A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (52 page)

Pastor Mortmain’s face was hard. “I believe this Indian woman to be a witch. And if she is, she must die like a witch. That, too, is in Scripture.” He gestured to Goodman Higgins and Duthbert. “We will meet in church and make our decision.”

“Who will make
the decision?” Ritchie demanded, not heeding his father’s warning hand. “All the men of the settlement, in fair discussion, or you, Pastor Mortmain?”

“Be careful,” Goodman Higgins urged. “Ritchie, take care.”

“David Higgins,” Richard Llawcae said, “our two cabins were the first in this settlement. You have known us longer than anyone else here. Do you believe that my son would marry a witch?”

“Not knowingly, Richard.”

“You were here with us during the evenings when the Indians came to listen to our stories, and we heard their own legend that matched ours. You saw how the Indian legend and the Welsh one insured peace between us and the People of the Wind, did you not, now, David?”

“Yes, that is so.”

Pastor Mortmain intervened. “Goodman Higgins has told me of the storytelling which
preceded the sop of reading from Scripture.”

“Scripture was never a sop for us, Pastor. Those early years were hard. Goody Higgins died birthing Davey, and after her death in one week three of David’s children
died of diphtheria, and another only a year later coughed his life away. My wife lost four little ones between Richard and Brandon, one at birth, the other three as children. We were sustained
and strengthened by Scripture then, as we are still. As for the stories, the winter evenings were long, and it was a pleasant way to while away the time as we worked with our hands.”

Goodman Higgins shuffled his feet. “There was no harm in the stories, Pastor Mortmain. I have assured you of that.”

“Perhaps not for you,” Pastor Mortmain said. “Come.”

Goodman Higgins did not look up as he followed
Pastor Mortmain and Duthbert out of the cabin.

Nightmare. Brandon wanted to scream, to make himself wake up, but he was not asleep, and the nightmare was happening. When he did his chores he was aware that Maddox was invisibly there, watching over him. Sometimes he heard him rustling up in the branches of a tree. Sometimes Maddok let Brandon have a glimpse of him behind a tree trunk, behind the
corner of a barn or cabin. But wherever he went, Maddok was there, and that meant that the Indians knew all that was happening.

A baby in the settlement died of the summer sickness, which had always been the chief cause of infant mortality during the hot months, but it was all that was needed to convict Zylle.

Pastor Mortmain sent to the town for a man who was said to be an expert in the detection
of witches. He had sent many people to the gallows.

“And that’s supposed to make him an expert?” Ritchie demanded.

The settlement crackled with excitement. It seemed to Brandon that people were enjoying it. The Higgins daughter walked along the dusty street with Duthbert, and did not raise her eyes, but Pastor Mortmain’s son smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. People lingered in their doorways,
staring at Pastor Mortmain and the expert on witches as they stood in front of the church. Davey Higgins stayed in his cabin and did not come out, though the other children were as eager as their parents to join in the witch hunt.

It was part of the nightmare when the man from the city who had hanged many people gave Pastor Mortmain and the elders of the village his verdict: there was no doubt
in his mind that Zylle was a witch.

A sigh of excitement, of horror, of pleasure, went along the street.

That evening when Brandon went to the common pasture to bring the cow home, one of the other boys spat on the ground and turned away. Davey Higgins, tying the halter on the Higgins cow, said, “It is the Lord’s will that the witch should die.”

“Zylle is not a witch.”

“She’s a heathen.”

“She’s a Christian. A better one than you are.”

“She’s a condemned witch, and tomorrow they take her to the jail in town, though she’ll be brought back here to be hanged—”

“So we can all see.” One of the boys licked his lips in anticipation.

“No!” Brandon cried. “No!”

Davey interrupted him. “You’d better hold your tongue, or I could tell things about you to make Pastor Mortmain condemn you
as a witch, too.”

Brandon looked levelly at Davey while the others teased him to tell.

Davey flushed. “No. I didn’t mean anything. Brandon is my friend. It’s not his fault his brother married a witch.”

“How could you let them take Zylle and the baby away?” Brandon demanded of Ritchie and his parents. “How could you!”

“Son,” Richard Llawcae said, “Zylle is not safe here, not now with feelings
running high. There are those who would hang her immediately. Your brother and I are going to town tomorrow to speak to people we know there. We think they will help us.”

But the witch-hunting fever was too high. There was no help. There was no reason. There was only nightmare.

Goody Llawcae stayed in the town to tend Zylle and the baby; that much was allowed, but it was not through kindness;
there were those who feared that Zylle might try to take her own life, or that something might happen to prevent them seeing a public hanging.

Richard and Ritchie refused to erect the gallows.

Avoiding their eyes, Goodman Higgins pleaded, “You must not refuse to do this, or you, too, will be accused. In the town they have convicted entire families.”

Richard said, “There was another carpenter,
once, and he would have refused to do this thing. Him I will follow.”

There were others more than willing to erect a crude gallows. A gallows is more easily built than a house, or a bed, or a table.

The date for the hanging was set.

On the eve, Brandon went late to bring the cow in from the pasture, in order to avoid the others. When he got to the barn. Maddok was waiting there in the shadows.

“My father wants to see you.”

“When?” Bran asked.

“Tonight. After the others are asleep, can you slip away without being seen?”

Bran nodded. “You have taught me how to do that. I will come. It has meant much to me to know that you have been with me.”

“We are friends,” Maddok said without a smile.

“Is it going to rain soon?” Brandon asked.

“No. Not unless prayer changes things.”

“You pray
every night. So do we.”

“Yes. We pray,” Maddok said, and slipped silently into the woods.

In the small hours of the morning, before dawn, when he was sure everybody in the settlement would be asleep, Brandon left the cabin and ran swiftly as a young deer into the protecting shadows of the woods.

Maddok was standing at the edge of the forest, waiting. “Come. I know the way in the dark more easily
than you.”

“Zillo knows everything? You’ve told him?”

“Yes. But he wants to meet with you.”

“Why? I’m still only a child.”

“You have the gift of seeing.”

Brandon shivered.

“Come,” Maddok urged. “My father is waiting.”

They traveled swiftly, Brandon following Maddok as he led the way, over the brook, through the dark shadows of the forest.

At the edge of the Indian clearing, Zillo stood.
Maddok nodded at his father, then vanished into the shadows.

“You won’t let it happen?” Brandon begged. “If Zylle is harmed, Ritchie will kill.”

“We will not let it happen.”

“The men of the settlement expect the Indians to
come. They have guns. They are out of their right minds, and they will not hesitate to shoot.”

“They must be prevented. Have you seen anything in a vision lately?”

“I have
tried not to. I am afraid.”

“No one knows you are here?”

“Only Maddok.”

Zillo pulled a polished metal sphere from a small pouch and held it out to catch the light of the late moon. “What do you see?”

Brandon hesitantly looked into it. “This is right for me to do, when my father …?”

Zillo’s eyes were expressionless. “I have held this action in prayer all day. It is not your father’s wish to
deny a gift of the gods, and at this time we have no one in the tribe with the gift of seeing.”

As Brandon looked, the light in the metal sphere shifted, and he saw clouds moving swiftly across the sky, clouds reflected in water. Not taking his eyes from the scrying metal he said, “I see a lake where the valley should be, a lake I have seen before in a picture. It is beautiful.”

Zillo nodded.
“It is said there was a lake here in long-gone days. In the valley people have found stones with the bones of fish in them.”

“The sky is clouding up,” Brandon reported. “Rain is starting to fall, spattering into the water of the lake.”

“You see no fire?”

“Before, I saw fire, and I was afraid. Now there is only rain.”

The severity of Zillo’s face lifted barely perceptibly.

“That is good, that
picture. Now I will teach you some words. You must learn them very carefully, and you must make sure that you do not use them too soon. Only the blue-eyed children of the Wind People are taught these words, and never before have they been given to one not of the tribe. But I give them to you for Zylle’s saving.”

On the morning of the execution Zylle was returned to the settlement. Infant Brandon
was taken from her and given to Goody Llawcae.

“He is too young to be weaned,” Goody Llawcae objected. “He will die of the summer sickness.”

“The witch will not harm her own child,” Pastor Mortmain said.

It took six of the strongest men in the settlement to restrain Ritchie and Richard.

“Tie the witch’s hands,” the man from the city ordered.

“I will do it,” Goodman Higgins said. “Hold out
your hands, child.”

“Show her no gentleness, Higgins,” Pastor Mortmain warned, “unless you would have us think you tainted, too. After all, you have listened to their tales.”

Goody Llawcae, holding the crying baby, said, “Babies
have died of the summer sickness for years, long before Zylle came to dwell among us, and no one thought of witchcraft.”

Angry murmurs came from the gathered people.
“The witch made another baby die. Let her brat die as well.”

Ritchie, struggling compulsively, nearly broke away.

Pastor Mortmain said, “When the witch is dead, you will come back to your senses. We are saving you from the evil.”

The people of the settlement crowded about the gallows in ugly anticipation of what was to come. Davey Higgins stayed in the doorway of his cabin.

Goodman Higgins
and Pastor Mortmain led Zylle across the dusty compound and up the steps to the gallows.

Brandon thought his heart would beat its way out of his body. He felt a presence beside him, and there was Maddok, and he knew that the rest of the tribe was close by.

“Now,” Maddok whispered.

And then Brandon cried aloud the words which Zillo had taught him.

Thunderstorms seldom came till late afternoon. But suddenly the sky was cleft by a fiery bolt, and the church bore the power of its might. The crash of thunder was almost simultaneous. The sky darkened from a humid blue
to a sulfurous dimness. Flame flickered about the doorway of the church.

The Indians stepped forward until the entire settlement was aware of their presence, silent and menacing. Several men raised guns. As Duthbert fired, lightning flashed again and sent Duthbert sprawling, a long burn down his arm, his bullet going harmlessly into the air. Flames wreathed the belfry of the church.

Zillo sprang
across the compound and up the steps to the gallows. “No guns,” he commanded, “or the lightning will strike again. And this time it will kill.”

Duthbert was moaning with pain. “Put down the guns—don’t shoot—”

Pastor Mortmain’s face was distorted. “You are witches, all of you, witches! The Llawcae boy has the Indian girl’s devil with him that he can call lightning! He must die!”

The Indians
drew in closer. Maddok remained by Brandon. And then Davey Higgins came from the door of his cabin and stood on Brandon’s other side.

Ritchie broke away from the men who were holding him, and sprang up onto the gallows. “People of the settlement!” he cried. “Do you think all power is of the devil? What we have just seen is the wrath of God!”
He turned his back on the crowd and began to untie
Zylle.

The mood of the people was changing. Richard was let loose and he crossed the dusty compound to Pastor Mortmain. “Your church is burning because you tried to kill an innocent woman. Our friends and neighbors would never have consented to this madness had you not terrified them with your fire and brimstone.”

Goodman Higgins moved away from Pastor Mortmain. “That is right. The Llawcaes
have always been God-fearing people.”

The Indians drew closer.

Ritchie had one arm about Zylle. He called out again: “The Indians have always been our friends. Is this how we return their friendship?”

“Stop them—” Pastor Mortmain choked out. “Stop the Indians! They will massacre us—stop them—”

Ritchie shouted, “Why should we? Do you want us to show you more compassion than you have shown us?”

“Ritchie!” Zylle faced him. “You are not like Pastor Mortmain. You have a heart in you. Show them your compassion!”

Zillo raised a commanding hand. “This evil has been stopped. As long as nothing like this ever happens again, you need not fear us. But it must never happen again.”

Murmurs of “Never, never, we are sorry, never, never,” came from the crowd.

Pastor Mortmain moaned, “The fire, the
fire, my God, the church, the church is burning.”

Ritchie led Zylle down the steps and to his mother, who put the baby into her daughter-in-law’s waiting arms. Brandon, standing between Maddok and Davey, watched as his mother and Zylle, his father and brother, turned their backs on the burning church and walked across the compound, past their chastened neighbors, past the watchful Indians, and
went into their cabin. He stayed, his feet rooted to the ground as though he could not move, while the people of the settlement brought ineffectual buckets of water to try to control the flames and keep the fire from spreading to the cabins around the church. He watched the belfry collapse, a belfry erected more to the glory of Pastor Mortmain than to the glory of God.