A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet)

by Madeleine L'engle

  “You see!” the Medium cried, smiling happily. “It can be overcome! It is being overcome all the time!”

  Mrs Whatsit sighed, a sigh so sad that Meg wanted to put her arms around her and comfort her.

  “Tell us exactly what happened, then, please,” Charles Wallace said in a small voice.

  “It was a star,” Mrs Whatsit said sadly. “A star giving up its life in battle with the Thing. It won, oh, yes, my children, it won. But it lost its life in the winning.”

  Mrs Which spoke again. Her voice sounded tired, and they knew that speaking was a tremendous effort for her. “Itt wass nnott sso llongg aggo fforr yyou, wwass itt?” she asked gently.

  Mrs Whatsit shook her head.

  Charles Wallace went up to Mrs Whatsit. “I see. Now I understand. You were a star, once, weren’t you?”

  Mrs Whatsit covered her face with her hands as though she were embarrassed, and nodded.

  “And you did—you did what that star just did?”

  With her face still covered, Mrs Whatsit nodded again.

  Charles Wallace looked at her, very solemnly. “I should like to kiss you.”

  Mrs Whatsit took her hands down from her face and pulled Charles Wallace to her in a quick embrace. He put his arms about her neck, pressed his cheek against hers, and then kissed her.

  Meg felt that she would have liked to kiss Mrs Whatsit, too, but that after Charles Wallace, anything that she or Calvin did or said would be anticlimax. She contented herself with looking at Mrs Whatsit. Even though she was used to Mrs Whatsit’s odd getup (and the very oddness of it was what made her seem so comforting), she realized with a fresh shock that it was not Mrs Whatsit herself that she was seeing at all. The complete, the true Mrs Whatsit, Meg realized, was beyond human understanding. What she saw was only the game Mrs Whatsit was playing; it was an amusing and charming game, a game full of both laughter and comfort, but it was only the tiniest facet of all the things Mrs Whatsit could be.

  “I didn’t mean to tell you,” Mrs Whatsit faltered. “I didn’t mean ever to let you know. But, oh, my dears, I did so love being a star!”

  “Yyouu arre sstill verry yyoungg,” Mrs Which said, her voice faintly chiding.

  The Medium sat looking happily at the star-filled sky in her ball, smiling and nodding and chuckling gently. But Meg noticed that her eyes were drooping, and suddenly her head fell forward and she gave a faint snore.

  “Poor thing,” Mrs Whatsit said, “we’ve worn her out. It’s very hard work for her.”

  “Please, Mrs Whatsit,” Meg asked, “what happens now? Why are we here? What do we do next? Where is Father? When are we going to him?” She clasped her hands pleadingly.

  “One thing at a time, love!” Mrs Whatsit said.

  Mrs Who cut in. “As paredes tem ouvidos. That’s Portuguese. Walls have ears.”

  “Yes, let us go outside,” Mrs Whatsit said. “Come, we’ll let her sleep.”

  But as they turned to go, the Medium jerked her head up and smiled at them radiantly. “You weren’t going to go without saying good-bye to me, were you?” she asked.

  “We thought we’d just let you sleep, dear.” Mrs Whatsit patted the Medium’s shoulder. “We worked you terribly hard and we know you must be very tired.”

  “But I was going to give you some ambrosia or nectar or at least some tea—”

  At this Meg realized that she was hungry. How much time had passed since they had had their bowls of stew? she wondered.

  But Mrs Whatsit said, “Oh, thank you, dear, but I think we’d better be going.”

  “They don’t need to eat, you know,” Charles Wallace whispered to Meg. “At least not food, the way we do. Eating’s just a game with them. As soon as we get organized again I’d better remind them that they’ll have to feed us sooner or later.”

  The Medium smiled and nodded. “It does seem as though I should be able to do something nice for you, after having had to show those poor children such horrid things. Would they like to see their mother before they go?”

  “Could we see Father?” Meg asked eagerly.

  “Nno,” Mrs Which said. “Wwee aare ggoingg tto yourr ffatherr, Mmegg. Doo nnott bbee immpatientt.”

  “But she could see her mother, couldn’t she?” the Medium wheedled.

  “Oh, why not,” Mrs Whatsit put in. “It won’t take long and it can’t do any harm.”

  “And Calvin, too?” Meg asked. “Could he see his mother, too?”

  Calvin touched Meg in a quick gesture, and whether it was of thanks or apprehension she was not sure.

  “I tthinkk itt iss a misstake.” Mrs Which was disapproving. “Bbutt ssince yyou hhave menttionedd itt I ssupposse yyouu musstt ggo aheadd.”

  “I hate it when she gets cross,” Mrs Whatsit said, glancing over at Mrs Which, “and the trouble is, she always seems to be right. But I really don’t see how it could hurt, and it might make you all feel better. Go on, Medium dear.”

  The Medium, smiling and humming softly, turned the crystal ball a little between her hands. Stars, comets, planets, flashed across the sky, and then the earth came into view again, the darkened earth, closer, closer, till it filled the globe, and they had somehow gone through the darkness until the soft white of clouds and the gentle outline of continents shone clearly.

  “Calvin’s mother first,” Meg whispered to the Medium.

  The globe became hazy, cloudy, then shadows began to solidify, to clarify, and they were looking into an untidy kitchen with a sink full of unwashed dishes. In front of the sink stood an unkempt woman with gray hair stringing about her face. Her mouth was open and Meg could see the toothless gums and it seemed that she could almost hear her screaming at two small children who were standing by her. Then she grabbed a long wooden spoon from the sink and began whacking one of the children.

  “Oh, dear—” the Medium murmured, and the picture began to dissolve. “I didn’t really—”

  “It’s all right,” Calvin said in a low voice. “I think I’d rather you knew.”

  Now instead of reaching out to Calvin for safety, Meg took his hand in hers, not saying anything in words but trying to tell him by the pressure of her fingers what she felt. If anyone had told her only the day before that she, Meg, the snaggle-toothed, the myopic, the clumsy, would be taking a boy’s hand to offer him comfort and strength, particularly a popular and important boy like Calvin, the idea would have been beyond her comprehension. But now it seemed as natural to want to help and protect Calvin as it did Charles Wallace.

  The shadows were swirling in the crystal again, and as they cleared Meg began to recognize her mother’s lab at home. Mrs. Murry was sitting perched on her high stool, writing away at a sheet of paper on a clipboard on her lap. She’s writing Father, Meg thought. The way she always does. Every night.

  The tears that she could never learn to control swam to her eyes as she watched. Mrs. Murry looked up from her letter, almost as though she were looking toward the children, and then her head drooped and she put it down on the paper, and sat there, huddled up, letting herself relax into an unhappiness that she never allowed her children to see.

  And now the desire for tears left Meg. The hot, protective anger she had felt for Calvin when she looked into his home she now felt turned toward her mother.

  “Let’s go!” she cried harshly. “Let’s do something!”

  “She’s always so right,” Mrs Whatsit murmured, looking towards Mrs Which. “Sometimes I wish she’d just say I told you so and have done with it.”

  “I only meant to help—” the Medium wailed.

  “Oh, Medium, dear, don’t feel badly,” Mrs Whatsit said swiftly. “Look at something cheerful, do. I can’t bear to have you distressed!”

  “It’s all right,” Meg assured the Medium earnestly. “Truly it is, Mrs. Medium, and we thank you very much.”

  “Are you sure?” the Medium asked, brightening.

  “Of course! It really helped ever so much because it made me mad, and
when I’m mad I don’t have room to be scared.”

  “Well, kiss me good-bye for good luck, then,” the Medium said.

  Meg went over to her and gave her a quick kiss, and so did Charles Wallace. The Medium looked smilingly at Calvin, and winked. “I want the young man to kiss me, too. I always did love red hair. And it’ll give you good luck, Laddie-me-love.”

  Calvin bent down, blushing, and awkwardly kissed her cheek.

  The Medium tweaked his nose. “You’ve got a lot to learn, my boy,” she told him.

  “Now, good-bye, Medium dear, and many thanks,” Mrs Whatsit said. “I dare say we’ll see you in an eon or two.”

  “Where are you going in case I want to tune in?” the Medium asked.

  “Camazotz,” Mrs Whatsit told her. (Where and what was Camazotz? Meg did not like the sound of the word or the way in which Mrs Whatsit pronounced it.) “But please don’t distress yourself on our behalf. You know you don’t like looking in on the dark planets, and it’s very upsetting to us when you aren’t happy.”

  “But I must know what happens to the children,” the Medium said. “It’s my worst trouble, getting fond. If I didn’t get fond I could be happy all the time. Oh, well, ho hum, I manage to keep pretty jolly, and a little snooze will do wonders for me right now. Good-bye, everyb—” and her word got lost in the general b-b-bz-z of a snore.

  “Ccome,” Mrs Which ordered, and they followed her out of the darkness of the cave to the impersonal grayness of the Medium’s planet.

  “Nnoww, cchilldrenn, yyouu musstt nott bee frrightennedd att whatt iss ggoingg tto hhappenn,” Mrs Which warned.

  “Stay angry, little Meg,” Mrs Whatsit whispered. “You will need all your anger now.”

  Without warning Meg was swept into nothingness again. This time the nothingness was interrupted by a feeling of clammy coldness such as she had never felt before. The coldness deepened and swirled all about her and through her, and was filled with a new and strange kind of darkness that was a completely tangible thing, a thing that wanted to eat and digest her like some enormous malignant beast of prey.

  Then the darkness was gone. Had it been the shadow, the Black Thing? Had they had to travel through it to get to her father?

  There was the by-now-familiar tingling in her hands and feet and the push through hardness, and she was on her feet, breathless but unharmed, standing beside Calvin and Charles Wallace.

  “Is this Camazotz?” Charles Wallace asked as Mrs Whatsit materialized in front of him.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Now let us just stand and get our breath and look around.”

  They were standing on a hill and as Meg looked about her she felt that it could easily be a hill on earth. There were the familiar trees she knew so well at home: birches, pines, maples. And though it was warmer than it had been when they so precipitously left the apple orchard, there was a faintly autumnal touch to the air; near them were several small trees with reddened leaves very like sumac, and a big patch of goldenrod-like flowers. As she looked down the hill she could see the smokestacks of a town, and it might have been one of any number of familiar towns. There seemed to be nothing strange, or different, or frightening, in the landscape.

  But Mrs Whatsit came to her and put an arm around her comfortingly. “I can’t stay with you here, you know, love,” she said. “You three children will be on your own. We will be near you; we will be watching you. But you will not be able to see us or to ask us for help, and we will not be able to come to you.”

  “But is Father here?” Meg asked tremblingly.

  “Yes.”

  “But where? When will we see him?” She was poised for running, as though she were going to sprint off, immediately, to wherever her father was.

  “That I cannot tell you. You will just have to wait until the propitious moment.”

  Charles Wallace looked steadily at Mrs Whatsit. “Are you afraid for us?”

  “A little.”

  “But if you weren’t afraid to do what you did when you were a star, why should you be afraid for us now?”

  “But I was afraid,” Mrs Whatsit said gently. She looked steadily at each of the three children in turn. “You will need help,” she told them, “but all I am allowed to give you is a little talisman. Calvin, your great gift is your ability to communicate, to communicate with all kinds of people. So, for you, I will strengthen this gift. Meg, I give you your faults.”

  “My faults!” Meg cried.

  “Your faults.”

  “But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!”

  “Yes,” Mrs Whatsit said. “However, I think you’ll find they’ll come in very handy on Camazotz. Charles Wallace, to you I can give only the resilience of your childhood.”

  From somewhere Mrs Who’s glasses glimmered and they heard her voice. “Calvin,” she said, “a hint. For you a hint. Listen well:

  . . . For that he was a spirit too delicate

  To act their earthy and abhorr’d commands,

  Refusing their grand hests, they did confine him

  By help of their most potent ministers,

  And in their most unmitigable rage,

  Into a cloven pine; within which rift

  Imprisoned, he didst painfully remain. . . .

  Shakespeare. The Tempest.”

  “Where are you, Mrs Who?” Charles Wallace asked. “Where is Mrs Which?”

  “We cannot come to you now,” Mrs Who’s voice blew to them like the wind. “Allwissend bin ich nicht; doch viel ist mir bewisst. Goethe. I do not know everything; still many things I understand. That is for you, Charles. Remember that you do not know everything.” Then the voice was directed to Meg. “To you I leave my glasses, little blind-as-a-bat. But do not use them except as a last resort. Save them for the final moment of peril.” As she spoke there was another shimmer of spectacles, and then it was gone, and the voice faded out with it. The spectacles were in Meg’s hand. She put them carefully into the breast pocket of her blazer, and the knowledge that they were there somehow made her a little less afraid.

  “Tto alll tthreee off yyou I ggive mmy ccommandd,” Mrs Which said. “Ggo ddownn innttoo tthee ttownn. Ggo ttogetherr. Ddoo nnott llett tthemm ssepparate yyou. Bbee sstrongg.” There was a flicker and then it vanished. Meg shivered.

  Mrs Whatsit must have seen the shiver, for she patted Meg on the shoulder. Then she turned to Calvin. “Take care of Meg.”

  “I can take care of Meg,” Charles Wallace said rather sharply. “I always have.”

  Mrs Whatsit looked at Charles Wallace, and the creaky voice seemed somehow both to soften and to deepen at the same time. “Charles Wallace, the danger here is greatest for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of what you are. Just exactly because of what you are you will be by far the most vulnerable. You must stay with Meg and Calvin. You must not go off on your own. Beware of pride and arrogance, Charles, for they may betray you.”

  At the tone of Mrs Whatsit’s voice, both warning and frightening, Meg shivered again. And Charles Wallace butted up against Mrs Whatsit in the way he often did with his mother, whispering, “Now I think I know what you meant about being afraid.”

  “Only a fool is not afraid,” Mrs Whatsit told him. “Now go.” And where she had been there was only sky and grasses and a small rock.

  “Come on,” Meg said impatiently. “Come on, let’s go!” She was completely unaware that her voice was trembling like an aspen leaf. She took Charles Wallace and Calvin each by the hand and started down the hill.

  Below them the town was laid out in harsh angular patterns. The houses in the outskirts were all exactly alike, small square boxes painted gray. Each had a small, rectangular plot of lawn in front, with a straight line of dull-looking flowers edging the path to the door. Meg had a feeling that if she could count the flowers there would be exactly the same number for each house. In front of all the houses children were playing. Some were skipping rope, some were bouncing balls. Meg felt vagu
ely that something was wrong with their play. It seemed exactly like children playing around any housing development at home, and yet there was something different about it. She looked at Calvin, and saw that he, too, was puzzled.

  “Look!” Charles Wallace said suddenly. “They’re skipping and bouncing in rhythm! Everyone’s doing it at exactly the same moment.”

  This was so. As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers.

  Then the doors of all the houses opened simultaneously, and out came women like a row of paper dolls. The print of their dresses was different, but they all gave the appearance of being the same. Each woman stood on the steps of her house. Each clapped. Each child with the ball caught the ball. Each child with the skipping rope folded the rope. Each child turned and walked into the house. The doors clicked shut behind them.

  “How can they do it?” Meg asked wonderingly. “We couldn’t do it that way if we tried. What does it mean?”

  “Let’s go back.” Calvin’s voice was urgent.

  “Back?” Charles Wallace asked. “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Anywhere. Back to the hill. Back to Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Who and Mrs Which. I don’t like this.”

  “But they aren’t there. Do you think they’d come to us if we turned back now?”

  “I don’t like it,” Calvin said again.

  “Come on.” Impatience made Meg squeak. “You know we can’t go back. Mrs Whatsit said to go into the town.” She started on down the street, and the two boys followed her. The houses, all identical, continued, as far as the eye could reach.

  Then, all at once, they saw the same thing, and stopped to watch. In front of one of the houses stood a little boy with a ball, and he was bouncing it. But he bounced it rather badly and with no particular rhythm, sometimes dropping it and running after it with awkward, furtive leaps, sometimes throwing it up into the air and trying to catch it. The door of his house opened and out ran one of the mother figures. She looked wildly up and down the street, saw the children and put her hand to her mouth as though to stifle a scream, grabbed the little boy and rushed indoors with him. The ball dropped from his fingers and rolled out into the street.