"Knows what?"
"That you've seen an Echthros."
"Progo, I don't understand. What is an Echthros?"
Abruptly, Proginoskes materialized, raised several wings, and gathered her in. "Come, littleling. I'll take you some place yesterday and show you."
"How can you take me yesterday?"
"I can't possibly take you today, silly. It's time for you to go in to breakfast and your mother dislikes tardiness. And who knows what we may have to do or where we may have to go before tomorrow? Come." He drew her further in to him.
She found herself looking directly into one of his eyes, a great, amber cat's eye, the dark mandala of the pupil, opening, compelling, beckoning.
She was drawn towards the oval, was pulled into it, was through it.
Into the ultimate night on the other side.
Then she felt a great, flaming wind, and knew that somehow she herself was part of that wind.
Then she felt a great shove, and she was standing on a bare stone mountaintop, and Proginoskes was blinking and winking at her. She thought she saw the oval, mandala-eye through which she had come, but she was not sure.
The cherubim raised a great wing to sketch the slow curve of sky above them. The warm rose and lavender of sunset faded, dimmed, was extinguished. The sky was drenched with green at the horizon, muting upwards into a deep, purply blue through which stars began to appear in totally unfamiliar constellations.
Meg asked, "Where are we?"
"Never mind where. Watch."
She stood beside him, looking at the brilliance of the stars. Then came a sound, a sound which was above sound, beyond sound, a violent, silent, electrical report, which made her press her hands in pain against her ears. Across the sky, where the stars were clustered as thickly as in the Milky Way, a crack shivered, slivered, became a line of nothingness.
If this kind of thing was happening in the universe, no matter how far away from earth and the Milky Way, Meg did not wonder that her father had been summoned to Washington and Brookhaven.
"Progo, what is it? What happened?"
"The Echthroi have Xed."
"What?"
"Annihilated. Negated. Extinguished. Xed."
Meg stared in horrible fascination at the rent in the sky. This was the most terrible thing she had ever seen, more horrifying than the Mr. Jenkins-Echthros the night before. She pressed close to the cherubim, surrounding herself with wings and eyes and puffs of smoke, but she could still see the rip in the sky.
She could not bear it.
She closed her eyes to shut it out. She tried to think of the most comfortable thing possible, the safest, most reasonable, ordinary thing. What, then? The dinner table at home; winter; the red curtains drawn across the windows, and a quiet snow falling softly outdoors; an applewood fire in the fireplace and Fortinbras snoring happily on the hearth; a tape playing Holst's The Planets-- no, maybe that wasn't too comforting; in her mind's ear she shifted to a ghastly recording of the school band, with Sandy and Dennys playing somewhere in the cacophony.
Dinner was over, and she was clearing the table and starting the dishes and only half listening to the conversation of her parents, who were lingering over their coffee.
It was almost as tangible as though she were actually there, and she thought she felt Proginoskes pushing at her mind, helping her remember.
Had she really listened that attentively to her parents while she stood running hot water over the plates? Their voices were as clear as though she were actually in the room. Her father must have mentioned the terrible thing which Proginoskes had just shown her, the terrible thing which was terrible precisely because it was not a thing, because it was nothing. She could hear, too clearly, her father's voice, calm and rational, speaking to her mother. "It isn't just in distant galaxies that strange, unreasonable things are happening. Unreason has crept up on us so insidiously that we've hardly been aware of it. But think of the things going on in our own country which you wouldn't have believed possible only a few years ago."
Mrs. Murry swirled the dregs of her coffee. "I don't think I believe all of them now, although I know they're happening." She looked up to see that the twins and Charles Wallace were out of the room, that Meg was splashing water in the sink as she scoured a pot. "Ten years ago we didn't even have a key to this house. Now we lock up when we go out. The irrational violence is even worse in the cities."
Mr. Murry absentmindedly began working out an equation on the tablecloth. For once Mrs. Murry did not even seem to notice. He said, "They've never known a time when people drank rain water because it was pure, or could eat snow, or swim in any river or brook. The last time I drove home from Washington the traffic was so bad I could have made better time with a horse. There were huge signs proclaiming SPEED LIMIT 65 MPH, and we were crawling along at 20."
"And the children and I kept dinner hot for you for three hours, and finally ate, pretending we weren't worried that you might have been in an accident," Mrs. Murry said bitterly. "Here we are, at the height of civilization in a well-run state in a great democracy. And four ten-year-olds were picked up last week for pushing hard drugs in the school where our six-year-old is regularly given black eyes and a bloody nose." She suddenly noticed the equation growing on the tablecloth. "What are you doing?"
"I have a hunch that there's some connection between your discoveries about the effects of farandolae on mitochondria, and that unexplained phenomenon out in space." His pencil added a fraction, some Greek characters, and squared them.
Mrs. Murry said in a low voice, "My discoveries are not very pleasant."
"I know."
"I isolated farandolae because something beyond increasing air pollution has to account for the accelerating number of deaths from respiratory failure, and this so-called flu epidemic. It was the micro-sonarscope which gave me the first clue--" She stopped abruptly, looked at her husband. "It's the same sound, isn't it? The strange 'cry' of the ailing mitochondria, and the 'cry' picked up in those distant galaxies by the new paraboloidoscope--there's a horrid similarity between them. I don't like it. I don't like the fact that we don't even see what's going on in our own backyard. L.A. is trying as honorably as a president can try in a world which has become so blunted by dishonor and violence that people casually take it for granted. We have to see a great, dramatic fissure in the sky before we begin to take danger seriously. And I have to be deathly worried about our youngest child before I regard farandolae except in a cool and academic manner."
Meg had turned from the kitchen sink at the pain in her mother's voice, and had seen her father reach across the table for her mother's hand. "My dear, this is not like you. With my intellect I see cause for nothing but pessimism and even despair. But I can't settle for what my intellect tells me. That's not all of it."
"What else is there?" Mrs. Murry's voice was low and anguished.
"There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. Even little ones, like your cooking stew over your Bunsen burner. You may be in the middle of an experiment, but you still remember to feed your family. That's enough to keep my heart optimistic, no matter how pessimistic my mind. And you and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument."
Proginoskes said, "He's a wise man, your father."
"Could you hear me remembering?"
"I was remembering with you. Most of that conversation you didn't hear with your conscious mind, you know."
"I have a very good memory--" Meg started. Then she stopped herself. "Okay. I know I couldn't have remembered all that by myself. I suppose I just sort of took in the sound waves, didn't I? But how did you get it all from me?"
Proginoskes looked at her with two, ringed owl-like eyes. "You're beginning to learn how to kythe."
"To what?"
"Kythe. It's how cherubim talk. It's talking without words,
just the same way that I can be myself and not be enfleshed."
"But I have to be enfleshed, and I need words."
"I know, Meg," he replied gently, "and I will keep things worded for you. But it will help if you will remember that cherubim kythe without words among each other. For a human creature you show a distinct talent for kything."
She blushed slightly at the compliment; she had a feeling that paying compliments is a habit not often indulged in by cherubim. "Progo, I wish I'd been able to see the equation Father was doodling on the tablecloth. If I'd seen it, then it might be somewhere in my mind for you to pull out."
"Think," Proginoskes said. "I'll help."
"Mother put the tablecloth in the wash."
"But you remember there were some Greek letters."
"Yes ..."
"Let me try to find them with you."
She closed her eyes.
"That's right. Relax, now. Maybe this is the way for us to kythe.--Don't you try to think. Just let me move about."
Out of the corner of her mind's eye she seemed to see three Greek characters among the numbers in the loosely strung equation her father was scribbling on the cloth. She thought them at Proginoskes.
"eth. Epsilon, chi, and theta. That's Echth," the cherubim told her.
"Echthroi--but how could Father--"
"Think of the conversation we just recalled, Meg. Your parents are very aware of the evil in the world."
"All right. Yes. I know. Okay." Meg sounded cross. "Until Charles started school I hoped maybe we could ignore it. Like ostriches or something."
The cherubim withdrew its wings from her entirely, leaving her exposed and cold on the strange hilltop. "Open your eyes and look where the sky is torn."
"I'd rather not."
"Go on. I've got all my eyes open, and you only have to open two."
Meg opened her eyes. The rent in the sky was still there. She wondered what this distant phenomenon could have to do with Charles Wallace's pallor, with mitochondritis, or whatever it was. "How--oh, Progo, how did the Echthroi do that?"
Like Charles Wallace, he picked up her particular anxiety. "It has to do with un-Naming. If we are Namers, the Echthroi are un-Namers, non-Namers."
"Progo, what does that have to do with Mr. Jenkins?"
She felt a wave of apprehension roll through her. "Littleling, I think that is what we must find out. I think that it is part of our first ordeal. Let us go." He drew her back into himself again; again she was confronted with the single eye, was pulled through the opening, oval pupil. Then the pupil snapped shut, and they were together on the star-watching rock with dawn slowly lightening the east.
Progo spread his wings wide, and she moved out. "What do we do now?" he said.
The cherubim was asking her? "I am only a human being, not quite full-grown," she replied. "How would I know?"
"Megling, I've never been on your planet before. This is your home. Charles Wallace is your brother. You are the one who knows Mr. Jenkins. You must tell me what we are to do now."
Meg stamped, loudly and angrily, against the hard, cold surface of the rock. "This is too much responsibility! I'm still only a child! I didn't ask for any of this!"
"Are you refusing to take the test?" Proginoskes pulled away from her.
"But I didn't ask for it! I didn't ask for Blajeny, or you, or any of it!"
"Didn't you? I thought you were worried about Charles Wallace."
"I am! I'm worried about everything!"
"Meg." Proginoskes was somber and stern. "Are you going to enter into the ordeal? I must know. Now."
Meg stamped again. "Of course I'm going to. You know I have to. Charles Wallace is in danger. I'll do anything to help him, even if it seems silly."
"Then what do we do now?"
She shoved at her glasses as though that would help her think. "I'd better go home now and have breakfast. Then I'll get on my school bus--it stops at the bottom of the hill and maybe you'd better wait for me there. Fortinbras might bark at you; I'm sure he'd know you were in the house even if you dematerialize, or whatever you call it."
"Whatever you think best," Proginoskes said meekly.
"I'll be down at the foot of the road at seven o'clock. The high-school bus covers so much distance and makes so many stops it takes an hour and a half, and I get on at one of the first stops."
She felt an acquiescing response from the cherubim, and then he disappeared; she could not see even a shimmer, or feel a flicker of him in her mind. She headed back to the house. She kept the flashlight on, not for the known turnings of the path, but for whatever new, unknown surprises might be waiting for her.
When Meg got to the stone wall Louise the Larger was there. Waiting. Neither greeting nor attacking. Waiting. Meg approached her cautiously. Louise watched her through eyes which shone in the flashlight like the water of a very deep well.
"May I go by, please, Louise?" Meg asked timidly.
Louise uncoiled, waving slightly in greeting, still looking intently at Meg. Then she bowed her head, and slithered off into the rocks. Meg felt that Louise had been waiting for her to give her a warning for whatever lay ahead, and to wish her well. It was strangely comforting to know that Louise's well-wishing was going with her.
There was sausage as well as hot porridge for breakfast. Meg felt that she ought to eat heartily, because who knew what lay ahead? But she could manage only a few mouthfuls.
"Are you all right, Meg?" her mother asked.
"Fine. Thanks."
"You look a little pale. Sure you aren't coming down with something?"
--She's worried about all of us with this mitochondritis stuff. "Just the normal throes of adolescence," she smiled at her mother.
Sandy said, "If you don't want your sausage, I'll eat it."
Dennys said, "Half for me, okay?"
Charles Wallace slowly and deliberately ate a full bowl of porridge, but gave the twins his sausage.
"Well, then"--Meg washed her dishes and put them in the rack--"I'm off."
"Wait for us," Sandy said.
She did not want to wait for the twins, to listen to their chatter on the walk down to the bus. On the other hand, it would keep her from thinking about what lay ahead. She had thought of Mr. Jenkins for as far back as she could remember with distaste, annoyance, and occasionally outrage, but never before with fear.
When she left the house she had a horrid, premonitory feeling that it would be a long time before she returned. Again she wished that Fortinbras were walking to the bus with them, as he often did, and then returning to make the walk again with Charles Wallace. But this morning he showed no inclination to leave the warmth of the kitchen.
"What do you suppose will happen today?" Sandy asked as they started down the hill in the chill of early morning.
Dennys shrugged. "Nothing. As usual. Race you to the foot of the hill."
FIVE
The First Test
Meg and the cherubim reached the deserted schoolyard in safety.
"We've got a while to wait," Meg told him, "and it's okay for you, you're invisible. But I've got to find a place to hide." She could not see Proginoskes, but she talked at the faint shimmer in the air where she knew he was.
"You're too late," the cherubim said, and Meg swung around to see Mr. Jenkins coming across the schoolyard from the faculty parking lot.
Mr. Jenkins. The ordinary, everyday, usual Mr. Jenkins. There was no snake hissing and clacking at him, and he himself did nothing but continue his way across the schoolyard. He looked just as he always looked. He wore his usual dark business suit, and no matter how often it was brushed there was always a small snowfall of dandruff on his shoulders. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short, and his eyes were muddy behind his bifocals. He was neither short nor tall, fat nor thin, and whenever Meg saw him her feet seemed to grow larger and she couldn't find a resting place for her hands.
"All right, Margaret, what is this? What are you doing here?" He had every ri
ght to sound annoyed.
She had nothing to reply. She felt Proginoskes close to her, felt his mind within hers, but he had nothing to suggest.
"My dear child," Mr. Jenkins said, and his voice was unwontedly compassionate. "If you have come again about your little brother, I can now tell you that we are reviewing his case. It is not my policy of education to have one child intimidated by his peers. But our initial testing shows that Charles Wallace's talents are so unusual that unusual measures must be taken. I've had several consultations with the State Board, and we are considering getting a special tutor for him."
Meg looked warily at the principal. This sounded too good to be true.
And Louise had been trying to warn her of something. Of what?
The cherubim, too, was uneasy. She felt him moving lightly in her mind, feeling her response to this unexpectedly reasonable Mr. Jenkins.
"That is nonsense," Mr. Jenkins said to Mr. Jenkins. "We cannot make an exception for any one child. Charles Wallace Murry must learn to manage."
A second Mr. Jenkins was standing beside Mr. Jenkins.
It was impossible. It was just as impossible as--
But there were two identical, dour Mr. Jenkinses standing in front of her.
Proginoskes shimmered, but did not materialize. Meg backed into the shimmer; she felt that the cherubim was opening an invisible wing and pulling her close to him. She could feel his tremendous, wild heartbeat, a frightened heartbeat, thundering in her ears.
"We're Namers," she heard through the racing of the heart. "We're Namers. What is their Name?"
"Mr. Jenkins."
"No, no. This is the test, Meg, it must be. One of those Mr. Jenkinses is an Echthros. We have to know which is the real Mr. Jenkins."
Meg looked at the two men who stood glaring at each other. "Progo, you can feel into me. Can't you feel into them? Can't you kythe?"
"Not when I don't know who they are. You're the one who knows the prototype."
"The what?"
"The real one. The only Mr. Jenkins who is Mr. Jenkins. Look--"
Suddenly beside the two Mr. Jenkinses stood a third Mr. Jenkins. He raised one hand in greeting, not to Meg, but to the other two men as he drew level with them. "Leave the poor girl alone for a few minutes," Mr. Jenkins Three said.
The three men wheeled, stiffly, like marionettes, and walked across the schoolyard and into the building.
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