A Swiftly Tilting Planet

by Madeleine L'engle

  Late in the evening, when most of the settlement was sleeping, Zylle's people came through the woods, silently, in single file, approaching the cabin from behind, as Maddok had done in the afternoon.

  They clustered around Zylle and the baby, were served Goody Llawcae's special cold herb tea, and freshly baked bread, fragrant with golden cheese and sweet butter.

  Zillo took his grandson into his arms, and a shadow of tenderness moved across his impassive face. "Brandon, son of Zylle of the Wind People and son of Ritchie of Llawcae, son of a prince from the distant land of Wales; Brandon, bearer of the blue," he murmured over the sleeping baby, rocking him gently in his arms.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon saw one of the Indian women go to his mother, talking to her softly. His mother put her hand to her head in a worried gesture.

  And before the Indians left, he saw Zillo take his father aside.

  Despite his joy in his namesake, there was heaviness in his heart when he went to bed, and it was that, as much as the heat, which kept him from sleeping. He could hear his parents talking with Ritchie in the next room, and he shifted position so that he could hear better.

  Goody Llawcae was saying, "People do not like other people to be different. It is hard enough for Zylle, being an Indian, without being part of a family marked as different, too."

  "Different?" Ritchie asked sharply. "We were the first settlers here."

  "We come from Wales. And Brandon's gift is feared."

  Richard asked his wife, "Did one of the Indians give you a warning?"

  "One of the women. I had hoped this disease of witch-hunting would not touch our settlement."

  "We must try not to let it start with us," Goodman Llawcae said. "At least the Higginses will stand by us."

  "Will they?" Ritchie asked. "Goodman Higgins seems much taken with Pastor Mortmain. And Davey Higgins hasn't come to do chores with Brandon in a long time."

  Richard said, "Zillo warned me of Brandon, too."

  "Brandon--" Goody Llawcae drew in her breath.

  "He saw one of his pictures last night."

  On hearing this, Brandon hurried into the big room. "Zylle told you!"

  "She did not, Brandon," his father said, "and eavesdroppers seldom hear anything pleasant. You did give Zylle permission to speak to her father, and it was he who told me. Are you ashamed to tell us?"

  "Ashamed? No, Father, not ashamed. I try not to ask for the pictures, because you don't want me to see them, and I know it disturbs you when they come to me anyhow. That is why I don't tell you. I thought you would prefer me not to."

  His father lowered his head. "It is understandable that you should feel this way. Perhaps we have been wrong to ask you not to see your pictures if they are God's gift to you."

  Brandon looked surprised. "Who else would send them?"

  "In Wales it is believed that such gifts come from God. There is not as much fear of devils there as here."

  "Zylle and Maddok say my pictures come from the gods."

  "And Zillo warned me," his father said, "that you must not talk about your pictures in front of anybody, especially Pastor Mortmain."

  "What about Davey?"

  "Not anybody."

  "But Davey knows about my pictures. When we were little, I used to describe them to Davey and Maddok."

  The parents looked at each other. "That was long ago. Let's hope Davey has forgotten."

  Ritchie banged his fist against the hard wood of the bedstead. Richard held up a warning hand. "Hush. You will wake your wife and son. Once the heat breaks, people's temperaments will be easier. Brandon, go back to bed."

  Back in his room, Brandon tossed hotly on his straw pallet. Even after the rest of the household was quiet, he could not sleep. In the distance he heard the drums. But no rain came.

  The next evening when he was bringing the cow home from the day's grazing, Davey Higgins came up to him. "Bran, Pastor Mortmain says I am not to speak to you."

  "You're speaking."

  "We've known each other all our lives. I will speak as long as I can. But people are saying that Zylle is preventing the rain. The crops are withering. We do not want to offend the Indians, but Pastor Mortmain says that Zylle's blue eyes prove her to be not a true Indian, and that the Indians were afraid of her and wished her onto us."

  "You know that's not true!" Brandon said hotly. "The Indians are proud of the blue eyes."

  "I know it," Davey said, "and you know it, but we are still children, and people do not listen to children. Pastor Mortmain has forbidden us to go to the Indian compound, and Maddok is no longer welcome here. My father believes everything Pastor Mortmain says, and my sister is being courted by his son, that pasty-faced Duthbert. Bran, what do your pictures tell you of all this?" Davey gave Brandon a sidewise glance.

  Brandon looked at him directly. "I'm twelve years old now, Davey. I'm no longer a child with a child's pictures." He left Davey and took the cow to the shed, feeling that denying the pictures had been an act of betrayal.

  Maddok came around the corner of the shed. "My father has sent me to you, in case there is danger. I am to follow you, but not be seen. But you know Indian ways, and you will see me. So I wanted you to know, so that you won't be afraid."

  "I am afraid," Brandon said flatly.

  "If only it would rain," Maddok said.

  "You know about weather. Will it rain?"

  Maddok shook his head. "The air smells of thunder, but there will be no rain this moon. There is lightning in the air, and it turns people's minds. How is Zylle? and the baby?"

  Now Brandon smiled. "Beautiful."

  At family prayers that evening the Llawcae faces were sober. Richard asked for wisdom, for prudence, for rain. He asked for faithfulness in friendship, and for courage. And again for rain.

  The thunder continued to grumble. The heavy night was sullen with heat lightning. And no drop fell.

  *

  The children would not talk with Brandon. Even Davey shamefacedly turned away. Mr. Mortmain, confronting Brandon, said, "There is evil under your roof. You had better see to it that it is removed."

  When Brandon reported this, Ritchie exploded. "The evil is in Mr. Mortmain's own heart."

  The evil was as pervasive as the brassy heat.

  Pastor Mortmain came in the evening to the Llawcaes' cabin, bringing with him his son, Duthbert, and Goodman Higgins. "We would speak with the Indian woman."

  "My wife--" Ritchie started, but his father silenced him.

  "It is late for this visit, Pastor Mortmain," Richard said. "My daughter-in-law and the baby have retired."

  "Then they must be wakened. It is our intention to discover if the Indian woman is a Christian, or--"

  Zylle walked into the room, carrying her child. "Or what, Pastor Mortmain?"

  Duthbert looked at her, and his eyes were greedy. Goodman Higgins questioned her gently. "We believe you to be a Christian, Zylle. That is true, is it not?"

  "Yes, Goodman Higgins. When I married Ritchie I accepted his beliefs."

  "Even though they were contrary to the beliefs of your people?" Pastor Mortmain asked.

  "But they are not contrary."

  "The Indians are pagans," Duthbert said.

  Zylle looked at the pasty young man over the baby's head. "I do not know what pagan means. I only know that Jesus of Nazareth sings the true song. He knows the ancient harmonies."

  Pastor Mortmain drew in his breath in horror. "You say that our Lord and Saviour sings! What more do we need to hear?"

  "But why should he not sing?" Zylle asked. "The very stars sing as they turn in their heavenly dance, sing praise of the One who created them. In the meeting house do we not sing hymns?"

  Pastor Mortmain scowled at Zylle, at the Llawcaes, at his son, who could not keep his eyes off Zylle's loveliness, at Goodman Higgins. "That is different. You are a heathen and you do not understand."

  Zylle raised her head proudly. "Scripture says that God loves every man. That is
in the Psalms. He loves my people as he loves you, or he is not God."

  Higgins warned, "You must not blaspheme, child."

  "Why," demanded Pastor Mortmain, "are you holding back the rain?"

  "Why ever should I wish to hold back the rain? Our corn suffers as does yours. We pray for rain, twice daily, at morning and at evening prayer."

  "The cat," Duthbert said. "What about the cat?"

  "The cat is to keep rodents away from house and barn, like all the cats in the settlement."

  Pastor Mortmain said, "Goody Adams tells us the cat is to help you fly through the air."

  Duthbert's mouth dropped slightly, and Ritchie shouted with outrage. But Zylle silenced him with a gesture, asking, "Does your cat help you to fly through the air, Pastor Mortmain? No more does mine. The gift of flying through the air is given to only the most holy of people, and I am only a woman like other women."

  "Stop, child," Goodman Higgins ordered, "before you condemn yourself."

  "Are you a true Indian?" Pastor Mortmain demanded. She nodded. "I am of the People of the Wind."

  "Indians do not have blue eyes."

  "You have heard our legend."

  "Legend?"

  "Yes. Though we believe it to be true. My father has the blue eyes, too, as does my little brother."

  "Lies!" Pastor Mortmain cried. "Storytelling is of the devil."

  Richard Llawcae took a step toward the small, dark figure of the minister. "How strange that you should say that, Pastor Mortmain. Scripture says that Jesus taught by telling stories. And he spake many things unto them in parables ... and without a parable spake he not unto them. That is in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew."

  Pastor Mortmain's face was hard. "I believe this Indian woman to be a witch. And if she is, she must die like a witch. That, too, is in Scripture." He gestured to Goodman Higgins and Duthbert. "We will meet in church and make our decision."

  "Who will make the decision?" Ritchie demanded, not heeding his father's warning hand. "All the men of the settlement, in fair discussion, or you, Pastor Mortmain?"

  "Be careful," Goodman Higgins urged. "Ritchie, take care."

  "David Higgins," Richard Llawcae said, "our two cabins were the first in this settlement. You have known us longer than anyone else here. Do you believe that my son would marry a witch?"

  "Not knowingly, Richard."

  "You were here with us during the evenings when the Indians came to listen to our stories, and we heard their own legend that matched ours. You saw how the Indian legend and the Welsh one insured peace between us and the People of the Wind, did you not, now, David?"

  "Yes, that is so."

  Pastor Mortmain intervened. "Goodman Higgins has told me of the storytelling which preceded the sop of reading from Scripture."

  "Scripture was never a sop for us, Pastor. Those early years were hard. Goody Higgins died birthing Davey, and after her death in one week three of David's children died of diphtheria, and another only a year later coughed his life away. My wife lost four little ones between Richard and Brandon, one at birth, the other three as children. We were sustained and strengthened by Scripture then, as we are still. As for the stories, the winter evenings were long, and it was a pleasant way to while away the time as we worked with our hands."

  Goodman Higgins shuffled his feet. "There was no harm in the stories, Pastor Mortmain. I have assured you of that."

  "Perhaps not for you," Pastor Mortmain said. "Come."

  Goodman Higgins did not look up as he followed Pastor Mortmain and Duthbert out of the cabin.

  Nightmare. Brandon wanted to scream, to make himself wake up, but he was not asleep, and the nightmare was happening. When he did his chores he was aware that Maddox was invisibly there, watching over him. Sometimes he heard him rustling up in the branches of a tree. Sometimes Maddok let Brandon have a glimpse of him behind a tree trunk, behind the corner of a barn or cabin. But wherever he went, Maddok was there, and that meant that the Indians knew all that was happening.

  A baby in the settlement died of the summer sickness, which had always been the chief cause of infant mortality during the hot months, but it was all that was needed to convict Zylle.

  Pastor Mortmain sent to the town for a man who was said to be an expert in the detection of witches. He had sent many people to the gallows.

  "And that's supposed to make him an expert?" Ritchie demanded.

  The settlement crackled with excitement. It seemed to Brandon that people were enjoying it. The Higgins daughter walked along the dusty street with Duthbert, and did not raise her eyes, but Pastor Mortmain's son smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. People lingered in their doorways, staring at Pastor Mortmain and the expert on witches as they stood in front of the church. Davey Higgins stayed in his cabin and did not come out, though the other children were as eager as their parents to join in the witch hunt.

  It was part of the nightmare when the man from the city who had hanged many people gave Pastor Mortmain and the elders of the village his verdict: there was no doubt in his mind that Zylle was a witch.

  A sigh of excitement, of horror, of pleasure, went along the street.

  That evening when Brandon went to the common pasture to bring the cow home, one of the other boys spat on the ground and turned away. Davey Higgins, tying the halter on the Higgins cow, said, "It is the Lord's will that the witch should die."

  "Zylle is not a witch."

  "She's a heathen."

  "She's a Christian. A better one than you are."

  "She's a condemned witch, and tomorrow they take her to the jail in town, though she'll be brought back here to be hanged--"

  "So we can all see." One of the boys licked his lips in anticipation.

  "No!" Brandon cried. "No!"

  Davey interrupted him. "You'd better hold your tongue, or I could tell things about you to make Pastor Mortmain condemn you as a witch, too."

  Brandon looked levelly at Davey while the others teased him to tell.

  Davey flushed. "No. I didn't mean anything. Brandon is my friend. It's not his fault his brother married a witch."

  "How could you let them take Zylle and the baby away?" Brandon demanded of Ritchie and his parents. "How could you!"

  "Son," Richard Llawcae said, "Zylle is not safe here, not now with feelings running high. There are those who would hang her immediately. Your brother and I are going to town tomorrow to speak to people we know there. We think they will help us."

  But the witch-hunting fever was too high. There was no help. There was no reason. There was only nightmare.

  Goody Llawcae stayed in the town to tend Zylle and the baby; that much was allowed, but it was not through kindness; there were those who feared that Zylle might try to take her own life, or that something might happen to prevent them seeing a public hanging.

  Richard and Ritchie refused to erect the gallows.

  Avoiding their eyes, Goodman Higgins pleaded, "You must not refuse to do this, or you, too, will be accused. In the town they have convicted entire families."

  Richard said, "There was another carpenter, once, and he would have refused to do this thing. Him I will follow."

  There were others more than willing to erect a crude gallows. A gallows is more easily built than a house, or a bed, or a table.

  The date for the hanging was set.

  On the eve, Brandon went late to bring the cow in from the pasture, in order to avoid the others. When he got to the barn. Maddok was waiting there in the shadows.

  "My father wants to see you."

  "When?" Bran asked.

  "Tonight. After the others are asleep, can you slip away without being seen?"

  Bran nodded. "You have taught me how to do that. I will come. It has meant much to me to know that you have been with me."

  "We are friends," Maddok said without a smile.

  "Is it going to rain soon?" Brandon asked.

  "No. Not unless prayer changes things."

/>   "You pray every night. So do we."

  "Yes. We pray," Maddok said, and slipped silently into the woods.

  In the small hours of the morning, before dawn, when he was sure everybody in the settlement would be asleep, Brandon left the cabin and ran swiftly as a young deer into the protecting shadows of the woods.

  Maddok was standing at the edge of the forest, waiting. "Come. I know the way in the dark more easily than you."

  "Zillo knows everything? You've told him?"

  "Yes. But he wants to meet with you."

  "Why? I'm still only a child."

  "You have the gift of seeing."

  Brandon shivered.

  "Come," Maddok urged. "My father is waiting."

  They traveled swiftly, Brandon following Maddok as he led the way, over the brook, through the dark shadows of the forest.

  At the edge of the Indian clearing, Zillo stood. Maddok nodded at his father, then vanished into the shadows.

  "You won't let it happen?" Brandon begged. "If Zylle is harmed, Ritchie will kill."

  "We will not let it happen."

  "The men of the settlement expect the Indians to come. They have guns. They are out of their right minds, and they will not hesitate to shoot."

  "They must be prevented. Have you seen anything in a vision lately?"

  "I have tried not to. I am afraid."

  "No one knows you are here?"

  "Only Maddok."

  Zillo pulled a polished metal sphere from a small pouch and held it out to catch the light of the late moon. "What do you see?"

  Brandon hesitantly looked into it. "This is right for me to do, when my father ...?"

  Zillo's eyes were expressionless. "I have held this action in prayer all day. It is not your father's wish to deny a gift of the gods, and at this time we have no one in the tribe with the gift of seeing."

  As Brandon looked, the light in the metal sphere shifted, and he saw clouds moving swiftly across the sky, clouds reflected in water. Not taking his eyes from the scrying metal he said, "I see a lake where the valley should be, a lake I have seen before in a picture. It is beautiful."

  Zillo nodded. "It is said there was a lake here in longgone days. In the valley people have found stones with the bones of fish in them."

  "The sky is clouding up," Brandon reported. "Rain is starting to fall, spattering into the water of the lake."

  "You see no fire?"

  "Before, I saw fire, and I was afraid. Now there is only rain."