”

“The cat is to keep rodents away from house and barn, like all the cats in the settlement.”

Pastor Mortmain said, “Goody Adams tells us the cat is to help you fly through the air.”

Duthbert’s mouth dropped slightly, and Ritchie shouted with outrage. But Zylle silenced him with a gesture, asking, “Does your cat help you to fly
through the air, Pastor Mortmain? No more does mine. The gift of flying through the air is given to only the most holy of people, and I am only a woman like other women.”

“Stop, child,” Goodman Higgins ordered, “before you condemn yourself.”

“Are you a true Indian?” Pastor Mortmain demanded. She nodded. “I am of the People of the Wind.”

“Indians do not have blue eyes.”

“You have heard our
legend.”

“Legend?”

“Yes. Though we believe it to be true. My father has the blue eyes, too, as does my little brother.”

“Lies!” Pastor Mortmain cried. “Storytelling is of the devil.”

Richard Llawcae took a step toward the small, dark figure of the minister. “How strange that you should say that, Pastor Mortmain. Scripture says that Jesus taught by telling stories.
And he spake many things
unto them in parables … and without a parable spake he not unto them.
That is in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew.”