Wind in the Door

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  All she felt from Mr. Jenkins was another cold wash of incomprehension.

  So she envisioned a small grove of aspens for him, each leaf shivering and shaking separately, whispering softly in the still summer air.

  “I’m too old,” was Mr. Jenkins’s response. “I’m much too old. I’m just holding you back. You ought to return me to Earth.”

  Meg forgot that she had recently made exactly that suggestion. “Anyhow, Yadah is on Earth, or in Earth, sort of, since it’s in Charles Wallace …”

  “No, no,” Mr. Jenkins said, “it’s too much. I’m no help. I don’t know why I thought I might be—” His kything trailed off.

  Through his discouragement she became aware of Calvin. “Hey, Meg! Communication implies sound. Communion doesn’t.” He sent her a brief image of walking silently through the woods, the two of them alone together, their feet almost noiseless on the rusty carpet of pine needles. They walked without speaking, without touching, and yet they were as close as it is possible for two human beings to be. They climbed up through the woods, coming out into the brilliant sunlight at the top of the hill. A few sumac trees showed their rusty candles. Mountain laurel, shiny, so dark a green the leaves seemed black in the fierceness of sunlight, pressed towards the woods. Meg and Calvin had stretched out in the thick, late-summer grass, lying on their backs and gazing up into the shimmering blue of sky, a vault interrupted only by a few small clouds.

  And she had been as happy, she remembered, as it is possible to be, and as close to Calvin as she had ever been to anybody in her life, even Charles Wallace, so close that their separate bodies, daisies and buttercups joining rather than dividing them, seemed a single enjoyment of summer and sun and each other.

  That was surely the purest kind of kything.

  Mr. Jenkins had never had that kind of communion with another human being, a communion so rich and full that silence speaks more powerfully than words.

  Again Calvin was kything with quick, urgent words. “The Wall Street Journal.”

  “What!”

  “Mr. Jenkins reads The Wall Street Journal. Maybe he might have read this.”

  “Read what?”

  “You remember, just a few weeks ago I was telling you about a science project I did years ago when I was in fourth grade. Even the twins were interested.”

  Meg listened intently, trying to kythe simultaneously to Mr. Jenkins.

  The subject of the old science project had come up because of the twins’ garden. Sandy and Dennys were baffled and irritated. Some of the pepper plants had large, firm, healthy fruit. On others the peppers were wizened and wrinkled and pale. Calvin had been taken out to look at the undersized, flabby plants, which showed no visible sign of disease, and he had been reminded of his fourth-grade science project.

  Meg asked, “Could the plants be having the same kind of trouble mitochondria are having? Could Echthroi bother things like gardens?”

  Calvin pushed this question aside to think about later. “Not now, Meg. Listen. I think my science project will help Mr. Jenkins understand.”

  Meg seemed to see Mr. Jenkins’s nose twitching as it always did when he was reluctant.

  “Okay, then.” She kythed to him, slowly, as simply as possible, Calvin’s kything always a strong current under and through hers.

  At nine years of age Calvin read avidly, every book that came into the small village library. The librarian, seeing his pleasure in books, encouraged him, gave him a special corner in the library as his own, and gave him all the old classics of the imagination to read. His span of concentration on these stories was infinite.

  But he considered most of the work he was given at school a bore, particularly science projects. However, he was also fiercely competitive, and determined to be the top of his class in all subjects, even those he considered a waste of time.

  When the week came when he must turn in the topic for his science project by Friday, he was disinterested and planless, but he knew he had to choose something. He was thinking about this with particular urgency on Thursday afternoon when he was helping old Mrs. Buncombe clean out her attic. What could he choose which would interest the teacher and class and not bore him completely? Mrs. Buncombe was not paying him for the dirty and dusty job—her attic had not been touched for years—but she had bribed him to do it by telling him that there was an old set of china up in the attic, and he could take it as payment. Perhaps she knew that the O’Keefes could never sit down to a meal together, even if they had wanted to, because there weren’t enough plates and cups and saucers to go round.

  The china was in a box at the back of the attic, and it was wrapped in old newspapers. Some of it was broken; much of it was cracked; it certainly was not a set of forgotten Wedgwood or Dresden. Who had bothered to wrap it up as carefully as though it were a priceless heirloom? However, there was enough of the set left to make it worth taking home. He unwrapped it for his mother, who complained ungraciously, if correctly, that it was junk.

  He cleared up the crumpled, yellowed newspapers, and began to read one. It was an old Wall Street Journal; the date had been torn off, but the paper was brittle and stained and he knew that it must be a good many years old. His eye caught an article about a series of experiments made by a biologist.

  The biologist had the idea, unusual at the time, that plants were capable of subjective reactions to stimuli, and he decided to measure the strength of these reactions by attaching electrodes, like those used in a lie detector, to the leaves of a large, healthy philodendron.

  At that point in the account a section of paper was torn away, and Calvin lost several sentences. He picked up a statement that electronic needles would record the plant’s responses on a graph, much as brain waves or heart patterns are recorded by the electro-encephalogram or electrocardiogram machines.

  The biologist spent an entire morning looking at the needles moving in a straight line across the paper. Nothing happened. No reactions. The needle did not quiver. The line moved slowly and steadily.

  The biologist thought, “I’ll make that plant react. I’ll burn one of its leaves.”

  The stylus made wild up and down markings of alarm.

  The rest of the article was torn off.

  Mr. Jenkins’s thoughts came to Meg quite clearly, a little irritably. “I read that article. I thought it was nonsense. Just some crackpot.”

  Calvin kythed, “Most major scientific discoveries have been made by crackpots—or at least, people who were thought to be crackpots.”

  “My own parents, for instance,” Meg added, “until some of their discoveries were proved to be true.”

  Calvin continued. “Listen. There’s more. I found another article among the papers.”

  This one described the biologist going on a crosscountry lecturing tour. He asked one of his students to take care of, watch, and record the reactions of his philodendron.

  The plant’s alarm needles jumped nervously whenever the biologist’s plane took off or landed.

  “How would it know?” Meg asked.

  “It did.”

  “But distance,” she protested, “how could a plant, just an ordinary domestic philodendron, know what was happening miles and miles away?”

  “Or care,” came dourly from Mr. Jenkins.

  “Distance doesn’t seem to be any more important than size. Or time. As for caring—well, that’s outside the realm of provable fact.”

  For his project Calvin had worked out a variation on the theme of plant response. He had no way of measuring the subjective responses of a plant, so he decided to plant three bean seeds.

  Mr. Jenkins did not think much of this.

  Meg kythed him a warning, “Wait! This was all Calvin’s own idea. He was only nine years old then, and he didn’t know that experiments of the same kind were already being made.”

  Calvin planted one of the seeds in a pot which he left in the kitchen at home. He put it on a windowsill where it would get sunlight, and he watered it dail
y. His brothers and sisters were warned that if they touched it they’d get clobbered. They knew he meant it, and they left his plant physically alone. However, the plant heard—

  “Without ears?” Mr. Jenkins kythed crossly.

  “Like Louise, maybe,” Meg returned.

  The plant heard the automatic ugly invective of daily speech in Calvin’s home. Calvin himself stayed in the house as little as possible.

  The other two seeds he took to the library, where the librarian gave him permission to put his pots in two sunny windows. One of these beans he watered and cared for dutifully. That was all. The third bean he talked to, encouraging it, urging it to grow. When the first green shoot appeared he lavished on it all the love which had so little outlet in his home. He sat, after school, close by his plant, doing his homework, reading aloud when nobody was around, sharing.

  The first of the bean plants, the one in the O’Keefe’s kitchen, was puny, and too pale a green, like the twins’ sickly peppers. The second plant, in the library window, the plant given regular care but no special time or attention, grew normally. The third plant, the plant Calvin loved, grew strong and green and unusually large and healthy.

  Mr. Jenkins kythed thinly but quite comprehensibly, “If philodendron and beans can react like that, it should help me to understand farandolae—is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “Sort of,” Meg replied.

  Calvin added, “See? Distance doesn’t matter. They can know and converse with each other and distance doesn’t really exist for them.”

  Mr. Jenkins sent out waves of disbelief. “And if they’re loved, they’ll grow? And if they aren’t loved—”

  “The Echthroi can move in.”

  Now she heard what could only be Sporos’s twingling. “They’re dull and slow, like all human beings, but you’re getting through to them at last, cherub.”

  “My name is Proginoskes, if you please, mouse-creature.”

  The farandola was not amused. “My name is Sporos.” A reproving twingle.

  “Meg.” Proginoskes kythed deeply into her. “Do you realize what has just been happening? You’ve been close to Mr. Jenkins, haven’t you?”

  “I guess so. Yes.”

  “And yet your bodies are not close together. And you already know that nothing can separate you from Calvin when you kythe together.”

  Yes. She was with Calvin. They were together. She felt the warmth of his quick smile, a smile which always had a slight quirk of sadness and acceptance unusual in a sixteen-year-old. He was not kything in words now, but in great waves of courage, of strength, flowing over and through her.

  She accepted it, absorbed it. Fortitude. She was going to need a great deal. She opened herself, drank it in.

  “All right,” Proginoskes told them. “We are together. We can continue.”

  “What are we to do?” Mr. Jenkins asked.

  “The second test,” the cherubim urged. “We must pass the second test.”

  “And that is?”

  “To Name Sporos. As Meg had to Name you.”

  “But Sporos is already Named!”

  “Not until he has Deepened.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When Sporos Deepens,” Proginoskes told Mr. Jenkins, “it means that he comes of age. It means that he grows up. The temptation for farandola or for man or for star is to stay an immature pleasure-seeker. When we seek our own pleasure as the ultimate good we place ourselves as the center of the universe. A fara or a man or a star has his place in the universe, but nothing created is the center.”

  Meg asked, “The little farandolae who saved me—”

  “They came of age, Meg.”

  She pondered this. “I think I understand—”

  “I don’t,” Mr. Jenkins said. “I thought we came here to try to help Charles Wallace, that he is ill because of his mitochondria—”

  Proginoskes pushed back impatience. “He is.”

  “But what does Sporos have to do with Charles Wallace?”

  “The balance of life within Yadah is precarious. If Sporos and the others of his generation do not Deepen, the balance will be altered. If the farandolae refuse to Deepen, the song will be stilled, and Charles Wallace will die. The Echthroi will have won.”

  “But a child—” Mr. Jenkins asked. “One small child—why is he so important?”

  “It is the pattern throughout Creation. One child, one man, can swing the balance of the universe. In your own Earth history what would have happened if Charlemagne had fallen at Roncesvalles? One minor skirmish?”

  “It would have been an Echthroi victory?”

  “And your history would have been even darker than it is.”

  “Mr. Jenkins!” Meg called. “Listen, I just remembered: For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; for want of a horse the rider was lost; for want of a rider the message was lost; for want of the message the battle was lost; for want of the battle the war was lost; for want of the war the kingdom was lost; and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

  “We must save Charles Wallace!” Mr. Jenkins cried. “What can we do, Progo? What can we do?”

  ELEVEN

  Sporos

  A burst of harmony so brilliant that it almost overwhelmed them surrounded Meg, the cherubim, Calvin, and Mr. Jenkins. But after a moment of breathlessness, Meg was able to open herself to the song of the farae, these strange creatures who were Deepened, rooted, yet never separated from each other, no matter how great the distance.

  We are the song of the universe. We sing with the angelic host. We are the musicians. The farae and the stars are the singers. Our song orders the rhythm of creation.

  Calvin asked, “How can you sing with the stars?”

  There was surprise at the question: it is the song. We sing it together. That is our joy. And our Being.

  “But how do you know about stars—in here—inside—”

  How could farae not know about stars when farae and stars sing together?

  “You can’t see the stars. How can you possibly know about them?”

  Total incomprehension from the farae. If Meg and Calvin kythed in visual images, this was their limitation. The farae had moved beyond physical sight.

  “Okay,” Calvin said. “I know how little of ourselves, and of our brains, we’ve learned to use. We have billions of brains cells, and we use only the tiniest portion of them.”

  Mr. Jenkins added with his dry, ropy kythe, “I have heard that the number of cells in the brain and the number of stars in the universe is said to be exactly equal.”

  “Progo!” Meg asked. “You memorized the names of all the stars—how many are there?”

  “How many? Great heavens, earthling, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “But you said your last assignment was to memorize the names of all of them.”

  “I did. All the stars in all the galaxies. And that’s a great many.”

  “But how many?”

  “What difference does it make? I know their names. I don’t know how many there are. It’s their names that matter.”

  The strong kything of the farae joined Proginoskes. “And the song. If it were not for the support of the singing of the galaxies, we farae on Yadah would have lost the melody, so few of the farandolae are Deepening. The un-Namers are at work.”

  Meg felt a sudden chill, a pulling back, a fading of the Deepened farae; there was dissonance in the harmony; the rhythm faltered.

  In her mind’s eye an image was flashed of a troop of farandolae dancing wildly about one fara-tree, going faster and faster, until she felt dizzy.

  “Sporos is with them,” Proginoskes told her.

  “What are they doing? Why are they spinning faster and faster?” The circle of farandolae revolved so rapidly that it became a swirling blur. The fronds of the great fara around whom they swirled began to droop.

  “They are absorbing the nourishment which the fara needs. The fara is S
enex, from whom Sporos came.” There was chill in Proginoskes’s words.

  The speed of the dancing farandolae became like a scream in Meg’s ears. “Stop!” she cried. “Stop it at once!” There was nothing merry or joyful in the dance. It was savage, wild, furious.

  Then, through the raging of the dance came a strong, pure strain of melody, quiet, certain, noble. The dancing farandolae broke their circle and scampered about aimlessly; then, led by Sporos, they raced to another fara and began circling it.

  The fronds of Senex greened, lifted.

  Proginoskes said, “He is strong enough to hold out longer than any of the other farae. But even Senex cannot hold out forever.” He stopped abruptly. “Feel.”

  “Feel?”

  “The rhythm of the mitochondrion. Is it my fearfulness, or is Yadah faltering?”

  “It is not you,” Meg answered the cherubim. They were all very still, listening, feeling. Again there came a slight irregularity in the steady pulsing. A faltering. A missed beat. Then it steadied, continued.

  Like a gash through the non-light of Yadah Meg had a brief vision of Charles Wallace lying in his small room, gasping for air. She thought she saw Dr. Louise, but the strange thing was that she could not tell whether it was Dr. Louise Colubra, or Louise the actual colubra. “Don’t give up. Breathe, Charles. Breathe.” And a steady voice, “It’s time to try oxygen.”

  Then she was drawn back within the mitochondrion to Senex, the parent tree of Sporos. She tried to convey to him what she had just seen, but she received nothing from him in return. His incomprehension was even greater than Mr. Jenkins’s had been. She asked Proginoskes, “Does Senex know that Charles Wallace even exists?”

  “As you know that your galaxy, the Milky Way, exists.”

  “Does he know that Charles Wallace is ill?”

  “As you know that your Earth is ill, by fish dying in the rivers, birds dying in the forests, people dying in the choked cities. You know by war and hate and chaos. Senex knows his mitochondrion is ill because the farandolae will not Deepen and many farae are dying. Listen. Kythe.”