A Ring of Endless Light

by Madeleine L'engle

  "Vicky," Binnie said quickly.

  "'Bye, Vicky, I'm Grace. Come on, Bin." And she took the little girl's hand.

  As they left, Leo came out of the phone booth. "Your dad says he'll see what he can do. Meanwhile, we're to come on back to the Island or whatever we want."

  "Leo--" I pulled myself up out of the sofa. "It's nice of you to do all this for Grandfather."

  "I told you. I love him. I'd do anything for him. Listen, how about if we go to one of the little islands with that super picnic of yours, and swim and relax?"

  "Sure, that sounds like fun."

  "You don't sound very enthusiastic."

  "Oh, Leo--I was just worried about Grandfather and what would happen if he hemorrhaged ..."

  "We'd bring him here."

  "I don't want him to come here. I hate it."

  He took my hand. "Don't borrow trouble, Vicky. Your dad will get blood as soon as possible."

  "I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't project frightening things. Grandfather once told me that the reason I do this is that I have a storyteller's imagination, and that it's both blessing and bane. Thanks, Leo. Let's go."

  We returned the pickup to Cor, who was indignant about the blood.

  "Dr. Austin'll fix it," Leo said. "Thanks, Cor. I'm bringing a group to the mainland tomorrow for shopping. How about a game?"

  Cornelius Codd's face brightened. "I'll lick the stuffing out of you."

  "Unh-unh," Leo said. "This time I'm going to win. Wait and see." To me he said, "I win just often enough so Cor can't relax."

  We left Cor cackling as we went to the launch.

  Leo chose one of the small uninhabited islands. There was a curve of beach where we landed. Otherwise, the island was largely rocks, with a few stunted trees driven into strange shapes by the wind. We scrambled about the rocks till we were too hot. Then we had a swim. The thought of the dolphins flicked against the corners of my mind, but something told me (did they?) not to call them. Anyhow, we didn't swim out far because Leo wasn't sure about the undertow.

  We sat on a rock, barely shaded by one of the trees, and ate our picnic. We talked about Leo's going to Columbia, and how strange living in a big city was going to seem to him. We talked about the sea, and about ships. And when it was time to go he asked, "Can I kiss you?"

  I shook my head. "I'd rather not."

  "Why?"

  "I keep telling you."

  "I bet you let Zachary kiss you."

  "I don't 'let' him."

  "But he kisses you?" Leo pursued.

  I didn't answer.

  He grabbed me and pressed his lips fiercely against mine, and I shoved him hard and broke away. "Don't spoil things!"

  He shouted, "Who's spoiling them?"

  "You are. Leo, friendship's the most important thing in the world. Please, please, let's just be friends for now."

  "Do you let Adam kiss you?"

  "Adam doesn't kiss me."

  "Never?"

  "Never. Okay? Adam has all kinds of schooling to get through before he can get serious about anybody. He and I are friends. You and I are friends. Zachary feels he has to kiss everyone. It doesn't mean anything. I think it's just a substitute because he doesn't know how to be friends. I want to go home now, please. I want to make sure Grandfather's all right."

  As we shoved off, I said, "If I can't go out with you without having it turn into a wrestling match, then I'm not going out with you again."

  He put one hand lightly over mine. "I'll play it any way you want."

  "Honest?"

  "Honest."

  But I wasn't sure, and Suzy's accusations echoed in my ears. Leo was super as a friend, but he didn't make that little thing shaped like a lizard run up and down me anywhere at all.

  Zachary called on Tuesday to tell me about his first really solo flight. All the blase sophistication was gone; he sounded as excited as Rob. He asked me to come flying with him on Wednesday, but Adam had already called about Wednesday.

  "Saturday, as usual?"

  "Okay, sure." But was anything ever 'as usual' with Zachary?

  Whenever the phone rang we thought it might be the hospital saying their supply of blood was replenished and we could pick it up. Daddy explained to us that drastic blood shortages were not that uncommon, and if the worst came to the worst we could always take Grandfather to the mainland.

  I told him about Binnie, and he said it sounded as though she probably did have some form of leukemia, though what kind or how bad he couldn't tell. The pills might well be for epilepsy, which could be the least of her problems, unless her father kept flushing her medication down the toilet.

  "These religious nuts." Suzy sounded ferocious. "They ought to be put in jail."

  "Hold on, Suze." John used his most reasonable voice. "I don't agree with throwing out the pills which would control epilepsy, but what about keeping somebody whose central nervous system has blown, say, from an aneurism, on life-support machines? Keeping an irrevocable vegetable alive is against my religion."

  Suzy stuck her underlip out stubbornly. "It's not the same. What Binnie's father's doing should be against the law."

  "It probably is. But so is unplugging a vegetable from a life-support system against the law. Right, Dad?"

  "True," Daddy agreed. "And we can't go making value judgments against Binnie's father, because we aren't positive of her diagnosis."

  "When I'm a doctor," Suzy said, "I want medical decisions to be a lot clearer than they are now."

  "So do we all, Suzy." Daddy sighed. "So do we all."

  Adam and I worked with Norberta and Njord Wednesday morning. That is, we worked for as long as they were willing to work, which meant that when it stopped being a game for them, they invented games of their own for us to play. At one point Njord and I were turning somersaults together in the water, with me clinging to him for dear life.

  Norberta interrupted us, nudging me, and I put my arms around her and closed my eyes. Listened. Saw. Ocean, with no land in any direction. A night sky dipping down to the water on all four horizons, a sky alive with stars which moved in a slow and radiant dance, rising from the east and dipping down into the west, so that I felt the turning of the planet, and that this, too, was part of the dance, and so were the dolphins, and so were Adam and I.

  I pressed my cheek against Norberta's vibrant coolness and shivered with the beauty of it. Finally Norberta gave me a goodbye nudge, called Njord with a small slap of her fluke, and they were gone.

  I tried to show Adam some of what I had seen. "The problem is, what seems a big deal for us is the way they do things all the time."

  Adam did a Basil-type water cartwheel. "C'mon, Vic. Jeb's asked us to have lunch with him. I've shown him all our reports, and he wants to talk with you."

  I felt a flutter of nervousness and excitement. But even though I didn't know Jeb very well, I trusted him.

  He took us across the Island to the Inn for lunch, saying we'd have no privacy at the cafeteria. We had the same table at the Inn that Leo and I had had, but it was bright daylight instead of rainy darkness, and the dining room was stuffy.

  We ordered salads and iced tea, and Jeb thanked me for the sonnet. "I read it to Ynid," he said, and smiled at me. "You know, Vicky, there are not many people who would understand my doing that, and there are not many people I'd tell it to. But I assume Adam has made it clear to you that your ability to understand dolphins is unusual?"

  "It seemed so--so--"

  "I know. So natural. But it takes most of us months if not years to be in tune with dolphins as you are."

  "So right," Adam agreed. "And her reports of the experiments with the dolphins are much more vivid than anything I could write."

  "Puts you in your place, eh?" Jeb said.

  Adam screwed up his face in a funny sort of grimace. "I'm not sure what--or where--my place is."

  Jeb handed his empty iced-tea glass to the waitress. "In marine biology, that's clear. But it's an extremely wide field and
widening daily. You have a few more years before you have to decide precisely where to specialize ... My thanks," he said to the waitress who had refilled his glass.

  Her face had been tired and cross when we ordered. Now it untensed and she smiled. Jeb had that effect on people, with his warm brown spaniel eyes with the pain not quite hidden behind them, and a smile that made you feel he understood and liked you, just the way you were.

  "And you, Vicky?" The generous gaze turned to me.

  "I guess I'm glad I have a lot of years before I have to decide. This day and age doesn't make much provision for poets in garrets."

  "Judging by the reports on dolphins you wrote for Adam, your prose is excellent. You never use a word you don't need, and your imagery is precise and vivid. Read a lot."

  "Oh, I do."

  "And when you get to college, major in English. The great writers are your best teachers. If you take my advice, you won't go in for those so-called creative-writing courses. You'll write anyhow, and you'll never again have a chance like the four years of college to soak yourself in writers of all kinds and sorts. And a lot of people who teach creative writing tend to be manipulative, or to want to make the young writers over in their own images. By the bye, your prose in your dolphin reports reminds me of O'Keefe's, and I consider him a latter-day Lewis Thomas or Loren Eiseley."

  I could feel my face getting hot. "Oh--wow--" I murmured inanely, and added, "My father's writing a book on his laser research."

  "I've read a few of his articles," Jeb said. "He lacks your sense of the poetic, but his language is tidy, and his experiments are breaking new and important ground. Yet I understand he's not going to continue his research?"

  "Not full-time. He's always done some, and corresponded with other researchers in his field, like Shasti and Shen-shu. But he's a people doctor."

  Jeb rubbed his hand over his bald spot. "God knows we need those. People doctors, as you call them, doctors with both skill and human compassion, are becoming an endangered species. Anyhow, Vicky love, keep on with your writing. You've got the gift, and a gift is to be served."

  "I'll try," I promised. Jeb was talking to me as though I were as old as Adam or John. As though I were a grownup. As though I mattered to him.

  Then he began asking me questions about Basil, about Norberta and Njord, and before I knew it we were the only ones in the dining room.

  "Better go before they throw us out." Jeb handed Adam some bills. "Here, pal, you go do the work, and bring Vicky and me each a mint. Two mints, please." While Adam was at the cashier's desk, Jeb said, "You're good for him. He was pretty badly hurt a year ago."

  I nodded.

  "How much did he tell you?"

  "About--about Joshua being killed. And he felt responsible for it because of some girl."

  "He's learned to trust you, then. Good. Adam's a very private person by nature, and last summer intensified it. I'm a friend of Dr. O'Keefe's, so I already knew most of the story, and it was through O'Keefe that we got Adam here this summer. He'll make a brilliant scientist if he even begins to fulfill his promise. I'm glad he has you for a friend."

  Me, Vicky. Not 'all of you Austins' the way it usually is, but me, myself. And Jeb's warm look made me feel very me.

  And before dinner I had a full half hour to go down to the beach and sit on the rock and absorb the goodness of the day, and be part of the rock and the sea and the sky.

  Friday night while we were drying dishes the phone rang. Suzy, as usual, grabbed for it. "Adam!" She sounded pleased; then, "Adam, what's wrong?" She turned from the phone. "John?" John was out on the porch, wiping the table. "Vicky--" Suzy sounded surprised. "He wants to speak to you."

  I started to snap at her, then shut my mouth and took the receiver she was thrusting at me. "Hi--Adam?"

  He sounded hoarse. "Jeb's in the hospital."

  "What--"

  "He was in the village, walking back to his car, and a motorcycle hit him."

  "Oh--Adam--"

  "He has a fractured skull and he's unconscious and we can't get a thing out of the doctors. Listen, is your father there?"

  "Daddy--" I gave him the phone.

  There was a long pause while he listened. Then he said, "The CAT scan was all right? That's a big weight off our minds, then, no worry about a subdural hematoma ... He responded to the pressure of your fingers? Are you sure? ... All right, hold on to that good thought."

  John had come in from the porch. He squeezed out the wet sponge and stood leaning against the sink, listening. He and Suzy were probably understanding everything Daddy was saying. He touched Daddy's arm. "Tell Adam we're all with him. And we'll get Grandfather's prayers going. They're sure-fire."

  Suzy gave John a funny look.

  "We'll all pray," Mother said quietly.

  Daddy said, "Let us know if there's any change. Are you back on the Island? ... Feel free to call us any time. And try to sleep."

  When he hung up, I asked, "Is Jeb going to be all right?"

  "We won't know for a while. The sooner he regains consciousness, the more hopeful the prognosis."

  I didn't like the sound of his voice. A shadow seemed to move across the kitchen windows. I kept on wiping the knives although they'd been dry for a long time. "Well, but--" I said at last. "You don't think he's going to die?"

  "A skull fracture's pretty critical, but as long as the CAT scan was okay he's got a good chance if he doesn't stay unconscious too long."

  John added in a low voice. "Better he die than--" His voice trailed off.

  "Be a vegetable?" I asked.

  John simply nodded.

  Mother turned off the water, which had been running all this time. Even though the Island is surrounded by water, Grandfather's drinking supply comes from a well and we're careful not to waste it.

  'Wonder who'll be the next to go?' the woman had asked at Commander Rodney's funeral. Maybe it wouldn't be our grandfather after all. Maybe it would be Jeb Nutteley, struck down as wantonly as his wife and child. I had an irrational desire to run across the Island to the dolphin pens. But if Ynid needed to be told, she would surely know from Adam.

  "I'm going to help Father get ready for bed," Daddy said.

  Suzy demanded, "So, are you going to ask him to pray for Jeb?"

  "Why not?" Daddy responded mildly.

  "You mean, it may not do any good but it probably won't do any harm?"

  Daddy's voice was still mild. "I think it well may do good."

  Suzy snorted and turned away from Daddy, so that she was facing Mother.

  Mother put her hand against Suzy's cheek. "I believe in prayer. You know that."

  "But you don't even know Jeb! You've never even met him!"

  "What's got into you?" John demanded sharply.

  Suzy still sounded angry. "Prayer didn't keep Jeb from being hit by a motorcycle. It didn't stop Grandfather from having leukemia."

  "Prayer was never meant to be magic," Mother said.

  "Then why bother with it?" Suzy scowled.

  "Because it's an act of love," Mother said.

  Adam called again in the morning. Jeb was still unconscious, but his vital signs were stable. John's boss, Dr. Nora Zand, was at the hospital and would stay all morning. Someone else would take over in the afternoon. Adam had been asked to remain at the station and care for the dolphins.

  Suzy had answered the phone as usual and was relaying the information. Now she thrust the phone at me. "He wants to speak to you."

  Adam simply asked, "How's your grandfather?"

  I knew what he meant. "Daddy spoke to him last night. I'll go in to him in a few minutes. He's usually clearest in the morning." And I trusted Adam to know what I meant. "How's Ynid?"

  "She's not eating."

  "Oh, Adam--" If Ynid was not eating, that meant that Jeb was not all right.

  "I'll call again if there's any news. Or send a message by John."

  We hung up and I went in to Grandfather. I thought he looked very pale. "Gr
andfather--"

  He looked up from the Bible and lavished his smile on me.

  "Adam's boss, Jeb Nutteley, was hit by a motorcycle and he's got a fractured skull and he's unconscious."

  "Your father told me." He rubbed his finger lightly over the open page of the Bible.

  "Will you pray for him?"

  Prayer. An act of love, Mother had said.

  "Of course," Grandfather replied.

  "How do you pray for someone like that?"

  Grandfather held out his open hand, palm up. "There are many different ways. I simply take him into my heart, and then put him into God's hand." Again he smiled. "That sounds like rather an athletic feat, doesn't it? Nevertheless, it's as close as I can come to telling you."

  For a moment I had a flash of understanding. "Thanks, Grandfather. That helps. I'll come read to you after breakfast."

  In the kitchen Mother was opening the oven door. "Where're the hot pads?"

  Rob handed her one.

  "Okay, breakfast," John said brusquely. "I'll bring out the butter."

  There was something comfortingly normal about sitting around the big white table. It was hard to realize that Jeb was lying unconscious in the hospital, instead of standing by the dolphin pens, throwing fish to Ynid. I closed my eyes and thought of Jeb and his gentle kindness, and then I imaged Ynid, and Una and Nini. They understood acts of love. They would know how to pray for Jeb.

  "What's the matter, Vicky?" Suzy asked.

  I opened my eyes. "I think I was praying."

  "Do you have to look as though you're dying?"

  I didn't answer back. I helped myself to a blueberry muffin. Rob pushed the butter toward me, asking, "What're you doing today?"

  "Read to Grandfather. Then nothing till this afternoon. I'm going flying with Zachary." This was not the time to be telling Mother that Zachary was likely to be doing most of the flying. If I hadn't told her after the first time Zachary was at the controls, I couldn't very well tell her now. And there wasn't anything to tell, really, with Art right there at the dual controls, able to correct anything Zachary might do wrong.

  Suzy interrupted me. "Are you praying again?"

  "Why are you so hipped on the subject?" I snapped back. "I was just thinking."

  When I went in to Grandfather the clarity his mind had had earlier was all muddied. He called me Caro, and he thought he was in Africa. "It's time we sent Victoria away to school," he urged. "She's been having too much dysentery and I'm worried about her."