The Wrinkle in Time Quintet

by Madeleine L'engle

  She laughed. “No, not banished. I needed more education than I could get at the local high school, so my parents sent me here. But it wasn’t banishing. It’s wonderful here.”

  “I, too, find it wonderful.” Above Karralys, high in the sky, flew an eagle. “Here you have”—he pointed to the addition with the pool—“water that is held in on all four sides, and it is in the same space as our great standing stones, our most holy place, even more holy than the rock and the altar by the lake. But for you the lake is gone, and the great stones, and there is no snow on the hills. I see you, and I wonder.”

  “I wonder, too.”

  “Bishop Heron—”

  “Bishop Colubra.” She laughed with delight that Karralys, too, thought of the bishop as a heron.

  “Yes. He is, I believe, a kind of druid.”

  The eagle soared up, up, until it was lost in blue. Polly watched it disappear, then asked, “Bishop Colubra’s spent lots of time with you?”

  “When he can. The threshold does not always open for him, and he cannot leave his own circle. He is wise in the ways of patience and love. He has turned his loss to compassion for others.”

  —What loss? Polly wondered fleetingly.

  But Karralys continued, “He has much knowledge of the heart, but he does not understand why it is that you were able to see me by the oak tree, or why the young man saw me. He does not understand how it is that you walked into our time.”

  “I don’t understand, either.”

  “At Samhain, more is possible than at other times. There has to be a reason. Anaral says you are not a druid.”

  “Heavens, no.”

  “There has to be a reason for you to have come. Perhaps the Heron opened the time gate especially for you.”

  “But I’m not the only one. Oh, Karralys—” She took in a deep gulp of fresh air. “Karralys, Zachary was here with me just a few minutes ago, and he saw Anaral.”

  Karralys looked shocked, frozen into immobility. “Who saw Anaral?”

  In her urgency, Polly sounded impatient. “The one you saw by the oak tree. His name is Zachary Gray. He’s a young man I met last summer in Greece.”

  “In—”

  “Greece. It’s far away, in the south of Europe, near Asia. Never mind. The point is, he’s someone I met last summer, but I don’t know him very well. He told me, this afternoon, that his heart is giving out, that he’s going to die. And then he saw Anaral.”

  Karralys nodded several times, soberly. “Sometimes when death is near, the threshold is open.”

  Suddenly Zachary’s words rang frighteningly true. She had not completely understood or believed him before. Now she did. “But he hasn’t crossed the threshold.”

  “No,” Karralys said. “No. He has glimpsed us when we have crossed the threshold and come into your circle. But you—you have come into our circle, and that is a very different thing.”

  “But—” She was not sure what she wanted to ask.

  “When we are in your circle, we are not invisible,” Karralys said. “People do not expect to see us, so we are translated, as it were, to people of your own time.”

  “You mean, people don’t know what—who—they’ve seen? I mean, I didn’t, when I saw you by the oak tree.”

  “Exactly,” Karralys said.

  “And when I first saw Anaral, at the pool, I thought she was just some girl—”

  “Yes.”

  “But then, when I was walking to the star-watching rock, and everything changed, and I was in your time…” Again her voice trailed off.

  “There is a pattern,” Karralys said. “There are lines drawn between the stars, and lines drawn between places, and lines drawn between people, and lines linking all three. It may be that Zachary is indeed as you are.”

  Polly frowned. “It does seem weird that his boss should be so interested in Ogam stones. But, Karralys, what about Dr. Louise? She saw Anaral.”

  “That was by chance, by emergency. Anaral does not fit into her worldview, so she does not believe. But you, Polly. You must be part of the pattern. There is a strong line drawing you from your circle to ours. I am afraid for you.”

  “Afraid? Why?”

  “You have spoken with my countryman? Tav?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. Both Zachary and Tav thought her red hair was beautiful. Tav tried to teach her Ogam and it was a game and they had laughed and been happy.

  “You must not speak with him.”

  “Why not? I’ve been studying Bishop Colubra’s notebook of Ogam, and Tav taught me some more.”

  “The hand that feeds the chicken ends up wringing its neck.”

  “What?”

  “If Tav likes you, and you like him, it will be even harder.”

  “What will be?”

  “Do not cross the threshold again. There is danger for you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Anaral has come to you too often. She is very young, and she must learn not to waste her power. Speak with the Heron. Tell him. Tell him about this—his name again, please?”

  “Zachary. Zachary Gray.”

  “He alters the pattern. Tell Bishop Heron. You will?”

  “Yes.” Suddenly she remembered the bishop saying that Zachary did not look well. Dr. Louise had said that he was too pale.

  “I must go.” Karralys bowed to her, turned, and walked away across the field. She watched after him until she heard a car drive up, too fast, skidding on the macadam as it came to a stop. Bishop Colubra.

  The bishop and Dr. Louise had brought their bathing suits, but they all sat around the table and listened as Polly told them about Zachary. About Karralys.

  “I didn’t totally believe Zachary—about his heart being that bad, until Karralys…” Her voice faltered.

  “Now, wait,” Dr. Louise said. “I’d like to speak to his doctor. Someone in the last stages of heart failure doesn’t work in a law office or drive around in sports cars. He’d be pretty well bedridden. He looks pasty, as though he doesn’t get outdoors enough, but he doesn’t look as if he’s on his deathbed.”

  “He didn’t say he was actually on his deathbed,” Polly said. “He didn’t give any time limits. Only that he wasn’t likely to make law school. And that’s at least a couple of years away.”

  “It still sounds a little overdramatic to me.”

  “Well, I thought so, too, but Karralys—”

  Dr. Louise spoke sharply. “Karralys is not a physician.”

  “He’s a druid,” the bishop said, “and I take him seriously.”

  “Really, Nason. I thought you were more orthodox than that.”

  “I’m completely orthodox,” the bishop expostulated. “That doesn’t mean I have to have a closed mind.”

  “Since when has this odd faith in druids been part of your orthodoxy? Weren’t they involved in the esoteric and the occult?”

  “They strike me as being a lot less esoteric and occult than modern medicine.”

  “All right, you two,” Mr. Murry broke in.

  “And if you’re going to have a swim before dinner,” Mrs. Murry suggested, “have it. Did you two squabble when you were kids?”

  “We drove our parents crazy.” Dr. Louise smiled.

  The bishop rose. He was a good foot taller than his sister. “But on the big things, the important things, we always stuck together. By the way, Louise, St. Columba speaks of Christ as his druid. You scientists can be terribly literal-minded. There’s really not that much known about druids, and I think they were simply wise men of their time. Caesar considered that all those of special rank or dignity were druids.”

  “Nase, let’s go swimming.” Dr. Louise was plaintive.

  “Of course. I’m running off at the mouth again. Alex, shall I change in your study?”

  “Fine. And Louise can have the twins’ room. I’ll just go out and bring in some more wood for the fire. It’s a never-ending job.”

  “I’ll set the table,” Polly said.
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  Her grandmother was washing broccoli. “First thing tomorrow morning I’m going to take those Ogam stones off the kitchen dresser and put them outside somewhere. I’d move them tonight, but Alex and Nase—Nase particularly—would object.”

  “Why?” Polly asked. “I mean, why move them?”

  “The kitchen dresser’s cluttered enough already. Large stones are not the usual kitchen decor. And if that Ogam writing was carved into them three thousand years ago, they may have something to do with Anaral’s and Karralys’s ability to come to our time and our place. And your ability to go to theirs. I’ll go out to the lab and get the casserole. It’s one of my Bunsen Burner Bourguignons.”

  As the door closed behind her grandmother, Polly remembered that Karralys had warned her of some kind of danger. In her concern for Zachary she had forgotten, and she did not take it very seriously because she could not believe that Tav with his laughter as he taught her Ogam, with his fingers gently kissing her hair, was any kind of menace to her.

  She opened a drawer in the kitchen counter and pulled out table mats, which she began to place on the table. Slowly she added silver, china, glasses. Had she ever studied English history? She thought back to some of the books, historical novels mostly, that she had read. Britain, she remembered, was made up of a lot of warring tribes in the early, pre-Roman days, and they impaled the heads of their enemies on poles and, yes, had practiced human sacrifice, too, at least in some of the tribes. Ugh. That was a time long gone, and a way of seeing the universe that was completely different from today’s.

  She was folding napkins as her grandmother came in, bearing a steaming casserole.

  “Grand, do you have an encyclopedia?”

  “In the living room. It’s the 1911 Britannica, which was supposed to be particularly fine. It’s totally obsolete as far as science goes, but it should be all right for druids, if that’s what you want to check out. It’s on the bottom shelf, to the right of the fireplace.”

  Polly got the encyclopedia, the D volume. There was only one page on the subject of druids. But yes, there was a mention of Caesar, the bishop was right. Druids went through extensive training, with much memorizing of handed-down wisdom. Anaral had told her that.

  Her grandmother called from the kitchen, “Found anything?”

  Polly took the volume and went into the kitchen. “Some. Druids studied astronomy and geography and whatever science was known in their time. Oh, and this is fascinating. There’s a suggestion that they might have been influenced by Pythagoras.”

  “Interesting, indeed.” Her grandmother was slicing vegetables for the salad.

  “Oh, listen, Grand, I like this. Before a battle, druids would often throw themselves between two armies to stop the war and bring peace.”

  “Armies must have been very small,” her grandmother remarked.

  Polly agreed. “It’s hard to remember in this overpopulated world that two armies could be small enough for a druid to rush in and stop war.”

  “They were peacemakers, then,” her grandmother said. “I like that.”

  Polly read on. “Oak trees were special to them. I can see why. They’re the most majestic trees around here. That’s about it for information on druids long ago. Later on, after the Roman Empire took over, druids and Christians didn’t get along. Each appeared to be a threat to the other. I wonder if they really were.”

  “Even Christians are threats to each other,” her grandmother said, “with misunderstandings between Protestants and Catholics, liberals and fundamentalists.”

  “Wouldn’t it be great,” Polly suggested, “if there were druids to throw themselves between the battle lines of Muslims and Christians and Palestinians and Jews in the Middle East, or Catholics and Protestants in Ireland?”

  “And between Louise and Nason when they spat,” her grandmother said, as the doctor and her brother came downstairs in bathing clothes, carrying towels.

  Polly put the encyclopedia away. She had learned a little something, at any rate.

  The bishop, evidently continuing a train of thought, was saying, “The people behind the building of Stonehenge were asking themselves the same questions that physicists like Alex are asking today, about the nature of the universe.”

  Mr. Murry was coming in with a load of wood in a canvas sling. He set it down beside the dining-room fireplace. “We haven’t come up with a Grand Unified Theory yet, Nase, not one that works.”

  The bishop ambled toward the pool, his legs showing beneath his robe. “The motive was certainly religious—behind the building of Stonehenge, that is—more truly religious than the crude rituals and ‘worship services’ that pass for religion in most of our churches today.”

  “Coming from one who has spent his life in the religious institution, that’s a rather sad remark,” his sister commented.

  The bishop opened the door, speaking over his shoulder. “Sad, perhaps, but true. And not to be surprised at. Come on. I thought we were going swimming.”

  “And who’s holding us up?” The two of them went through the door to the pool, shutting it carefully behind them.

  Mr. Murry put a sizable log onto the fire.

  “Polly looked druids up in the encyclopedia,” Mrs. Murry said. “The article wasn’t particularly enlightening.”

  “We need more than an encyclopedia to explain Nase’s opening a time threshold.” Mr. Murry blew through a long, thin pipe and the flames flared up brightly. “And Polly’s involvement in it. It’s incomprehensible.”

  “It’s not the first incomprehensible thing that’s happened in our lifetime,” his wife reminded him.

  “Have things ever been as weird as this?”

  Her grandmother laughed. “Yes, Polly, they have, but that doesn’t make this any less weird.”

  Mr. Murry stood up creakily. “Polly’s friend Zachary strikes me as adding a new and unexpected component. Why is this comparative stranger seeing people from three thousand years ago that you and I have never seen?”

  “Nobody told him about her,” Mrs. Murry said, “so he didn’t have time to put up a wall of disbelief.”

  “Is that what we’ve done?”

  “Isn’t it? And isn’t it what Louise has done?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Remember Sandy’s favorite quotation? Some things have to be believed to be seen? Louise doesn’t believe, even though she’s seen. Zachary, it would seem, has no idea what—or who—he has seen.”

  Mr. Murry took off his glasses and wiped them on his flannel shirt, blew on them, wiped them again, and put them on. “Why on earth did I think that old age would mean less unexpectedness? Wouldn’t a glass of wine be nice with dinner? I’ll go down to the cellar and get a bottle.” In a moment he came back up, carrying a rather dusty-looking bottle. “There’s a dog barking outside.”

  There was—a dog barking with steady urgency.

  “Dogs bark outside all the time,” his wife said.

  “Not this way. It’s not just ordinary barking at a squirrel or a kid on a bike. He’s barking at our house.” He put the bottle down and went out the pantry door. The dog kept on barking. “It’s not one of the dogs from the farms up the road,” he said as he returned. “And it doesn’t have a collar. It’s sitting in front of the garage and barking as though it wants to be let in.”

  “So?” Mrs. Murry was wiping off the bottle with a damp cloth. “Do you want me to open this to give it a chance to breathe?”

  “Please. Louise thinks we ought to have another dog.”

  “Alex, if you’re going to let the dog in, for heaven’s sake let it in, but remember we have company for dinner.”

  “Polly, come out with me and let’s study the situation. I agree with Louise. This house doesn’t feel right without a dog. A dog is protection.” He walked through the pantry and garage, and Polly followed him. In the last rays of light, a dog was sitting on the driveway, barking. When they appeared, it stood up and began wagging its tail hopefully. It w
as a medium-to-large dog, with beautiful pricked-up ears, tipped with black. There was a black tip to its long tail. Otherwise, it was a soft tan. Tentatively it approached them, tail wagging. Mr. Murry held out his hand and the dog nuzzled it.

  “What do you think?” he asked Polly.

  “Granddad, it looks like the dog I saw with Karralys.” But Karralys had had a wolf rather than a dog with him that afternoon. She could not be sure.

  “He looks like half the farm dogs around here,” her grandfather said. “I doubt if there’s any connection. He’s a nice-looking mongrel. Thin.” He ran his hands over the rib cage and the dog’s tail wagged joyfully. “Thin, but certainly not starved. We could at least bring him in and provide a meal.”

  “Granddad.” Polly put her arm about her grandfather’s waist and hugged him. “Everything is crazy. I went back three thousand years, and Zachary saw Anaral, and—and—you’re thinking of adopting a stray dog.”

  “When things are crazy,” her grandfather said, “a dog can be a reminder of sanity. Shall we bring him in?”

  “Grand won’t mind?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, Granddad, she’s pretty unflappable, but—”

  “I don’t think a dog is going to overflap her.” Mr. Murry put his hand on the dog’s neck where a collar would be, and went into the garage, and it walked along with him, whining very softly, through the pantry, and into the kitchen, just as the Colubras were coming in the other direction, wrapped in towels.

  “I see you’re taking my advice about another dog,” Dr. Louise said.

  “Oh, my.” Bishop Colubra’s voice was shocked.

  Mrs. Murry looked the dog over. “He seems clean. No fleas, as far as I can tell, or ticks. Teeth in good condition. Healthy gums. Glossy coat. What’s wrong, Nase?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think I’ve seen that dog before.”

  “Where?” his sister asked.

  “Three thousand years ago.”