A Wrinkle in Time -- Madeleine L'Engle

(Version 1.0 -- 01/04/2002)

Chapter 1 -- Mrs. Whatsit

IT was a dark and stormy night.

In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old
patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the
trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the
trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few
moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.

The house shook.

Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.

She wasn't usually afraid of weather. —It's not just the
weather, she thought. —It's the weather on top of everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong.

School. School was all wrong. She'd been dropped down
to the lowest section in her grade. That morning one of her
teachers had said crossly, "Really, Meg, I don't understand
how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are supposed
to be can be such a poor student. If you don't manage to do
a little better you'll have to stay back next year."

During lunch she'd rough-housed a little to try to make
herself feel better, and one of the girls said scornfully, "After
all, Meg, we aren't grammar-school kids any more. Why do
you always act like such a baby?"

And on the way home from school, walking up the road
with her arms full of books, one of the boys had said something about her "dumb baby brother." At this she'd thrown
die books on the side of the road and tackled him with every
ounce of strength she had, and arrived home with her blouse
torn and a big bruise under one eye.

Sandy and Dennys, her ten-year-old twin brothers, who
got home from school an hour earlier than she did, were disgusted. "Let us do the fighting when it's necessary," they
told her.

—A delinquent, that's what I am, she thought grimly. —That's what they'll be saying next. Not Mother. But Them.
Everybody Else. I wish Father—

But it was still not possible to think about her father without the danger of tears. Only her mother could talk about
him in a natural way, saying, "When your father gets
back—"

Gets back from where? And when? Surely her mother
must know what people were saying, must be aware of the
smugly vicious gossip. Surely it must hurt her as it did Meg.
But if it did she gave no outward sign. Nothing ruffled the
serenity other expression.

—Why can't I hide it, too? Meg thought. Why do I always
have to show everything?

The window rattled madly in the wind, and she pulled
the quilt dose about her. Curled up on one of her pillows
a gray fluff of kitten yawned, showing its pink tongue,
tucked its head under again, and went back to sleep.

Everybody was asleep. Everybody except Meg. Even
Charles Wallace, the "dumb baby brother," who had an
uncanny way of knowing when she was awake and unhappy, and who would come, so many nights, tiptoeing
up the attic stairs to her—even Charles Wallace was asleep.

How could they sleep? All day on the radio there had
been hurricane warnings. How could they leave her up in
the attic in the rickety brass bed, knowing that the roof
might be blown right off the house, and she tossed out into
the wild night sky to land who knows where?

Her shivering grew uncontrollable.

—You asked to have the attic bedroom, she told herself
savagely. —Mother let you have it because you're the oldest.
Ifs a privilege, not a punishment.

"Not during a hurricane, it isn't a privilege," she said
aloud. She tossed the quilt down on the foot of the bed, and
stood up. The kitten stretched luxuriously, and looked up
at her with huge, innocent eyes.

"Go back to sleep," Meg said. "Just be glad you're a
kitten and not a monster like me." She looked at herself
in the wardrobe mirror and made a horrible face, baring
a mouthful of teeth covered with braces. Automatically she
pushed her glasses into position, ran her fingers through
her mouse-brown hair, so that it stood wildly on end, and
let out a sigh almost as noisy as the wind.

The wide wooden floorboards were cold against her feet.
Wind blew in the crevices about the window frame, in
spite of the protection the storm sash was supposed to
offer. She could hear wind howling in the chimneys. From
all the way downstairs she could hear Fortinbras, the big
black dog, starting to bark. He must be frightened, too.
What was he barking at? Fortinbras never barked without
reason.

Suddenly she remembered that when she had gone to
the post office to pick up the mail she'd heard about a
tramp who was supposed to have stolen twelve sheets from
Mrs. Buncombe, the constable's wife. They hadn't caught
him, and maybe he was heading for the Murry's house right
now, isolated on a back road as it was; and this time maybe
he'd be after more than sheets. Meg hadn't paid much attention to the talk about the tramp at the time, because the
postmistress, with a sugary smile, had asked if she'd heard
from her father lately.

She left her little room and made her way through the
shadows of the main attic, bumping against the ping-pong
table. —Now I'll have a bruise on my hip on top of everything else, she thought.

Next she walked into her old dolls' house, Charles Wallace's rocking horse, the twins' electric trains. "Why must
everything happen to me?" She demanded of a large teddy
bear.

At the foot of the attic stairs she stood still and listened.
Not a sound from Charles Wallace's room on the right. On
the left, in her parents' room, not a rustle from her mother
sleeping alone in the great double bed. She tiptoed down
the hall and into the twins' room, pushing again at her
glasses as though they could help her to see better in the
dark. Dennys was snoring. Sandy murmured something
about baseball and subsided. The twins didn't have any
problems. They weren't great students, but they weren't
bad ones, either. They were perfectly content with a succession of B's and an occasional A or C. They were strong and
fast runners and good at games, and when cracks were made
about anybody in the Murry family, they weren't made
about Sandy and Dennys.

She left the twins' room and went on downstairs, avoiding the creaking seventh step. Fortinbras had stopped
barking. It wasn't the tramp this time, then. Fort would go
On barking if anybody was around.

—But suppose the tramp does come? Suppose he has a
knife? Nobody lives near enough to hear if we screamed
and screamed and screamed. Nobody'd care, anyhow.

—I'll make myself some cocoa, she decided. —That'll
cheer me up, and if the roof blows off at least I won't go off
with it.

In the kitchen a light was already on, and Charles Wallace was sitting at the table drinking milk and eating
bread and jam. He looked very small and vulnerable sitting
there alone in the big old-fashioned kitchen, a blond little
boy in faded blue Dr. Dentons, his feet swinging a good
six inches above the floor.

"Hi," he said cheerfully. "I've been waiting for you."

From under the table where he was lying at Charles
Wallace's feet, hoping for a crumb or two, Fortinbras raised
his slender dark head in greeting to Meg, and his tail
thumped against the floor. Fortinbras had arrived on their
doorstep, a half-grown puppy, scrawny and abandoned,
one winter night. He was, Meg's father had decided, part
Llewellyn setter and part greyhound, and he had a slender
dark beauty that was all his own.

"Why didn't you come up to the attic?" Meg asked
her brother, speaking as though he were at least her own
age. "I've been scared stiff."

"Too windy up in that attic of yours," the little boy said.
"I knew you'd be down. I put some milk on the stove for
you. It ought to be hot by now."

How did Charles Wallace always know about her? How
could he always tell? He never knew — or seemed to care —
what Dennys or Sandy were thinking. It was his mother's
mind, and Meg's, that he probed with frightening accuracy.

Was it because people were a little afraid of him that
they whispered about the Murry's youngest child, who
was rumored to be not quite bright? "I've heard that clever
people often have subnormal children," Meg had once
overheard. "The two boys seem to be nice, regular children, but that unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly
aren't all there."

It was true that Charles Wallace seldom spoke when
anybody was around, so that many people thought he'd
never learned to talk. And it was true that he hadn't talked
at all until he was almost four. Meg would turn white with
fury when people looked at him and clucked, shaking their
heads sadly.

"Don't worry about Charles Wallace, Meg." her father
had once told her. Meg remembered it very clearly because it was shortly before he went away. "There's nothing
the matter with his mind. He just does things in his own
way and in his own time."

"I don't want him to grow up to be dumb like me," Meg
had said.

"Oh, my darling, you're not dumb," her father answered. "You're like Charles Wallace. Your development
has to go at its own pace. It just doesn't happen to be the
usual pace."

"How do you knowF^ Meg had demanded. "How do
you know I'm not dumb? Isn't it just because you love
me?"

"I love you, but that's not what tells me. Mother and I've
given you a number of tests, you know."

Yes, that was true. Meg had realized that some of the
"games" her parents played with her were tests of some
kind, and that there had been more for her and Charles
Wallace than for the twins. "IQ tests, you mean?"

"Yes, some of them."

"Is my IQ okay?"

"More than okay."

"What is it?"

"That I'm not going to tell you. But it assures me that
both you and Charles Wallace will be able to do pretty
much whatever you like when you grow up to yourselves.
You just wait till Charles Wallace starts to talk. You'll see."

How right he had been about that, though he himself
had left before Charles Wallace began to speak, suddenly,
with none of the usual baby preliminaries, using entire
sentences. How proud he would have been!

"You'd better check the milk," Charles Wallace said to
Meg now, his diction clearer and cleaner than that of most
five-year-olds. "You know you don't like it when it gets a
skin on top."

"You put in more than twice enough milk." Meg peered
into the saucepan.

Charles Wallace nodded serenely. "I thought Mother
might like some."

"I might like what?" a voice said, and there was their
mother standing in the doorway.

"Cocoa," Charles Wallace said. "Would you like a liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwich? I'll be happy to make
you one."

That would be lovely," Mrs. Murry said, "but I can
make it myself if you're busy."

"No trouble at all." Charles Wallace slid down from
his chair and trotted over to the refrigerator, his pajamaed
feet padding softly as a kitten's. "How about you, Meg?" he
asked. "Sandwich?"

"Yes, please," she said. "But not liverwurst. Do we have
any tomatoes?"

Charles Wallace peered into the crisper. "One. All right
if I use it on Meg, Mother?"

"To what better use could it be put?" Mrs Murry smiled.
"But not so loud, please, Charles. That is, unless you want
the twins downstairs, too."

"Let's be exclusive," Charles Wallace said. "That's my
new word for the day. Impressive, isn't it?"

"Prodigious," Mrs. Murry said. "Meg, come let me look
at that bruise."

Meg knelt at her mother's feet. The warmth and light of
the kitchen had relaxed her so that her attic fears were
gone. The cocoa steamed fragrantly in the saucepan;

geraniums bloomed on the window sills and there was a
bouquet of tiny yellow chrysanthemums in the center of
the table. The curtains, red, with a blue and green geometrical pattern, were drawn, and seemed to reflect their
cheerfulness throughout the room. The furnace purred
like a great, sleepy animal; the lights glowed with steady
radiance; outside, alone in the dark, the wind still battered
against the house, but the angry power that had frightened
Meg while she was alone in the attic was subdued by the
familiar comfort of the kitchen. Underneath Mrs. Murry's
chair Fortinbras let out a contented sigh.

Mrs. Murry gently touched Meg's bruised cheek. Meg
looked up at her mother, half in loving admiration, half in
sullen resentment. It was not an advantage to have a mother
who was a scientist and a beauty as well. Mrs. Murry's
flaming red hair, creamy skin, and violet eyes with long
dark lashes, seemed even more spectacular in comparison
with Meg's outrageous plainness. Meg's hair had been
passable as long as she wore it tidily in braids. When she
went into high school it was cut, and now she and her
mother struggled with putting it up, but one side would
come out curly and the other straight, so that she looked
even plainer than before.

"You don't know the meaning of moderation, do you, my
darling?" Mrs. Murry asked. "A happy medium is something I wonder if you'll ever learn. That's a nasty bruise the
Henderson boy gave you. By the way, shortly after you'd
gone to bed his mother called up to complain about how
badly you'd hurt him. I told her that since he's a year older
and at least twenty-five pounds heavier than you are, I
thought I was the one who ought to be doing the complaining. But she seemed to think it was all your fault."

"I suppose that depends on how you look at it," Meg said.
"Usually no matter what happens people think it's my
fault, even if I have nothing to do with it at all. But I'm
sorry I tried to fight him. It's just been an awful week. And
I'm full of bad feeling."

Mrs. Murry stroked Meg's shaggy head. "Do you know
why?"

"I hate being an oddball," Meg said. "It's hard on Sandy
and Dennys, too. I don't know if they're really like everybody else, or if they're just able to pretend they are. I try
to pretend, but it isn't any help."

"You're much too straightforward to be able to pretend to
be what you aren't," Mrs. Murry said. "I'm sorry, Meglet.
Maybe if Father were here he could help you, but I don't
think I can do anything till you've managed to plow through
some more time. Then things will be easier for you. But that
isn't much help right now, is it?"

"Maybe if I weren't so repulsive-looking — maybe if I
were pretty like you—"

"Mother's not a bit pretty; she's beautiful," Charles Wallace announced, slicing liverwurst. "Therefore I bet she was
awful at your age."

"How right you are," Mrs. Murry said. "Just give yourself time, Meg."                     ^

"Lettuce on your sandwich. Mother?" Charles Wallace
asked.

"No. thanks."

He cut the sandwich into sections, put it on a plate, and
set it in front of his mother. "Yoursll be along in just a
minute, Meg. I think I'll talk to Mrs. Whatsit about you."

"Who's Mrs. Whatsit?" Meg asked.

"I think I want to be exclusive about her for a while,"
Charles Wallace said, "Onion salt?"

"Yes, please."

"What's Mrs. Whatsit stand for?" Mrs. Murry asked.

"That's her name," Charles Wallace answered. "You know
the old shingled house back in the woods that the kids
won't go near because they say it's haunted? That's where
they live."

"They?"

"Mrs. Whatsit and her two friends.. I was out with Fortinbras a couple of days ago—you and the twins were at
school, Meg. We like to walk in the woods, and suddenly
he took off after a squirrel and I took off after him and we
ended up by the haunted house, so I met them by accident,
as you might say."

"But nobody lives there," Meg said.

"Mrs. Whatsit and her friends do. They've very enjoyable."

"Why didn't you tell me about it before?" Mrs. Murry
asked. "And you know you're not supposed to go off our
property without permission, Charles."

"I know," Charles said. "That's one reason I didn't tell
you. I Just rushed off after Fortinbras without thinking. -
And then I decided, well, I'd better save them for an
emergency, anyhow."

A fresh gust of wind took the house and shook it, and
suddenly the rain began to lash against the windows.

"I don't think I like this wind," Meg said nervously.

"Well lose some shingles off the roof, that's certain," Mrs.
Murry said. "But this house has stood for almost two hundred years and I think it will last a little longer, Meg.
There's been many a high wind up on this hill."

"But this is a hurricane!" Meg wailed. "The radio kept
saying it was a hurricane!"

"It's October," Mrs. Murry told her. "There've been
storms in October before."

As Charles Wallace gave Meg her sandwich Fortinbras
came out from under the table. He gave a long, low growl,
and they could see the dark fur slowly rising on his back.
Meg felt her own skin prickle.

"What's wrong?" she asked anxiously.

Fortinbras stared at the door that opened into Mrs.
Murry's laboratory which was in the old stone dairy right
off the kitchen. Beyond the lab a pantry led outdoors,
though Mrs. Murry had done her best to train the family
to come into the house through the garage door or the
front door and not through her lab. But it was the lab door
and not the garage door toward which Fortinbras was
growling.

"You didn't leave' any nasty-smelling chemicals cooking
over a Bunsen burner, did you, Mother?" Charles Wallace
asked.

Mrs. Murray stood up. "No. But I think I'd better go see
what's upsetting Fort, anyhow."

"It's the tramp, I'm sure it's the tramp," Meg said nervously.

"What tramp?" Charles Wallace asked.

"They were saying at the post office this afternoon that
a tramp stole all Mrs. Buncombe's sheets."

"We'd better sit on the pillow cases, then," Mrs. Murry
said lightly. "I don't think even a tramp would be out on
a night like this, Meg."

"But that's probably why he is out," Meg wailed, "trying
to find a place not to be out."

"In which case I'll offer him the barn till morning." Mrs.
Murry went briskly to the door.

"I'll go with you." Meg's voice was shrill.

"No, Meg, you stay with Charles and eat your sandwich."

"Eat!" Meg exclaimed as Mrs. Murry went out through
the lab. "How does she expect me to eat?"

"Mother can take care of herself," Charles said. "Physically, that is." But he sat in his father's chair at the table and
his legs kicked at the rungs; and Charles Wallace, unlike
most small children, had the ability to sit still.

After a few moments that seemed like forever to Meg,
Mrs. Murry came back in, holding the door open for—was
it the tramp? It seemed small for Meg's idea of a tramp.
The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely
bundled up in clothes. Several scarves of assorted colors
were tied about the head, and a man's felt hat perched atop.
A shocking pink stole was knotted about a rough overcoat,
and black rubber boots covered the feet.

"Mrs. Whatsit," Charles said suspiciously, "what are you
doing here? And at this time of night, too?"

"Now don't you be worried, my honey." A voice emerged
from among turned-up coat collar, stole, scarves, and hat,
a voice like an unoiled gate, but somehow not unpleasant.

"Mrs. — uh — Whatsit — says she lost her way," Mrs.
Murry said. "Would you care for some hot chocolate, Mrs.
Whatsit?"

"Charmed, I'm sure," Mrs. Whatsit answered, taking off
the hat and die stole. "It isn't so much that I lost my way
as that I got blown off course. And when I realized that I
was at little Charles Wallace's house I thought I'd just
come in and rest a bit before proceeding on my way."

"How did you know this was Charles Wallace's house?"
Meg asked.

"By the smell." Mrs. Whatsit untied a blue and green
paisley scarf, a red and yellow flowered print, a gold Liberty print, a red and black bandanna. Under all this a
sparse quantity of grayish hair was tied in a small but tidy
knot on top of her head. Her eyes were bright, her nose a
round, soft blob, her mouth puckered like an autumn
apple. "My, but it's lovely and warm in here," she said.

"Do sit down." Mrs. Murry indicated a chair. "Would
you like a sandwich, Mrs. Whatsit? I've had liverwurst and
cream cheese; Charles has had bread and jam; and Meg,
lettuce and tomato."

"Now, let me see," Mrs. Whatsit pondered. "I'm passionately fond of Russian caviar."

"You peeked!" Charles cried indignantly. "We're saving that for Mother's birthday and you can't have any!"

Mrs. Whatsit gave a deep and pathetic sigh.

"No," Charles said. "Now, you mustn't give in to her,
Mother, or I shall be very angry. How about tuna-fish
salad?"

"All right," Mrs. Whatsit said meekly.

"I'll fix it," Meg offered, going to the pantry for a can
of tuna fish.

—For crying out loud, she thought, —this old woman
comes barging in on us in the middle of the night and
Mother takes it as though there weren't anything pecuhar
about it at all. I'll bet she is the tramp. I'll bet she did steal
those sheets. And she's certainly no one Charles Wallace
ought to be friends with, especially when he won't even talk
to ordinary people.

"I've only been in the neighborhood a short time," Mrs.
Whatsit was saying as Meg switched off the pantry light
and came back into the kitchen with the tuna fish, "and I
didn't think I was going to like the neighbors at all until
dear little Charles came over with his dog."

"Mrs. Whatsit," Charles Wallace demanded severely,
"why did you take Mrs. Buncombe's sheets?"

"Well, I needed them, Charles dear."

"You must return them at once."

"But Charles, dear, I can't. I've used them."

"It was very wrong of you," Charles Wallace scolded.
"If you needed sheets that badly you should have asked
me.

Mrs. Whatsit shook her head and clucked. "You can't
spare any sheets. Mrs. Buncombe can."

Meg cut up some celery and mixed it in with the tuna.
After a moment's hesitation she opened the refrigerator
door and brought out a jar of little sweet pickles. —Though
why I'm doing it for her I don't know, she thought, as she
cut them up. —I don't trust her one bit.

"Tell your sister I'm all right," Mrs. Whatsit said to
Charles. "Tell her my intentions are good."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions," Charles
intoned.

"My, but isn't he cunning." Mrs. Whatsit beamed at him
fondly. "It's lucky he has someone to understand him."

"But I'm afraid he doesn't," Mrs. Murry said. "None of
us is quite up to Charles."

"But at least you aren't trying to squash him down." Mrs.
Whatsit nodded her head vigorously. "You're letting him
be himself."

"Here's your sandwich," Meg said, bringing it to Mrs.
Whatsit.

"Do you mind if I take off my boots before I eat?" Mrs.
Whatsit asked, picking up the sandwich nevertheless.
"Listen." She moved her feet up and down in her boots,
and they could hear water squelching. "My toes are ever so
damp. The trouble is that these boots are a mite too tight
for me, and I never can take them off by myself."

"I'll help you," Charles offered.

"Not you. You're not strong enough."

"I'll help." Mrs. Murry squatted at Mrs. Whatsit's feet,
yanking on one slick boot. When the boot came off it came
suddenly. Mrs. Murry sat down with a thump. Mrs. Whatsit
went tumbling backward with the chair onto the floor,
sandwich held high in one old claw. Water poured out of
the boot and ran over the floor and the big braided rug.

"Oh, dearie me," Mrs. Whatsit said, lying on her back in
the overturned chair, her feet in the air, one in a red and
white striped sock, the other still booted.

Mrs. Murry got to her feet. "Are you all right, Mrs.
Whatsit?"

"If you have some liniment I'll put it on my dignity,"
Mrs. Whatsit said, still supine. "I think it's sprained. A
little oil of cloves mixed well with garlic is rather good."
And she took a large bite of sandwich.

"Do please get up," Charles said. "I don't like to see you
lying there that way. You're carrying things too far."

"Have you ever tried to get to your feet with a sprained
dignity?" But Mrs. Whatsit scrambled up, righted the chair,
and then sat back down on the floor, the booted foot stuck
out in front of her, and took another bite. She moved with
great agility for such an old woman. At least Meg was reasonably sure that she was an old woman, and a very old
woman at that.

Mrs. Whatsit, her mouth full, ordered Mrs. Murry, "Now
pull while I'm already down."

Quite calmly, as though this old woman and her boots
were nothing out of the ordinary, Mrs. Murry pulled until
the second boot relinquished the foot. This foot was covered with a blue and gray Argyle sock, and Mrs. Whatsit
sat there, wriggling her toes, contentedly finishing her
sandwich before scrambling to her feet. "Ah," she said,
"that's ever so much better," and took both boots and shook
them out over the sink. "My stomach is full and I'm warm
inside and out and it's time I went home."

"Don't you think you'd better stay till morning?" Mrs.
Murry asked.

"Oh, thank you, dearie, but there's so much to do I just
can't waste time sitting around frivoling."

"It's much too wild a night to travel in."

"Wild nights are my glory," Mrs. Whatsit said. "I just got
caught in a down draft and blown off course."

"Well, at least till your socks are dry—"

"Wet socks don't bother me. I just didn't like the water
squishing around in my boots. Now don't worry about me,
lamb." (Lamb was not a word one would ordinarily think
of calling Mrs. Murry.) "I shall just sit down for a moment
and pop on my boots and then I'll be on my way. Speaking
of ways, pet, by the way. there is such a thing as a tesseract."

Mrs. Murry went very white and with one hand reached
backward and clutched at a chair for support. Her voice
trembled. "What did you say?"

Mrs. Whatsit tugged at her second boot. "I said," she
grunted, shoving her foot down in, "that there is" — shove
— "such a thing" — shove — "as a tesseract." Her foot went
down into the boot, and grabbing shawls, scarves, and hat,
she hustled out the door. Mrs. Murry stayed very still, making no move to help the old woman. As the door opened,
Fortinbras streaked in, panting, wet and shiny as a seal.
He looked at Mrs. Murry and whined.

The door slammed.

"Mother, what's the matter!" Meg cried- "What did she
say? What is it?"

"The tesseract—" Mrs. Murry whispered. "What did she
mean? How could she have known?"

Chapter 2 -- Mrs. Who

WHEN Meg woke to the jangling of her alarm clock the wind
was still blowing but the sun was shining; the worst of the
storm was over. She sat up in bed, shaking her head to clear
it.

It must have been a dream. She'd been frightened by
the storm and worried about the tramp so she'd just
dreamed about going down to the kitchen and seeing Mrs,
Whatsit and having her mother get all frightened and upset by that word—what was it? Tess—tess something.

She dressed hurriedly, picked up the kitten still curled
up on the bed, and dumped it unceremoniously on the
floor. The kitten yawned, stretched, gave a piteous miaow,
trotted out of the attic and down the stairs. Meg made her
bed and hurried after it. In the kitchen her mother was
making French toast and the twins were already at the
table. The kitten was lapping milk out of a saucer.

"Where's Charles?" Meg asked.

"Still asleep. We had rather an interrupted night, if you
remember."

"I hoped it was a dream," Meg said.

Her mother carefully turned over four slices of French
toast, then said in a steady voice, "No, Meg. Don't hope it
was a dream. I don't understand it any more than you do,
but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be. I'm sorry I showed you I was
upset. Your father and I used to have a joke about tesseract."

"What is a tesseract?" Meg asked.

"It's a concept." Mrs. Murry handed the twins the syrup.
"I'll try to explain it to you later. There isn't time before
school."

"I don't see why you didn't wake us up," Dermys said.
"It's a gyp we missed out on all the fun."

"You'll be a lot more awake in school today than I will."
Meg took her French toast to the table.

"Who cares," Sandy said. "If you're going to let old
tramps come into the house in the middle of the night,
Mother, you ought to have Den and me around to protect you."

"After all. Father would expect us to," Deimys added.

"We know you have a great mind and all. Mother,"
Sandy said, "but you don't have much sense. And certainly
Meg and Charles don't."

"I know. We're morons." Meg was bitter.

"I wish you wouldn't be such a dope, Meg. Syrup, please."
Sandy reached across the table. "You don't have to take
everything so personally. Use a happy medium, for heaven's
sake. You just goof around in school and look out the window and don't pay any attention."

"You just make things harder for yourself," Dennys said.
"And Charles Wallace is going to have an awful time next
year when he starts school. We know he's bright, but he's
so funny when he's around other people, and they're so
used to thinking he's dumb, I don't know what's going to
happen to him. Sandy and I'll sock anybody who picks on
him, but that's about all we can do."

"Let's not worry about next year till we get through this
one," Mrs. Murry said. "More French toast, boys?"

* * *

At school Meg was tired and her eyelids sagged and her
mind wandered. In social studies she was asked to name
the principal imports and exports of Nicaragua, and though
slie had looked them up dutifully the evening before, now
she could remember none of them. The teacher was sarcastic, the rest of the class laughed, and she flung herself
down in her seat in a fury. "Who cares about the imports
and exports of Nicaragua, anyhow?" she muttered.

"If you're going to be rude, Margaret, you may leave the
room," the teacher said.

"Okay, I will." Meg flounced out.

During study hall the principal sent for her. "What seems
to be the problem now, Meg?" he asked, pleasantly enough.

Meg looked sulkily down at the floor. "Nothing, Mr.
Jenkins."

"Miss Porter tells me you were inexcusably rude."

Meg shrugged.

"Don't you realize that you just make everything harder
for yourself by your attitude?" the principal asked. "Now,
Meg, I'm convinced that you can do the work and keep up
with your grade if you will apply yourself, but some of your
teachers are not. You're going to have to do something
about yourself. Nobody can do it tor you." Meg was silent.
"Well? What about it, Meg?"

"I don't know what to do," Meg said.

"You could do your homework, for one thing. Wouldn't
your mother help you?"

"If I asked her to."

"Meg, is something troubling you? Are you unhappy
at home?" Mr. Jenkins asked.

At last Meg looked at him, pushing at her glasses in a
characteristic gesture. "Everything's fine at home."

"I'm glad to hear it. But I know it must be hard on you
to have your father away."

Meg eyed the principal warily, and ran her tongue over
the barbed line of her braces.

"Have you had any news from him lately?"

Meg was sure it was not only imagination that made her
feel that behind Mr. Jenkins' surface concern was a gleam
of avid curiosity. Wouldn't he like to know! she thought.
And if I knew anything he's the last person I'd tell. Well,
one of the last

The postmistress must know that it was almost a year
now since the last letter, and heaven knows how many people she'd told, or what unkind guesses she'd made about the
reason for the long silence.

Mr. Jenkins waited for an answer, but Meg only
shrugged.

"Just what was your father's line of business?" Mr. Jenkins asked. "Some kind of scientist, wasn't he?"

"He is a physicist." Meg bared her teeth to reveal the
two ferocious lines of braces.

"Meg, don't you think you'd make a better adjustment
to life if you faced facts?"

"I do face facts," Meg said. "They're lots easier to face
than people, I can tell you."

'Then why don't you face facts about your father?"

"You leave my father out of it!" Meg shouted.

"Stop bellowing." Mr. Jenkins said sharply. "Do you
want the entire school to hear you?"

"So what?" Meg demanded. "I'm not ashamed of anything I'm saying. Are you?"

Mr. Jenkins sighed. "Do you enjoy being the most belligerent, uncooperative child in school?"

Meg ignored this. She leaned over the desk toward the
principal. "Mr. Jenkins, you've met my mother, haven't
you? You can't accuse her of not facing facts, can you? She's
a scientist. She has doctors' degrees in both biology and bacteriology. Her business is facts. When she tells me that my
father isn't coming home, I'll believe it. As long as she says
Father is coming home, then I'll believe that."

Mr. Jenkins sighed again. "No doubt your mother wants
to believe that your father is coming home, Meg. Very well,
I can't do anything else with you. Go on back to study hall.
Try to be a little less antagonistic. Maybe your work would
improve if your general attitude were more tractable."

When Meg got home from school her mother was in the
lab, the twins were at Little League, and Charles Wallace,
the kitten, and Fortinbras were waiting tor her. Fortinbras
jumped up, put his front paws on her shoulders, and gave
her a kiss, and the kitten rushed to his empty, saucer and
mewed loudly.

"Come on," Charles Wallace said. "Let's go."

"Where?" Meg asked. "I'm hungry, Charles. I don't
want to go anywhere till I've had something to eat" She
was still sore from the interview with Mr. Jenkins, and her
voice sounded cross. Charles Wallace looked at her
thoughtfully as she went to the refrigerator and gave the
kitten some milk, then drank a mugful herself.

He handed her a paper bag. "Here's a sandwich and
some cookies and an apple. I thought we'd better go see
Mrs.Whatsit."

"Oh, golly," Meg said. "Why, Charles?"

"You're still uneasy about her, aren't you?" Charles
asked.

"Well, yes."

"Don't be. She's all right. I promise you. She's on our
side."

"How do you know?"

"Meg," he said impatiently. "I know."

"But why should we go see her now?"

"I want to find out more about that tesseract thing.
Didn't you see how it upset Mother? You know when
Mother can't control the way she feels, when she lets us see
she's upset, then it's something big."

Meg thought for a moment. "Okay, let's go. But let's
take Fortinbras with us."

"Well, of course. He needs the exercise."

They set off, Fortinbras rushing ahead, then doubling
back to the two children, then leaping off again. The
Murrys lived about four miles out of the village. Behind
the house was a pine woods and it was through this that
Charles Wallace took Meg.

"Charles, you know she's going to get in awful trouble—
Mrs. Whatsit, I mean—if they find out she's broken into
the haunted house. And taking Mrs. Buncombe's sheets
and everything. They could send her to jail."

"One of the reasons I want to go over this afternoon is to
warn them."

"Them?"

"I told you she was there with her two friends. I'm not
even sure it was Mrs. Whatsit herself who took the sheets,
though I wouldn't put it past her."

"But what would she want all those sheets for?"

"I intend to ask her," Charles Wallace said, "and to tell
them they'd better be more careful. I don't really think
they'll let anybody find them, but I just thought we ought
to mention the possibility. Sometimes during vacations
some of the boys go out there looking for thrills, but I don't
think anybody's apt to right now, what with basketball and
everything."

They walked in silence for a moment through die fragrant woods, the rusty pine needles gentle under their feet.
Up above them the wind made music in the branches.
Charles Wallace slipped his hand confidingly in Meg's, and
{he sweet, little-boy gesture warmed her so that she felt
the tense knot inside her begin to loosen. Gfiarles loves me
at any rate, she thought.

"School awful again today?" he asked after a while.

"Yes. I got sent to Mr. Jenkins. He made snide remarks
about Father."

Charles Wallace nodded sagely. "I know."
"How do you know?"

Charles Wallace shook his head. "I can't quite explain.
You tell me, that's all."

"But I never say anything. You just seem to know."

"Everything about you tells me," Charles said.

"How about the twins?" Meg asked. "Do you know
about them, too?"

"I suppose I could if I wanted to. If they needed me.
But it's sort of tiring, so I just concentrate on you and
Mother."

"You mean you read our minds?"

Charles Wallace looked troubled. "I don't think it's that.
It's being able to understand a sort of language, like sometimes if I concentrate very hard I can understand the wind
talking with the trees. You tell me, you see, sort of inad—
inadvertently. That's a good word, isn't it? I got Mother to
look it up in the dictionary for me this morning. I really
must learn to reado except I'm afraid it will make it awfully
hard for me in school next year if I already know things. I
think it will be better if people go on thinking I'm not very
bright. They won't hate me quite so much."

Ahead of them Fortinbras started barking loudly, the
warning bay that usually told them that a car was coming
up the road or that someone was at the door.

"Somebody's here," Charles Wallace said sharply. "Somebody's hanging around the house. Come on." He started
to run, his short legs straining. At the edge of the woods
Fortinbras stood in front of a boy, barking furiously.

As they came panting up the boy said, "For crying out
loud, call off your dog."

"Who is he?" Charles Wallace asked Meg,

"Calvin 0'Keefe. He's in Regional, but he's older than I
am. He's a big bug."

"It's all right, fella. I'm not going to hurt you," the boy
said to Fortinbras.

"Sit, Fort," Charles Wallace commanded, and Fortinbras dropped to his haunches in front of the boy, a low
growl still pulsing in his dark throat.

"Okay." Charles Wallace put his hands on his hips. "Now
tell us what you're doing here."

"I might ask the same of you," the boy said with some
indignation. "Aren't you two of the Murry kids? This isn't
your property, is it?" He started to move, but Fortinbras'
growl grew louder and he stopped.

"Tell me about him, Meg," Charles Wallace demanded.

"What would I know about him?" Meg asked. "He's a
couple of grades above me, and he's on the basketball
team."

"Just because I'm tall." Calvin sounded a little embarrassed. Tall he certainly was, and skinny. His bony
wrists stuck out of the sleeves of his blue sweater; his worn
corduroy trousers were three inches too short. He had
orange hair that needed cutting and the appropriate
freckles to go with it. His eyes were an oddly bright blue.

"Tell us what you're doing here," Charles Wallace said.

"What is this? The third degree? Aren't you the one
who's supposed to be the moron?"

Meg flushed with rage, but Charles Wallace answered
placidly, "That's right. If you want me to call my dog off
you'd better give."

"Most peculiar moron I've ever met," Calvin said. "I just
came to get away from my family."

Charles Wallace nodded. "What kind of family?"

"They all have runny noses. I'm third from the top of
eleven kids. I'm a sport"

At that Charles Wallace grinned widely, "So 'm I."

"I don't mean like in baseball," Calvin said.

"Neither do I."

"I mean like in biology," Calvin said suspiciously.

"A change in gene," Charles Wallace quoted, "resulting
in the appearance in the offspring of a character which is
not present in the parents but which is potentially transmissible to its offspring."

"What gives around here?" Calvin asked. "I was told you
couldn't talk."

"Thinking I'm a moron gives people something to feel
smug about," Charles Wallace said. "Why should I disillusion them? How old are you, Cal?"

"Fourteen."

"What grade?"

"Junior. Eleventh. I'm bright. Listen, did anybody ask
you to come here this afternoon?"

Charles Wallace, holding Fort by the collar, looked at
Calvin suspiciously. "What do you mean, asked?"

Calvin shrugged. "You still don't trust me, do you?"

"I don't distrust you," Charles Wallace said.

"Do you want to tell me why you're here, then?"

"Fort and Meg and I decided to go for a walk. We often
do in the afternoon."

Calvin dug his hands down in his pockets. "You're holding out on me."

"So 're you," Charles Wallace said.

"Okay, old sport," Calvin said, "I'll tell you this much.
Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it
a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?"

"Constraint. Obligation. Because one is compelled. Not
a very good definition, but it's the Concise Oxford."

"Okay, okay," Calvin sighed. "I must remember I'm preconditioned in my concept of your mentality."

Meg sat down on die coarse grass at the edge of the
woods. Fort gently twisted his collar out of Charles Wallace's hands and came over to Meg, lying down beside her
and putting his head in her lap.

Calvin tried now politely to direct his words toward
Meg as well as Charles Wallace, "When I get this feeling,
this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can't explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn't
happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had
a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That's
all I know, kid. I'm not holding anything back. Maybe it's
because I'm supposed to meet you. You tell me."

Charles Wallace looked at Calvin probingly for a moment; then an almost glazed look came into his eyes, and
he seemed to be thinking at him. Calvin stood very still,
and waited.

At last Charles Wallace said. "Okay. I believe you. But
I can't tell you. I think I'd like to trust you. Maybe you'd
better come home with us and have dinner."

"Well, sure, but—what would your mother say to that?"
Calvin asked.

"She'd be delighted. Mother's all right. She's not one of
us. But she's all right."

"What about Meg?"

"Meg has it tough," Charles Wallace said. "She's not
really one thing or the other."

"What do you mean, one of us?" Meg demanded. "What
do you mean I'm not one thing or the other?"

"Not now. Meg," Charles Wallace said. "Slowly. I'll tell
you about it later." He looked at Calvin, then seemed
to make a quick decision. "Okay, let's take him to meet
Mrs. Whatsit. If he's not okay shell know." He started off
on his short legs toward the dilapidated old house.

The haunted house was half in the shadows of the clump
of elms in which it stood. The elms were almost bare, now,
and die ground around the house was yellow with damp
leaves. The late afternoon light had a greenish cast which
the blank windows reflected in a sinister way. An unhinged
shutter thumped. Something else creaked. Meg did not
wonder that the house had a reputation for being haunted.

A board was nailed across the front door, but Charles
Wallace led the way around to the back. The door there appeared to be nailed shut, too, but Charles Wallace knocked,
and the door swung slowly outward, creaking on rusty
hinges. Up in one of the elms an old black crow gave its
raucous cry, and a woodpecker went into a wild ratatattat. A large gray rat scuttled around the comer of the house
and Meg let out a stifled shriek.

"They get a lot of fun out of using all the typical props,"
Charles Wallace said in a reassuring voice. "Come on.
Follow me."

Calvin put a strong hand to Meg's elbow, and Fort
pressed against her leg. Happiness at their concern was so
strong in her that her panic fled, and she followed Charles
Wallace into the dark recesses of the house without fear.

They entered into a sort of kitchen. There was a huge
fireplace with a big black pot hanging over a merry fire.
Why had there been no smoke visible from the chimney?
Something in the pot was bubbling, and it smelled more
like one of Mrs. Murry's chemical messes than something
to eat. In a dilapidated Boston rocker sat a plump little
woman. She wasn't Mrs. Whatsit, so she must, Meg decided, be one of Mrs. Whatsit's two friends. She wore
enormous spectacles, twice as thick and twice as large as
Meg's, and she was sewing busily, with rapid jabbing
stitches, on a sheet. Several other sheets lay on the dusty
floor.

Charles Wallace went up to her. "I really don't think you
ought to have taken Mrs. Buncombe's sheets without consulting me," he said, as cross and bossy as only a very small
boy can be. "What on earth do you want them for?"

The plump little woman beamed at him. "Why, Charlsie,
my pet! Le coew a ses raisons que la raison ne connait
point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof
reason knows nothing."

"But that's not appropriate at all," Charles said crossly.

"Your mother would find it so." A smile seemed to gleam
through the roundness of spectacles.

"I'm not talking about my mother's feelings about my
father," Charles Wallace scolded. "I'm talking about Mrs.
Buncombe's sheets."

The little woman sighed. The enormous glasses caught
the light again and shone like an owl's eyes. "In case we
need ghosts, of course," she said. "I should think you'd have
guessed. If we have to frighten anybody away Whatsit
thought we ought to do it appropriately. That's why it's so
much fun to stay in a haunted house. But we really didn't
mean you to know about the sheets. Auf frischer Tat
ertappt. German. In .flagrante delicto. Latin. Caught in
the act. English. As I was saying—"

But Charles Wallace held up his hand in a peremptory
gesture. "Mrs. Who, do you know this boy?"

Calvin bowed. "Good afternoon, Ma'am. I didn't quite
catch your name."

"Mrs. Who will do," the woman said. "He wasn't my idea,
Charlsie, but I think he's a good one."

"Where's Mrs. WTiatsit?" Charles asked.

"She's busy. It's getting near time, Charlsie, getting near
time. Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret. Seneca.
Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable.
And he's a very good man, Charlsie, darling, but right
now he needs our help."

"Who?" Meg demanded.

"And little Megsie! Lovely to meet you, sweetheart. Your
father, of course. Now go home, loves. The time is not yet
ripe. Don't worry, we won't go without you. Get plenty of
food and rest. Feed Calvin up. Now, off with you! Justitiae
soror fides. Latin again, of course. Faith is the sister of justice. Trust in us! Now, shool" And she fluttered up from her
chair and pushed them out the door with surprising power.

"Charles," Meg said. "I don't understand."

Charles took her by the hand and dragged her away from
the house. Fortinbras ran on ahead, and Calvin was close
behind them. "No," he said, "I don't either, yet. Not quite.
I'll tell you what I know as soon as I can. But you saw Fort,
didn't you? Not a growl. Not a quiver. Just as though there
weren't anything strange about it. So you know it's okay.
Look, do me a favor, both of you. Let's not talk about it
till we've had something to eat. I need fuel so I can sort
things out and assimilate them properly."

"Lead on, moron," Calvin cried gaily. "I've never even
seen your house, and I have the funniest feeling that for
the first time in my life I'm going home!"

Chapter 3 -- Mrs. Which

IN the forest evening was already beginning to fall, and
they walked in silence. Charles and Fortinbras gamboled on
ahead. Calvin walked with Meg, his fingers barely touching
her arm in a protective gesture.

This has been the most impossible, the most confusing
afternoon of my life, she thought, yet I don't feel confused
or upset anymore; I only feel happy. Why?

"Maybe we weren't meant to meet before this," Calvin
said. "I mean, I knew who you were in school and everything, but I didn't know you. But I'm glad we've met now,
Meg. We're going to be friends, you know."

"I'm glad, too," Meg whispered, and they were silent
again.

When they got back to the house Mrs. Murry was still in
the lab. She was watching a pale blue fluid move slowly
through a tube from a beaker to a retort. Over a Bunsen
burner bubbled a big, earthenware dish of stew. "Don't
tell Sandy and Dennys I'm cooking out here," she said.
"They're always suspicious that a few chemicals may get in
with the meat, but I had an experiment I wanted to stay
with."

"This is Calvin 0'Keefe, Mother," Meg said. "Is there
enough for him, too? It smells super."

"Hello, Calvin." Mrs. Murry shook hands with him. "Nice
to meet you. We aren't having anything but stew tonight,
but it's a good thick one."

"Sounds wonderful to me," Calvin said. "May I use your
phone so my motherll know where I am?"

"Of course. Show him where it is, will you, please, Meg?
I won't ask you to use the one out here, if you don't mind.
I'd like to finish up this experiment."

Meg led the way into the house. Charles Wallace and
Fortinbras had gone off. Outdoors she could hear Sandy
and Dennys hammering at the fort they were building up in
one of the maples. "This way." Meg went through the
kitchen and into the living room.

"I don't know why I call her when I don't come home,"

Calvin said, his voice bitter. "She wouldn't notice." He
sighed and dialed. "Ma?" he said. "Oh, Hinky. Tell Ma I
won't be home till late. Now don't forget. I don't want to be
locked out again." He hung up, looked at Meg. "Do you
know how lucky you are?"

She smiled rather wryly. "Not most of the time."

"A mother like that! A house like this! Gee, your mother's
gorgeous! You should see my mother. She had all her upper
teeth out and Pop got her a plate but she won't wear it,
and most days she doesn't even comb her hair. Not that it
makes much difference when she does." He clenched his
fists. "But I love her. That's the funny part of it. I love them
all, and they don't give a hoot about me. Maybe that's why
I call when I'm not going to be home. Because I care. Nobody else does. You don't know how lucky you are to be
loved."

Meg said in a startled way, "I guess I never thought of
that. I guess I just took it for granted."

Calvin looked somber; then his enormous smile lit up
his face again. "Things are going to happen, Meg! Good
things! I feel it!" He began wandering, still slowly, around
the pleasant, if shabby, living room. He stopped before a
picture on the piano of a small group of men standing together on a beach. "Who's this?"

"Oh, a bunch of scientists."

"Where?"

Meg went over to the picture. "Cape Canaveral. This
one's Father."

"Which?"

"Here."

"The one with glasses?"

"Yup. The one who needs a haircut." Meg giggled, forgetting her worries in her pleasure at showing Calvin the
picture. "His hair's sort of the same color as mine, and he
keeps forgetting to have it cut. Mother usually ends up
doing it for him—she bought clippers and stuff—because he
won't take the time to go to the barber."

Calvin studied the picture. "I like him," he announced
judiciously. "Looks kind of like Charles Wallace, doesn't
he?"

Meg laughed again. "When Charles was a baby he
looked exactly like Father. It was really funny."

Calvin continued to look at the picture. "He's not handsome or anything. But I like him."

Meg was indignant. "He is too handsome."

Calvin shook his head. "Nah. He's tall and skinny like
me."

"Well, I think you're handsome," Meg said. "Father's eyes
are kind of like yours, too. You know. Really blue. Only
you don't notice his as much because of the glasses."

"Where is he now?"

Meg stiffened. But she didn't have to answer because the
door from lab to kitchen slammed, and Mrs. Murry came
in, carrying a dish of stew. "Now," she called, "I'll
finish this up properly on the stove. Have you done your
homework, Meg?"

"Not quite," Meg said, going back into the kitchen.

"Then I'm sure Calvin won't mind if you finish before
dinner."

"Sure, go ahead." Calvin fished in his pocket and pulled
out a wad of folded paper. "As a matter of fact I have some
junk of mine to finish up. Math. That's one thing I have a
hard time keeping up in. I'm okay on anything to do with
words, but I don't do as well with numbers."

Mrs. Murry smiled. "Why don't you get Meg to help
you?"

"But, see, I'm several grades above Meg."

"Try asking her to help you with your math, anyhow,"
Mrs. Murry suggested.

"Well, sure," Calvin said. "Here. But it's pretty complicated."

Meg smoothed out the paper and studied it. "Do they
care how you do it?" she asked. "I mean, can you work it
out your own way?"

"Well, sure, as long as I understand and get the answers
right."

"Well, we have to do it their way. Now look, Calvin, don't
you see how much easier it would be if you did it this way?"
Her pencil flew over the paper.

"Hey!" Calvin said. "Hey! I think I get it. Show me once
more on another one."

Again Meg's pencil was busy. "All you have to remember
is that every ordinary fraction can be converted into an infinite periodic decimal fraction. See? So 3/7 is 0.428571."

"This is the craziest family." Calvin grinned at her. "I
suppose I should stop being surprised by now, but you're
supposed to be dumb in school, always being called up on
the carpet."

"Oh, I am."

"The trouble with Meg and math," Mrs. Murry said
briskly, "is that Meg and her father used to play with numbers and Meg learned far too many short cuts. So when
they want her to do problems the long way around at school
she gets sullen and stubborn and sets up a fine mental block
for herself."

"Are there any more morons like Meg and Charles
around?" Calvin asked. "If so, I should meet more of them."

"It might also help if Meg's handwriting were legible,"
Mrs. Murry said. "With a good deal of difficulty I can
usually decipher it, but I doubt very much if her teachers
can, or are willing to take the time. I'm planning on giving
her a typewriter for Christmas. That may be a help."

"If I get anything right nobody'll believe it's me," Meg
said.

"What's a megaparsec?" Calvin asked.

"One of Father's nicknames for me," Meg said. "It's also
3.26 million light years."

"What's E=mc2?"

"Einstein's equation."

"What's E stand for?"

"Energy."

"m?"

"Mass."

"c2?"

"The square of the velocity of light in centimeters per
second."

"By what countries is Peru bounded?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. I think it's in South America
somewhere."

"What's the capital of New York?"

"Well, New York City, of course!"

"Who wrote Boswell's Life of Johnson?"

"Oh, Calvin, I'm not any good at English."

Calvin groaned and turned to Mrs. Murry. "I see what
you mean. Her I wouldn't want to teach."

"She's a little one-sided, I grant you," Mrs. Murry said.
"though I blame her father and myself for that. She still
enjoys playing with her dolls' house, though."

"Mother!" Meg shrieked in agony.

"Oh, darling, I'm sorry," Mrs. Murry said swiftly. "But
I'm sure Calvin understands what I mean."

With a sudden enthusiastic gesture Calvin flung his arms
out wide, as though he were embracing Meg and her
mother, the whole house. "How did all this happen? Isn't it
wonderful? I feel as though I were just being born! I'm not
alone any more! Do you realize what that means to me?"

"But you're good at basketball and things," Meg protested. "You're good in school. Everybody likes you."

"For all the most unimportant reasons," Calvin said.
'There hasn't been anybody, anybody in the world I could
talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody
else, lean hold myself down, but it isn't me."

Meg took a batch of forks from the drawer and turned
them over and over, looking at them. "I'm all confused
again."

"0h, so 'm I," Calvin said gaily. "But now at least I know
we're going somewhere."

Meg was pleased and a little surprised when the twins
were excited at having Calvin for supper. They knew more
about his athletic record and were far more impressed by
it than she. Calvin ate five bowls of stew, three saucers of
Jello, and a dozen cookies, and then Charles Wallace insisted that Calvin take him up to bed and read to him. The
twins, who had finished their homework, were allowed to
watch half an hour of TV. Meg helped her mother with the
dishes and then sat at the table and struggled with her
homework. But she could not concentrate.

"Mother, are you upset?" she asked suddenly.

Mrs. Murry looked up from a copy of an English scientific
magazine through which she was leafing. For a moment she
did not speak. Then, "Yes."

"Why?"

Again Mrs. Murry paused. She held her hands out and
looked at them. They were long and strong and beautiful.
She touched with the fingers of her right hand the broad
gold band on the third finger of her left hand. "I'm still
quite a young woman, you know," she said finally, "though
I realize that that's difficult for you children to conceive.
And I'm still very much in love with your father. I miss him
quite dreadfully."

"And you think all this has something to do with Father?"

"I think it must have."

"But what?"

"That I don't know. But it seems the only explanation."
"Do you think things always have an explanation?"
"Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our
human limitations we're not always able to understand the
explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don't
understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."

"I like to understand things," Meg said.

"We all do. But it isn't always possible."

"Charles Wallace understands more than the rest of us,
doesn't he?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I suppose because he's—well, because he's different,
Meg."

"Different how?"

"I'm not quite sure. You know yourself he's not like anybody else."

"No, And I wouldn't want him to be," Meg said defensively.

"Wanting doesn't have anything to do with it. Charles
Wallace is what he is. Different. New."

"New?"

"Yes. That's what your father and I feel."

Meg twisted her pencil so hard that it broke. She laughed.
"I'm sorry. I'm really not being destructive. I'm just trying
to get things straight."

"I know."

"But Charles Wallace doesn't look different from anybody else."

"No, Meg, but people are more than just the way they
look. Charles Wallace's difference isn't physical. It's in essence."

Meg sighed heavily, took off her glasses and twirled
them, put them back on again. "Well, I know Charles Wallace is different, and I know he's something more. I guess
I'll just have to accept it without understanding it."

Mrs. Murry smiled at her. "Maybe that's really the point
I was trying to put across."

"Yah," Meg said dubiously.

Her mother smiled again. "Maybe that's why our visitor
last night didn't surprise me. Maybe that's why I'm able to
have a—a willing suspension of disl^elief. Because of
Charles Wallace."

"Are you like Charles?" Meg asked.

"I? Heavens no. I'm blessed with more brains and opportunities than many people, but there's nothing about
me that breaks out of the ordinary mold."

"Your looks do," Meg said.

Mrs. Murry laughed. "You just haven't had enough basis
for comparison, Meg. I'm very ordinary, really."

Calvin O'Keefe, coming in then, said, "Ha ha."

"Charles all settled?" Mrs. Murry asked.

"Yes."

"What did you read to him?"

"Genesis, His choice. By the way, what kind of an experiment were you working on this afternoon, Mrs. Murry?"
Oh, something my husband and I were cooking up together. I don't want to be too far behind him when he gets
back."

"Mother," Meg pursued. ^Charles says I'm not one thing
or the other, not flesh nor fowl nor good red herring."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Calvin said, "you're Meg,
aren't you? Come on and let's go for awalk."

But Meg was still not satisfied. "And what do you make
of Calvin?" she demanded of her mother.

Mrs. Muny laughed. "I don't want to make anything of
Calvin. I like him very much, and I'm delighted he's found
his way here."

"Mother, you were going to tell me about a tesserae!"

"Yes." A troubled look came into Mrs. Murry's eyes. "But
not now, Meg. Not now. Go on out for that walk with Calvin. I'm going up to kiss Charles and then I have to see
that the twins get to bed."

Outdoors the grass was wet with dew. The moon was
halfway up and dimmed the stars for a great arc. Calvin
reached out and took Meg's hand with a gesture as simple
and friendly as Charles Wallace's. "Were you upsetting
your mother?" he asked gently.

"I don't think J was. But she's upset"

"What about?"

"Father."

Calvin led Meg across the lawn. The shadows of the
trees were long and twisted and there was a heavy, sweet,
autumnal smell to the air. Meg stumbled as the land sloped
suddenly downhill, but Calvin's strong hand steadied her.
They walked carefully across the twins' vegetable garden,
picking their way through rows of cabbages, beets, broccoli, pumpkins. Looming on their left were the tall stalks of
corn. Ahead of them was a small apple orchard bounded
by a stone wall, and beyond this the woods through which
they had walked that afternoon. Calvin led the way to the
wall, and then sat there, his red hair shining silver in the
moonlight, his body dappled with patterns from the tangle
of branches. He reached up, pulled an apple off a gnarled
limb, and handed it to Meg, then picked one for himself.
"Tell me about your father,"

"He's a physicist."

"Sure, we all know that. And he's supposed to have left
your mother and gone off with some dame." •

Meg jerked up from the stone on which she was perched,
but Calvin grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back
down. "Hold it, kid. I didn't say anything you hadn't heard
already, did I?"

"No," Meg said, but continued to pull away. "Let me go."

"Come on, calm down. You know it isn't true, I know it
isn't true. And how anybody after one look at your mother
could believe any man would leave her for another woman
just shows how far jealousy will make people go. Right?"

"I guess so," Meg said, but her happiness had fled and
she was back in a morass of anger and resentment.

"Look, dope." Calvin shook her gently. "I just want to
get things straight, sort of sort out the fact from fiction.
Your father's a physicist. That's a fact, yes?"

"Yes."

"He's a Ph.D. several times over."

"Yes."

"Most of the time he works alone but some of the time
he was at the Institute for Higher Learning in Princeton.
Correct?"

"Yes."

"Then he did some work for the government, didn't he?"

Tes."

"You take it from there. That's all I know."

"That's about all I know, too," Meg said. "Maybe Mother
knows more. I don't know. What he did was—well, it was
what they call Classified."

"Top Secret, you mean?"

That's right."

"And you don't even have any idea what it was about?"

Meg shook her head. "No. Not really. Just an idea because of where he was."

"Well, where?"

"Out in New Mexico for a while; we were with him there;
and then he was in Florida at Cape Canaveral, and we
were with him there, too. And then he was going to be
traveling a lot, so we came here."

"You'd always had this house?"

"Yes. But we used to live in it just in the summer."

"And you don't know where your father was sent?"

"No. At first we got lots of letters. Mother and Father
always wrote each other every day. I think Mother still
writes him every night. Every once in a while the postmistress makes some kind of a crack about all her letters."

"I suppose they think she's pursuing him or something,"
Calvin said, rather bitterly. "They can't understand plain,
ordinary love when they see it. Well, go on. What happened next?"

"Nothing happened," Meg said. "That's the trouble."

"Well, what about your father's letters?"

"They just stopped coming."

"You haven't heard anything at all?"

"No," Meg said. "Nothing." Her voice was heavy with
misery.

Silence fell between them, as tangible as the dark tree
shadows that fell across their laps and that now seemed to
rest upon them as heavily as though they possessed a
measurable weight of their own.

At last Calvin spoke in a dry, unemotional voice, not
looking at Meg. "Do you think he could be dead?"

Again Meg leaped up, and again Calvin pulled her down.
"No! They'd have told us if he were dead! There's always a
telegram or something. They always tell you!"

"What do they tell you?"

Meg choked down a sob, managed to speak over it. "Oh,
Calvin, Mother's tried and tried to find out. She's been
down to Washington and everything. And all they'll say is
that he's on a secret and dangerous mission, and she can be
very proud of him, but he won't be able to — to communicate with us for a while. And they'll give us news as
soon as they have it."

"Meg, don't get mad, but do you think maybe they
don't know?"

A slow tear trickled down Meg's cheek. "That's what I'm
afraid of."

"Why don't you cry?" Calvin asked gently. "You re just
crazy about your father, aren't you? Go ahead and cry.
It'll do you good."

Meg's voice came out trembling over tears. "I cry much
too much. I should be like Mother. I should be able to control myself."

"Your mother's a completely different person and she's a
lot older than you are."

"I wish I were a different person," Meg said shakily. "I
hate myself."

Calvin reached over and took off her glasses. Then he
pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped her tears.
This gesture of tenderness undid her completely, and she
put her head down on her knees and sobbed. Calvin sat
quietly beside her, every once in a while patting her head.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed finally. "I'm terribly sorry. Now
you'll hate me."

"Oh, Meg, you are a moron," Calvin said. "Don't you
know you're the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long
time?"

Meg raised her head, and moonlight shone on her tearstained face; without the glasses her eyes were unexpectedly beautiful. "If Charles Wallace is a sport, I think I'm a
biological mistake." Moonlight flashed against her braces
as she spoke.

Now she was waiting to be contradicted. But Calvin
said, "Do you know that this is the first time I've seen you
without your glasses?"

"I'm blind as a bat without them. I'm near-sighted, like
Father."

"Well, you know what, you've got dream-boat eyes,"
Calvin said. "Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses.
I don't think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous
eyes you have."

Meg smiled with pleasure. She could feel herself blushing and she wondered if the blush would be visible in the
moonlight.

"Okay, hold it, you two," came a voice out of the shadows.
Charles Wallace stepped into the moonlight. "I wasn't
spying on you," he said quickly, "and I hate to break things
up, but this is it, kids, this is iti" His voice quivered with
excitement.

"This is what?" Calvin asked.

"We're going."

"Going? Where?" Meg reached out and instinctively
grabbed for Calvin's hand.

"I don't know exactly," Charles Wallace said. "But I
think it's to find Father."

Suddenly two eyes seemed to spring at them out of the
darkness; it was the moonlight striking on Mrs. Who's
glasses. She was standing next to Charles Wallace, and how
she had managed to appear where a moment ago there had
been nothing but flickering shadows in the moonlight Meg
had no idea. She heard a sound behind her and turned
around. There was Mrs. Whatsit scrambling over the wall.

"My, but I wish there were no wind," Mrs. Whatsit said
plaintively. "It's so difficult with all these clothes." She wore
her outfit of the night before, rubber boots and all, with the
addition of one of Mrs. Buncombe's sheets which she had
draped over her. As she slid off the wall the sheet caught in
a low branch and came off. The felt hat slipped over both
eyes, and another branch plucked at the pink stole- "Oh,
dear," she sighed. "I shall never learn to manage."

Mrs. Who wafted over to her, tiny feet scarcely seeming
to touch the ground, the lenses of her glasses glittering.
"Come t'e picciol fallo amaro morso! Dante. What grievous pain a little fault doth give theef With a clawlike
hand she pushed the hat up on Mrs. Whatsit's forehead, untangled the stole from the tree, and with a deft gesture
took the sheet and folded it.

"Oh, thank you," Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're so clever!"

"Un asno viejo sabe mds quo un potro. A. Perez. An old
ass knows more than a young colt"

"Just because you're a paltry few billion years—" Mrs.
Whatsit was starting indignantly, when a sharp, strange
voice cut in.

"Alll rrightt, girrllss. Thiss iss nno ttime forr bbickkerring."

"It's Mrs. Which," Charles Wallace said.

There was a faint gust of wind, the leaves shivered in it,
the patterns of moonlight shifted, and in a circle of silver
something shimmered, quivered, and the voice said, "I ddo
nott thinkk I willl matterrialize commpletely. I ffindd itt
verry ttirinngg, andd wee hhave mmuch ttoo ddoo."

###

Chapter 4 -- The Black Thing

THE trees were lashed into a violent frenzy. Meg screamed
and clutched at Calvin, and Mrs. Which's authoritative
voice called out, "Qquiett, chilidd!"

Did a shadow fall across the moon or did the moon
simply go out, extinguished as abruptly and completely as
a candle? There was still the sound of leaves, a terrified, terrifying rushing. All light was gone. Darkness was complete.
Suddenly the wind was gone, and all sound. Meg felt that
Calvin was being torn from her. When she reached for him
her fingers touched nothing.

She screamed out, "Charles!" and whether it was to help
him or for him to help her, she did not know. The word was
flung back down her throat and she choked on it.

She was completely alone.

She had lost the protection of Calvin's hand. Charles was
nowhere, either to save or to turn to. She was alone in a
fragment of nothingness. No light, no sound, no feeling.
Where was her body? She tried to move in her panic, but
there was nothing to move. Just as light and sound had
vanished, she was gone, too. The corporeal Meg simply was
not.

Then she felt her limbs again. Her legs and arms were
tingling faintly, as though they had been asleep. She
blinked her eyes rapidly, but though she herself was somehow back, nothing else was. It was not as simple as darkness, or absence of light. Darkness has a tangible quality;

it can be moved through and felt; in darkness you can bark
your shins; the world of things still exists around you. She
was lost in a horrifying void.

It was the same way with the silence. This was more than
silence. A deaf person can feel vibrations. Here there was
nothing to feel.

Suddenly she was aware of her heart beating rapidly
within the cage of her ribs. Had it stopped before? What
had made it start again? The tingling in her arms and legs
grew stronger, and suddenly she felt movement. This movement, she felt, must be the turning of the earth, rotating on'
its axis, traveling its elliptic course about the sun. And
this feeling of moving with the earth was somewhat like
the feeling of being in the ocean, out in the ocean beyond
this rising and falling of the breakers, lying on the moving
water, pulsing gently with the swells, and feeling the gentle,
inexorable tug of the moon.

I am asleep; I am dreaming, she thought. I'm having a
nightmare. I want to wake up. Let me wake up.

"Well!" Charles Wallace's voice said. "That was quite a
trip! I do think you might have warned us."

Light began to pulse and quiver. Meg blinked and
shoved shakily at her glasses and there was Charles Wallace standing indignantly in front of her, his hands on his
hips. "Meg!" he shouted. "Calvin! Where are you?"

She saw Charles, she heard him, but she could not go to
him. She could not shove through the strange, trembling
light to meet him.

Calvin's voice came as though it were pushing through a
cloud. "Well, just give me time, will you? I'm older than
you are."

Meg gasped. It wasn't that Calvin wasn't there and then
that he was. It wasn't that part of him came first and then
the rest of him followed, like a hand and then an arm, an
eye and then a nose. It was a sort of shimmering, a looking
at Calvin through water, through smoke, through fire, and
then there he was, solid and reassuring.

"Meg!" Charles Wallace's voice came. "Meg! Calvin,
where's Meg?"

"I'm right here," she tried to say, but her voice seemed
to be caught at its source.

"Meg!" Calvin cried, and he turned around, looking about
wildly.

"Mrs. Which, you haven't left Meg behind, have you?"
Charles Wallace shouted.

"If you've hurt Meg, any of you—" Calvin started, but
suddenly Meg felt a violent push and a shattering as though
she had been thrust through a wall of glass.

"Oh, there you are!" Charles Wallace said, and rushed
over to her and hugged her.

"But where am I?" Meg asked breathlessly, relieved to
hear that her voice was now coming out of her in more or
less a normal way.

She looked around rather wildly. They were standing in
a sunlit field, and the air about them was moving with
the delicious fragrance that comes only on'the rarest of
spring days when the sun's touch is gentle and the apple
blossoms are just beginning to unfold. She pushed her
glasses up on her nose to reassure herself that what she was
seeing was real.

They had left the silver glint of a biting autumn evening;

and now around them everything was golden with light.
The grasses of the field were a tender new green, and scattered about were tiny, multicolored flowers. Meg turned
slowly to face a mountain reaching so high into the sky
that its peak was lost in a crown of puffy white clouds.
From the trees at the base of the mountain came a sudden
singing of birds. There was an air of such ineffable peace
and joy all around her that her heart's wild thumping
slowed.

		"When shall we three meet again,
		In thunder, lightning, or in rain,"

came Mrs. Who's voice. Suddenly the three of them were
there, Mrs, Whatsit with her pink stole askew; Mrs. Who
with her spectacles gleaming; and Mrs. Which still little
more than a shimmer. Delicate, multicolored butterflies
were fluttering about them, as though in greeting.

Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who began to giggle, and they
giggled until it seemed that, whatever their private joke
was, they would fall down with the wild fun of it. The shimmer seemed to be laughing, too. It became vaguely darker
and more solid; and then there appeared a figure in a black
robe and a black peaked hat, beady eyes, a beaked nose, and
long gray hair; one bony claw clutched a broomstick.

"Wwell, jusstt ttoo kkeepp yyou girrlls happpy," the
strange voice said. and Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who fell
into each other's arms in gales of laughter.

"If you ladies have had your fun I think you should tell
Calvin and Meg a little more about all this," Charles Wallace said coldly. "You scared Meg half out of her wits,
whisking her off this way without any warning."

"Finxerunt animi, faro et perpauca loquentis," Mrs. Who
intoned. "Horace. To action little, less to words inclined."

"Mrs. Who, I wish you'd stop quoting!" Charles Wallace
sounded very annoyed.

Mrs. Whatsit adjusted her stole. "But she finds it so difficult to verbalize, Charles dear. It helps her if she can quote
instead of working out words of her own."

"Anndd wee mussttn'tt looose oun- sensses of hummorr,"
Mrs. Which said. "Thee onnlly wway ttoo ccope withh
ssometthingg ddeadly sseriouss iss ttoo ttry ttoo trreatt itt
a llittlle lligghtly."

"But that's going to be hard for Meg," Mrs. Whatsit said.
"It's going to be hard for her to realize that we are serious."

"What about me?" Calvin asked.

"The life of your father isn't at stake," Mrs. Whatsit
told him.

"What about Charles Wallace, then?"

Mrs. Whatsit's unoiled-door-hinge voice was warm with
affection and pride. "Charles Wallace knows. Charles Wallace knows that it's far more than just the life of his father.
Charles Wallace knows what's at stake."

"But remember," Mrs. Who said, "Aeiproft ovSev, iravra 8
cfJvl^civ wcwT. Euripides. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope
for everything."

"Where are we now, and how did we get here?" Calvin
asked.

"Uriel, the third planet of the star Malak in the spiral
nebula Messier 101."

"This I'm supposed to believe?" Calvin asked indignantly.

"Aas yyou llike," Mrs. Which said coldly.

For some reason Meg felt that Mrs. Which, despite her
looks and ephemeral broomstick, was someone in whom
one could put complete trust. "It doesn't seem any more
peculiar than anything else that's happened."

"Well, then, someone just tell me how we got here!"
Calvin's voice was still angry and his freckles seemed to
stand out on his face. "Even traveling at the speed of light
it would take us years and years to get here."

"Oh, we don't travel at the speed of anything," Mrs
Whatsit explained earnestly. "We tesser. Or you might say,
we wrinkle."

"Clear as mud," Calvin said.

Tesser, Meg thought. Could that have anything to do
with Mother's tesseract?

She was about to ask when Mrs. Which started to speak,
and one did not interrupt when Mrs. Which was speaking.
"Mrs. Whatsit iss yyoungg andd nnaive,"

"She keeps thinking she can explain things in words,"
Mrs. Who said. "Qui plus salt, plus se tait. French, you know.
The more a man knows, the less he talks."

"But she has to use words for Meg and Calvin," Charles
reminded Mrs. Who. "If you brought them along, they have
a right to know what's going on."

Meg went up to Mrs, Which. In the intensity of her
question she had forgotten all about the tesseract. "Is
my father here?"

Mrs. Which shook her head. "Nnott heeere, Megg. Llett
Mrs, Whatsitt expllainn. Shee isss yyoungg annd thee llanguage of worrds iss eeasierr fforr hherr thann itt iss fforr
Mrs. Whoo andd mee."

"We stopped here," Mrs. Whatsit explained, "more or less
to catch our breaths. And to give you a chance to know what
you're up against."

"But what about Father?" Meg asked. "Is he all right?"

"For the moment, love, yes. He's one of the reasons we're
here. But you see, he's only one."

"Well, where is he? Please take me to himi"

"We can't, not yet," Charles said. "You have to be patient,
Meg."

"But I'm not patient!" Meg cried passionately. "I've
never been patient!"

Mrs. Who's glasses shone at her gently. "If you want to
help your father then you must leam patience. Vitam impendere vero. To stake one's life for the truth. That is what
we must do."

"That is what your father is doing." Mrs. Whatsit nodded,
her voice, like Mrs. Who's, very serious, very solemn. Then
she smiled her radiant smile. "Now! Why don't you three
children wander around and Charles can explain things a
little. You're perfectly safe on Uriel. That's why we stopped
here to rest."

"But aren't you coming with us?" Meg asked fearfully.

There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Which raised
her authoritative hand. "Sshoww themm," she said to Mrs.
Whatsit, and at something in her voice Meg felt prickles of
apprehension.

"Now?" Mrs. Whatsit asked, her creaky voice rising to a
squeak. Whatever it was Mrs. Which wanted them to see,
it was something that made Mrs. Whatsit uncomfortable,
too.

"Nnoww," Mrs. Which said. "Tthey mmay aas welll
knoww."

"Should—should I change?" Mrs. Whatsit asked.

"Bbetter."

"I hope it won't upset the children too much," Mrs.
Whatsit murmured, as though to herself.

"Should I change, too?" Mrs. Who asked. "Oh, but I've
had fun in these clothes. But I'll have to admit Mrs. Whatsit
is the best at it. DOS Work lobt den Meister. German. The
work proves the craftsman. Shall I transform now, too?"

Mrs. Which shook her head. "Nnott yett. Nnott heere.
Yyou mmay wwaitt."

"Now, don't be frightened, loves," Mrs. Whatsit said.
Her plump little body began to shimmer, to quiver, to shift.
The wild colors of her clothes became muted, whitened. The
pudding-bag shape stretched, lengthened, merged. And
suddenly before the children was a creature more beautiful
than any Meg had even imagined, and the beauty lay in far
more than the outward description. Outwardly Mrs. Whatsit was surely no longer a Mrs. Whatsit. She was a marble
white body with powerful flanks, something like a horse
but at the same time completely unlike a horse, for from the
magnificently modeled back sprang a nobly formed torso,
arms, and a head resembling a man's, but a man with a
perfection of dignity and virtue, an exaltation of joy such as
Meg had never before seen. No, she thought, it's not like
a Greek centaur. Not in the least.

From the shoulders slowly a pair of wings unfolded,
wings made of rainbows, of light upon water, of poetry.

Calvin fell to his knees.

"No," Mrs. Whatsit said, though her voice was not Mrs.
Whatsit's voice. "Not to me, Calvin. Never to me. Stand up."

"Ccarrry themm," Mrs. Which commanded.

With a gesture both delicate and strong Mrs. Whatsit
knelt in front of the children, stretching her wings wide and
holding them steady, but quivering. "Onto my back, now,"
the new voice said.

The children took hesitant steps toward the beautiful
creature.

"But what do we call you now?" Calvin asked.

"Oh, my dears," came the new voice, a rich voice with
the warmth of a woodwind, the clarity of a trumpet, the
mystery of an English horn. "You can't go on changing my
name each time I metamorphose. And I've had such pleasure being Mrs. Whatsit I think you'd better keep to that."
She? he? it? smiled at them, and the radiance of the smile
was as tangible as a soft breeze, as directly warming as
the rays of the sun.

"Come." Charles Wallace clambered up.

Meg and Calvin followed him, Meg sitting between the
two boys. A tremor went through the great wings and then
Mrs. Whatsit lifted and they were moving through the air.

Meg soon found that there was no need to cling to Charles
Wallace or Calvin. The great creature's flight was serenely
smooth. The boys were eagerly looking around the landscape.

"Look." Charles Wallace pointed. "The mountains are so
tall that you can't see where they end."

Meg looked upwards and indeed the mountains seemed
to be reaching into infinity.

They left the fertile fields an(l flew across a great plateau
of granite-like rock shaped into enormous monoliths. These
had a definite, rhythmic form, but they were not statues;
they were like nothing Meg had ever seen before, and she
wondered if they had been made by wind and weather, by
the formation of this earth, or if they were a creation of
beings like the one on which she rode.

They left the great granite plain and flew over a garden
even more beautiful than anything in a dream. In it were
gathered many of the creatures like the one Mrs. Whatsit
had become, some lying among the flowers, some swimming
in a broad, crystal river that flowed through the garden,
some flying in what Meg was sure must be a kind of dance,
moving in and out above the trees. They were making
music, music that came not only from their throats but from
the movement of their great wings as well.

"What are they singing?" Meg asked excitedly.

Mrs. Whatsit shook her beautiful head. "It won't go into
your words. I can't possibly transfer it to your words. Are
you getting any of it, Charles?"

Charles Wallace sat very still on the broad back, on his
face an intently listening look, the look he had when he
delved into Meg or his mother. "A little. Just a very little.
But I think I could get more in time."

"Yes. You could leam it, Charles. But there isn't time,
We can only stay here long enough to rest up and make a
few preparations."

Meg hardly listened to her. "I want to know what they're
saying! I want to know what it means."

"Try, Charles," Mrs. Whatsit urged. "Try to translate.
You can let yourself go, now. You don't have to hold back."

"But I can't!" Charles Wallace cried in an anguished
voice. "I don't know enough! Not yet!"

"Then try to work with me and I'll see if I can't verbalize
it a little for them."

Charles Wallace got his look of probing, of listening.

-I know that look! Meg thought suddenly. Now I think
I know what it means! Because I've had it myself, sometimes, doing math with Father, when a problem is just
about to come clear—

Mrs. Whatsit seemed to be listening to Charles's thoughts.
"Well, yes, that's an idea. I can try. Too bad you don't really
know it so you can give it to me direct, Charles. It's so much
more work this way."

"Don't be lazy," Charles said.

Mrs. Whatsit did not take offense. She explained, "Oh,
it's my favorite kind of work, Charles. That's why they chose
me to go along, even though I'm so much younger. It's my
one real talent. But it takes a tremendous amount of
energy, and we're going to need every ounce of energy for
what's ahead of us. But I'll try. For Calvin and Meg I'll try."

She was silent; the great wings almost stopped moving;
only a delicate stirring seemed to keep them aloft. "Listen,
then," Mrs. Whatsit said. The resonant voice rose and the
words seemed to be all around them so that Meg felt that
she could almost reach out and touch them: "Sing unto the
Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye
that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles,
and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the
cities thereof lift their voice; let the inhabitants of the rock
sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them
give glory unto the Lord!"

Throughout her entire body Meg felt a pulse of joy such
as she had never known before. Calvin's hand reached out;
he did not clasp her hand in his; he moved his fingers so that
they were barely touching hers, but joy flowed through
them, back and forth between them, around them and about
them and inside them.

When Mrs. Whatsit sighed it seemed completely incomprehensible that through this bliss could come the
faintest whisper of doubt.

"We must go now, children." Mrs. Whatsit's voice was
deep with sadness, and Meg could not understand. Raising
her head, Mrs. Whatsit gave a call that seemed to be a
command, and one of the creatures flying above the trees
nearest them raised its head to listen, and then flew off
and picked three flowers from a tree growing near the river
and brought them over. "Each of you take one," Mrs.
Whatsit said. "I'll tell you how to use them later."

As Meg took her flower she realized that it was not a
single blossom, but hundreds of tiny flowerets forming a
kind of hollow bell.

"Where are we going?" Calvin asked.

"Up."

The wings moved steadily, swiftly. The garden was left

68

The Black Thing

behind, the stretch of granite, the mighty shapes, and then
Mrs. Whatsit was flying upward, climbing steadily up, up,
Below them the trees of the mountain dwindled, became
sparse, were replaced by bushes and then small, dry grasses,
and then vegetation ceased entirely and there were only
rocks, points and peaks of rock, sharp and dangerous. "Hold
on tight," Mrs. Whatsit said. "Don't slip."

Meg felt Calvin's arm circle her waist in a secure hold.

Still they moved upward.

Now they were in clouds. They could see nothing but
drifting whiteness, and the moisture clung to them and condensed in icy droplets. As Meg shivered, Calvin's grip
tightened. In front of her Charles Wallace sat quietly. Once
he turned Just long enough to give her a swift glance of
tenderness and concern. But Meg felt as each moment
passed that he was growing farther and farther away, that
he was becoming less and less her adored baby brother and
more and more one with whatever kind of being Mrs.
Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which in actuality were.

Abruptly they burst out of the clouds into a shaft of
light. Below them there were still rocks; above them the
rocks continued to reach up into the sky, but now, though
it seemed miles upward, Meg could see where the mountain
at last came to an end.

Mrs. Whatsit continued to climb, her wings straining a
little. Meg felt her heart racing; cold sweat began to gather
on her face and her lips felt as though they were turning
blue. She began to gasp.

"All right, children, use your flowers now," Mrs. Whatsit

69

A Wrinkle in Time

said. "The atmosphere will continue to get thinner from
now on. Hold the flowers up to your face and breathe
through them and they will give you enough oxygen. It
won't be as much as you're used to, but it will be enough."

Meg had almost forgotten the flowers, and was grateful
to realize that she was still clasping them, that she hadn't
let them fall from her fingers. She pressed her face into the
blossoms and breathed deeply.

Calvin still held her with one arm, but he, too, held die
flowers to his face.

Charles Wallace moved the hand with the flowers slowly,
almost as though he were in a dream.

Mrs. Whatsit's wings strained against the thinness of
the atmosphere. The summit was only a little way above
them, and then they were there. Mrs. Whatsit came to rest
on a small plateau of smooth silvery rock. There ahead of
them was a great white disk.

"One of Uriel's moons," Mrs. Whatsit told them, her
mighty voice faintly breathless.

"Oh, it's beautiful!" Meg cried. "It's beautiful!"

The silver light from the enormous moon poured over
them, blending with the golden quality of the day, flowing
over the children, over Mrs. Whatsit, over the mountain
peak.

"Now we will turn around," Mrs. Whatsit said, and at the
quality of her voice, Meg was afraid again.

But when they turned she saw nothing. Ahead of them
was the thin clear blue of sky; below them the rocks thrusting out of the shifting sea of white clouds.

70

The Black Thing

"Now we will wait," Mrs. Whatsit said, "for sunset and
moonset."

Almost as she spoke the light began to deepen, to darken.

"I want to watch the moon set," Charles Wallace said.

"No, child. Do not turn around, any of you. Face out
towards the dark. What I have to show you will be more
visible then. Look ahead, straight ahead, as far as you can
possibly look."

Meg's eyes ached from the strain of looking and seeing
nothing. Then, above the clouds which encircled the mountain, she seemed to see a shadow, a faint thing of darkness
so far off that she was scarcely sure she was really seeing it

Charles Wallace said, "What's that?"

"That sort of shadow out there," Calvin gestured. "What
is it? I don't like it."

"Watch," Mrs. Whatsit commanded.

It was a shadow, nothing but a shadow. It was not even
as tangible as a cloud. Was it cast by something? Or was it
a Thing in itself?

The sky darkened. The gold left the light and they were
surrounded by blue, blue deepening until where there had
been nothing but the evening sky there was now a faint
pulse of star, and then another and another and another.
There were more stars than Meg had ever seen before.

"The atmosphere is so thin here," Mrs. Whatsit said as
though in answer to her unasked question, "that it does not
obscure your vision as it would at home. Now look. Look
straight ahead."

Meg looked. The dark shadow was still there. It had not

7i

A Wrinkle in Time

lessened or dispersed with the coming of night. And where
the shadow was the stars were not visible.

What could there be about a shadow that was so terrible
that she knew that there had never been before or ever
would be again, anything that would chill her with a fear
that was beyond shuddering, beyond crying or screaming.
beyond the possibility of comfort?

Meg's hand holding the blossoms slowly dropped and it
seemed as though a knife gashed through her lungs. She
gasped, but there was no air for her to breathe. Darkness
glazed her eyes and mind, but as she started to fall into
unconsciousness her head dropped down into the flowers
which she was still clutching; and as she inhaled the fragrance of their purity her mind and body revived, and she
sat up again.

The shadow was still there, dark and dreadful.
Calvin held her hand strongly in his, but she felt neither
strength nor reassurance in his touch. Beside her a tremor
went through Charles Wallace, but he sat very still

He shouldn't be seeing this. Meg thought. This is too
much for so little a boy, no matter how different and extraordinary a little boy.

Calvin turned, rejecting the dark Thing that blotted out
the light of the stars. "Make it go away, Mrs. Whatsit," he
whispered. "Make it go away. It's evil."

Slowly the great creature turned around so that the
shadow was behind them, so that they saw only the stars
unobscured, the soft throb of starlight on the mountain, the
descending circle of the great moon swiftly slipping over

72

The Black Thing

the horizon. Then, without a word from Mrs. Whatsit, they
were traveling downward, down, down. When they reached
the corona of clouds Mrs. Whatsit said, "You can breathe
without the flowers now, my children."

Silence again. Not a word. It was as though the shadow
had somehow reached out with its dark power and touched
them so that they were incapable of speech. When they got
back to the flowery field, bathed now in starlight, and moonlight from another, smaller, yellower, rising moon, a little
of the tenseness went out of their bodies, and they realized
that the body of the beautiful creature on which they rode
had been as rigid as theirs.

With a graceful gesture it dropped to the ground and
folded its great wings. Charles Wallace was the first to
slide off. "Mrs. Who! Mrs. Whichi" he called, and there
was an immediate quivering in the air. Mrs. Who's familiar
glasses gleamed at them. Mrs. Which appeared, too; but, as
she had told the children, it was difficult for her to materialize completely, and though there was the robe and peaked
hat, Meg could look through them to mountain and stars.
She slid off Mrs. Whatsits back and walked, rather unsteadily after the long ride, over to Mrs Which.

"That dark Thing we saw," she said. "Is that what my
father is fighting?"

73

5   The Tesseract

"YES," Mrs. Which said. "Hhee iss beehindd thee ddarrkness, sso thatt eevenn wee cannott seee hhimm."

Meg began to cry, to sob aloud. Through her tears she
could see Charles Wallace standing there, very small, very
white. Calvin put his arms around her, but she shuddered
and broke away, sobbing wildly. Then she was enfolded in
the great wings of Mrs. Whatsit and she felt comfort and
strength pouring through her. Mrs. Whatsit was not speaking aloud, and yet through the wings Meg understood
words.

"My child, do not despair. Do you think we would have

74

The Tesseract

brought you here if there were no hope? We are asking you
to do a difficult thing, but we are confident that you can do
it. Your father needs help, he needs courage, and for his
children he may be able to do what he cannot do for himself."

"Nnow," Mrs. Which said. "Arre wee rreaddy?"

"Where are we going?" Calvin asked.

Again Meg felt an actual physical tingling of fear as Mrs.
Which spoke.

"Wwee musstt ggo bbehindd thee sshaddow."

"But we will not do it all at once," Mrs. Whatsit comforted them. "We will do it in short stages." She looked at
Meg. "Now we will tesser, we will wrinkle again. Do you
understand?"

"No," Meg said flatly.

Mrs. Whatsit sighed. "Explanations are- not easy when
they are about things for which your civilization still has
no words. Calvin talked about traveling at the speed of
light. You understand that, little Meg?"

"Yes," Meg nodded.

"That, of course, is the impractical, long way around.
We have learned to take short cuts wherever possible."

"Sort of like in math?" Meg asked.

"Like in math." Mrs. Whatsit looked over at Mrs. Who.
"Take your skirt and show them."

"La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia. Spanish, my
dears. Cervantes. Experience is the mother of knowledge."
Mrs. Who took a portion of her white robe in her hands and
held it tight.

"You see," Mrs. Whatsit said, "if a very small insect were
to move from the section of skirt in Mrs. Who's right hand
to that in her left, it would be quite a long walk for him
if he had to walk straight across."

Swiftly Mrs. Who brought her hands, still holding the
skirt, together.

"Now, you see," Mrs. Whatsit said, "he would be there,
without that long trip. That is how we travel."

Charles Wallace accepted the explanation serenely. Even
Calvin did not seem perturbed. "Oh, dear," Meg sighed. "I
guess I am a moron. I just don't get it."

"That is because you think of space only in three dimensions," Mrs. Whatsit told her. "We travel in the fifth dimension. This is something you can understand, Meg. Don't be
afraid to try. Was your mother able to explain a tesseract
to you?"

"Well, she never did," Meg said. "She got so upset about
it Why, Mrs. Whatsit? She said it had something to do
with her and Father."

76

The Tesseract

"It was a concept they were playing with," Mrs. Whatsit
said, "going beyond die fourth dimension to the fifth. Did
your mother explain it to you, Charles?"

"Well, yes." Charles looked a little embarrassed. "Please
don't be hurt, Meg. I just kept at her while you were at
school till I got it out of her."

Meg sighed. "Just explain it to me."

"Okay," Charles said. "What is the first dimension?"

"Well—a line: —————————————"

"Okay. And the second dimension?"

"Well, you'd square the line. A flat square would be in
the second dimension."

"And the third?"

"Well, you'd square the second dimension. Then the
square wouldn't be flat any more. It would have a bottom,
and sides, and a top."

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A Wrinkle in Time

"And the fourth?"

''Well, I guess if you want to put it into mathematical
terms you'd square the square. But you can't take a pencil
and draw it the way you can the first three. I know it's got
something to do with Einstein and time. I guess maybe you
could call the fourth dimension Time."

"That's right," Charles said. "Good girl. Okay, then, for
the fifth dimension you'd square the fourth, wouldn't you?"

"I guess so."

"Well, the fifth dimension's a tesseract. You add that to
the other four dimensions and you can travel through space
without having to go the long way around. In other words,
to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a
straight line is not the shortest distance between two
points."

For a brief, illuminating second Meg's face had the listening, probing expression that was so often seen on Charles's.
"I see!" she cried. "I got it! For just a moment I got it! I
can't possibly explain it now, but there for a second I saw
it!" She turned excitedly to Calvin. "Did you get it?"

He nodded. "Enough. I don't understand it the way
Charles Wallace does, but enough to get the idea."

"Sso nnow wee ggo," Mrs. Which said. "Tthere iss nott
all thee ttime inn ttlie worrlld."

"Could we hold hands?" Meg asked.

Calvin took her hand and held it tightly in his.

"You can try," Mrs. Whatsit said, "though I'm not sure
how it will work. You see, though we travel together, we

78

The Tesseract

travel alone. We will go first and take you afterward in the
backwash. That may be easier for you." As she spoke the
great white body began to waver, the wings to disolve into
mist. Mrs. Who seemed to evaporate until there was nothing
but the glasses, and then the glasses, too, disappeared. It
reminded Meg of the Cheshire Cat.

—I've often seen a face without glasses, she thought; —
but glasses without a face! I wonder if I go that way, too.
First me and then my glasses?

She looked over at Mrs. Which. Mrs. Which was there
and then she wasn't.

There was a gust of wind and a great thrust and a sharp
shattering as she was shoved through—what? Then darkness; silence; nothingness. If Calvin was still holding her
hand she could not feel it. But this time she was prepared
for the sudden and complete dissolution other body. When
she felt the tingling coming back to her fingertips she knew
that this journey was almost over and she could feel again
the pressure of Calvin's hand about hers.

Without warning, coming as a complete and unexpected
shock, she felt a pressure she had never imagined, as though
she were being completely flattened out by an enormous
steam roller. This was far worse than the nothingness had
been; while she was nothing there was no need to breathe,
but now her lungs were squeezed together so that although
she was dying for want of air there was no way for her lungs
to expand and contract, to take in the air that she must
have to stay alive. This was completely different from the

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A Wrinkle in Time

thinning of atmosphere when they flew up the mountain
and she had had to put the flowers to her face to breathe.
She tried to gasp, but a paper doll can't gasp. She thought
she was trying to think, but her flattened-out mind was as
unable to function as her lungs; her thoughts were squashed
along with the rest of her. Her heart tried to beat; it gave a
knifelike, sidewise movement, but it could not expand.

But then she seemed to hear a voice, or if not a voice, at
least words, words flattened out like printed words on
paper, "Oh, no! We can't stop here! This is a two-dimensional planet and the children can't manage herel"

She was whizzed into nothingness again, and nothingness was wonderful. She did not mind that she could not
feel Calvin's hand, that she could not see or feel or be. The
relief from the intolerable pressure was all she needed.

Then the tingling began to come back to her fingers, her
toes; she could feel Calvin holding her tightly. Her heart
beat regularly; blood coursed through her veins. Whatever had happened, whatever mistake had been made, it
was over now. She thought she heard Charles Wallace saying, his words round and full as spoken words ought to be,
"Really, Mrs. Which, you might have killed usF

This time she was pushed out of the frightening fifth
dimension with a sudden, immediate jerk. There she was,
herself again, standing with Calvin beside her, holding
onto her hand for dear life, and Charles Wallace in front of
her, looking indignant. Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs.
Which were not visible, but she knew that they were there;

the fact of their presence was strong about her.

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The Tesseract

"Cchilldrenn, I appolloggize," came Mrs. Which's voice.

"Now, Charles, calm down," Mrs. Whatsit said, appearing not as the great and beautiful beast she had been when
they last saw her, but in her familiar wild garb of shawls and
scarves and the old tramp's coat and hat. "You know how
difficult it is for her to materialize. If you are not substantial yourself it's very difficult to realize how limiting protoplasm is."

"I ammm ssorry," Mrs. Which's voice came again; but
there was more than a hint of amusement in it.

"It is not funny." Charles Wallace gave a childish stamp
of his foot.

Mrs. Whos glasses shone out, and the rest of her appeared more slowly behind them. "We are such stuff as
dreams are made on." She smiled broadly. "Prospero in The
Tempest. I do like that play."

"You didn't do it on purpose?' Charles demanded,

"Oh, my darling, of course not," Mrs. Whatsit said
quickly. "It was just a very understandable mistake. It's very
difficult for Mrs. Which to think in a corporeal way. She
wouldn't hurt you deliberately; you know that. And it's
really a very pleasant little planet, and rather amusing to
be flat. We always enjoy our visits there."

"Where are we now, then?" Charles Wallace demanded.
"And why?"

"In Orion's belt. We have a friend here, and we want you
to have a look at your own planet."

"When are we going home?" Meg asked anxiously.
"What about Mother? What about the twins? They'll be
terribly worried about us. When we didn't come in at bedtime—well, Mother must be frantic by now. She and the
twins and Fort will have been looking and looking for us,
and of course we aren't there to be found!"

"Now, dont worry, my pet," Mrs. Whatsit said cheerfully. "We took care of that before we left. Your mother has
had enough to worry her with you and Charles to cope
with, and not knowing about your father, without our adding to her anxieties. We took a time wrinkle as well as a
space wrinkle. It's very easy to do if you just know how."

"What do you mean?" Meg asked plaintively. "Please,
Mrs. Whatsit, it's all so confusing."

"Just relax and don't worry over things that needn't
trouble you," Mrs. Whatsit said. "We made a nice, tidy
little time tesser, and unless something goes terribly wrong
well have you back about five minutes before you left, so
there'll be time to spare and nobody'II ever need to know
you were gone at all, though of course you'll be telling your
mother, dear lamb that she is. And if something goes terribly wrong it won't matter whether we ever get back at

all."

"Ddon'tt ffrrightenn themm," Mrs. Which's voice came.
"Aare yyou llosingg ffaith?"

"Oh, no. No, I'm not."

But Meg thought her voice sounded a little faint.

"I hope this is a nice planet," Calvin said. "We can't see
much of it. Does it ever clear up?"

Meg looked around her, realizing that she had been so

82.

The Tesseract

breathless from the journey and the stop on the two-dimensional planet that she had not noticed her surroundings.
And perhaps this was not very surprising, for the main
thing about the surroundings was exactly that they were
unnoticeable. They seemed to be standing on some kind of
nondescript, flat surface. The air around them was gray.
It was not exactly fog, but she could see nothing through it.
Visibility was limited to the nicely definite bodies of
Charles Wallace and Calvin, the rather unbelievable bodies
of Mrs- Whatsit and Mrs. Who, and a faint occasional
glimmer that was Mrs. Which.

"Come, children," Mrs. Whatsit said. "We don't have far
to go, and we might as well walk. It will do you good to
stretch your legs a little."

As they moved through the grayness Meg caught an
occasional glimpse of slaglike rocks, but there were no
traces of trees or bushes, nothing but flat ground under their
feet, no sign of any vegetation at all.

Finally, ahead of them there loomed what seemed to be
a hill of stone. As they approached it Meg could see that
there was an entrance that led into a deep, dark cavern.
"Are we going in there?" she asked nervously.

"Don't be afraid," Mrs. Whatsit said. "It's easier for the
Happy Medium to work within. Oh, you'll like her, children. She's very jolly. If ever I saw her looking unhappy I
would be very depressed myself. As long as she can laugh
I'm sure everything is going to come out right in the end."

"Mmrs. Whattsitt," came Mrs. Which's voice severely,

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A Wrinkle in Time

"jusstt beccause yyou arre verry youngg iss imo exxcuse forr
tallkmgg tooo muchh."

Mrs. Whatsit looked hurt, but she subsided.

"Just how old are you?" Calvin asked her.

"Just a moment," Mrs. Whatsit murmured, and appeared
to calculate rapidly upon her fingers. She nodded triumphantly. "Exactly 2,379,152,497 years, 8 months, and 3 days.
That is according to your calendar, of course, which even
you know isn't very accurate." She leaned closer to Meg and
Calvin and whispered, "It was really a very great honor for
me to be chosen for this mission. It's just because of my
verbalizing and materializing so well, you know. But of
course we can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we
use them that counts. And I make far too many mistakes.
That's why Mrs. Who and I enjoyed seeing Mrs. Which
make a mistake when she tried to land you on a two-dimensional planet. It was that we were laughing at, not at you.
She was laughing at herself, you see. She's really terribly
nice to us younger ones."

Meg was listening with such interest to what Mrs.
Whatsit was saying that she hardly noticed when they went
into the cave; the transition from the grayness of outside
to the grayness of inside was almost unnoticeable- She saw
a flickering light ahead of them, ahead and down, and it
was toward this that they went. As they drew closer she
realized that it was a fire.

"It gets very cold in here," Mrs. Whatsit said, "so we
asked her to have a good bonfire going for you."

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The Tesseract

As they approached the fire they could see a dark shadow
against it, and as they went closer still they could see that
the shadow was a woman. She wore a turban of beautiful
pale mauve silk, and a long, flowing, purple satin gown. In
her hands was a crystal ball into which she was gazing
raptly. She did not appear to see the children, Mrs. Whatsit,
Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, but continued to stare into
the crystal ball; and as she stared she began to laugh; and
she laughed and laughed at whatever it was that she was
seeing.

Mrs. Which's voice rang out clear and strong, echoing
against the walls of the cavern, and the words fell with a
sonorous clang.

"WWEE ARRE HHERRE!"

The woman looked up from the ball, and when she saw
them she got up and curtsied deeply. Mrs. Whatsit and
Mrs. Who dropped small curtsies in return, and the shimmer seemed to bow slightly.

"Oh, Medium, dear," Mrs. Whatsit said, "these are the
children. Charles Wallace Murry." Charles Wallace bowed.
"Margaret Murry." Meg felt that if Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs.
Who had curtsied, she ought to, also; so she did, rather
awkwardly. "And Calvin 0'Keefe." Calvin bobbed his
head. "We want them to see their home planet," Mrs.
Whatsit said.

The Medium lost the delighted smile she had worn till
then. "Oh, why must you make me look at unpleasant things
when there are so many delightful ones to see?"

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A Wrinkle in Time

Again Mrs. Which's voice reverberated through the cave.
"Therre willl nno Uonggerr bee sso manyy pplleasanntt
thinggss too llookk att iff rressponssible ppeoplle ddo nnott
ddoo ssomethingg abboutt tliee unnppleassanntt oness."

The Medium sighed and held the ball high.

"Look, children," Mrs. Whatsit said. "Look into it well."

"Que la terre est petite a qui la voit des deux! Delille.
How small is the earth to him who looks from heaven,"
Mrs. Who intoned musically.

Meg looked into the crystal ball, at first with caution,
then with increasing eagerness, as she seemed to see an
enormous sweep of dark and empty space, and then galaxies swinging across it. Finally they seemed to move in
closer on one of the galaxies.

"Your own Milky Way," Mrs. Whatsit whispered to Meg.

They were headed directly toward the center of the
galaxy; then they moved off to one side; stars seemed to
be rushing at them. Meg flung her arm up over her face as
though to ward off the blow.

"Llookkl" Mrs. Which commanded.

Meg dropped her arm. They seemed to be moving in
toward a planet. She thought she could make out polar
ice caps. Everything seemed sparkling clear.

"No, no. Medium dear, that's Mars," Mrs. Whatsit reproved gently.

"Do I have to?" the Medium asked.

"NNOWW!" Mrs. Which commanded.

The bright planet moved out of their vision. For a

86

The Tesseract

moment there was the darkness of space; then another
planet. The outlines of this planet were not clean and clear.
It seemed to be covered with a smoky haze. Through the
haze Meg thought she could make out the familiar outlines
of continents like pictures in her Social Studies books.

"Is it because of our atmosphere that we can't see properly?" she asked anxiously.

"Nno, Mmegg, yyou knnoww thatt itt iss nnott tthee
attmosspheeere," Mrs. Which said. "Yyou mmusstt bee
brrave."

"It's the Thing!" Charles Wallace cried. "It's the Dark
Thing we saw from the mountain peak on Uriel when we
were riding on Mrs. Whatsit's back!"

"Did it just come?" Meg asked in agony, unable to take
her eyes from the sickness of the shadow which darkened
the beauty of the earth. "Did it just come while we've been
gone?"

Mrs. Which's voice seemed very tired. "Ttell herr," she
said to Mrs. Whatsit.

Mrs. Whatsit sighed. "No, Meg. It hasn't just come. It
has been there for a great many years. That is why your
planet is such a troubled one."

"But why—" Calvin started to ask, his voice croaking
hoarsely.

Mrs. Whatsit raised her hand to silence him. "We showed
you the Dark Thing on Uriel first—oh, for many reasons.
First, because the atmosphere on the mountain peaks there
is so clear and thin you could see it for what it is. And we

87

A Wrinkle in Time

thought it would be easier for you to understand it if you
saw it—well, someplace else first, not your own earth."
"I hate it!" Charles Wallace cried passionately. "I hate

the Dark Thing!"

Mrs, Whatsit nodded. "Yes, Charles dear. We all do.
That's another reason we wanted to prepare you on Uriel.
We thought it would be too frightening for you to see it
first of all about your own, beloved world."

"But what is it?" Calvin demanded. "We know that it's
evil, but what is it?"

"Yyouu hhave ssaidd itti" Mrs. Which's voice rang out.
"Itt iss EeviII. Itt iss thee Ppowers of Ddarrkknesss!"

"But what's going to happen?" Meg's voice trembled.
"Oh, please, Mrs. Which, tell us what's going to happen!"

"Wee wwill cconnttinnue ttoffightt!"

Something in Mrs. Which's voice made all three of the
children stand straighter, throwing back their shoulders
with determination, looking at the glimmer that was Mrs.
Which with pride and confidence.

"And we're not alone, you know, children," came Mrs.
Whatsit, the comforter. "All through the universe it's being
fought, all through the cosmos, and my, but it's a grand and
exciting battle. I know it's hard for you to understand about
size, how there's very little difference in the size of tlie
tiniest microbe and the greatest galaxy. You think about
that, and maybe it won't seem strange to you that some of
our very best fighters have come right from your own
planet, and it's a little planet, dears, out on the edge of a

The Tesseract

little galaxy. You can be proud that it's done so well."

"Who have our fighters been?" Calvin asked.

"Oh, you must know them, dear," Mrs. Whatsit said.

Mrs. Who's spectacles shone out at them triumphantly,
"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

"Jesus!" Charles Wallace said. "Why of course, Jesusl"

"Of course!" Mrs. Whatsit said. "Co on, Charles, love.
There were others. All your great artists. They've been
lights for us to see by."

"Leonardo da Vinci?" Calvin suggested tentatively.
"And Michelangelo?"

"And Shakespeare," Charles Wallace called out, "and
Bach! And Pasteur and Madame Curie and Einstein!"

Now Calvin's voice rang with confidence. "And Schweitzer and Gandhi and Buddha and Beethoven and Rembrandt and St. Francis!"

"Now you, Meg," Mrs. Whatsit ordered.

"Oh, Euclid, I suppose." Meg was in such an agony of
impatience that her voice grated irritably. "And Copernicus. But what about Father? Please, what about Father?"

"Wee aarre ggoingg tto yourr ffatherr," Mrs. Which said.

"But where is he?" Meg went over to Mrs. Which and
stamped as though she were as young as Charles Wallace.

Mrs. Whatsit answered in a voice that was low but quite
firm. "On a planet that has given in. So you must prepare
to be very strong."

All traces of cheer had left the Happy Medium's face.

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A Wrinkle in Time

She sat holding the great ball, looking down at the shadowed earth, and a slow tear coursed down her cheek. "I
can't stand it any longer," she sobbed. "Watch now, children, watch!"

6 The Happy Medium

AGAIN they focused their eyes on the crystal ball. The earth
with its fearful covering of dark shadow swam out of view
and they moved rapidly through the Milky Way. And
there was the Thing again.

"Watch!" the Medium told them.

The Darkness seemed to seethe and writhe. Was this
meant to comfort them?

Suddenly there was a great burst of light through the
Darkness. The light spread out and where it touched the
Darkness the Darkness disappeared. The light spread until
the patch of Dark Thing had vanished, and there was only

9^

A Wrinkle in Time

a gentle shining, and through the shining came the stars,
clear and pure. Then, slowly, the shining dwindled until it,
too, was gone, and there was nothing but stars and starlight. No shadows. No fear. Only the stars and the clear
darkness of space, quite different from the fearful darkness
of the Thing.

"You see!" the Medium cried, smiling happily. "It can be
overcome? It is being overcome all the time!"

Mrs. Whatsit sighed, a sigh so sad that Meg wanted to
put her arms around her and comfort her.

"Tell us exactly what happened, then, please," Charles
Wallace said in a small voice.

"It was a star," Mrs. Whatsit said sadly. "A star giving
up its life in battle with the Thing. It won, oh, yes, my
children, it won. But it lost its life in the winning."

Mrs. Which spoke again. Her voice sounded tired, and
they knew that speaking was a tremendous effort for her.
"Itt wass nnott sso Uongg aggo fforr yyou, wwass itt?" she
asked gently.

Mrs. Whatsit shook her head.

Charles Wallace went up to Mrs. Whatsit. "I see. Now
I understand. You were a star, once, weren't you?"

Mrs. Whatsit covered her face with her hands as though
she were embarrassed, and nodded.

"And you did—you did what that star just did?"

With her face still covered, Mrs. Whatsit nodded again.

Charles Wallace looked at her, very solemnly. "I should
like to kiss you."

Mrs. Whatsit took her hands down from her face and

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The Happy Medium

pulled Charles Wallace to her in a quick embrace. He
put his arms about her neck, pressed his cheek against hers,
and then kissed her.

Meg felt that she would have liked to kiss Mrs. Whatsit,
too, but that after Charles Wallace, anything that she or
Calvin did or said would be anticlimax. She contented
herself with looking at Mrs. Whatsit. Even though she was
used to Mrs. Whatsit's odd getup (and the very oddness
of it was what made her seem so comforting), she realized
with a fresh shock that it was not Mrs. Whatsit herself
that she was seeing at all. The complete, the true Mrs.
Whatsit, Meg realized, was beyond human understanding.
What she saw was only the game Mrs. Whatsit was playing; it was an amusing and charming game, a game full of
both laughter and comfort, but it was only the tiniest facet
of all the things Mrs. Whatsit could be.  ,.

"I didn't mean to tell you," Mrs. Whatsit faltered. "I
didn't mean ever to let you know. But, oh, my dears, I
did so love being a star!"

"Yyouu arre sstill verry yyoungg," Mrs. Which said, her
voice faintly chiding.

The Medium sat looking happily at the star-filled sky in
her ball, smiling and nodding and chuckling gently. But
Meg noticed that her eyes were drooping, and suddenly Iier
head fell forward and she gave a faint snore.

"Poor thing," Mrs. Whatsit said, "we've worn her out. It's
very hard work for her."

"Please, Mrs. Whatsit," Meg asked, "what happens now?
Why are we here? What do we do next? Where is Father?

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A Wrinkle in Time

When are we going to him?" She clasped her hands pleadingly.

"One thing at a time, love!" Mrs. Whatsit said.

Mrs. Who cut in. "As paredes tern ouvidos. That's Portuguese. Walls have ears."

"Yes, let us go outside," Mrs. Whatsit said. "Come, well
let her sleep."

But as they turned to go, the Medium Jerked her head
up and smiled at them radiantly. "You weren't going to go
without saying good-by to me, were you?" she asked.

"We thought we'd just let you sleep, dear." Mrs. Whatsit
patted the Medium's shoulder. "We worked you terribly
hard and we know you must be very tired."

"But I was going to give you some ambrosia or nectar
or at least some tea—"

At this Meg realized that she was hungry. How much
time had passed since they had had their bowls of stew?
she wondered.

But Mrs. Whatsit said, "Oh, thank you, dear, but I think
we'd better be going."

"They don't need to eat, you know," Charles Wallace
whispered to Meg. "At least not food, the way we do.
Eating's just a game with them. As soon as we get organized
again I'd better remind them that they II have to feed us
sooner or later."

The Medium smiled and nodded. "It does seem as though
I should be able to do something nice for you, after having
had to show those poor children such horrid things. Would
they like to see their mother before they go?"

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The Happy Medium

"Could we see Father?" Meg asked eagerly.

"Nno," Mrs. Which said. "Wwee aare ggoingg tto yourr
ffatherr, Mmegg. Doo nnott bbee immpatientt."

"But she could see her mother, couldn't she?" the Medium wheedled.

"Oh, why not," Mrs. Whatsit put in. "It won't take long
and it can't do any harm."

"And Calvin, too?" Meg asked. "Could he see his mother,
too?"

Calvin touched Meg in a quick gesture, and whether it
was of thanks or apprehension she was not sure.

"I tthinkk itt iss a misstake." Mrs. Which was disapproving. "Bbutt ssince yyou hhave menttionedd itt I ssupposse
yyouu musstt ggo aheadd."

"I hate it when she gets cross," Mrs. Whatsit said, glancing over at Mrs. Which, "and the trouble is, she always
seems to be right. But I really don't see how'it could hurt,
and it might make you all feel better. Go on. Medium dear."

The Medium, smiling and humming softly, turned the
crystal ball a little between her hands. Stars, comets,
planets, flashed across the sky, and then the earth came
into view again, the darkened earth, closer, closer, till it
filled the globe, and they had somehow gone through the
darkness until the soft white of clouds and the gentle outline of continents shone clearly.

"Calvin's mother first," Meg whispered to the Medium,

The globe became hazy, cloudy, then shadows began to
solidify, to clarify, and they were looking into an untidy
kitchen with a sink full of unwashed dishes. In front of the

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A Wrinkle in Time

sink stood an unkempt woman with gray hair stringing
about her face. Her mouth was open and Meg could see the
toothless gums and it seemed that she could almost hear
her screaming at two small children who were standing by
her. Then she grabbed a long wooden spoon from the sink
and began whacking one of the children.

"Oh, dear—" the Medium murmured, and the picture
began to dissolve. "I didn't really—"

"It's all right," Calvin said in a low voice. "I think I'd
rather you knew."

Now instead of reaching out to Calvin for safety, Meg
took his hand in hers, not saying anything in words but trying to tell him by the pressure of her fingers what she felt.
If anyone had told her only the day before that she, Meg,
the snaggle-toothed, the myopic, the clumsy, would be taking a boy's hand to offer him comfort and strength, particularly a popular and important boy like Calvin, the idea
would have been beyond her comprehension. But now it
seemed as natural to want to help and protect Calvin as it
did Charles Wallace.

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 leam 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 somethingi"

"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-by 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.

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A Wrinkle in Time

The Medium tweaked his nose. Touve got a lot to learn,
my boy," she told him.

"Now, good-by. Medium dear, and many thanks," Mrs.
Whatsit said. "I dare say well 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-by, 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

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The Happy Medium

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 m 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!"

Tes," Mrs. Whatsit said. "However, I think youTI find
they'll come in very handy on Camazotz. Charles Wallace,
to you I can give only the resilience of your childhood."

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The Happy Medium

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 bests, 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. "AUwissend bin ich nicht; doch uiel 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 alii tthreee offyyou I ggive mmy ccommandd," Mrs.
Which said. "Ggo ddownn innttoo tthee ttownn. Ggo ttogetherr. Ddoo nnott llett tthemm ssepparate yyou. Bbee

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A Wrinkle in Time

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. Whatsifs 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.

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The Happy Medium

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 rhythml 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.

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A Wrinkle in Time

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
104

The Happy Medium

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 Dlindly. 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

io5

A Wrinkle in Time

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.

"You can't come in," the woman said. "You haven't
shown me any papers. I don't have to let you in if you
haven't any papers."

Charles Wallace held the ball out beyond the woman so
that the little boy could see it. Quick as a flash the boy
leaped forward and grabbed the ball from Charles Wallace's hand, then darted back into the shadows. The woman
went very white, opened her mouth as though to say something. then slammed the door in their faces instead. All up
and down the street doors slammed.

"What are they afraid of?" Charles Wallace asked.
''What's the matter with them?"

"Don't you know?" Meg asked him. "'Don't you know
what all this is about, Charles?"

"Not yet," Charles Wallace said. "Not even an inkling.
And I'm trying. But I didn't get through anywhere. Not
even a chink. Let's go." He stumped down the steps.

106

The Happy Medium

After several blocks the houses gave way to apartment
buildings; at least Meg felt sure that that was what they
must be. They were fairly tall, rectangular buildings, absolutely plain, each window, each entrance exactly like
every other. Then, coming toward them down the street,
was a boy about Calvin's age riding a machine that was
something like a combination of a bicycle and a motorcycle.
It had the slimness and lightness of a bicycle, and yet as
the foot pedals turned they seemed to generate an unseen
source of power, so that the boy could pedal very slowly
and yet move along the street quite swiftly. As he reached
each entrance he thrust one hand into a bag he wore slung
over his shoulder, pulled out a roll of papers, and tossed it
into the entrance. It might have been Dennys or Sandy or
any one of hundreds of boys with a newspaper route in
any one of hundreds of towns back honie, and yet, as with
the children playing ball and jumping'rope, there was
something wrong about it. The rhythm of the gesture never
varied. The paper flew in identically the same arc at each
doorway, landed in identically the same spot. It was impossible for anybody to throw with such consistent perfection.

Calvin whistled. "I wonder if they play baseball here?"
As the boy saw them he slowed down on his machine
and stopped, his hand arrested as it was about to, plunge
into the paper bag. "What are you kids doing out on the
street?" he demanded. "Only route boys are allowed out
now, you know that."

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A Wrinkle in Time

"No, we don't know it," Charles Wallace said. "We're
strangers here. How about telling us something about this
place?"

"You mean you've had your entrance papers processed
and everything?" the boy asked. "You must have if you're
here," he answered himself. "And what are you doing here
if you don't know about us?"

"You tell me," Charles Wallace said.

"Are you examiners?" the boy asked a little anxiously.
"Everybody knows our city has the best Central Intelligence Center on the planet. Our production levels are the
highest. Our factories never close; our machines never
stop rolling. Added to this we have five poets, one musician,
three artists, and six sculptors, all perfectly channeled."

"What are you quoting from?" Charles Wallace asked.

"The Manual, of course," the boy said. "We are the most
oriented city on the planet. There has been no trouble of
any kind for centuries. All Camazotz knows our record.
That is why we are the capital city of Camazotz. That is
why CENTRAL Central Intelligence is located here. That
is why IT makes ITs home here." There was something
about the way he said "IT' that made a shiver run up and
down Meg's spine.

But Charles Wallace asked briskly, "Where is this Central Intelligence Center of yours?"

"CENTRAL Central," the boy corrected. "Just keep going and you can't miss it. You are strangers, aren't youl
What are you doing here?"

108

The Happy Medium

"Are you supposed to ask questions?" Charles Wallace
demanded severely.

The boy went white, just as the woman had. "I humbly
beg your pardon. I must continue my route now or I will
have to talk my timing into the explainer." And he shot off
down the street on his machine.

Charles Wallace stared after him. "What is it?" he asked
Meg and Charles. "There was something funny about the
way he talked, as though—well, as though he weren't really
doing the talking. Know what I mean?"

Calvin nodded, thoughtfully. "Funny is right. Funny
peculiar. Not only the way he talked, either. The whole
thing smells."

"Come on." Meg pulled at them. How many times was
it she had urged them on? "Let's go find Father. He'll be
able to explain it all to us."

They walked on. After several more blocks they began
to see other people, grown-up people, not children, walking
up and down and across the streets. These people ignored
the children entirely, seeming-to be completely intent on
their own business. Some of them went into the apartment
buildings. Most of them were heading in the same direction
as the children. As these people came to the main street
from the side streets they would swing around the corners
^with an odd, automatic stride, as though they were so
deep in their own problems and tlie route was so familiar
that they didn't have to pay any attention to where they
were going.

109

A Wrinkle in Time

After a while the apartment buildings gave way to what
must have been office buildings, great stem structures
with enormous entrances. Men and women with brief cases
poured in and out.

Charles Wallace went up to one of the women, saying
politely, "Excuse me, but could you please tell me—" But
she hardly glanced at him as she continued on her way.

"Look." Meg pointed. Ahead of them, across a square,
was the largest building they had ever seen, higher than the
Empire State Building, and almost as long as it was high.

"This must be it," Charles Wallace said, "their CENTRAL Central Intelligence or whatever it is. Let's go on."

"But if Father's in some kind of trouble with this planet,"
Meg objected, "isn't that exactly where we shouldn't go?"

"Well, how do you propose finding him?" Charles Wallace demanded.

"I certainly wouldn't ask there!"

"I didn't say anything about asking. But we aren't going
to have the faintest idea where or how to begin to look for
him until we find out something more about this place, and
I have a hunch that that's the place to start. If you have a
better idea, Meg, why of course just say so."

"Oh, get down off your high horse," Meg said crossly.
"Let's go to your old CENTRAL Central Intelligence and
get it over with."

"I think we ought to have passports or something," Calvin
suggested. "This is much more than leaving America to
go to Europe. And that boy and the woman both seemed

no

The Happy Medium

to care so much about having things in proper order. We
certainly haven't got any papers in proper order."

"If we needed passports or papers Mrs. Whatsit would
have told us so," Charles Wallace said.

Calvin put his hands on his hips and looked down at
Charles Wallace. "Now look here, old sport. I love those
three old girls just as much as you do, but I'm not sure they
know everything."

"They know a lot more than we do."

"Granted. But you know Mrs. Whatsit talked about having been a star. I wouldn't think that being a star would
give her much practice in knowing about people. When she
tried to be a person she came pretty close to goofing it up.
There was never anybody on land or sea like Mrs. Whatsit
the way she got herself up."

"She was just having fun," Charles said. Uf she'd wanted
to look like you or Meg I' m sure she could have;"

Calvin shook his head. "I'm not so sure. And these people
seem to be people, if you know what I mean. They aren't
like us, I grant you that, there's something very off-beat
about them. But they're lots more like ordinary people than
the ones on Uriel."

"Do you suppose they're robots?" Meg suggested.

Charles Wallace shook his head. "No. That boy who
dropped the ball wasn't any robot. And I don't think the
rest of them are, either. Let me listen for a minute."

They stood very still, side by side, in the shadow of one
of the big office buildings. Six large doors kept swinging

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A Wrinkle in Time

open, shut, open, shut, as people went in and out, in and
out, looking straight ahead, straight ahead, paying no attention to the children whatsoever, whatsoever. Charles
wore his listening, probing look. "They're not robots," he
said suddenly and definitely. "I'm not sure what they are,
but they're not robots. I can feel minds there. I can't get at
them at all, but I can feel them sort of pulsing. Let me
try a minute more."

The three of them stood there very quietly. The doors
kept opening and shutting, opening and shutting, and the
stiff people hurried in and out, in and out, walking jerkily
like figures in an old silent movie. Then, abruptly, the stream
of movement thinned. There were only a few people and
these moved more rapidly, as if the film had been speeded
up. One white-faced man in a dark suit looked directly at
the children, said, "Oh, dear, I shall be late," and flickered
into the building.

"He's like the white rabbit," Meg giggled nervously.

"I'm scared," Charles said. "I can't reach them at all. I'm
completely shut out."

"We have to find Father—" Meg started again.

"Meg—" Charles Wallace's eyes were wide and frightened. "I'm not sure I'll even know Father. It's been so long,
and I was only a baby—"

Meg's reassurance came quickly. "You'll know himi Of
course youll know him! The way you'd know me even without looking because I'm always there for you, you can
always reach in—"

"Yes." Charles punched one small fist into an open palm

112

The Happy Medium

with a gesture of great decision. "Let's go to CENTRAL
Central Intelligence."

Calvin reached out and caught both Charles and Meg by
the arm. "You remember when we met, you asked me why
I was there? And I told you it was because I had a compulsion, a feeling I just had to come to that particular place at
that particular moment?"

"Yes, sure."

"I've got another feeling. Not the same kind, a different
one, a feeling that if we go into that building we're going
into terrible danger."

113

7 The Man With Red Eyes

"WE knew we were going to be in danger," Charles Wallace said. "Mrs. Whatsit told us that."

"Yes, and she told us that it was going to be worse for
you than for Meg and me, and that you must be careful.
You stay right here with Meg, old sport, and let me go in
and case the joint and then report to you."

"No," Charles Wallace said firmly. "She told us to stay
together. She told us not to go off by ourselves."

"She told you not to go off by yourself. I'm the oldest
and I should go in first."

114

The Man with Red Eyes

"No." Meg's voice was flat "Charles is right, Cal. We
have to stay together. Suppose you didn't come out and we
had to go in after you? Unh-unh. Come on. But let's hold
hands if you don't mind."

Holding hands, they crossed the square. The huge CENTRAL Central Intelligence Building had only one door, but
it was an enormous one, at least two stories high and wider
than a room, made of a dull, bronzelike material.

"Do we just knock?" Meg giggled.

Calvin studied the door. "There isn't any handle or knob
or latch or anything. Maybe there's another way to get in."

"Let's try knocking anyhow," Charles said. He raised his
hand, but before he touched the door it slid up from the top
and to each side, splitting into three sections that had been
completely invisible a moment before. The startled children
looked into a great entrance hall of dull, 'greeny marble.
Marble benches lined three of the walls. People were sitting
there like statues. The green of the marble reflecting on
their faces made them look bilious. They turned their heads
as the door opened, saw the children, looked away-again.

"Come on," Charles said. and, still holding hands, they
stepped in. As they crossed the threshold the door shut
silently behind them. Meg looked at Calvin and Charles and
they, like the waiting people, were a sickly green.

The children went up to the blank fourth wall. It seemed
unsubstantial, as though one might almost be able to walk
through it. Charles put out his hand. "It's solid, and icy
col4."

Calvin touched it, too. "Ugh."

ii5

A Wrinkle in Time

Meg's left hand was held by Charles, her right by Calvin,
and she had no desire to let go either of them to touch the
wall.

"Let's ask somebody something." Charles led them over
to one of the benches. "Er, could you tell us what's the procedure around here?" he asked one of the men. The men all
wore nondescript business suits, and though their features
were as different one from the other as the features of men
on earth, there was also a sameness to them.

—Like the sameness of people riding in a subway, Meg
thought. —Only on a subway every once in a while there's
somebody different and here there isn't.

The man looked at the children warily. "The procedure
for what?"

"How do we see whoever's in authority?" Charles asked.

"You present your papers to the A machine. You ought
to know that," the man said severely.

"Where is the A machine?" Calvin asked.

The man pointed to the blank wall.

"But there isn't a door or anything," Calvin said. "How
do we get in?"

"You put your S papers in the B slot," the man said.
"Why are you asking me these stupid questions? Do you
think I don't know the answers? You'd better not play any
games around here or youll have to go through the Process
machine again and you don't want to do that."

"We're strangers here," Calvin said. "That's why we don't
know about tilings. Please tell us, sir, who you are and what
you do."

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The Man with Red Eyes

"I run a number-one spelling machine on the second-grade level."

"But what are you doing here now?" Charles Wallace
asked.

"I am here to report that one of my letters is jamming,
and until it can be properly oiled by an F Grade oiler there
is danger of jammed minds."

"Strawberry jam or raspberry?" Charles Wallace murmured. Calvin looked down at Charles and shook Us head
warningly. Meg gave the little boy's hand a slight, understanding pressure. Charles Wallace, she was quite sure, was
not trying to be rude or funny; it was his way of whistling
in the dark.

The man looked at Charles sharply. "I think I shall have
to report you. I'm fond of children, due to the nature of my
work and I don't like to get them in trouble, but rather
than run the risk myself of reprocessing I must report you."

"Maybe that's a good idea," Charles said. "Who do you
report us to?"

"To whom do I report you."

"Well, to whom, then. I'm not on the second-grade level

..»
yet

—I wish he wouldn't act so sure of himself, Meg thought,
looking anxiously at Charles and holding his hand more and
more tightly until he wriggled his fingers in protest. That's
what Mrs. Whatsit said he had to watch, being proud.
—Don't, please don't, she thought hard at Charles Wallace.
She wondered if Calvin realized that a lot of the arrogance
was bravado.

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A Wrinkle in Time

The man stood up, moving jerkily as though he had been
sitting for a long time. "I hope he isn't too hard on you," he
murmured as he led the children toward the empty fourth
wall. "But I've been reprocessed once and that was more
than enough. And I don't want to get sent to IT. I've never
been sent to IT and I can't risk having that happen."

There was IT again. What was this IT?

The man took from his pocket a folder filled with papers
of every color. He shuffled through them carefully, finally
withdrawing one. "I've had several reports to make lately.
I shall have to ask for a requisition for more A-21 cards."
He took the card and put it against the wall. It slid through
the marble, as though it were being sucked in, and disappeared. "You may be detained for a few days," the man
said, "but I'm sure they won't be too hard on you because of
your youth. Just relax and don't fight and it will all be much
easier for you." He went back to his seat, leaving the children standing and staring at the blank wall.

And suddenly the wall was no longer there and they were
looking into an enormous room lined with machines. They
were not unlike the great computing machines Meg had
seen in her science books and that she knew her father
sometimes worked with. Some did not seem to be in use; in
others lights were flickering on and off. In one machine
a long tape was being eaten; in another a series of dotdashes were being punched. Several white-robed attendants
were moving about, tending the machines. If they saw the
children they gave no sign.

118

The Man with Red Eyes

Calvin muttered something.

"What?" Meg asked him.

"There is nothing to fear except fear itself," Calvin said.
Tm quoting. Like Mrs. Who. Meg, I'm scared stiff."

"So 'm I." Meg held his hand more tightly. "Come on."

They stepped into the room with the machines. In spite
of the enormous width of the room it was even longer than
it was wide. Perspective made the long rows of machines
seem almost to meet. The children walked down the center
of the room, keeping as far from the machines as possible.

"Though I don't suppose they're radioactive or anything," Charles Wallace said, "or that they're going to reach
out and grab us and chew us up."

After they had walked for what seemed like miles, they
could see that the enormous room did have an end, and that
at the end there was something.        >.

Charles Wallace said suddenly, and his voice held panic,
"Don't let go my handsl Hold me tight! He's trying to get
at me!"

"Who?" Meg squeaked.

"I don't know. But he's trying to get in at me! I can feel
him!"

"Let's go back." Calvin started to pull away.

"No," Charles Wallace said. "I have to go on. We have
to make decisions, and we can't make them if they're based
on fear." His voice sounded old and strange and remote.
Meg, clasping his small hand tightly, could feel it sweating
in hers.

ii9

A Wrinkle in Time

As they approached the end of the room their steps
slowed. Before them was a platform. On the platform was
a chair, and on the chair was a man.

What was there about him that seemed to contain all
the coldness and darkness they had felt as they plunged
through the Black Thing on their way to this planet?

"I have been waiting for you, my dears," the man said.
His voice was kind and gentle, not at all the cold and
frightening voice Meg had expected. It took her a moment
to realize that though the voice came from the man, he
had not opened his mouth or moved his lips at all, that no
real words had been spoken to fall upon her ears, that he
had somehow communicated directly into their brains.

"But how does it happen that there are three of you?"
the man asked.

Charles Wallace spoke with harsh boldness, but Meg
could feel him trembling. "Oh, Calvin just came along for
the ride."

"Oh, he did, did he?" For a moment there was a sharpness to the voice that spoke inside their minds. Then it relaxed and became soothing again. "I hope that it has been
a pleasant one so far."

"Very educational," Charles Wallace said.
"Let Calvin speak for himself," the man ordered.
Calvin growled, his lips tight, his body rigid. "I have
nothing to say."

Meg stared at the man in horrified fascination. His eyes
were bright and had a reddish glow. Above his head was a

120

The Man with Red Eyes

light, and it glowed in the same manner as the eyes, pulsing,
throbbing, in steady rhythm.

Charles Wallace shut his eyes tightly. "Close your eyes,"
he said to Meg and Calvin. "Don't look at the light. Don't
look at his eyes. Hell hypnotize you."

"Clever, aren't you? Focusing your eyes would, of course,
help," the soothing voice went on, "but there are other ways,
my little man. Oh, yes, there are other ways."

"If you try it on me I shall kick you!" Charles Wallace
said. It was the first time Meg had ever heard Charles Wallace suggesting violence.

"Oh, will you, indeed, my little man?" The thought was
tolerant, amused, but four men in dark smocks appeared
and flanked the children.

"Now, my dears," the words continued, "I shall of course
have no need of recourse to violence, but I thought perhaps
it would save you pain if I showed you at onee that it would
do you no good to try to oppose me. You see, what you will
soon realize is that there is no need to fight me. Not only
is there no need, but you will not have the slightest desire
to do so. For why should you wish to fight someone who is
here only to save you pain and trouble? For you, as well as
for the rest of all the happy, useful people on this planet, I,
in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all
the responsibility, all the burdens of thought and decision."

"We will make our own decisions, thank you," Charles
Wallace said.

"But of course. And our decisions will be one, yours and

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A Wrinkle in Time

mine. Don't you see how much better, how much easier for
you that is? Let me show you. Let us say the multiplication
table together."

"No," Charles Wallace said.

"Once one is one. Once two is two. Once three is three."

"Mary had a little Iamb!" Charles Wallace shouted. "Its
fleece was white as snow!"

"Once four is four. Once five is five. Once six is six."

"And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to
gol"

"Once seven is seven. Once eight is eight. Once nine is
nine."

"Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't
keep her—"

"Once ten is ten. Once eleven is eleven. Once twelve is
twelve."

The number words pounded insistently against Meg's
brain. They seemed to be boring their way into her skull.

"Twice one is two. Twice two is four. Twice three is six."

Calvin's voice came out in an angry shout. "Fourscore
and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal."

"Twice four is eight. Twice five is ten. Twice six is
twelve."

"Father!" Meg screamed. "Father!" The scream, half involuntary, jerked her mind back out of darkness.

The words of the multiplication table seemed to break

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The Man with Red Eyes

up into laughter. "Splendid! Splendid! You have passed
your preliminary tests with flying colors."

"You didn't think we were as easy as all that, falling for
that old stuff, did you?" Charles Wallace demanded.

"Ah, I hoped not. I most sincerely hoped not. But after
all you are very young and very impressionable, and the
younger the better, my little man. The younger the better."

Meg looked up at the fiery eyes, at the light pulsing above
them, and then away. She tried looking at the mouth, at the
thin, almost colorless lips, and this was more possible, even
though she had to look obliquely, so that she was not sure
exactly what the face really looked like, whether it was
young or old, cruel or kind, human or alien.

"If you please," she said, trying to sound calm and brave.
"The only reason we are here is because we think our father
is here. Can you tell us where to find him?"

"Ah, your fatheri" There seemed to be a great chortling
of delight. "Ah, yes, your fatheri It is not can 1, you know,
young lady, but wiU I?"

"Will you, then?"

"That depends on a number of things. Why do you want
your father?"

"Didn't you ever have a father yourself?" Meg demanded.
"You don't want him for a reason. You want him because

he's your father"

"Ah, but he hasn't been acting very like a father, lately,
has he? Abandoning his wife and his four little children to
go gallivanting off on wild adventures of his own."

123

A Wrinkle in Time

"He was working for the government. He'd never have
left us otherwise. And we want to see him, please. Right
now."

"My, but the little miss is impatient! Patience, patience,
young lady."

Meg did not tell the man on the chair that patience was
not one of her virtues.

"And by the way, my children," he continued blandly,
"you don't need to vocalize verbally with me, you know. I

can understand you quite as well as you can understand

»
me.

Charles Wallace put his hands on his hips defiantly. "The
spoken word is one of the triumphs of man," he proclaimed,
"and I intend to continue using it, particularly with people
I don't trust." But his voice was shaking. Charles Wallace,
who even as an infant had seldom cried, was near tears.

"And you don't trust me?"

"What reason have you given us to trust you?"

"What cause have I given you for distrust?" The thin lips
curled slightly.

Suddenly Charles Wallace darted forward and hit the
man as hard as he could, which was fairly hard, as he had
had a good deal of coaching from the twins.

"Charles!" Meg screamed.

The men in dark smocks moved smoothly but with
swiftness to Charles. The man in the chair casually raised
one finger, and the men dropped back.

"Hold it—" Calvin whispered, and together he and Meg

124

The Man with Red Eyes

darted forward and grabbed Charles Wallace, pulling him
back from the platform.

The man gave a wince and the thought of his voice was a
little breathless, as though Charles Wallace's punch had
succeeded in winding him. "May I ask why you did that?"

"Because you aren't you," Charles Wallace said. "I'm
not sure what you are, but you"—he pointed to the man
on the chair—"aren't what's talking to us. I'm sorry if I
hurt you. I didn't think you were real. I thought perhaps
you were a robot, because I don't feel anything coming directly from you. I'm not sure where it's coming from, but
it's coming through you. It isn't you."

"Pretty smart, aren't you?" the thought asked, and Meg
had an uncomfortable feeling that she detected a snarl.

"It's not that I'm smart," Charles Wallace said, and again
Meg could feel the palm of his hand sweating inside hers.

"Try to find out who I am, then," the thought probed.

"I have been trying," Charles Wallace said, his voice
high and troubled.

"Look into my eyes. Look deep within them and I will

tell you."

Charles Wallace looked quickly at Meg and Calvin,
then said, as though to himself, "I have to," and focused
his clear blue eyes on the red ones of the man in the chair.
Meg looked not at the man but at her brother. After a
moment it seemed that his eyes were no longer focusing.
The pupils grew smaller and smaller, as though he were
looking into an intensely bright light, until they seemed to

125

A Wrinkle in Time

close entirely, until his eyes were nothing but an opaque
blue. He slipped his hands out of Meg's and Calvin's and
started walking slowly toward the man on the chair.

"No!" Meg screamed. "No!"

But Charles Wallace continued his slow walk forward,
and she knew that he had not heard her.

"No!" she screamed again, and ran after him. With her
inefficient flying tackle she landed on him. She was so much
larger than he that he fell sprawling, hitting his head a sharp
crack against the marble floor. She knelt by him, sobbing.
After a moment of lying there as though he had been
knocked out by the blow, he opened his eyes, shook h^s
head, and sat up. Slowly the pupils of his eyes dilated until
they were back to normal, and the blood came back to his
white cheeks.

The man on the chair spoke directly into Meg's mind,
and now there was a distinct menace to the words. "I am
not pleased," he said to her. "I could very easily lose
patience with you, and that, for your information, young
lady, would not be good for your father. If you have the
slightest desire to see your father again, you had better
cooperate."

Meg reacted as she sometimes reacted to Mr. Jenkins
at school. She scowled down at the ground in sullen fury.
"It might help if you gave us something to eat." she complained. "We're all starved. If you're going to be horrible
to us you might as well give us full stomachs first."

Again the thoughts coming at her broke into laughter.

126

The Man with Red Eyes

Isn't she the funny girl, thoughl It's lucky for you that
you amuse me, my dear, or I shouldn't be so easy on you.
The boys I find not nearly so diverting. Ah, well. Now, tell
me, young lady, if I feed you will you stop interfering
with me?"

"No," Meg said.

"Starvation does work wonders, of course," the man
/ told her. "I hate to use such primitive methods on you, but
of course you realize that you force them on me."

"I wouldn't eat your old food, anyhow." Meg was still all
churned up and angry as though she were in Mr. Jenkins'
office. "I wouldn't trust it."

"Of course our food, being synthetic, is not superior to
your messes of beans and bacon and so forth, but I assure
you that it's far more nourishing, and though it has no
taste of its own, a slight conditioning is all that is necessary
to give you the illusion that you are eating'a roast turkey
dinner."

"If I ate now I'd throw up, anyhow," Meg said.

Still holding Meg's and Calvin's hands, Charles Wallace
stepped forward. "Okay, what next?" he asked the man on
the chair. "We've had enough of these preliminaries. Let's
get on with it."

"That's exactly what we were doing," the man said, "until
your sister interfered by practically giving you a brain concussion. Shall we try again?"

"No!" Meg cried. "No, Charles. Please. Let me do it.
Or Calvin."

127

A Wrinkle in Time

"But it is only the little boy whose neurological system
is complex enough. If you tried to conduct the necessary
neurons your brains would explode."

"And Charles's wouldn't?"

"1 think not."

"But there's a possibility?"

"There's always a possibility."

"Then he mustn't do it."

"I think you will have to grant him the right to make his
own decisions."

But Meg, with the dogged tenacity that had so often
caused her trouble, continued. "You mean Calvin and I
can't know who you really are?"

"Oh, no, I didn't say that. You can't know it in the same
way, nor is it as important to me to have you know. Ah,
here we are!" From somewhere in the shadows appeared
four more men in dark smocks carrying a table. It was
covered with a white cloth, like the tables used by Room
Service in hotels, and held a metal hot box containing
something that smelled delicious, something that smelled
like a turkey dinner.

There's something phoney in the whole setup, Meg
thought. There is definitely something rotten in the state of
Camazotz.

Again the thoughts seemed to break into laughter. "Of
course it doesn't really smell, but isn't it as good as though
it really did?"

"I don't smell anything," Charles Wallace said.

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The Man with Red Eyes

'1 know, young man, and think how much you're missing.
This will all taste to you as though you were eating sand.
But I suggest that you force it down. I would rather not
have your decisions come from the weakness of an empty
stomach."

The table was set up in front of them, and the dark
smocked men heaped their plates with turkey and dressing
and mashed potatoes and gravy and little green peas with
big yellow blobs of butter melting in them and cranberries
and sweet potatoes topped with gooey browned marshmallows and olives and celery and rosebud radishes and—

Meg felt her stomach rumbling loudly. The saliva came
to her mouth.

"Oh, Jeeminy—" Calvin mumbled.

Chairs appeared and the four men who had provided
the feast slid back into the shadows.

Charles Wallace freed his hands from Meg and Calvin
and plunked himself down on one of the chairs.

"Come on," he said. "If it's poisoned it's poisoned, but I
don't think it is."

Calvin sat down. Meg continued to stand indecisively.

Calvin took a bite. He chewed. He swallowed. He looked
at Meg. "If this isn't real, it's the best imitation youTI ever

get"
•  Charles Wallace took a bite, made a face, and spit out his

mouthful. "It's unfair!" he shouted at the man.
Laughter again. "Co on, little fellow. Eat."
Meg sighed and sat. "I don't think we should eat this

129

A Wrinkle in Time

stuff, but if youre going to, I'd better, too." She took a
mouthful. "It tastes all right. Try some of mine, Charles."
She held out a forkful of turkey.

Charles Wallace took it, made another face, but managed
to swallow. "Still tastes like sand," he said- He looked at
the man. "Why?"

"You know perfectly well why. You've shut your mind
entirely to me. The other two can't. I can get in through the
chinks. Not all the way in, but enough to give them a turkey
dinner. You see, I'm really just a kind, Jolly old gentleman."

"Ha," Charles Wallace said.

The man lifted his lips into a smile, and his smile was the
most horrible thing Meg had ever seen. "Why don't you
trust me, Charles? Why don't you trust me enough to come
in and find out what I am? I am peace and utter rest. I am
freedom from all responsibility. To come in to me is the last
difficult decision you need ever make,"

"If I come in can I get out again?" Charles Wallace asked.

"'But of course, if you want to. But I don't think you wiU
want to."

"If I come—not to stay, you understand—just to find out
about you, will you tell us where Father is?"

"Yes. That is a promise. And I don't make promises
lightly."

"Can I speak to Meg and Calvin alone, without your
listening in?"

"No."

Charles shrugged. "Listen," he said to Meg and Calvin.
"I have to find out what he really is. You know that. I'm

130

The Man with Red Eyes

going to try to hold back. I'm going to try to keep part of
myself out. You mustn't stop me this time, Meg."

"But you won't be able to, Charles! He's stronger than
you are! You know that!"
"I have to try."
"But Mrs. Whatsit warned you!"

"I have to try. For Father, Meg. Please. I want—I want to
know my father—" For a moment his lips trembled. Then
he was back in control. "But it isn't only Father, Meg.
You know that, now. It's the Black Thing. We have to do
what Mrs. Which sent us to do."
"Calvin—" Meg begged.

But Calvin shook his head. "He's right, Meg. And we'll be
with him, no matter what happens."

"But what's going to happen?" Meg cried,
Charles Wallace looked up at the maih "Okay," he said.
"Let's go."

Now the red eyes and the light above seemed to bore into
Charles, and again the pupils of the little boy's eyes contracted. When the final point of black was lost in blue he
turned away from the red eyes, looked at Meg, and smiled
sweetly, but the smile was not Charles Wallace's smile.

"Come on, Meg, eat this delicious food that has been prepared for us," he said.

Meg snatched Charles Wallace's plate and threw it on
the floor, so that the dinner splashed about and the plate
broke into fragments. "No!" She cried, her voice rising
shrilly. "No! No! No!"
From the shadows came one of the dark-smocked men

131

A Wrinkle in Time

and put another plate in front of Charles Wallace, and he
began to eat eagerly. "What's wrong, Meg?" Charles Wallace asked. "Why are you being so belligerent and uncooperative?" The voice was Charles Wallace's voice, and yet
it was different, too, somehow flattened out, almost as a
voice might have sounded on the two-dimensional planet.

Meg grabbed wildly at Calvin, shrieking, "That isn't
Charles! Charles is gone!"

132

8 The Transparent Column

CHARLES Wallace sat there tucking away turkey and dressing, as though it were the most delicious thing he had ever
tasted. He was dressed like Charles Wallace; he looked
like Charles Wallace; he had the same sandy brown hair,
the same face that had not yet lost its baby roundness. Only
the eyes were different, for the black was still swallowed up
in blue. But it was far more than this that made Meg feel
that Charles Wallace was gone, that the little boy in his
place was only a copy of Charles Wallace, only a doll.

She fought down a sob. "Where is he?" she demanded of

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A Wrinkle in Time

the man with red eyes. "What have you done with him?
Where is Charles Wallace?"

"But my dear child, you are hysterical," the man thought
at her. "He is right there, before you, well and happy.
Completely well and happy for the first time in his life. And
he is finishing his dinner, which you also would be wise
to do."

"You know it isn't Charles!" Meg shouted. "You've got
him somehow."

"Hush, Meg. There's no use trying to talk to him," Calvin
said, speaking in a low voice into her ear. "What we have
to do is hold Charles Wallace tight. He's there, somewhere,
underneath, and we mustn't let them take him away from
us. Help me hold him, Meg. Don't lose control of yourself.
Not now. You've got to help me hold Chariest" He took
the little boy firmly by one arm.

Fighting down her hysteria, Meg took Charles's other
arm and held it tightly.

"You're hurting me, Megl" Charles said sharply. "Let
me goF

"No," Meg said grimly.

"We've been all wrong." Charles Wallace's voice, Meg
thought, might have been a recording. There was a canned
quality to it. "He isn't an enemy at all. He's our friend."

"Nuts," Calvin said rudely.

"You don't understand, Calvin," Charles Wallace said.
"Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which have confused
us. They're the ones who are really our enemies. We never
should have trusted them for a minute." He spoke in his
calmest, most reasonable voice, the voice which infuriated

i34

The Transparent Column

the twins. He seemed to be looking directly at Calvin as he
spoke, and yet Meg was sure that the bland blue eyes
could not see, and that someone, something else was looking at Calvin through Charles.

Now the cold, strange eyes turned to her. "Meg, let eo. I
will explain it all to you, but you must let go."

"No." Meg gritted her teeth. She did not release her
grasp, and Charles Wallace began to pull away with a
power that was not his own, and her own spindly strength
was no match against it. "Calvin!" she gasped as Charles
Wallace wrenched his arm from her and stood up.

Calvin the athlete, Calvin the boy who split firewood and
brought it in for his mother, whose muscles were strong
and controlled, let go Charles Wallace's wrist and tackled
him as though he were a football. Meg, in her panic and
rage, darted at the man on the chair, intending to hit him as
Charles Wallace had done, but the black'-smocked men
were too quick for her, and one of them held her with her
arms pinioned behind her back.

"Calvin, I advise you to let me go," came Charles Wallace's voice from under Calvin.

Calvin, his face screwed up with grim determination, did
not relax his hold. The man with red eyes nodded and three
of the men moved in on Calvin (at least it took three of
them), pried him loose, and held him as Meg was being
held.

"Mrs. WhatsitI" Meg called despairingly. "0h, Mrs.
Whatsiti"

But Mrs. Whatsit did not come.

"Meg," Charles Wallace said. "Meg, just listen to me."

i35

A Wrinkle in Time

"Okay, I'm listening."

"We've been all wrong, I told you; we haven't understood. We've been fighting our friend, and Father's friend."

"If Father tells me he's our friend maybe I'll believe it.
Maybe. Unless he's got Father—under—under a spell, or
whatever it is, like you."

"This isn't a fairy tale. Spells indeed," Charles Wallace
said. "Meg, you've got to stop fighting and relax. Relax and
be happy. Oh, Meg, if you'd just relax you'd realize that all
our troubles are over. You don't understand what a wonderful place we've come to. You see, on this planet everything
is in perfect order because everybody has learned to relax,
to give in, to submit. All you have to do is look quietly and
steadily into the eyes of our good friend here, for he is our
friend, dear sister, and he will take you in as he has taken

me.

Taken you in is right!" Meg said. "You know you're
not you. You know you've never in your life called me dear
sister."

"Shut up a minute, Meg," Calvin whispered to her. He
looked up at the man with red eyes. "Okay, have your
henchmen let us go and stop talking to us through Charles.
We know it's you talking, or whatever's talking through
you. Anyhow, we know you have Charles hypnotized."

"A most primitive way of putting it," the man with red
eyes murmured. He gestured slightly with one finger, and
Meg and Calvin were released.

"Thanks," Calvin said wryly. "Now, if you are our friend,
will you tell us who—or what—you are?"

136

The Transparent Column

"It is not necessary for you to know who I am. I am the
Prime Coordinator, that is all you need to know."

"But you're being spoken through, aren't you, just like
Charles Wallace? Are you hypnotized, too?"

"I told you that was too primitive a word, without the
correct connotations."

"Is it you who are going to take us to Mr. Murry?"

"No. It is not necessary, nor is it possible, for me to leave
here. Charles Wallace will conduct you."

"Charles Wallace?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Now." The man with red eyes made the frightening
grimace that passed for his smile. "Yes, I think it might as
well be now."

Charles Wallace gave a slight jerk of his head, saying,
"Come," and started to walk in a strange, gliding, mechanical manner. Calvin followed him. Meg hesitated, looking
from the man with red eyes to Charles and Calvin. She
wanted to reach out and grab Calvin's hand, but it seemed
that ever since they had begun their joumeyings she had
been looking for a hand to hold, so she stuffed her fists
into her pockets and walked along behind the two boys.
—I've got to be brave, she said to herself.—I will be.

They moved down a long, white, and seemingly endless
corridor. Charles Wallace continued the jerky rhythm of
his walk and did not once look back to see if they were with
him.

Suddenly Meg broke into a run and caught up with Calvin. "Cal," slie said. "listen. Quick. Remember Mrs. Whatsit
said your gift was communication and that was what she
was giving you. We've been trying to fight Charles physically, and that isn't any good. Can't you try to communicate
with him? Can't you try to get in to him?"

"Golly day, you're right." Calvin's face lit up with hope,
and his eyes, which had been somber, regained their usual
sparkle. "I've been in such a swivet— It may not do any
good, but at least I can try." They quickened their pace
until they were level with Charles Wallace. Calvin reached
out for his arm, but Charles flung it off.

"Leave me alone," he snarled.

"I'm not going to hurt you, old sport," Calvin said. "I'm
just trying to be friendly. Let's make it up, hunh?"

"You mean you're coming around?" Charles Wallace
asked.

"Sure," Calvin's voice was coaxing. "We're reasonable
people, after all. Just look at me for a minute, Charlibus."

Charles Wallace stopped and turned slowly to look at
Calvin with his cold, vacant eyes. Calvin looked back, and
Meg could feel the intensity of his concentration. An
enormous shudder shook Charles Wallace. For a brief flash
his eyes seemed to see. Then his whole body twirled wildly,
and went rigid. He started his marionette's walk again. "I
should have known better," he said. "If you want to see
Murry you'd better come with me and not try any more
hanky-panky."

"Is that what you call your father—Murry?" Calvin

138

The Transparent Column

asked. Meg could see that be was angry and upset at his
near success.

"Father? What is a father?" Charles Wallace intoned.
"Merely another misconception. If you feel the need of a
father, then I would suggest that you turn to IT."

IT again.

"Who's this IT?" Meg asked.

"All in good time," Charles Wallace said. "You're not
ready for IT yet. First of all I will tell you something about
this beautiful, enlightened planet of Camazotz." His voice
took on the dry, pedantic tones of Mr. Jenkins. "Perhaps
you do not realize that on Camazotz we have conquered all
illness, all deformity—"

"We?" Calvin interrupted.

Charles continued as though he had not heard. And of
course he hadn't, Meg thought. "We lefc-no one suffer. It is
so much kinder simply to annihilate anyone who is ill. Nobody has weeks and weeks of runny noses and sore throats.
Rather than endure such discomfort they are simply put
to sleep."

"You mean they're put to sleep while they have a cold,
or that they're murdered?" Calvin demanded.

"Murder is a most primitive word," Charles Wallace said.
"There is no such thing as murder on Camazotz. IT takes
care of all such things." He moved jerkily to the wall of the
corridor, stood still for a moment, then raised his hand. The
wall flickered, quivered, grew transparent. Charles Wallace
walked through it, beckoned to Meg and Calvin, and they

i39

A Wrinkle in Time

followed. They were in a small, square room from which
radiated a dull, sulphurous light. There was something
ominous to Meg in the very compactness of the room, as
though the walls, the ceiling, the floor might move together
and crush anybody rash enough to enter.

"How did you do that?" Calvin asked Charles.

"Do what?"
"Make the wall—open—like that."

"I merely rearranged the atoms," Charles Wallace said
loftily. "You've studied atoms in school, haven't you?"

"Sure, but—"

"Then you know enough to know that matter isn't solid,
don't you? That you, Calvin, consist mostly of empty space?
That if all the matter in you came together you'd be the
size of the head of a pin? That's plain scientiBc fact, isn't

it?"

"Yes. but—"

"So I simply pushed the atoms aside and we walked
through the space between them."

Meg's stomach seemed to drop, and she realized that
the square box in which they stood must be an elevator and
that they had started to move upward with great speed. The
yellow light lit up their faces, and the pale blue of Charles's
eyes absorbed the yellow and turned green.
Calvin licked his lips. "Where are we going?"

"Up." Charles continued his lecture. "On Camazotz we
are all happy because we are all alike. Differences create
problems. You know that, don't you, dear sister?"

140

The Transparent Column

"No," Meg said.

"Oh, yes, you do. You've seen at home how true it is.
You know that's the reason you're not happy at school. Because you're different."

"I'm different, and I'm happy," Calvin said.

"But you pretend that you arent different."

"I'm different, and I like being different." Calvin's voice
was unnaturally loud.

"Maybe I don't like being different," Meg said. "but I
don't want to be like everybody else, either."

Charles Wallace raised his hand and the motion of the
square box ceased and one of the walls seemed to disappear.
Charles stepped out, Meg and Calvin following him, Calvin
just barely making it before the wall came into being again,
and they could no longer see where the opening had been.

"You wanted Calvin to get left behind, didn't you?" Meg
said.

"I am merely trying to teach you to stay on your toes,
I warn you, if I have any more trouble from either of you, I
shall have to take you to IT."

As the word IT fell from Charles's lips, again Meg felt
as though she had been touched by something slimy and
horrible. "So what is this IT?" she asked.

"You might call IT the Boss." Then Charles Wallace
giggled, a giggle that was the most sinister sound Meg had
ever heard. "IT sometimes calls ITseIf the Happiest Sadist."

Meg spoke coldly, to cover her fear. "I don't know what
you're talking about."

141

A Wrinkle in Time

"That's s-a-d-i-s-t, not s-a-d-d-e-s-t, you know," Charles
Wallace said, and giggled again. "Lots of people don't

pronounce it correctly."
"Well, I don't care," Meg said defiantly. "I don't ever

want to see IT, and that's that."

Charles Wallace's strange, monotonous voice ground
against her ears. "Meg, you're supposed to have some mind.
Why do you think we have wars at home? Why do you think
people get confused and unhappy? Because they all live
their own, separate, individual lives. I've been trying to
explain to you in the simplest possible way that on Camazotz individuals have been done away with. Camazotz is
ONE mind. It's IT. And that's why everybody's so happy
and efficient- That's what old witches like Mrs. Whatsit
don't want to have happen at home."

"She's not a witch," Meg interrupted.

"No?"
"No," Calvin said. "You know she's not. You know that's

just their game. Their way, maybe, of laughing in the dark."

"In the dark is correct," Charles continued. 'They want
us to go on being confused instead of properly organized."

Meg shook her head violently. "No!" she shouted. "I
know our world isn't perfect, Charles, but it's better than
this. This isn't the only alternative! It can't be!"

"Nobody suffers here," Charles intoned. "Nobody is ever

unhappy."

"But nobody's ever happy, either," Meg said earnestly.

"Maybe it you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know
how to be happy. Calvin, I want to go home."

142

The Transparent Column

"We can't leave Charles," Calvin told her, "and we can't
go before we've found your father. You know that. But
you're right, Meg, and Mrs. Which is right. This is Evil."

Charles Wallace shook his head, and scorn and disapproval seemed to emanate from him. "Come- We're wasting time." He moved rapidly down the corridor, but continued to speak. "How dreadful it is to be low, individual
organisms. Tch-tch-tch." His pace quickened from step to
step, his short legs flashing, so that Meg and Calvin almost
had to run to keep up with him. "Now see this," he said.
He raised his liand and suddenly they could see through
one of the walls into a small room. In the room a little boy
was bouncing a ball. He was bouncing it in rhythm, and the
walls of his little cell seemed to pulse with the rhythm of
the ball. And each time the ball bounced he screamed as
though he were in pain.

"That's the little boy we saw this afternoon," Calvin said
sharply, "the little boy who wasn't bouncing the ball like
the others."

Charles Wallace giggled again. "Yes. Every once in a
while there's a little trouble with cooperation, but it's easily
taken care of. After today he'll never desire to deviate again.
Ah, here we are."

He moved rapidly down the corridor and again held up
his hand to make the wall transparent. They looked into
another small room or cell. In the center of it was a large,
round, transparent column, and inside this column was a
man.

"FATHER!" Meg screamed.

i43

9 IT

MEG rushed at the man imprisoned in the column, but as
she reached what seemed to be the open door she was
hurled back as though .she had crashed into a brick wall.

Calvin caught her. "It's just transparent like glass this
time," he told her. "We can't go through it."

Meg was so sick and dizzy from the impact that she
could not answer. For a moment she was afraid that she
would throw up or faint. Charles Wallace laughed again,
the laugh that was not his own, and it was this that saved
her, for once more anger overcame her pain and fear.
Charles Wallace, her own real, dear Charles Wallace, never

144

It

laughed at her when she hurt herself. Instead, his arms
would go quickly around her neck and he would press his
soft cheek against hers in loving comfort. But the demon
Charles Wallace snickered. She turned away from him and
looked again at the man in the column.

"Oh, Father—" she whispered longingly, but the man
in the column did not move to look at her. The hornrimmed glasses, which always seemed so much a part of
him, were gone, and the expression of his eyes was turned
inward, as though he were deep in thought. He had grown
a beard, and the silky brown was shot with gray. His hair,
too, had not been cut. It wasn't just the overlong hair of the
man in the snapshot at Cape Canaveral; it was pushed
back from his high forehead and fell softly almost to his
shoulders, so that he looked like someone in another century, or a shipwrecked sailor. But there was no question,
despite the change in him, that he was her father, her own
beloved father.

"My, he looks a mess, doesn't he?" Charles Wallace said,
and sniggered.

Meg swung on him with sick rage. "Charles, that's FatherI
Father!"

"So what?"

Meg turned away from him and held out her arms to the
man in the column.

"He doesn't see us, Meg," Calvin said gently.

"Why? Why?"

"I think it's sort of like those little peepholes they have
in apartments, in the front doors," Calvin explained.
"You know. From inside you can look through and see

145

A Wrinkle in Time

everything. And from outside you can't see anything at all.

We can see him, but he can't see us."

"Charles!" Meg pleaded. "Let me in to Father!"

"Why?" Charles asked placidly.

Meg remembered that when they were in the room
with the man with red eyes she had knocked Charles Wallace back into himself when she tackled him and his head
cracked the floor; so she hurled herself at him. But before
she could reach him his fist shot out and punched her hard
in the stomach. She gasped for breath. Sickly, she turned
away from her brother, back to the transparent wall. There
was the cell, there was the column with her father inside.
Although she could see him, although she was almost close
enough to touch him, he seemed farther away than he
had been when she had pointed him out to Calvin in the
picture on the piano. He stood there quietly as though
frozen in a column of ice, an expression of suffering and
endurance on his face that pierced into her heart like an
arrow.

"You say you want to help Father?" Charles Wallace's
voice came from behind her, with no emotion whatsoever.

"Yes. Don't you?" Meg demanded, swinging around and
glaring at him.

"But of course. That is why we are here."

"Then what do we do?" Meg tried to keep the franticness out of her voice, trying to sound as drained of feeling as
Charles, but nevertheless ending on a squeak.

"You must do as I have done, and go in to IT," Charles
said.

"No."

"I can see you don't really want to save Father."

"How will my being a zombie save Father?"

"You will just have to take my word for it, Margaret,"
came the cold, fiat voice from Charles Wallace. "IT wants
you and IT will get you. Don't forget that I, too, am part of
IT, now. You know I wouldn't have done IT if IT weren't
the right thing to do."

"Calvin," Meg asked in agony, "will it really save Father?"
But Calvin was paying no attention to her. He seemed to
be concentrating with all his power on Charles Wallace.
He stared into the pale blue that was all that was left of
Charles Wallace's eyes. "And, for thou wast a spirit too
delicate/To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands . . ./she did confine thee ... into a cloven pine—" he whispered,
and Meg recognized Mrs. Who's words to him.

For a moment Charles Wallace seemed to listen. Then he
shrugged and turned away. Calvin followed him, trying to
keep his eyes focused on Charles's. "If you want a witch,
Charles," he said, "IT'S the witch. Not our ladies. Good
thing I had The Tempest at school this year, isn't it,
Charles? It was the witch who put Ariel in the cloven pine,
wasn't it?"

Charles Wallace's voice seemed to come from a great
distance. "Stop staring at me."

Breathing quickly with excitement, Calvin continued to
hold Charles Wallace with his stare. "You're like Ariel in the
cloven pine, Charles. And I can let you out. Look at me,
Charles. Come back to us."

Again the shudder went through Charles Wallace.

Calvin's intense voice hit at him. "Come back, Charles.
Come back to us."

Again Charles shuddered. And then it was as though an
invisible hand had smacked against his chest and knocked
him to the ground, and the stare with which Calvin had
held him was broken. Charles sat there on the floor of the
corridor whimpering, not a small boy's sound, but a fearful,
animal noise.

"Calvin." Meg turned on him, clasping her hands intensely. "Try to get to Father."

Calvin shook his head. "Charles almost came out. I almost
did it. He almost came back to us."

"Try Father," Meg said again.

"How?"

"Your cloven pine thing. Isn't Father imprisoned in a
cloven pine even more than Charles? Look at him, in that
column there. Get him out, Calvin."

Calvin spoke in an exhausted way. "Meg. I don't know
what to do, I don't know how to get in. Meg, they're asking
too much of us."

"Mrs. Who's spectacles!" Meg said suddenly. Mrs. Who
had told her to use them only as a last resort, and surely
that was now. She reached into her pocket and the spectacles were there, cool and light and comforting. With trembling fingers she pulled them out.

"Give me those spectacles!" Charles Wallace's voice came
in a harsh command, and he scrambled up off the floor and
ran at her.

She barely had time to snatch off her own glasses and
put on Mrs. Who's, and, as it was, one earpiece dropped
down her cheek and they barely stayed on her nose. As
Charles Wallace lunged at her she flung herself against
the transparent door and she was through it. She was in the
cell with the imprisoning column that held her father. With
trembling fingers she straightened Mrs. Who's glasses and
put her own in her pocket.

"Give them to me," came Charles Wallace's menacing
voice, and he was in the cell with her, with Calvin on the
outside pounding frantically to get in.

Meg kicked at Charles Wallace and ran at the column.
She felt as though she were going through something dark
and cold. But she was through. "Father!" she cried. And
she was in his arms.

This was the moment for which she had been waiting, not
only since Mrs. Which whisked them off OB their journeys,
but during the long months and years before, when the
letters had stopped coming, when people made remarks
about Charles Wallace, when Mrs. Murry showed a rare
flash of loneliness or grief. This was the moment that meant
that now and forever everything would be all right.

As she pressed against her father all was forgotten except
joy. Tl-iere was only the peace and comfort of leaning
against him, the wonder of the protecting circle of his arms,
the feeling of complete reassurance and safety that his
presence always gave her.

Her voice broke on a happy sob. "Oh, Father! Oh,
Father!"

"Meg!" he cried in glad surprise. "Meg, what are you
doing here? Where's your mother? Where are the boys?"

She looked out of the column, and there "was Charles
Wallace in the cell, an alien expression distorting his face.
She turned back to her father. There was no more time for
greeting, tor joy, for explanations, "We have to go to
Charles Wallace," she said, her words tense. "Quickly."

Her father's hands were moving gropingly over her face^
and as she felt the touch of his strong, gentle fingers, she
realized with a flooding of horror that she could see him,
that she could see Charles in the cell and Calvin in the
corridor, but her father could not see them. could not see
her. She looked at him in panic, but his eyes were the same
steady blue that she remembered. She moved her hand
brusquely across his line of vision, but he did not blink.
"Father!" she cried. "Father! Can't you see me?"
His arms went around her again in a comforting, reassuring gesture. "No, Meg."

"But, Father, I can see you—" Her voice trailed off.
Suddenly she shoved Mrs. Who's glasses down her nose and
peered over them, and immediately she was in complete
and utter darkness. She snatched them off her face and
thrust them at her father. "Here."

His fingers closed about the spectacles. "Darling," he
said, "I'm afraid your glasses won't help."

"But they're Mrs. Who's, they aren't mine," she explained,
not realizing that her words would sound like gibberish to
him. "Please try them. Father. Please!" She waited while
she felt him rumbling in the dark. "Can you see now?" she
asked. "Can you see now. Father?"

150

It

"Yes," he said. "Yes. The wall is transparent, now. How
extraordinary! I could almost see the atoms rearranging!"
His voice had its old, familiar sound of excitement and discovery. It was the way he sounded sometimes when he
came home from his laboratory after a good day and began
to tell his wife about his work. Then he cried out, "Charles!
Charles Wallacel" And then, "Meg, what's happened to
him? What's wrong? That is Charles, isn't it?"

"IT has him. Father," she explained tensely. "He's gone
into IT. Father, we have to help him."

For a long moment Mr. Murry was silent. The silence
was filled with the words he was thinking and would not
speak out loud to his daughter. Then he said, "Meg, I'm in
prison here. I have been for—"

"Father, these walls. You can go through them. I came
through the column to get in to you. Ifc was Mrs. Who's
glasses."

Mr. Murry did not stop to ask who Mrs. Who was. He
slapped his hand against the translucent column. "It seems
solid enough."

"But I got in," Meg repeated. "I'm here. Maybe the glasses
help the atoms rearrange. Try it. Father."

She waited, breathlessly, and after a moment she realized
that she was alone in the column. She put out her hands in
the darkness and felt its smooth surface curving about her
on all sides. She seemed utterly alone, the silence and darkness unpenetrable forever. She fought down panic until
she heard her father's voice coming to her very faintly.

"I'm coming back in for you, Meg."

i51

A Wrinkle in Time

It was almost a tangible feeling as the atoms of die
strange material seemed to part to let him through to her.
In their beach house at Cape Canaveral there had been a
curtain between dining and living room made of long
strands of rice. It looked like a solid curtain, but you could
walk right through it. At first Meg had flinched each time
she came up to the curtain; but gradually she got used to
it and would go running right through, leaving the long
strands of rice swinging behind her. Perhaps the atoms of
these walls were arranged in somewhat the same fashion.

'Tut your arms around my neck, Meg," Mr. Murry said.
"Hold on to me tightly. Close your eyes and don't be afraid."
He picked her up and she wrapped her long legs around
his waist and clung to his neck. With Mrs. Who's spectacles
on she had felt only a faint darkness and coldness as she
moved through the column. Without the glasses she felt
die same awful clamminess she had felt when they tessered
through the outer darkness of Camazotz. Whatever the
Black Thing was to which Camazotz had submitted, it was
within as well as without the planet. For a moment it
seemed that the chill darkness would tear her from her
father's arms. She tried to scream, but within that icy horror
no sound was possible. Her father's arms tightened about
her, and she clung to his neck in a strangle hold, but she
was no longer lost in panic. She knew that if her father
could not get her through the wall he would stay with her
rather than leave her; she knew that she was safe as long
as she was in his arms.

152

It

Then they were outside. The column rose up in the
middle of the room, crystal clear and empty.

Meg blinked at the blurred figures of Charles and her
father, and wondered why they did not clear. Then she
grabbed her own glasses out of her pocket and put them
on, and her myopic eyes were able to focus.

Charles Wallace was tapping one foot impatiently
against the floor. "IT is not pleased," he said. "IT is not
pleased at all."

Mr. Murry released Meg and knelt in front of the little
boy. "Charles," his voice was tender. "Charles Wallace."

"What do you want?"

"I'm your father, Charles. Look at me."

The pale blue eyes seemed to focus on Mr. Murry's face.
"Hi, Pop," came an insolent voice.

"That isn't Charles!" Meg cried. "Oh, Father, Charles
isn't like that. IT has him."

"Yes." Mr. Murry sounded tired. "I see." He held his
arms out. "Charles. Come here."

Father will make it all right. Meg thought. Everything
will be all right now.

Charles did not move toward the outstretched arms. He
stood a few feet away from his father, and he did not look
at him.

"Look at me," Mr. Murry commanded.

"No."

Mr. Murry's voice became harsh. "When you speak to
me you will say 'No, Father,' or 'No, sir.'"

"Come off it. Pop," came the cold voice from Charles
Wallace — Charles Wallace who, outside Camazotz, had
been strange, had been different, but never rude. "You're
not the boss around here."

Meg could see Calvin pounding again on the glass wall.
"Calvin!" she called.

"He can't hear you," Charles said. He made a horrible
face at Calvin, and then he thumbed his nose.

"Who's Calvin?" Mr. Murry asked.

"He's—" Meg started, but Charles Wallace cut her short.

"You'll have to defer your explanations. Let's go."

"Go where?"

"To IT."

"No," Mr. Murry said. "You can't take Meg there."

"Oh, can't I!"

"No, you cannot. You're my son, Charles, and I'm afraid
you will have to do as I say."

"But he isn't Charles!" Meg cried in anguish. Why didn't
her father understand? "Charles is nothing like that. Father!
You know he's nothing like that!"

"He was only a baby when I left," Mr. Murry said heavily.

"Father, it's IT talking through Charles. IT isn't Charles.
He's—he's bewitched."

"Fairy tales again," Charles said.

"You know IT, Father?" Meg asked.

"Yes."

"Have you seen IT?"
"Yes, Meg." Again his voice sounded exhausted. "Yes. I
have." He turned to Charles. "You know she wouldn't be
able to hold out."

"Exactly," Charles said.

"Father, you can't talk to him as though he were Charles!
Ask Calvin! Calvin will tell you."

"Come along," Charles Wallace said. "We must go." He
held up his hand carelessly and walked out of the cell, and
there was nothing for Meg and Mr. Murry to do but to
follow.

As they stepped into the corridor Meg caught at her
father's sleeve. "Calvin, here's Father!"

Calvin turned anxiously toward them. His freckles and
his hair stood out brilliantly against his white face.

"Make your introductions later," Charles Wallace said.
"IT does not like to be kept waiting." He walked down the
corridor, his gait seeming to get more jerky with each step.
The others followed, walking rapidly to keep up.

"Does your father know about the Mrs. W's?" Calvin
asked Meg.

"There hasn't been time for anything. Everything's awful." Despair settled like a stone in the pit of Meg's stomach.
She had been so certain that the moment she found her
father everything would be all right. Everything would be
settled. All the problems would be taken out of her hands.
She would no longer be responsible for anything.

And instead of this happy and expected outcome, they
seemed to be encountering all kinds of new troubles.

"He doesn't understand about Charles," she whispered to
Calvin, looking unhappily at her father's back as he walked
behind the little boy.

"Where are we going?" Calvin asked.

"To IT. Calvin, I don't want to go! I can't!" She stopped,
but Charles continued his jerky pace.

"We can't leave Charles," Calvin said. "They wouldn't
like it."

"Who wouldn't?"

"Mrs. Whatsit & Co."

"But they've betrayed us! They brought us here to this
terrible place and abandoned us!"

Calvin looked at her in surprise. "You sit down and give
up if you like," he said. "I'm sticking with Charles." He ran
to keep up with Charles Wallace and Mr. Murry.

"I didn't mean—" Meg started, and pounded after them.

Just as she caught up with them Charles Wallace stopped
and raised his hand, and there was the elevator again, its
yellow light sinister. Meg felt her stomach jerk as the swift
descent began. They were silent until the motion stopped,
silent as they followed Charles Wallace through long corridors and out into the street. The CENTRAL Central Intelligence Building loomed up, stark and angular, behind
them.

—Do something, Meg implored her father silently. —Do
something. Help. Save us.

They turned a comer, and at the end of the street was a
strange, domelike building. Its walls glowed with a flicker
of violet flame. Its silvery roof pulsed with ominous light.
The light was neither warm nor cold, but it seemed to

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It

reach out and touch them. This, Meg was sure, must be
where IT was waiting for them.

They moved down the street, more slowly now, and as
they came closer to the domed building the violet flickering
seemed to reach out, to envelop them, to suck them in:

they were inside.

Meg could feel a rhythmical pulsing. It was a pulsing not
only about her, but in her as well, as though the rhythm of
her heart and lungs was no longer her own but was being
worked by some outside force. The closest she had come
to the feeling before was when she had been practicing artificial respiration with Girl Scouts, and the leader, an immensely powerful woman, had been working on Meg, intoning OUT goes the bad air, IN comes the good! while
her heavy hands pressed, released, pressed, released.

Meg gasped, trying to breathe at her ewn normal rate,
but the inexorable beat within and without continued. For
a moment she could neither move nor look around to see
what was happening to the others. She simply had to stand
there, trying to balance herself into the artificial rhythm of
her heart and lungs. Her eyes seemed to swim in a sea of
red.

Then things began to clear, and she could breathe without gasping like a beached fish, and she could look about
the great, circular, domed building. It was completely
empty except for the pulse, which seemed a tangible tiling,
and a round dais exactly in the center. On the dais lay—
what? Meg could not tell, and yet she knew that it was
from this that the rhythm came. She stepped forward

i57

A Wrinkle in Time

tentatively. She felt that she was beyond fear now. Charles
Wallace was no longer Charles Wallace. Her father had
been found but he had not made everything all right. Instead everything was worse than ever, and her adored
father was bearded and thin and white and not omnipotent
after all. No matter what happened next, things could be no
more terrible or frightening than they already were.

Oh, couldn't they?

As she continued to step slowly forward, at last she realized what the Thing on the dais was.

IT was a brain.

A disembodied brain. An oversized brain, just enough
larger than normal to be completely revolting and terrifying. A living brain. A brain that pulsed and quivered, that
seized and commanded. No wonder the brain was called
IT. IT was the most horrible, the most repellent thing she
had ever seen, far more nauseating than anything she had
ever imagined with her conscious mind, or that had ever
tormented her in her most terrible nightmares.

But as she had felt she was beyond fear, so now she was
beyond screaming.

She looked at Charles Wallace, and he stood there,
turned towards IT, his jaw hanging slightly loose; and his
vacant blue eyes slowly twirled.

Oh, yes, things could always be worse. These twirling
eyes within Charles Wallace's soft round face made Meg
icy cold inside and out.

She looked away from Charles Wallace and at her father.
Her father stood there with Mrs. Who's glasses still perched

i58

U

on his nose—did he remember that he had them on?—and
he shouted to Calvin. "Don't give inF

"I won't! Help Megl" Calvin yelled back. It was absolutely silent within the dome, and yet Meg realized that
the only way to speak was to shout with all the power possible. For everywhere she looked, everywhere she turned,
was the rhythm, and as it continued to control the systole
and diastole of her heart, the intake and outlet of her
breath, the red miasma began to creep before her eyes
again, and she was afraid that she was going to lose consciousness, and if she did that she would be completely in
the power of IT.

Mrs. Whatsit had said, "Meg, I give you your faults."

What were her greatest faults? Anger, impatience, stubbornness. Yes, it was to her faults that she turned to save
herself now.

With an immense effort she tried to breathe against the
rhythm of IT. But ITs power was too strong. Each time she
managed to take a breath out of rhythm an iron hand
seemed to squeeze her heart and lungs.

Then she remembered that when they had been standing
before the man with red eyes, and the man with red eyes
had been intoning the multiplication table at them, Charles
Wallace had fought against his power by shouting out
nursery rhymes, and Calvin by the Gettysburg Address.

"Georgia, porgie, pudding and pie," she yelled. "Kissed
the girls and made them cry."

That was no good. It was too easy for nursery rhymes to
fall into the rhythm of IT.

i59

A Wrinkle in Time

She didn't know the Gettysburg Address. How did the
Declaration of Independence begin? She had memorized
it only that winter, not because she was required to at
school, but simply because she liked it.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident!" she shouted,
"that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

As she cried out the words she felt a mind moving in on
her own, felt IT seizing, squeezing her brain. Then she'
realized that Charles Wallace was speaking, or being
spoken through by IT.

"But that's exactly what we have on Camazotz. Complete equality. Everybody exactly alike."

For a moment her brain reeled with confusion. Then
came a moment of blazing truth. "No!" she cried triumphantly. "Like and equal are not the same thing at alll"

"Good girl, Meg!" her father shouted at her.

But Charles Wallace continued as though there had been
no interruption. "In Camazotz all are equal. In Camazotz
everybody is the same as everybody else," but he gave her
no argument, provided no answer, and she held on to her
moment of revelation.

Like and equal are two entirely different things.

For the moment she had escaped from the power of IT.

But how?

She knew that her own puny little brain was no match
for this great, bodiless, pulsing, writhing mass on the round
dais. She shuddered as she looked at IT. In the lab at school

160

It

there was a human brain preserved in formaldehyde, and
the seniors preparing for college had to take it out and look
at it and study it. Meg had felt that when that day came
she would never be able to endure it. But now she thought
that if only she had a dissecting knife she would slash at IT,
cutting ruthlessly through cerebrum, cerebellum.

Words spoke within her, directly this time, not through
Charles. "Don't you realize that if you destroy me, you also
destroy your little brother?"

If that great brain were cut, were crushed, would every
mind under ITs control on Camazotz die, too? Charles
Wallace and the man with red eyes and the man who ran
the number one spelling machine on the second grade
level and all the children playing ball and skipping rope
and all the mothers and all the men and women going in
and out of the buildings? Was their life completely dependent on IT? Were they beyond all possibility of salvation?

She felt the brain reaching at her again as she let her stubborn control slip. Red fog glazed her eyes.

Faintly she heard her father's voice, though she knew he
was shouting at the top of his lungs. "The periodic table
of elements, Meg! Say it!"

A picture flashed into her mind of winter evenings spent
sitting before the open fire and studying with her father.
"Hydrogen. Helium," she started obediently. Keep them
in their proper atomic order. What next. She knew it. Yes.
"Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen,
Fluorine." She shouted the words at her father, turned away

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A Wrinkle in Time

from IT. "Neon. Sodium. Magnesium. Aluminum. Silicon.
Phosphorus."

"Too rhythmical," her father shouted. ''What's the square
root of five?"

For a moment she was able to concentrate. Rack your
brains yourself, Meg. Don't let IT rack them. "The square
root of five is 2.236," she cried triumphantly, "because 2.236
times 2.236 equals 5!"

"What's the square root of seven?"

"The square root of seven is—" She broke off. She wasn't'
holding out. IT was getting at her, and she couldn't concentrate, not even on math, and soon she, too, would be
absorbed in IT, she would be an IT.

Tesser, sir!" she heard Calvin's voice through die red
darkness. "Tesser!"

She felt her father grab her by the wrist, there was a terrible jerk that seemed to break every bone in her body, then
the dark nothing of tessering.

If tessering with Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs.
Which had been a strange and fearful experience, it was
nothing like tessering with her father. After all, Mrs.
Which was experienced at it, and Mr. Murry—how did he
know anything about it at all? Meg felt that she was being
torn apart by a whirlwind. She was lost in an agony of pain
that finally dissolved into the darkness of complete unconsciousness.

162

10   Absolute Zero

THE first sign of returning consciousness was cold. Then
sound. She was aware of voices that seemed to be traveling
through her across an arctic waste. Slowly the icy sounds
cleared and she realized that the voices belonged to her
father and Calvin. She did not hear Charles Wallace. She
tried to open her eyes but the lids would not move. She
tried to sit up, but she could not stir. She struggled to turn
over, to move her hands, her feet, but nothing happened.
She knew that she had a body, but it was as lifeless as
marble.

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A Wrinkle in Time

She heard Calvin's frozen voice: "Her heart is beating
so slowly—"

Her father s voice: "But it's beating. She's alive."

"Barely."

"We couldn't find a heartbeat at all at first. We thought
she was dead."

"Yes."

"And then we could feel her heart, very faintly, the beats
very far apart. And then it got stronger. So all we have to
do is wait." Her father's words sounded brittle in her ears,.
as though they were being chipped out of ice.

Calvin; "Yes. You're right, sir."

She wanted to call out to them. "I'm alivel I'm very much
alive! Only I've been turned to stone."

But she could not call out any more than she could move.

Calvin's voice again. "Anyhow you got her away from IT.
You got us both away and we couldn't have gone on holding
out. IT'S so much more powerful and strong than— How
did we stay out, sir? How did we manage as long as we

did?"

Her father: "Because IT'S completely unused to being
refused. That's the only reason I could keep from being
absorbed, too. No mind has tried to hold out against IT for
so many thousands of centuries that certain centers have
become soft and atrophied through lack of use. If you
hadn't come to me when you did I'm not sure how much
longer I would have lasted. I was on the point of giving in."

Calvin: "Oh, no, sir—"

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Absolute Zero

Her father: "Yes. Nothing seemed important any more
but rest, and of course IT offered me complete rest. I had
almost come to the conclusion that I was wrong to fight,
that IT was right after all, and everything I believed in
most passionately was nothing but a madman's dream. But
then you and Meg came in to me, broke through my prison,
and hope and faith returned."

Calvin: "Sir, why were you on Camazotz at all? Was
there a particular reason for going there?"

Her father, with a frigid laugh: "Going to Camazotz was
a complete accident. I never intended even to leave our
own solar system. I was heading for Mars. Tessering is
even more complicated than we had expected,"

Calvin: "Sir, how was IT able to get Charles Wallace
before it got Meg and me?"

Her father: "From what you've told me it's because
Charles Wallace thought he could deliberately go into IT
and return. He trusted too much to his own strength—
listen!—I think the heartbeat is getting stronger!"

His words no longer sounded to her quite as frozen. Was
it his words that were ice, or her ears? Why did she hear
only her father and Calvin? Why didn't Charles Wallace
speak?

Silence. A long silence. Then Calvin's voice again: "Can't
we do anything? Can't we look for help? Do we just have
to go on waiting?"

Her fattier: "We can't leave her. And we must stay together. We must not be afraid to take time."

165

A Wrinkle in Time

Calvin: "You mean we were? We rushed into things on
Camazotz too fast, and Charles Wallace rushed in too fast,
and that's why he got caught?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. I don't know enough yet. Time is
different on Camazotz, anyhow. Our time, inadequate
though it is, at least is straightforward. It may not be even
fully one-dimensional, because it can't move back and forth
on its line, only ahead; but at least it's consistent in its direction. Time on Camazotz seems to be inverted, turned
in on itself. So I have no idea whether I was imprisoned is
that column for centuries or only for minutes." Silence for a
moment. Then her father's voice again. "I think I feel a
pulse in her wrist now."

Meg could not feel his fingers against her wrist. She could
not feel her wrist at all. Her body was still stone, but her
mind was beginning to be capable of movement. She tried
desperately to make some kind of a sound, a signal to them,
but nothing happened.

Their voices started again. Calvin: "About your project,
sir. Were you on it alone?"

Her father: "Oh, no. There were half a dozen of us working on it and I daresay a number of others we don't know
about. Certainly we weren't the only nation to investigate
along that line. It's not really a new idea. But we did try
very hard not to let it be known abroad that we were trying
to make it practicable."

T)id you come to Camazotz alone? Or were there others
with you?"

"I came alone. You see, Calvin, there was no way to try

166

Absolute Zero

it out ahead with rats or monkeys or dogs. And we had no
idea whether it would really work or whether it would be
complete bodily disintegration. Playing with time and
space is a dangerous game."

"But why you, sir?"

"I wasn't the first. We drew straws, and I was second."

"What happened to the first man?"

"We don't—look! Did her eyelids move?" Silence. Then:

"No. It was only a shadow."

But I did blink, Meg tried to tell them. I'm sure I did.
And I can hear you! Do something!

But there was only another long silence, during which
perhaps they were looking at her, watching for another
shadow, another flicker. Then she heard her father's voice
again, quiet, a little warmer, more like his own voice. "We
drew straws, and I was second. We know Hank went. We
saw him go. We saw him vanish right in front of the rest
of us. He was there and then he wasn't. We were to wait for
a year for his return or for some message. We waited.
Nothing."

Calvin, his voice cracking: "Jeepers, sir. You must have
been in sort of a flap."

Her father: "Yes. It's a frightening as well as an exciting
thing to discover that matter and energy are the same
thing, that size is an illusion, and that time is a material
substance. We can know this, but it's far more than we can
understand with our puny little brains. I think you will be
able to comprehend far more than I. And Charles Wallace
even more than you."

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A Wrinkle in Time

"Yes, but what happened, please, sir, after the first man?"

Meg could hear her father sigh. "Then it was my turn. I
went. And here I am. A wiser and a humbler man. I'm sure
I haven't been gone two years. Now that you've come I
have some hope that I may be able to return in time. One
thing I have to tell the others is that we know nothing."

Calvin: "What do you mean, sir?"

Her father: "Just what I say. We're children playing with
dynamite. In our mad rush we've plunged into this before—"

With a desperate effort Meg made a sound. It wasn't a
very loud sound, but it was a sound. Mr. Murry stopped.
"Hush. Listen."

Meg made a strange, croaking noise. She found that she
could pull open her eyelids. They felt heavier than marble
but she managed to raise them. Her father and Calvin were
hovering over her. She did not see Charles Wallace. Where
was he?

She was lying in an open field of what looked like rusty,
stubby grass. She blinked, slowly, and with difficulty.

"Meg," her father said. "Meg. Are you all right?"

Her tongue felt like a stone tongue in her mouth, but she
managed to croak, "I can't move."

'Try," Calvin urged. He sounded now as though he were
very angry with her. 'Wggle your toes. Wiggle your

fingers."

"I can't. Where's Charles Wallace?" Her words were
blunted by the stone tongue. Perhaps they could net understand her, for there was no answer.

168

Absolute Zero

"We were knocked out for a minute, too," Calvin was
saying. "You'll be all right, Meg. Don't get panicky." He
was crouched over her, and though his voice continued to
sound cross he was peering at her with anxious eyes. She
knew that she must still have her glasses on because she
could see him clearly, his freckles, Ins stubby black lashes,
the bright blue of his eyes.

Her father was kneeling on her other side. The round
lenses of Mrs. Who's glasses still blurred his eyes. He took
one of her hands and rubbed it between his. "Can you feel
my fingers?" He sounded quite calm, as though there were
nothing extraordinary in having her completely paralyzed.
At the quiet of his voice she felt calmer. Then she saw that
there were great drops of sweat standing out on his forehead, and she noticed vaguely that the gentle breeze that
touched her cheeks was cool. At first his words had been
frozen and now the wind was Hoild: was it icy cold here or
warm? "Can you feel my fingers?" he asked again.

Yes, now she could feel a pressure against her wrist, but
she could not nod. "Where's Charles Wallace?" Her words
were a little less blurred. Her tongue, her lips were beginning to feel cold and numb, as though she had been given a
massive dose of novocaine at the dentist's. She realized with
a start that her body and limbs were cold, that not only
was she not warm, she was frozen from head to toe, and it
w<tS this that had made her father's words seem like ice,
that had paralyzed her.

'I'm frozen—" she said faintly. Camazotz hadn't been
this cold, a cold that cut deeper than the wind on the bitterly

A Wrinkle in Time

est of winter days at home. She was away from FT, but this
unexplained iciness was almost as bad. Her father had not
saved her.

Now she was able to look around a little, and everything
she could see was rusty and gray. There were trees edging
the field in which she lay, and their leaves were the same
brown as the grass. There were plants that might have
been flowers, except that they were dull and gray. In contrast to the drabness of color, to the cold that numbed her,
the air was filled with a delicate, springlike fragrance,. almost imperceptible as it blew softly against her face. She
looked at her father and Calvin. They were both in their
shirt sleeves and they looked perfectly comfortable. It was
she, wrapped in their clothes, who was frozen too solid
even to shiver.

"Why am I so cold?" she asked. "Where's Charles Wallace?" They did not answer. "Father, where are we?"

Mr. Murry looked at her soberly. "I don't know, Meg. I
don't tesser very well. I must have overshot, somehow.
We're not on Camazotz. I don't know where we are. I think
you're so cold because we went through the Black Thing,
and I thought for a moment it was going to tear you away
from me."

"Is this a dark planet?" Slowly her tongue was beginning
to thaw, her words were less blurred.

"I don't think so," Mr. Murry said, "but I know so little
about anything that I can't be sure."

"You shouldn't have tded to tesser, then." She had never

170

Absolute Zero

spoken to her father in tflis way before. The words seemed
hardly to be hers.

Calvin looked at her, shaking his head. "It was the only
thing to do. At least it got us off Camazotz."

"Why did we go without Charles Wallace? Did we just
leave him there?" The words that were not really hers came
out cold and accusing.

"We didn't 'Just leave him,'" her father said. "Remember
that the human brain is a very delicate organism, and it can
be easily damaged."

"See, Meg," Calvin crouched over her, tense and worried.
"if your father had tried to yank Charles away when Ke
tessered us, and if IT had kept grabbing hold of Charles, it
might have been too much for him, and we'd have lost him
forever. And we had to do something right then."

"Why?"

"IT was taking us. You and I were slipping, and if your
father had gone on trying to help us he wouldn't have been
able to hold out much longer, either."

"You told him to tesser," Meg charged Calvin.

"There isn't any question of blame," Mr. Murry cut in
severely. "Can you move yet?"

All Meg's faults were uppermost in her now, and they
were no longer helping her. "Not And you'd better take
me back to Camazotz and Charles Wallace quickly. Yo(.*re
supposed to be able to helpl" Disappointment was as dark
and corrosive in her as the Black Thing. The ugly words
tumbled from her cold lips even as she herself could not

171

A Wrinkle in Time

believe that it was to her father, her beloved, longed-for
father, that she was talking to in this way. If her tears had
not still been frozen they would have gushed from her eyes.

She had found her father and he had not made everything all right. Everything kept getting worse and worse.
If the long search for her father was ended, and he wasn't
able to overcome all their difficulties, there was nothing
to guarantee that it would all come out right in the end.
There was nothing left to hope for. She was frozen, and
Charles Wallace was being devoured by IT, and her omnipotent father was doing nothing. She teetered on the see-saw of love and hate, and the Black Thing pushed her down
into hate. "You don't even know where we are!" she cried
out at her father. "Well never see Mother or the twins
again! We don't know where earth is! Or even where Camazotz is! We're lost out in space! What are you going to
do!" She did not realize that she was as much in the power
of the Black Thing as Charles Wallace.

Mr. Murry bent over her, massaging her cold fingers.
She could not see his face. "My daughter, I am not a Mrs.
Whatsit, a Mrs. Who, or a Mrs. W^hich. Yes, Calvin has told
me everything he could. I am a human being, and a very
fallible one. But I agree with Calvin. We were sent here for
something. And we know that all things work together for
good to them that love Cod, to them who are the called
according to his purpose."

"The Black Thing!" Meg cried out at him. "Why did you
let it almost get me?"

172

Absolute Zero

"You've never tessered as well as the rest of us," Calvin
reminded her. "It never bothered Charles and me as much
as it did you."

"He shouldn't have taken me, then," Meg said, "until he
learned to do it better."

Neither her father nor Calvin spoke. Her father continued his gentle massage. Her fingers came back to life
with tingling pain. "You're hurting me!"

"Then you're feeling again," her father said quietly. "I'm
afraid it is going to hurt, Meg."

The piercing pain moved slowly up her arms, began in
her toes and legs. She started to cry out against her father
when Calvin exclaimed, "Look!"

Coming toward them, moving in silence across the brown
grass, were three figures.

What were they?

On Uriel there had been the magnificent creatures. On
Camazotz the inhabitants had at least resembled people.
What were these three strange tilings approaching?

They were the same dull gray color as the flowers. If they
hadn't walked upright they would have seemed like animals. They moved directly toward the three human beings.
They had four arms and far more than five fingers to each
hand, and the fingers were not fingers, but long waving
tentacles. They had heads, and they had faces. But where
the faces of the creatures on Uriel had seemed far more
than human faces, these seemed far less. Where the features would normally be there were several indentations,

173

A Wrinkle in Time

and in place of ears and hair were more tentacles. They
were tall, Meg realized as they came closer, far taller than
any man. They had no eyes. Just soft indentations.

Meg's rigid, frozen body tried to shudder with terror.
but instead of the shudder all that came was pain. She
moaned.

The Things stood over them. They appeared to be looking down at them, except that they had no eyes with which
to see. Mr. Murry continued to kneel by Meg, massaging
her.

He's killed us, bringing us here, Meg thought. I'll never
see Charles Wallace again, or Mother, or the twins....

Calvin rose to his feet. He bowed to the beasts as though
they could see him. He said, "How do you do, sir—ma'am
—?"

"Who are you?" the tallest of the beasts said. His voice
was neither hostile nor welcoming, and it came not from
the mouthlike indentation in the furry face, but from the
waving tentacles.

—They'll eat us, Meg thought wildly. —They're making
me hurt. My toes—my fingers—I hurt.. ..

Calvin answered the beast's question. "We're—we're
from earth. I'm not sure how we got here. We've had an
accident. Meg—this girl—is—is paralyzed. She can't move.
She's terribly cold. We think that's why she can't move."

One of them came up to Meg and squatted down on its
huge haunches beside her, and she felt utter loathing and
revulsion as it reached out a tentacle to touch her face.

But with the tentacle came the same delicate fragrance

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Absolute Zero
that moved across her with the breeze, and she felt a soft,
tingling warmth go all through her that momentarily assuaged her pain. She felt suddenly sleepy.

I must look as strange to it as it looks to me, she thought
drowsily, and then realized with a shock that of course the
beast couldn't see her at all. Nevertheless a reassuring sense
of safety flowed through her with the warmth which continued to seep deep into her as the beast touched her. Then
it picked her up, cradling her in two of its four arms.

Mr. Murry stood up quickly. "What are you doing?"

"Taking the child."

i75

11 Aunt Beast

"Nol" Mr. Murry said sharply. "Please put her down."

A sense of amusement seemed to emanate from the
beasts. The tallest, who seemed to be the spokesman, said,
"We frighten you?"

"What are you going to do with us?" Mr. Murry asked.

The beast said, "I'm sorry, we communicate better with
the other one." He turned toward Calvin. "Who are you?"

"I'm Calvin O'Keefe."

"What's that?"

"I'm a boy. A—a young man."

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Aunt Beast

"You, too, are afraid?"

"I'm—not sure."

"Tell me," the beast said. "What do you suppose you'd
do if three of us suddenly arrived on your home planet."

"Shoot you, I guess," Calvin admitted.

"Then isn't that what we should do with you?"

Calvin's freckles seemed to deepen, but he answered
quietly. "I'd really rather you didn't. I mean, the earth's
my home, and I'd rather be there than anywhere in the
world—I mean, the universe—and I can't wait to get back,
but we make some awful bloopers there."

The smallest beast, the one holding Meg, said, "And perhaps they aren't used to visitors from other planets."

"Used to iti" Calvin exclaimed. "We've never had any,
as far as I know."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

The middle beast, a tremor of trepidation in his words,
said, "You aren't from a dark planet, are you?"

"'No." Calvin shook his head firmly, though the beast
couldn't see him. "We're—we're shadowed. But we're fighting die shadow."

The beast holding Meg questioned, "You three are fighting?"

"Yes," Calvin answered. "Now that we know about it."

The tall one turned back to Mr. Murry, speaking sternly.
"You- The oldest. Man. From where have you come? Now."

Mr. Murry answered steadily. "From a planet called
Camazotz." There was a mutter from the three beasts. "We

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do not belong there," Mr. Murry said, slowly and distinctly.
"We were strangers there as we are here. I was a prisoner
there, and these children rescued me. My youngest son, my
baby, is still there, trapped in the dark mind of IT."

Meg tried to twist around in the beast's arms to glare at
her father and Calvin. Why were they being so frank?
Weren't they aware of the danger? But again her anger dissolved as the gentle warmth from the tentacles flowed
through her. She realized that she could move her fingers
and toes with comparative freedom, and the pain was no
longer so acute.

"We must take this child back with us," the beast holding
her said.

Meg shouted at her father. "Don*! leave me the way
you left Charles!" With this burst of terror a spasm of pain
wracked her body and she gasped.

"Stop fighting," the beast told her. "You make it worse.
Relax."

"That's what IT said." Meg cried. "Father! Calvin! Help!"

The beast turned toward Calvin and Mr. Murry. "This
child is in danger. You must trust us."

"We have no alternative," Mr. Murry said. "Can you
save her?"

"I think so."

"May I stay with her?"

"No. But you will not be far away. We feel that you are
hungry, tired, that you would like to bathe and rest. And
this little—what is the word?" the beast cocked its tentacles at Calvin.

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Aunt Beast

"Girl," Calvin said.

"This little girl needs prompt and special care. The coldness of the—what is it you call it?"

The Black Thing?"

"The Black Thing. Yes. The Black Thing burns unless it
is counteracted properly." The three beasts stood around
Meg, and it seemed that they were feeling into her with
their softly waving tentacles. The movement of the tentacles
was as rhythmic and flowing as the dance of an undersea
plant, and lying there, cradled in the four strange arms,
Meg, despite herself, felt a sense of security that was
deeper than anything she had known since the days when
she lay in her mother's arms in the old rocking chair and
was sung to sleep. With her father's help she had been
able to resist IT. Now she could hold out no longer. She
leaned her head against the beast's chest, and realized that
the gray body was covered with the softest, most delicate
fur imaginable, and the fur had the same beautiful odor as
the air.

I hope I don't smeD awful to it, she thought. But then
she knew with a deep sense of comfort that even if she did
smell awful the beasts would forgive her. As the tall figure
cradled her she could feel the frigid stiffness of her body
relaxing against it. This bliss could not come to her from a
tiling like IT. IT could only give pain, never relieve it. The
beasts must be good. They had to be good. She sighed
deeply, like a very small child, and suddenly she was asleep.

When she came to herself again there was in the back of
her mind a memory of pain, of agonizing pain. But the pain

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was over now and her body was lapped in comfort. She was
lying on something wonderfully soft in an enclosed chamber. It was dark. All she could see were occasional tall moving shadows which she realized were beasts walking about.
She had been stripped of her clothes, and something warm
and pungent was gently being rubbed into her body. She
sighed and stretched and discovered that she could stretch.
She could move again, she was no longer paralyzed, and her
body was bathed in waves of warmth. Her father had not
saved her; the beasts had.

"So you are awake, little one?" The words came gently
to her ears. "What a funny little tadpole you are! Is the
pain gone now?"

"All gone."

"Are you warm and alive again?"

"Yes, I'm fine." She struggled to sit up.

"No, lie still, small one. You must not exert yourself as
yet. We will have a fur garment for you in a moment, and
then we will feed you. You must not even try to feed yourself. You must be as an Infant again. The Black Thing does
not relinquish its victims willingly."

"Where are Father and Calvin? Have they gone back for
Charles Wallace?"

"They are eating and resting," the beast said, "and we
are trying to learn about each other and see what is best
to help you. We feel now that you are not dangerous, and
that we will be allowed to help you."

"Why is it so dark in here?" Meg asked. She tried to look
around, but all she could see was shadows. Nevertheless

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Aunt Beast

there was a sense of openness, a feel of a gentle breeze
moving lightly about, that kept the darkness from being
oppressive.

Perplexity came to her from the beast. "What is this
dark? What is this light? We do not understand. Your father
and the boy, Calvin, have asked this, too. They say that it
is night now on our planet, and that they cannot see. They
have told us that our atmosphere is what they call opaque,
so that the stars are not visible, and then they were surprised
that we know stars, that we know their music and the movements of their dance far better than beings like you who
spend hours studying them through what you call telescopes. We do not understand what this means, to see."

"Well, it's what things look like," Meg said helplessly.

"We do not know what things look like, as you say," the
beast said. "We know what things are like. It must be a
very limiting thing, this seeing."

"Oh, nol" Meg cried. "It's—it's the most wonderful thing
in the world!"

"What a very strange world yours must be!" the beast
said, "that such a peculiar-seeming thing should be of such
importance- Try to tell me, what is this thing called light
that you are able to do so little without?"

"Well, we can't see without it," Meg said, realizing that
she was completely unable to explain vision and light and
dark. How can you explain sight on a world where no one
has ever seen and where there is no need of eyes? "Well, on
this planet," she fumbled, "you have a sun, don't you?"

"A most wonderful sun, from which comes our warmth,

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and the rays which give us our flowers, our food, our music,
and all the things which make life and growth."

"Well/' Meg said, "when we are turned toward the sun—
our earth, our planet, I mean, toward our sun—we receive
its light. And when we're turned away from it, it is night.
And if we want to see we have to use artificial lights."

"Artificial lights," the beast sighed. "How very complicated life on your planet must be. Later on you must try to
explain some more to me."

"All right," Meg promised, and yet she knew that to try
to explain anything that could be seen with the eyes would
be impossible, because the beasts in some way saw, knew,
understood, far more completely than she, or her parents,
or Calvin, or even Charles Wallace.

"Charles Wallace!" she cried. "What are they doing about
Charles Wallace? We don't know what IT'S doing to him
or making him do. Please, oh, please, help us!"

"Yes, yes, little one, of course we will help you. A meeting is in session right now to study what is best to do. We
have never before been able to talk to anyone who has
managed to escape from a dark planet, so although your
father is blaming himself for everything that has happened,
we feel that he must be quite an extraordinary person to get
out of Camazotz with you at all. But the little boy, and I
understand that he is a very special, a very important little
boy—ah, my child, you must accept that this will not be
easy. To go back through the Black Thing, back to Camazotz—I don't know. I don't know."

"But Father left himi" Meg said. "He's got to bring him
back! He can't just abandon Charles Wallace!"

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Aunt Beast

The beast's communication suddenly became crisp. "Nobody said anything about abandoning anybody. That is not
our way. But we know that just because we want something does not mean that we will get what we want, and we
still do not know what to do. And we cannot allow you, in
your present state, to do anything that would jeopardize
us all. I can see that you wish your father to go rushing back
to Camazotz, and you could probably make him do this,
and then where would we be? No. No. You must wait until
you are more calm. Now, my darling, here is a robe for you
to keep you warm and comfortable." Meg felt herself being
lifted again, and a soft, light garment was slipped about
her. "Don't worry about your little brother." The tentacles'
musical words were soft against her. "We would never
leave him behind the shadow. But for now you must relax,
you must be happy, you must get well."

The gentle words, the feeling that this beast would be
able to love her no matter what she said or did, lapped Meg
in warmth and peace. She felt a delicate touch of tentacle
to her cheek, as tender as her mother's kiss.

"It is so long since my own small ones were grown and
gone," the beast said. "You are so tiny and vulnerable. Now
I will feed you. You must eat slowly and quietly. I know
that you are half starved, that you have been without food
far too long, but you must not rush things or you will not
get well."

Something completely and indescribably and incredibly
delicious was put to Meg's lips, and she swallowed gratefully. With each swallow she felt strength returning to her
body, and she realized that she had had nothing to eat

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since the horrible fake turkey dinner on Camazotz which
she had barely tasted. How long ago was her mother's stew?
Time no longer had any meaning.

"How long does night last here?" she murmured sleepily.
"It will be day again, won't it?"

"Hush," the beast said. "Eat, small one. During the coolness, which is now, we sleep. And, when you waken, there
will be warmth again and many things to do. You must
eat now, and sleep, and I will stay with you."

"What should I call you, please?" Meg asked.

"Well, now. First, try not to say any words for just a
moment. Think within your own mind. Think of all die
things you call people, different kinds of people."

While Meg thought, the beast murmured to her gently.
"No, mother is a special, a one-name; and a father you have
here. Not just friend, nor teacher, nor brother, nor sister.
What is acquaintance? What a funny, hard word. Aunt.
Maybe. Yes, perhaps that will do. And you think of such
odd words about me. Thing, and monster! Monster, what
a horrid sort of word. I really do not think I am a monster.
Beast. That will do. Aunt Beast."

"Aunt Beast," Meg murmured sleepily, and laughed.

"Have I said something funny?" Aunt Beast asked in surprise. "Isn't Aunt Beast all right?"

"Aunt Beast is lovely," Meg said. "Please sing to me,
Aunt Beast."

It it was impossible to describe sight to Aunt Beast, it
would be even more impossible to describe the singing of
Aunt Beast to a human being. It was a music even more

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Aunt Beast

glorious than the music of the singing creatures on Uriel.
It was a music more tangible than form or sight. It had
essence and structure. It supported Meg more firmly than
the arms of Aunt Beast It seemed to travel with her, to
sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was
moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too,
felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning.
and only this melody was real.

Meg did not know when she fell asleep within the body
of the music. When she wakened Aunt Beast was asleep,
too, the softness of her furry, faceless head drooping. Night
had gone and a dull gray light filled the room. But she
realized now that here on this planet there was no need for
color, that the grays and browns merging into each other
were not what the beasts knew, and that what she, herself,
saw was only the smallest fraction of wBat the planet was
really like. It was she who was limited by her senses, not
tihe blind beasts, for they must have senses of which she
could not even dream.

She stirred slightly, and Aunt Beast bent over her immediately, "What a lovely sleep, my darling. Do you feel
all right?"

"I feel wonderful," Meg said. "Aunt Beast, what is this
planet called?"

"Oh, dear," Aunt Beast sighed. "I find it not easy at aB
to put things the way your mind shapes them. You call
where you came from Camazotz?"

"Well, it's where we came from, but it's not our planet."

"You can call us Ixchel. I guess," Aunt Beast told her. "We

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share the same sun as lost Camazotz, but that, give thanks,
is all we share."

"Are you fighting the Black Thing?" Meg asked.

"Oh, yes," Aunt Beast replied. "In doing that we can
never relax. We are the called according to His purpose,
and whom He calls, them He also justifies. Of course we
have help, and without help it would be much more difficult."

"Who helps you?" Meg asked.

"Oh, dear, it is so difficult to explain things to you, small
one. And I know now that it is not just because you are
a child. The other two are as hard to reach into as you are.
What can I tell you that will mean anything to you? Good
helps us, the stars helps us, perhaps what you would call
light helps us, love helps us. Oh, my child, I cannot explaini
This is something you just have to know or not know."

"T>  *.    **

But—

"We look not at the things which are what you would call
seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things
which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not
seen are eternal."

"Aunt Beast, do you know Mrs. Whatsit?" Meg asked
with a sudden flooding of hope.

"Mrs. Whatsit?" Aunt Beast was puzzled. "Oh, child,
your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has
the effect of extreme complication." Her four arms, tentacles waving, were outflung in a gesture of helplessness.
"Would you like me to take you to your father and your
Calvin?"

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Aunt Beast

"Oh, yes, pleasel"

"Let us go, then. They are waiting for you to make plans.
And we thought you would enjoy eating—what is it you
call it? oh, yes, breakfast—together. You will be too warm
in that heavy fur, now. I will dress you in something lighter,
and then we will go."

As though Meg were a baby, Aunt Beast bathed and
dressed her, and this new garment, though it was made of a
pale fur, was lighter than the lightest summer clothes on
earth. Aunt Beast put one tentacled arm about Meg's waist
and led her through long, dim corridors in which she could
see only shadows, and shadows of shadows, until they
reached a large, columned chamber. Shafts of light came
in from an open skylight and converged about a huge,
round, stone table. Here were seated several of the great
beasts, and Calvin and Mr. Murry, on a stone bench that
circled the table. Because the beasts were so tall, even Mr.
Murry's feet did not touch die ground, and lanky Calvin's
long legs dangled as though he were Charles Wallace. The
hall was partially enclosed by vaulted arches leading to
long, paved walks. There were no empty walls, no covering
roofs, so that although the light was dull in comparison to
earth's sunlight, Meg had no feeling of dark or of chill. As
Aunt Beast led Meg in, Mr. Murry slid down from the
bench and hurried to her, putting his arms about her tenderly.

"They promised us you were all right," he said.

While she had been in Aunt Beast's arms Meg had felt
safe and secure. Now her worries about Charles Wallace

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A Wrinkle in Time

and her disappointment in her father's human fallibility
rose like gorge in her throat.

"I'm fine," she muttered, looking not at Calvin or her
father, but at the beasts, for it was to them she turned
now for help. It seemed to her that neither her father nor
Calvin were properly concerned about Charles Wallace.

"Meg!" Calvin said gaily. "You've never tasted such food
in your life! Come and eati"

Aunt Beast lifted Meg up onto the bench and sat down
beside her, then heaped a plate with food, strange fruits
and breads that tasted unlike anything Meg had ever eaten.
Everything was dull and colorless and unappetizing to
look at, and at first, even remembering the meal Aunt Beast
had fed her the night before, Meg hesitated to taste, but
once she had managed the first bite she ate eagerly; it
seemed that she would never have her fill again.

The others waited until she slowed down. Then Mr.
Muny 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

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Aunt Beast

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 alii"

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. Jenkms. 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

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A Wrinkle in Time

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

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Aunt Beast

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 loneZy?"

Suddenly a thundering voice reverberated throughout
the great hall:

^WWEEE ARRE HHERREl"

12 The Foolish and the Weak

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.

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The Foolish and the Weak

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 towards Mrs. Whatsit. "It is a
question of the little boy."

"Father left him!" Meg cried. "He left him on CamazotzF

Appallingly, Mrs. Whatsit 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. Whatsiti Save
him, please save himi"

"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 anythingi You know we can't! We tried!
Mrs. Whatsit, you have to save himi"

"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.

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A Wrinkle in Time

"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 table top. 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?"

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The Foolish and the Weak

Mrs. Which's voice rolled formidably across the hall.
"Ssilencce, cchilidd!"

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.

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A Wrinkle in Time

And Calvin's only known Charles for such a little time. It 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 youl 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 Megl You said so yourself!"

"But you have done that," Mrs. Whatsit assured him.

"I haven't done anything!" Calvin shouted. "You can't
send Megl I won't allow iti I'll put my foot downl I won't
permit it!"

"Don't you see that you're making something that is already hard tor 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.

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The Foolish and the Weak

"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

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A Wrinkle in Time

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."

"But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?"

"Yes." Calvin nodded again.

"So," Mrs. Whatsit said.

198

The Foolish and the Weak

"So what?"

"Oh, do not be stupid, boy!" Mrs. Whatsit scolded. "You
know perfectly well what I am driving at!"

"You mean you'xe comparing our hves to a sonnet? A
strict form, but freedom within it?"

"Yes." Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but
you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is
completely up to you."

"Please," Meg said. "Please. If I've got to go I want to
go and get it over with. Each minute you put it off makes it
harder."

"Sshee iss rrightt," boomed Mrs. Which's voice, "Itt iss
ttime."

"You may say good-by." Mrs. Whatsit was giving her not
permission, but a command.

Meg curtsied clumsily to the beasts. "Thank you all. Very
much. I know you saved my life." She did not add what
she could not help thinking: Saved it for what? So that IT
could get me?

She put her arms about Aunt Beast, pressed up against
the soft, fragrant fur. "Thank you," she whispered. "I love
you."

"And I, you, little one." Aunt Beast pressed gentle tendrils against Meg's face.

"Cal—" Meg said, holding out her hand.

Calvin came to her and took her hand, then drew her
roughly to him and kissed her. He didn't say anything, and
he turned away before he had a chance to see the surprised
happiness that brightened Meg's eyes.

199

A Wrinkle in Time

At last she turned to her father. *Tm—I'm sorry, Father."

He took both her hands in his, bent down to her with his
short-sighted eyes. "Sorry for what, Megatron?"

Tears almost came to her eyes at the gentle use of the
old nickname. "I wanted you to do it all for me. I wanted
everything to be all easy and simple.... So I tried to pretend that it was all your fault... because I was scared, and
I didn't want to have to do anything myself—"

"But I wanted to do it for you," Mr. Murry said. "That's
what every parent wants." He looked into her dark,
frightened eyes. "I won't let you go, Meg. I am going."

"No." Mrs. Whatsit's voice was sterner than Meg had
ever heard it. "You are going to allow Meg the privilege of
accepting this danger. You are a wise man, Mr. Murry. You
are going to let her go."

Mr. Murry sighed. He drew Meg close to him. "Little
Megaparsec. Don't be afraid to be afraid. We will try to
have courage for you. That is all we can do. Your mother—"

"Mother was always shoving me out in the world," Meg
said. "She'd want me to do this. You know she would. Tell
her—" she started, choked, then held up her head and said,
"No. Never mind. 113 tell her myself."

"Good girl. Of course you will."

Now Meg walked slowly around the great table to where
Mrs. Whatsit was still poised between the columns. "Are
you going with me?"

"No. Only Mrs. Which."

"The Black Thing—" Fear made her voice tremble.

200

The Foolish and the Weak

"When Father tessered me through it, it almost got me."

"Your father is singularly inexperienced," Mrs. Whatsit
said, "though a fine man, and worth teaching. At the
moment he still treats tessering as though he were working
with a machine. We will not let the Black Thing get you. I
don't think."

This was not exactly comforting.

The momentary vision and faith that had come to Meg
dwindled. "But suppose I can't get Charles Wallace away
from IT—"

"Stop." Mrs. Whatsit held up her hand. "We gave you
gifts the last time we took you to Camazotz. We will not let
you go empty handed this time. But what we can give you
now is nothing you can touch with your hands. I give you
my love, Meg. Never forget that. My love always."

Mrs. Who. eyes shining behind spectacles, beamed at
Meg. Meg felt in her blazer pocket and handed back the
spectacles she had used on Camazotz.

"Your father is right," Mrs. Who took the spectacles and
hid them somewhere in the folds of her robes. "The virtue
is gone from them. And what I have to give you this time
you must try to understand not word by word, but in a
flash, as you understand the tesseract. Listen, Meg. Listen
well. The foolishness of Cod is wiser than men; and the
weakness of Cod is stronger than men. For ye see your
calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but
Cod hath chosen the foolish things of the world to conr

201

A Wrinkle in Time

found the wise; and Cod hath chosen the weak things of
the world to confound the things which are mighty. And
base things of the world, and things which are despised,
hath Cod chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring
to nought things that are." She paused, and then she said,
"May the right prevail." Her spectacles seemed to flicker.
Behind her, through her, one of the columns became visible.
There was a final gleam from the glasses, and she was gone.
Meg looked nervously to where Mrs. Whatsit had been
standing before Mrs. Who spoke. But Mrs. Whatsit was no
longer there.

"No!" Mr. Murry cried, and stepped toward Meg.

Mrs. Which's voice came through her shimmer. "I ccannnott hholidd yyourr hanndd, chilldd."

Immediately Meg was swept into darkness, into nothingness, and then into the icy devouring cold of the Black.
Thing. Mrs. Which won't let it get me, she thought over
and over while the cold of the Black Thing seemed to crunch
at her bones.

Then they were through it, and she was standing breathlessly on her feet on the same hill on which they had first
landed on Camazotz. She was cold and a little numb, but
no worse than she had often been in the winter in the country when she had spent an afternoon skating on the pond.
She looked around. She was completely alone. Her heart
began to pound.

Then, seeming to echo from all around her, came Mrs.
Which's unforgettable voice. "I hhave nnott ggivenn yyou

202

The Foolish and the Weak

mmyy ggifftt. Yyou hhave ssomethinngg thatt ITT hhass
nnott. Thiss ssomethinngg iss yyourr onlly wweapponn.
Bbutt yyou mmusstt ffinndd itt fforr yyourrssellff." Then
the voice ceased, and Meg knew that she was alone.

She walked slowly down the hill, her heart thumping
painfully against her ribs. There below her was the same
row of identical houses they had seen before, and beyond
these die linear buildings of the city. She walked along
the quiet street. It was dark and the street was deserted. No
children playing ball or skipping rope. No mother figures
at the doors. No father figures returning from work. In the
same window of each house was a light, and as Meg walked
down the street all the lights were extinguished simultaneously. Was it because of her presence, or was it simply
that it was time for lights out?

She felt numb, beyond rage or disappointment or even
fear. She put one foot ahead of the other with precise regularity, not allowing her pace to lag. She was not thinking;

she was not planning; she was simply walking slowly but
steadily toward the city and the domed building where IT
lay.

Now she approached the outlying buildings of the city.
In each of them was a vertical line of light, but it was a dim,
eerie light, not the warm light of stairways in cities at home.
And there were no isolated brightly lit windows where
someone was working late, or an office was being cleaned.
Out of each building came one man, perhaps a watchman,
and each man started walking the width of the building.

203

A Wrinkle in Time

They appeared not to see her. At any rate they paid no attention to her whatsoever, and she went on past them.

What have I got that IT hasn't got? she thought suddenly.
What have I possibly got?

Now she was walking by the tallest of the business buildings. More dim vertical lines of light. The walls glowed
slightly to give a faint illumination to the streets. CENTRAL Central Intelligence was ahead of her. Was the man
with red eyes still sitting there? Or was he allowed to go to
bed? But this was not where she must go, though the man
with red eyes seemed the kind old gentleman he claimed to
be when compared with IT. But he was no longer of any
consequence in the search for Charles Wallace. She must go
directly to IT.

IT isn't used to being resisted. Father said that's how
he managed, and how Calvin and I managed as long as we
did. Father saved me then. There's nobody here to save
me now. I have to do it myself. I have to resist IT by myself. Is that what I have that IT hasn't got? No, I'm sure IT
can resist. IT just isn't used to having other people resist.

CENTRAL Central Intelligence blocked with its huge
rectangle the end of the square. She turned to walk around
it, and almost imperceptibly her steps slowed.

It was not far to the great dome which housed IT.

I'm going to Charles Wallace. That's what's important.
"Hat's what I have to think of. I wish I could feel numb
again the way I did at first. Suppose IT has him somewhere
else? Suppose he isn't there?

I have to go there first, anyhow. That's the only way I
can find out.

Her steps got slower and slower as she passed the great
bronzed doors, the huge slabs of the CENTRAL Central
Intelligence building, as she finally saw ahead of her the
strange, light, pulsing dome of IT.

Father said it was all right for me to be afraid. He said
to go ahead and be afraid. And Mrs. Who said—I don't
understand what she said but I think it was meant to make
me not hate being only me, and me being the way I am. And
Mrs. Whatsit said to remember that she loves me. That's
what I have to think about. Not about being afraid. Or not
as smart as IT. Mrs. Whatsit loves me. That's quite something, to be loved by someone like Mrs. Whatsit.

She was there.

No matter how slowly her feet had taken her at the end,
they had taken her there.

Directly ahead of her was the circular building, its walls
glowing with violet flame, its silvery roof pulsing with a
light that seemed to Meg to be insane. Again she could feel
the light, neither warm nor cold, but reaching out to touch
her, pulling her toward IT.

There was a sudden sucking, and she was within.

It was as though the wind had been knocked out of her.
She gasped for breath, tor breath in her own rhythm, not
the permeating pulsing of IT. She could feel the inexorable
beat within her body, controlling her heart, her lungs.

But not herself. Not Meg. It did not quite have her.

She blinked her eyes rapidly and against the rhythm
until the redness before them cleared and she could see.
There was the brain, there was IT, lying pulsing and quivering on the dais, soft and exposed and nauseating. Charles
Wallace was crouched beside IT, his eyes still slowly twirling, his jaw still slack, as she had^seen him before, with a tic
in his forehead reiterating the revolting rhythm of IT.

As she saw him it was again as though she had been
punched in the stomach, for she had to realize afresh that
she was seeing Charles, and yet it was not Charles at all.
Where was Charles Wallace, her own beloved Charles Wallace?

What is it I have got that IT hasn't got?

"You have nothing that IT hasn't got," Charles Wallace
said coldly. "How nice to have you back, dear sister. We
have been waiting for you. We knew that Mrs. Whatsit
would send you. She is our friend, you know."

For an appalling moment Meg believed, and in that
moment she felt her brain being gathered up into IT.

"No!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "No! You
lie!"

For a moment she was free from ITs clutches again.

As long as I can stay angry enough IT can't get me.

Is that what I have that IT doesn't have?

"Nonsense," Charles Wallace said. "You have nothing
that it doesn't have."

"You're lying," she replied, and she felt only anger toward
this boy who was not Charles Wallace at all. No, it was not
anger, it was loathing; it was hatred, sheer and unadulterated, and as she became lost in hatred she also began to be
lost in IT. The red miasma swam before her eyes; her
stomach churned in ITs rhythm. Her body trembled with
the strength of her hatred and the strength of IT.

With the last vestige of consciousness she jerked her mind
and body. Hate was nothing that IT didn't have. IT knew all
about hate.

"You are lying about that, and you were lying about Mrs.
Whatsit!" she screamed.

"Mrs. Whatsit hates you," Charles Wallace said.

And that was where IT made ITs fatal mistake, for as
Meg said, automatically, "Mrs. Whatsit loves me; that's
what she told me, that she loves me," suddenly she knew.

She knew!

Love.

That was what she had that IT did not have.

She had Mrs. Whatsit's love, and her father's, and her
mother's, and the real Charles Wallace's love, and the twins',
and Aunt Beast's.

And she had her love for them.

But how could she use it? What was she meant to do?

If she could give love to IT perhaps it would shrivel up
and die, for she was sure that IT could not withstand love.
But she, in all her weakness and foolishness and baseness
and nothingness, was incapable of loving IT. Perhaps it
was not too much to ask of her, but she could not do it.

But she could love Charles Wallace.

She could stand there and she could love Charles Wallace.

Her own Charles Wallace, the real Charles Wallace, the
child for whom she had come back to Camazotz, to IT, the
baby who was so much more than she was, and who was yet
so utterly vulnerable.

She could love Charles Wallace.

Charles. Charles, I love you. My baby brother who always
takes care of me. Come back to me, Charles Wallace, come
away from IT, come back, come home. I love you, Charles.
Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was unaware of them.

Now she was even able to look at him, at this animated
thing that was not her own Charles Wallace at all. She was
able to look and love.

I love you. Charles Wallace, you are my darling and my
dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart.
I love you. I love you. I love you.

Slowly his mouth closed. Slowly his eyes stopped their
twirling. The tic in the forehead ceased its revolting twitch.
Slowly he advanced toward her.

"I love you!" she cried. "I love you, Charles! I love you!"

Then suddenly he was running, pelting, he was in her
arms, he was shrieking with sobs. "Meg! Meg! Meg!"

"I love you, Charles!" she cried again, her sobs almost
as loud as his, her tears mingling with his. "I love you! I
love you! I love you!"

A whirl of darkness. An icy cold blast. An angry, resentful
howl that seemed to tear through her. Darkness again.
Through the darkness to save her came a sense of Mrs.
Whatsit's presence, so that she knew it could not be IT who
now had her in its clutches.

And then the feel of earth beneath her, of something in
her arms, and she was rolling over on the sweet smelling
autumnal earth, and Charles Wallace was crying out, "Meg!
Oh, Meg!"

Now she was hugging him close to her, and his little arms
were dasped tightly about her neck. "Meg, you saved me!
You saved me!" he said over and over.

"Megl" came a call, and there were her father and Calvin
hurrying through the darkness toward them.

Still holding Charles she struggled to stand up and look
around. "Father! Call Where are we?"

Charles Wallace, holding her hand tightly, was looking
around, too, and suddenly he laughed, his own, sweet, contagious laugh. "In the twins' vegetable garden! And we
landed in the broccoli!"

Meg began to laugh, too, at the same time that she
was trying to hug her father, to hug Calvin, and not to let go
of Charles Wallace for one second.

"Meg, you did it!" Calvin shouted. "You saved Charles!"

*Tm very proud of you, my daughter." Mr. Murry kissed
her gravely, then turned toward the house. "Now I must go
in to Mother." Meg could tell that he was trying to control
his anxiety and eagerness.

"Look!" she pointed to the house, and there were the
twins and Mrs. Murry walking toward them through the
long, wet grass.

"First thing tomorrow I must get some new glasses," Mr.
Murry said, squinting in the moonlight, and then starting
to run toward his wife.

Dennys' voice came crossly over the lawn. "Hey, Meg,
it's bedtime."

Sandy suddenly yelled, "Father!"

Mr. Murry was running across the lawn, Mrs. Murry
running toward him, and they were in each other's arms,
and then there was a tremendous happy jumble of arms
and legs and hugging, the older Murrys and Meg and
Charles Wallace and the twins, and Calvin grinning by
them until Meg reached out and pulled him in and Mrs.
Murry gave him a special hug all of his own. They were
talking and laughing all at once, when they were startled
by a crash, and Fortinbras, who could bear being left out of
the happiness not one second longer, catapulted his sleek
black body right through the screened door to the kitchen.
He dashed across the lawn to join in the joy, and almost
knocked them all over with the exuberance of his greeting.

Meg knew all at once that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and
Mrs. Which must be near, because all through her she felt a
flooding of joy and of love that was even greater and deeper
than the joy and love which were already there.

She stopped laughing and listened, and Charles listened,
too. "Hush."

Then there was a whirring, and Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who,
and Mrs. Which were standing in front of them, and the joy
and love were so tangible that Meg felt that if she only
knew where to reach she could touch it with her bare hands.

Mrs. Whatsit said breathlessly, "Oh, my darlings, I'm
sorry we don't have time to say good-by to you properly.
You see, we have too—"

But they never learned what it was that Mrs. Whatsit,
Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust
of wind, and they were gone.