The Wrinkle in Time Quintet

by Madeleine L'engle

Chapter Six

  The silence in the kitchen was broken by Dr. Louise drumming on the table.

  Mr. Murry put a bowl of food by the pantry door. “Are you sure?”

  The bishop rubbed his eyes. “I could be wrong.”

  Hadron, asleep on his scrap of rug, watched with one suspicious eye. The dog ate hungrily, but tidily. When it was finished, Hadron minced over to inspect the bowl, licking it for possible crumbs, while the dog stood, wagging its long tail.

  Mrs. Murry took an old blanket out to the garage. “He can stay there for tonight. If he’s a dog from three thousand years ago, I don’t want him to…” Her voice trailed off.

  Dr. Louise laughed. “If he’s from three thousand years ago, do you think keeping him either in or out of the house would make any difference?”

  Mrs. Murry was chagrined. “You’re right, of course. But somehow I feel he’s freer to come and go if he’s outside. For tonight, at any rate. Tomorrow we’ll see. This evening we’re going to sit around the table and eat a civilized meal with a very nice glass of burgundy.” She washed her hands. “All right. We’re ready. Let’s gather round.”

  The kitchen curtains were drawn across the long expanse of windows. The fire in the open hearth crackled pleasantly. The aroma of Mrs. Murry’s casserole was tantalizing. It should have been a normal, pleasant evening, but it wasn’t.

  “Bishop, tell us about the dog, please,” Polly asked.

  He lifted his glass of wine so that the light touched the liquid and it shone like a ruby. “I’m getting old. I’m not sure. I’m probably wrong. But Karralys has a dog like that.”

  “Yes,” Polly agreed. “The first time I saw Karralys, by the big oak, there was a dog with him.”

  “Was it that dog?” her grandfather demanded.

  “That kind of dog, with big ears tipped with black.”

  “You’re sure Karralys has a dog?”

  “Yes. Why?” the bishop asked.

  “It just seems very unlikely. Three thousand years ago there were very few domesticated dogs. There were wolves, and dog-wolves. But domesticated dogs were just beginning to be mentioned in Egypt.”

  “We don’t know exactly how long ago Karralys lived. Three thousand years is just a convenient guess. Anyhow, how do you know?”

  “I’m a fund of useless information.”

  “Not so useless,” his wife said. “This dog appears to have no wolf blood. It’s unlikely your Karralys would have had a dog like this.”

  “Unless,” the bishop said, “he brought him to the New World with him?”

  “What’s all the fuss?” Dr. Louise raised her eyebrows. “If you’re seeing people from three thousand years ago, why get so excited about a dog?”

  “It’s one more thing,” the bishop said. “I think it’s a sign.”

  “Of what?” His sister sounded impatient.

  “I know, I know, Louise, it’s against all your training. But you did take care of Annie, you have to admit that.”

  “I took care of a girl whose badly lacerated finger needed immediate attention. She wasn’t that different from all the other fallen sparrows you seem to think it’s your duty to rescue.”

  “Louise,” Mrs. Murry said, “I find it hard to believe that Nase actually brought Anaral to your office and that you treated her as an ordinary patient.”

  “As an ordinary patient,” Dr. Louise said firmly. “Whether or not the girl whose finger I took care of was from three thousand years ago or not, I have no idea.”

  “You told me to take her back,” the bishop said.

  “To wherever. Whenever.”

  “Louise, it all started in your root cellar with the first Ogam stone.”

  “I’m only a simple Episcopalian,” Dr. Louise said. “This is too much for me.”

  “You aren’t a simple anything, that’s your problem.” The bishop looked over to the Ogam stones on the dresser. “And noting the fall of the sparrow is an activity not unknown to you, Louise. Maybe you should come to the star-watching rock with me. Maybe if you crossed the time threshold—”

  Dr. Louise shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  The bishop’s plate was empty and he took a large helping from the bowl Mrs. Murry held out. The quantity of food he managed to put away seemed in direct disproportion to his long thinness. “This is marvelous, Kate. And the wine—you don’t drink this wine every night?”

  Mr. Murry refilled the bishop’s glass. “All in your honor.”

  The bishop took an appreciative sip. “The words on the Ogam stones, if I have deciphered them correctly, are peaceable, gentle. Memorial markers. And occasionally something that sounds like part of a rune. The one Polly carried in for me, for instance: Let the song of our sisters the stars sing in our hearts to—and there it breaks off. Isn’t it beautiful? But, alas, in Annie’s time, as now, sacred things were not always honored. Words—runes, for instance—were sometimes misused. They were meant to bless, but they were sometimes called on for curses. And they were used to influence weather, fertility, human love. Yes, runes were sometimes abused, but it was never forgotten that they had power.”

  “You’re lecturing again,” his sister commented.

  But Polly, interested, asked, “You mean the old rhyme ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me’ is wrong?”

  The bishop agreed. “Totally.”

  Mrs. Murry pushed her chair back slightly and Hadron, taking this as an invitation, left his place by the hearth and jumped into her lap.

  The bishop continued, “That little rhyme doesn’t take into account that words have power, intrinsic power. I love you. What could be more powerful than that small trinity? On the other hand, malicious gossip can cause horrible damage.”

  Mr. Murry said, “If Dr. Louise tells me I look awful, my joints are going to feel hot and inflamed.”

  “Whereas, happily, I can say you’re doing very well indeed,” Dr. Louise said.

  “Swimming definitely helps,” Mr. Murry said, “but we do respond to suggestion.”

  Dr. Louise pursued her own train of thought. “I’m an internist, not a cardiologist, but I’d like to have a look at Zachary. I thought he seemed a charming young man and I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “He’s coming over on Saturday,” Polly said. “I’d like you to see him, too, Dr. Louise, I really would.”

  “Is he a special friend of yours?” she asked.

  “He’s a friend. I don’t know him that well. I don’t even know him well enough to know whether or not he’s likely to exaggerate. I know he was scared.”

  “One of the Ogam stones”—the bishop frowned slightly, remembering—“goes: From frights and fears may we be spared by breath of wind and quiet of rain.”

  “Is a rune a sort of prayer?” Polly asked.

  “If one truly believes in prayer, yes.”

  “Like the Tallis Canon?” she suggested.

  “All praise to thee my God this night”—the bishop nodded—“for all the blessings of the light. Yes, of course. And then there’s: Let all mortal flesh keep silence. Oh, indeed, yes.”

  Mrs. Murry brought the salad bowl to the table. “What a conversation for a group of pragmatic scientists—with the exception of you, Nase.”

  “Alas.” Bishop Colubra took a piece of bread and wiped up his gravy. “Bishops all too often limit themselves to the pragmatic. And there are times when pragmatism is essential. The trouble is that then we tend to forget that there’s anything else. But there is, isn’t there, Louise, even in the most pragmatic of sciences?”

  “Louise has a fine reputation as a diagnostician,” Mrs. Murry said, “and—am I right, Louise?—her diagnoses are made not only from observation and information and knowledge but also on a hunch.”

  Dr. Louise agreed.

  “Intuition.” The bishop smiled at his sister. “The understanding of the heart, rather than the mind.”

  “You were always wise, big brother.” Dr. Louise suddenl
y sounded wistful. “You were the one I could always turn to for reason when things got out of hand. And now I’d think you’ve gone completely off your rocker if these eminently sane people sitting around the table didn’t take you seriously. And Polly, who strikes me as a most sensible person, is having the same hallucinations that you are.”

  “Mass hallucinations—though two people are hardly a mass,” Mrs. Murry said. “It’s a possibility, but not a likelihood.”

  “I wish I didn’t feel so outraged,” Dr. Louise apologized. “It’s making me inordinately grumpy. When Nase brought Annie to me, did I just move into his hallucination? If it weren’t for that possibility, I could wipe the whole thing out and return to my rational world.”

  Mrs. Murry took the casserole to the counter and brought back a bowl of fruit. “I couldn’t eat another thing,” Polly said, “not even an apple. Anyhow, I like our funny-looking gnarled ones better than these pretty ones.”

  The bishop reached into the bowl and helped himself.

  No one wanted coffee and Dr. Louise rose and announced that it was time to go home.

  Polly and her grandparents went outdoors to give the Colubras the traditional farewell. The northwest wind was cold, but the sky was high and clear, the stars dazzling like diamonds. The Milky Way streamed its distant river across the sky.

  The bishop raised his face to the starlight. “How many millions of years are we seeing, Alex?”

  “Many.”

  “What is the nearest star?”

  “Proxima Centauri, about four light-years away.”

  “And how many miles?”

  “Oh, about 23 million million.”

  The bishop’s breath was cloudy in the light over the garage door. “Look at that star just overhead. We’re seeing it in time as well as space, time long gone. We don’t know what that star looks like now, or even if it’s still there. It could have become a supernova. Or collapsed in on itself and become a black hole. How extraordinary to be looking at a star in this present moment and seeing it millions of years ago.”

  Dr. Louise took her brother’s arm affectionately. “Enough fantasizing, Nase.”

  “Is it?” But he got into the car, behind the steering wheel.

  “Louise shows both courage and trust to let Nason drive,” Mrs. Murry murmured.

  Dr. Louise, getting into the passenger seat, laughed. “He used to fly a lot, too.”

  “Terrifying thought,” Mrs. Murry said.

  They waved as the bishop took off in a cloud of dust.

  “Well, Polly.” Mrs. Murry sat on the side of her granddaughter’s bed.

  “Grand, there isn’t any point keeping me cooped up. Zachary saw Anaral just outside the pool wing, he really did, even if we find it strange. And I saw Karralys.” She thought of Karralys’s warning, but said firmly, “I don’t think there’s any danger.”

  “Not from Annie or Karralys, perhaps. But wandering about in time doesn’t strike me as particularly safe.”

  “It really isn’t wandering about in time,” Polly persisted. “It’s just one particular sort of circle of time, about three thousand years ago, to now, and vice versa.”

  “I don’t want you getting lost three thousand years ago.”

  “I really don’t think that’s going to happen, Grand.”

  Mrs. Murry gently smoothed back Polly’s rumpled hair. “Bishop Colubra suggested that you not go to the star-watching rock till after the weekend. Please abide by that suggestion. For my peace of mind. And not to the stone wall, either.”

  “All right. For you.”

  Her grandmother kissed her good night and left. The wind continued to rise and beat about the house. One of the shutters banged. Polly heard her grandparents getting ready for bed. She herself was not sleepy. Anything but sleepy. She shifted from one side to the other. Curled up. Stretched out. Flopped over onto her back. Sighed. Insomnia was something that very seldom troubled her, but this night she could not sleep. She turned on her bed lamp and tried to read, but she could not keep her mind on the book. Her eyes felt gritty, but not sleepy. She could not get comfortable in bed because something was drawing her out of it.

  The pool. She had to go to the pool.

  —Nonsense, Polly, that’s the last place in the world you should go. You promised. Don’t be crazy.

  But the pool kept drawing her. Maybe Annie was there. Maybe Annie needed her.

  —No. Not the pool. She lay down, pulled the quilt over her head.—No. No. Go to sleep. Forget the pool.

  And she could not. Almost without volition, she swung her legs out of bed, pushed into her slippers. Went downstairs.

  When she got out to the pool, the moon, which was only a few days off full, was shining through the skylights, so there was no need to turn on the lights. She pulled off her nightgown and slid into the water, which felt considerably colder than it did during the day. Swam, backstroke, so that she could look up at the night sky, with only a sprinkling of the brightest stars visible because of the moonlight. Then she swam the length of the pool underwater, thought she saw metal glistening on the bottom of the pool at the deep end.

  She dove down and picked up something hard. Shining. It was a silver circlet with a crescent moon. At first she thought it was a torque, but there was no opening, and she realized that it was meant for the head. She put it on over her wet hair, and it felt cool and firm. Took it off and looked at it again. She did not know much about jewelry, but she knew that this small crown was beautiful. What was a silver crown with a crescent moon doing in her grandparents’ pool?

  She got out of the water, wrapped a large towel around herself, and sat down to dry off before going to her cold bedroom. She still felt wide awake. In the moonlight she could see the big clock at the far end of the pool. It was not quite midnight. She put on her warm nightgown, intending to go right back upstairs. But the silver circlet caught the light and she picked it up and looked at it again, and once more placed it on her head, with the crescent moon in the center of her forehead.

  The webbing of her chair no longer felt soft and resilient under her, but hard, and cold, and a sharp wind was blowing.

  She shuddered.

  She was sitting on a stone chair, slightly hollowed, so that her hands rested on low arms. A circle of similar chairs surrounded a large altar, similar to the one before which Anaral had sung her song of praise to the Mother, but several times bigger. Behind each chair was a large standing stone. The place was reminiscent of pictures she had seen of Stonehenge, except that at Stonehenge there were no thrones or jagged mountains in the background, no snow on peaks white with moonlight.

  She should never have gone to the pool.

  Her breathing was rapid, frightened. Her heart thumped painfully. Karralys was sitting on one of the thrones, about a quarter of the way around the circle from Polly. He wore a brass torque set with a stone she thought was a cairngorm, which reminded her of the topaz in Bishop Colubra’s ring. He wore a long robe that looked like white linen but was probably very soft, bleached leather. His dog was beside him, sitting upright, ears pricked at attention, his dog which looked like the dog Mr. Murry had brought into the house. Anaral was at his right, wearing a silver circlet similar to the one Polly had found in the pool and which was still on her head.

  Across the altar from Karralys was Tav, who wore a short, light tunic, a wildcat skin over one shoulder, and leather straps around his wrists and upper arms. His great spear was leaning against his chair. There were several other men and women, some young, some old, many wearing animal skins or cloaks of feathers. Only Anaral and Polly wore the silver circlets. The chair at Karralys’s left was empty.

  The moon was setting directly behind the standing stone that backed Karralys’s chair, and above the moon was a bright star. No, not a star, Polly thought; a planet. She started to speak, to question, but Anaral raised a hand to silence her.

  In the background there were more people, and she heard the low, almost subliminal throbbing of a
drum. In the distance the sound was echoed. Otherwise, there was silence. All the faces in the circle were grave. Expectant.

  Karralys and Anaral rose and went to the outside of the circle, where a large fire was laid in a shallow pit. Anaral gave Karralys a flintstone and he struck a spark and ignited the fire. The two druids raised their arms in a wide gesture of praise, and together they danced slowly and majestically, first around the now blazing fire, and after that around the circle of standing stones. Then, one by one, each person in the circle took a brand and lit it from the fire, and handed it to one of the people who were outside the circle.

  When the passing of the fire was complete, there was a burst of song, rich in harmony, joyous in melody. Polly’s heart soared with the voices of the people in and around the circle, so that she forgot her fear. Slowly the song died away into a gentle silence.

  Then Karralys spoke in his low, ringing voice. “The year has been kind.” He indicated the empty chair next to his. “The Ancient Grey Wolf was full of years and was gathered to the ancestors on the sixth day of the moon during the night. His spirit will continue to care for us, joined to the spirits of all of the People of the Wind who are among the stars but whose concern is never far from us.” A soft breeze touched Polly’s cheeks, moving over the great circle of standing stones. Behind them shadows swayed, purple, silver, indigo, shadows of men and women so tall that they seemed to reach to the stars. Polly could not understand all of what was said, but she felt wrapped in loving strength.

  Karralys continued, “The Cub is still young, but he has the gift, and he will learn under the guidance of those who have gone before.”

  A young man, indeed very young, wearing a grey-wolf skin, rose. “And from you, Karralys.” He turned around slowly, bowing to the assembly.

  Then Tav spoke, standing and leaning on his great spear. The moonlight touched his hair and turned it to silver. His grey eyes glinted silver. Moonlight touched the ruffling of feathers on his spear. “We have honored the ritual. The fire burns. It flames as brightly as the head of the one who has been sent us by the Mother.” He indicated Polly, and his face was solemn.