The Other Side of the Sun

by Madeleine L'engle

“Even something like the babies being trapped in Nyssa when it burned?”

  Aunt Olivia moaned. “I don’t know, Stella, I don’t know.” Then she said, “Oh, lambie, we all have our little gods, and we try to manipulate them—”

  “The little gods of Kairogi …”

  “Not only the little gods of Kairogi. Or the Dark Clearing. I have mine, only too many of them. Hoadley, as you have found out, has his. But old age is finally teaching me that it isn’t what the little gods do that matters.”

  “I don’t understand, Aunt Olivia.”

  “The little gods can seem to win in the darknesses they do, and because we can’t stop them, we think they’ve won. Honoria couldn’t stop Claudius Broadley. Mado couldn’t save Theron, or her children. James couldn’t keep fire from Nyssa, or disease from Xenia. Clive and Honoria couldn’t save Jimmy.”

  “Then?”

  “I don’t have any answers for you. I’m sorry. All I know is that with Mado the angels always won. But that was no guarantee that everything was all going to be sky blue pink and cozy, or that the little gods can’t cause pain and tempt us to despair. Stella, what is going to happen now?”

  Aunt Olivia wanted me to tell her. I wanted her to tell me.

  2

  At lunch Uncle Hoadley did not appear. Clive served, and we did not see Honoria.

  “There’s thunder in the air,” Aunt Des said. “I can smell it.”

  Aunt Olivia sniffed. “We haven’t had a real storm for days. Just little piddling things. We’re due a big one.”

  Aunt Irene tossed her head. “Let’s hope it doesn’t spoil Stella’s evening walk. Stella sets so much store by her walks. Almost like she was meeting somebody.”

  “The way the wind’s turning,” Aunt Des said, “it won’t come till late.”

  “Like Stella’s first night in Illyria,” Aunt Olivia said. “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flaming fire.”

  “Psalms,” Aunt Mary Desborough said. “Point for me.”

  That day was surely dream. That it could go by and nothing happen was surely dream. That time could stand still—for it seemed that the sun did not move but hung high and molten bronze in the motionless sky—was surely dream. And hate was suspended in this timelessness.

  Aunt Irene took to her room with a headache. Aunt Des rummaged around in her workbox and pulled out a little double cross, made of four pins, all welded together by the train wheels. “Look, Livvy, at this in my sewing box! I didn’t know I still had it.”

  Aunt Olivia scowled. “Throw it away.”

  “Why? It must be a quarter of a century old.”

  “Tron and Hoadley,” Aunt Olivia said. “It’s a symbol.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a symbol of what they’re planning for each other. The ultimate double cross.”

  “Olivia, are you feverish again?”

  “I wish I were.”

  I went out to the kitchen where Clive was washing up, his sleeves rolled up, his hands deep in soapy water. “Is Honoria all right?”

  “She praying, Miss Stella.”

  “How can—how can God help her?”

  “With love, Miss Stella. Ain’t no other way.” He wiped his hands, took the little cross I had given him out of his pocket and put it on the table in front of me.

  “Are you on the other side, Clive?” I asked. “The way Mado said—only on love’s terrible other side—is it very terrible, Clive?”

  “Terror is not fear, Miss Stella. It is right and proper that we should feel terror before the power of the Lord.”

  “Is love terrible, Clive?”

  “Yes, Miss Stella.”

  I went onto the back veranda. The hanging basket of sunflower seeds was empty, but the little green snake lay coiled peacefully in the geranium pot. I walked down the pink brick path to the fig tree. The one living branch was still green and strong. Three little figs were ripening.

  I did not feel Clive’s right and proper terror. I felt panic. I did not believe that lion and lamb would ever lie down together in Illyria.

  Slowly, slowly, the sun moved. I wanted to know where Ron was, to be sure that he would be waiting for me at the foot of the ramp that evening. When the sun had finally moved behind the house enough so that its rays would not beat too fiercely on my head—I did have enough wits left not to risk sunstroke again—I put on one of the straw hats and went to the beach. I did not think anybody would attempt to come near me as long as I stayed directly in front of Illyria. The twins were wading with crab nets in the shallows just above the slough and came running to meet me, holding out nets full of little wriggling crabs.

  “Boys, I’m so glad to see you!”

  “Ron send us,” Willy said. For a moment I thought that Ron was sending them with a message that he would not be able to come, but that was not it. “Ron say boys come to Illyria. Boys has to wait for Docdoc here.”

  “Take crabs to Honoria for present. Honoria cook.”

  We moved across the beach to Illyria and they sang,

  “Lion of darkness, lamb of light,

  Black of day, bright of night,

  Lamb of midnight, lion of morn,

  From your death will love be born.”

  “Lion and lamb cry,” Harry said. “Oh, sad, sad.”

  “Boys, what are you talking about?”

  “Boys love pretty lady,” Willy said.

  “Boys stay in Illyria with lady. Wait for Docdoc.”

  “Does Ronnie want me to wait for him here?”

  “No, no, boys wait.”

  “But what about me, Willy, Harry? What am I supposed to do?”

  But Willy and Harry gave me no answer. Time was all I could move through, time harder to push against than the ocean when the tide was strong. I could hardly believe it when Aunt Irene called that Uncle Hoadley was on the veranda, and didn’t I want to join them for mint juleps?

  Aunt Olivia said, “Look at that lightning.”

  Aunt Des said, “Please put some extra sugar in mine, Hoadley. Nobody ever seems to remember that I like things sweet. The storm’s still miles away.”

  Aunt Olivia made a strange, strangling sound. Her silver mug clattered to the floor spilling out ice and whiskey and a sprig of mint.

  “Auntie!” Uncle Hoadley sprang up.

  Aunt Olivia pressed her hand to her breast, gasping, “I have a pain—oh, Hoadley, get Ron, get Ron quickly—”

  Aunt Des hovered anxiously. “Livvy, what is it, what’s the matter?”

  Aunt Olivia sounded irritable. “I have a pain, daz it. I want Ronnie.”

  Aunt Irene asked, “Is it her heart? Is she having a heart attack?”

  Uncle Hoadley said. “Sit down, all of you. Irene, tell Clive or Honoria to get Ron. You’ll be all right, Auntie. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Thank you, Hoadley—” Aunt Olivia said weakly. But as I caught her eye I was sure I saw a tiny wink.

  Or almost sure.

  Uncle Hoadley carried her into her room, and Aunt Des undressed her and put her into the great bed. Ron came and sent everybody away, telling us all to go to dinner.

  We sat at the big, dark table, and Clive passed the silver dishes, but we did not feel like eating. I nibbled at my food until Ron came out of Aunt Olivia’s room and told us that he was not sure whether it was the heart or not. There was no immediate cause for alarm, but Miss Olivia was still in considerable pain, and he would stay with her. He looked directly at me, but I could not read in his eyes what it was he was trying to tell me.

  We sat on the veranda for coffee. Aunt Des said, “Why can’t I go in to her? I don’t want her to be afraid—”

  Uncle Hoadley spoke sharply. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, Auntie. Stay here until Ronnie says it’s all right to go in.”

  I rose.

  “Stella,” Aunt Des said anxiously, “you aren’t going for a walk, are you? Olivia might want—”

  I had no intention of going
for a walk, with Ron in Aunt Olivia’s room instead of waiting for me at the foot of the ramp. I was going to the kitchen. But Uncle Hoadley said, “Why shouldn’t she go for a walk? Don’t exaggerate things, Auntie. There’s no reason Stella shouldn’t go for her walk as usual. Go on, child. But make it a short walk this evening. Aunt Olivia is very likely to want to see you as soon as she feels better.”

  I did not want to go on the beach at all, now that the sun was behind the house. I thought that I would just go and sit on the foot of the ramp for a few minutes and then make my way to the kitchen. The light of the insect-repellent oil burned faintly against the pale blue of early evening. The stars were not yet out. I moved down the ramp, through the buzz of insects. I reached the steps to the beach and as I did so a dark shadow emerged from under the ramp, my arm was caught, a hand clamped over my mouth.

  3

  It was Tron.

  I had known that the day could not end without horror. I had, viscerally if not consciously, been waiting for this moment. Through the muffling hand I tried to scream for Ron. But Aunt Olivia was keeping Ronnie safe, safe from something more horrible than anything I could imagine, more horrible than anything Tron would do to me. Perhaps, as Mado said, death itself was trivial, but not the things Aunt Olivia feared would be done to Ronnie before the mercy of death.

  Tron took his hand from my mouth. “If you scream I’ll kill you, Mrs. Renier, ma’am.” His voice was pleasant and courteous. He might have been saying, If you don’t care for rice I’ll bring some grits, Mrs. Renier, ma’am—

  Suddenly it was all so melodramatic, so ridiculous, that I burst into a hysterical peal of laughter.

  “Something funny, Mrs. Renier, ma’am?” Tron’s grip on me tightened.

  I tried to get myself under control. I did not want him breaking my arm, as he had roasted ants to death, or pulled the legs off the spider, or killed Willy’s little lizard. “What do you want, Tron?”

  “We going to the Granddam. Didn’t you ’spect me to come for you, Mrs. Renier, ma’am? You going to tell her about the treasure, remember? Ain’t forgotten last night, is you?”

  Forgotten—“What do you need the treasure for?”

  “Who knows what I’ll need after tonight?” He took my wrist and pulled me along the shadow of the dunes so that it would be difficult for anyone on the veranda or on one of the balconies of Illyria to see us. “You throw our timing all off.”

  “How could I? I haven’t done anything.”

  “You done enough. You come to Illyria.” He jerked me up the dune.

  I panted, “I told them I wasn’t going to be gone long tonight. When I don’t come right back they’ll be anxious, Uncle Hoadley will—”

  “Let him.” He dragged me over the crest of dunes to the almost invisible cart tracks behind Illyria which served as road when unusually high tides made the beach impassable. There I saw the pale horse harnessed to a wagon. “Get in.”

  There was a pile of straw in the wagon covered with the filthy remains of an old blanket. I gagged at the stench, but I climbed in, rather than have Tron throw me in. He sat on a wooden slat nailed across the buckboards, and cracked a whip across the horse’s emaciated flanks. The horse gave a wheezing groan and the wagon began to move bumpily along the rough tracks. Dunes, and glimpses of ocean through gaps in the dunes, were to the right of us, dunes and sea and vast, open sky. To our left the jungle closed in, a dark scramble of scrub oak and myrtle, tangled and twisted by the harsh salt wind. In the gathering dusk it seemed impossible that there was beauty in the scrub as well as evil, that there were egrets and flamingos, that there were young deer nibbling on the lush grasses deep within, that there were simple and gentle people who loved the children and chickens and little yellow dogs playing in the clearings; it was not all Zenumin …

  We passed the twins’ cottage, a chunky shadow between us and the ocean, no lights in the windows, no smoke from the chimney.

  Honoria prayed to God. I still did not know how. But my spirit groped for prayer.

  —Please be sitting in the kitchen in Illyria, twins, dear twins. Please be praying. You know how. Call upon the ocean and the stars and the sand. Call upon the pelicans and the gulls and the sandpipers. Call upon the donax and the little scrabbling crabs. Call upon the angels and the winds.

  Lightning split the sky.

  —Call upon the storm, twins, please call. Let the prayers of the stars be more powerful than the Zenumin comminations. Mado’s angels, wherever you are, gather your cohorts: come.

  We passed Little Nyssa.

  —Cousin James, you know how to pray, please be praying. Are you safe in the secret room in Illyria? Is Saintie reading to Cousin Xenia from the big Bible between two candles? Please pray for me.

  We should long since have turned into the scrub towards the Zenumin clearing. “Where are we going?” I demanded. “I thought you were taking me to the Granddam.”

  “We got us a little errand first,” he said. “Take what you know you can get when you can get it is my motto, Mrs. Renier, ma’am.”

  “You really aren’t working for Uncle Hoadley, are you?” I demanded.

  His laugh shattered the evening air.

  “Then why do you pretend to? Why?”

  “Tron working for him, maybe, but not with him. Little old Tron learn lots from Mr. Hoadley. Like making what he call a coup d’état. You know what that mean? Mr. Hoadley learn Tron all about that. Best way for Tron to beat Mr. Hoadley be to know all his plans, all his great big noble plans to save the world. King of Kairogi—sound right good, don’t it, King of Kairogi? But it not good enough for Tron. Mr. Hoadley’s ship never going near Africa. All Mr. Hoadley’s little yachts never going near that big ship. Tron going to be king, all right, but not in Kairogi.”

  He turned the wagon towards the tangle of vegetation which almost concealed Cousin Lucille’s cottage from path, from beach. The growth was so dense about the house that I could not tell whether or not there were lights within. But there must be; it was not yet late, and Cousin Lucille never left her doors.

  “What are you doing? Where are we going?”

  “We going to Miss Lucille,” Tom said. “Get her jewels.”

  “But they aren’t real. They’re fake.”

  “Now, Mrs. Renier, ma’am,” Tron said softly, “I don’t want none of that kind of talk.”

  “But it’s true! She sold them all abroad! They’re nothing but glass and paste.”

  Tron shrugged. “You’d tell me that whether it true or not. It don’t make no never-mind. If I say they real, I get my money.”

  He jumped down from the wagon, held out his hand to me. I did not want him to touch me. I clambered down alone, shaking straw and stink from my skirts. We pushed through the overgrown ilex bushes to the door, which Tron opened with a kick. “Go in first, Mrs. Renier, ma’am. Tell her I want everything she’s got.”

  The door opened directly into the cluttered living room, into pitch darkness. There was not a glimmer of light.

  “Call her,” Tron said. “Tell her who you are. Ask for light.”

  “Cousin Lucille, it’s Stella. Terry’s wife. Cousin Lucille?”

  “Lights,” Tron prodded, poking me with an ungentle finger.

  “Cousin Lucille, where are the candles?”

  Silence. Darkness. I could hear nothing but the motion of the leaves, the throbbing of the surf, the evening cacophony of insects and frogs. From the house, silence. The shutters must be closed tight, the curtains drawn. The air was stifling. No glimmer from the lightship came to relieve the absolute dark. I put my fingers instinctively up to my eyes.

  “Where the hell is her man?” Tron asked. “Call him. She never lets him off.”

  I recalled the quiet and gentle presence of Cousin Lucille’s old butler. “Eben! Eben, where are you?”

  No answer.

  “Mrs. Renier, ma’am,” Tron warned softly, “don’t try to run away now. I stop you, and you wouldn’t like that, I pro
mise, you wouldn’t like it.”

  He let go my arm and stode across the room, falling over something. I heard him pushing aside curtains, wrenching at shutters. A flash of lightning illuminated the room briefly, but long enough to show that everything was in disorder, pictures torn from the walls, tables and chairs overturned. Tron cursed. There was the smell of sulphur as he struck a match. In its flickering light he found a candelabrum on the table between the windows. He lit the candles and held them high, moving slowly about the room.

  I thought of making a dash, of trying to hide somewhere in the darkness. But Tron knew his way around in the dark. There would be no place for me to hide which would be safe from him. I stood still, just over the threshold, and followed his progress past the confusion of pictures on the floor, slashed in their ornate gold frames, past broken china and porcelain, disordered rugs, then gave a cry as the wavering candlelight illumined Cousin Lucille sitting in her big chair, staring at us.

  Tron strode across the room to her. Swore again. Held the candles so that I could see not only Cousin Lucille’s wide-open eyes and mouth, but wax dripping from the candles onto the blood-rimmed hole in the front of her dress. Her earrings were gone; blood dripped from her torn earlobes. There were no rings on her fingers. The neck of her dress flapped loose where her brooch had been torn off.

  Tron turned away from the grey face, the vacant eyes and mouth of death. “Someone beat me to it. Come on.”

  “Who—”

  “Half a dozen men could have done it. Or more likely her own house man.”

  I thought of Eben courteously wiping gravy from the place on Cousin Lucille’s dress where the bullet hole was now. “Not Eben—”

  “Goddam, this means—” Tron started, strode across the room and grabbed my wrist. As he pulled me across the threshold he stopped and flung the candelabrum to the floor. I managed to jerk away from him long enough to stamp out the flames. He caught me again. “Try, try, little Mrs. Renier. This a blaze can’t be put out.”

  He hauled me back to the wagon and I climbed in, without question, without argument. We drove, on what was barely a cow path, back into the scrub. Our way was lit by the lightning, which was still too far off to be accompanied by thunder. When we got to the dark water of the creek Tron stopped the horses and made a low, uncanny owl’s hoot.