A Swiftly Tilting Planet

by Madeleine L'engle

  Chuck exclaimed in delight, "Oh, Beezie, oh, Grandma!" Reverently he turned the page. In beautiful script was written, Madrun, 1864, Zillah Llawcae.

  The grandmother wiped her floury hands carefully and put on her spectacles, bending over the book. Together they read the first page.

  Madrun.

  Past ten o'clock. Through my bedroom window I can look down the hill to the Maddoxes' house. Mr. and Mrs. Maddox will be asleep. They get up at five in the morning. Gwen Maddox--who knows? Gwen has always considered herself a grownup and me a child, though we're separated by only two years.

  The twins, my dear twins, Bran and Matthew. Are they awake? When Bran lied about his age, so afraid was he he'd miss the war, and went to join the cavalry, I feared he might be killed in battle. When I dreamed of his homecoming, as I did each night when I looked at his diamond on my finger and prayed for his safety, I never thought it could be like this, with Bran withdrawn and refusing to communicate with anyone, even his twin. If I try to speak to him about our marriage, he cuts me short, or turns away without a word. Matthew says there have been others who have suffered this sickness of spirit because of the horrors of war.

  I am, and have been for nearly seventeen years, Zillah Llawcae. Will I ever be Zillah Maddox?

  They continued to turn the pages, more quickly now, not pausing to read the journal entries, but looking at the delicate paintings of birds and butterflies, flowers and trees, squirrels and wood mice and tree toads, all meticulously observed and accurately reproduced.

  A shiver ran up and down Chuck's spine. "Pa's mother was a Llawcae. This Zillah could be one of our ancestors ... and she was alive when she painted all this, and it's just the way it is now, just exactly the same."

  He turned another page; his eye was caught, and he read:

  This is my seventeenth birthday, and a sorry one it has been, though Father and I were invited to the Maddoxes' for dinner. But Bran was there and yet he wasn't there. He sat at the table, but he hardly ate the delicious dishes which had been especially prepared, to tempt him as much as in honor of me, and if anyone asked him a question he answered in monosyllables.

  He turned the page and paused again.

  Matthew says Bran almost had a conversation with him last night, and he is hopeful that the ghastly war wounds of his mind and spirit are beginning to heal. I wear his ring with its circle of hope, and I will not give up hoping. What would I do without Matthew's friendship to comfort and sustain me? Had it not been for Matthew's accident, I wonder which twin would have asked for my hand? A question better not raised, since I love them both so tenderly.

  The grandmother took the top letter from the packet. "It's from Bran Maddox, the one Zillah's talking about, but it's from some foreign place, Vespugia? Now where would that be?"

  "It's part of what used to be Patagonia."

  "Pata--?"

  "In South America."

  "Oh, then." She drew the letter out of its envelope.

  My beloved brother, Matthew, greetings, on this warm November day in Vespugia. It there snow at home? I am settling in well with the group from Wales, and feel that I have known most of them all our lives ...

  When she finished reading the letter, she said, "Your poor pa would have been thrilled at all this."

  Chuck, nodding, continued to turn the pages, reading a line here and there. As well as the nature pictures, the young Zillah Llawcae had many sketches of people, some in ink, some in watercolor. There was an ink drawing of a tall man in a stovepipe hat, carrying a black bag and looking not unlike Lincoln, standing by a horse and buggy. Underneath was written, "Father, about to drive off to deliver a baby."

  There were many sketches of a young man, just beyond boyhood, with fair hair, a clear, beardless complexion, and wide-apart, far-seeing eyes. These were labeled, "My beloved Bran," "My dearest Bran," "My heart's love." And there were sketches of someone who looked like Bran and yet not like Bran, for the face was etched with lines of pain. "My dear Matthew," Zillah had written.

  "It's so beautiful," Beezie said. "I wish I could paint like that."

  But the old woman's thoughts had shifted to practicality. "I wonder, would this notebook bring a few dollars?"

  "Grandma, you wouldn't sell it!" Chuck was horrified.

  "We need money, lad, if we're to keep a roof over our heads. Your ma'll sell anything she can sell."

  The antiques dealer who bought the pennies and the set of china for what seemed to Chuck and Beezie a staggering sum was not interested in Zillah's notebook.

  Mrs. Maddox looked at it sadly. "I know it's worth something. Your father would know where I should take it. If only I could remember the name of the person who bought Matthew Maddox's book."

  But Chuck could not feel it in his heart to wish the beautiful journal sold. His grandmother took an old linen pillowcase and made a cover to protect the crumbling leather binding, and on it Beezie embroidered two butterflies, in blue and gold. She was as entranced with the journal as was Chuck.

  They shared the notebook and the letters with the grandmother, reading aloud to her while she did the ironing or mending, until they had her as involved as they were. The present was so bleak that all three found relief in living the long past.

  Beezie and Chuck looked at the old foundation behind the store. "That's where the Maddoxes' house must have been. They didn't live above the store, the way we do."

  "Our apartment was all part of the store."

  "I wonder what happened to the house?"

  "We'll never know," Beezie said drearily.

  "I tried to check one of Matthew Maddox's books out of the library," Chuck said. "But the librarian said they haven't been around in a long time. She thinks somebody must have lifted them. But I did get some books on Vespugia. Let's go upstairs and look at them."

  They compared the photographs in the books with the watercolors in the final pages of the journal, where Zillah had tried to reproduce in ink and paint what Bran had described in his letters. Zillah's painting of vast plains rising terrace-fashion up to the foot of the Andes gave them a feeling of a world so different it might have been another planet.

  Beezie had turned back to Zillah's notebook, to a painting of a tall and handsome Indian, with strange blue eyes set rather too close to his aquiline nose. The caption read: "This is how I think Gedder must look, the Indian who Bran writes is descended from Madoc's brother."

  Chuck reached for one of Bran's letters and read:

  I wish I was more drawn to Gedder, who is so obviously drawn to Gwen. I feel an ingrate when I think of all he has done for us. Building is completely different in Vespugian weather than at home--or in Wales, and I shudder to think what kind of houses we might have built had Gedder not shown us how to construct dwellings to let the wind in, rather than to keep it out. And he showed us what crops to plant, hardy things like cabbage and carrots, and how to make windbreaks for them. All the Indians have helped us, but Gedder more than the others, and more visibly. But he never laughs.

  "I don't trust people who don't laugh." He put the letter down.

  Beezie got a baby-sitting job that began right after school, so Chuck took her place at the cash register, pretending that he was Matthew Maddox and that the store was big and flourishing. The grandmother took in ironing and sewing, and her old hands were constantly busy. There was no time for leisurely cups of tea and the telling of tales. Chuck moved more and more deeply into his games of Let's Pretend. Matthew and Zillah, Bran and Gwen, Gedder and Zillie, all were more alive for him than anyone except Beezie and the grandmother.

  One evening Mrs. Maddox stayed late downstairs in the store. When Chuck came home from chopping wood for one of their neighbors, he found Beezie and his grandmother drinking herb tea. "Grandma, I'm hungry." He could feel his belly growling. Supper had been soup and dry toast.

  Seeming to ignore his words, the old woman looked at him. "Duthbert Mortmain's been calling on your ma. He's downstairs now."

  "I don'
t like him," Beezie said.

  "You may have to," the grandmother told her.

  "Why?" Chuck asked. He remembered Duthbert Mortmain as a lumbering, scowling man who did small plumbing jobs. How did he smell? Not a pleasant smell. Hard, like a lump of coal.

  "He's offered to marry your ma and take over the store."

  "But Pa--"

  "The funeral baked meats are long cold. Duthbert Mortmain's got a shrewd business head, and no one's bought the store, nor likely to. Your ma's not got much choice. And for all her hard work and heavy heart, she's still a pretty woman. Not surprising Duthbert Mortmain should fall for her."

  "But she's our mother," Beezie protested.

  "Not to Duthbert Mortmain. To him she's a desirable woman. And to your mother, he's a way out."

  "Out of what?" Chuck asked.

  "Your mother's about to lose the store and the roof over our heads. Another few weeks and we'll be out on the street."

  Chuck's face lit up. "We could go to Vespugia!"

  "Going anywhere takes money, Chuck, and money's what we don't have. You and Beezie'd be put in foster homes, and as to your ma and me ..."

  "Grandma!" Beezie clutched the old woman's sleeve. "You don't want Ma to marry him, do you?"

  "I don't know what I want. I'd like to know that she was taken care of, and you and Chuck, before I die."

  Beezie flung her arms about the old woman. "You're not going to die, Grandma, not ever!"

  Chuck's nostrils twitched slightly. The scent of dandelion spore was strong.

  The old woman untangled herself. "You've seen how death takes the ready and unready, my Beezie. Except for my concern about your future, and your mother's, I'm ready to go home. It's been a long time I've been separated from my Patrick. He's waiting for me. The last few days I've kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see him."

  "Grandma"--Beezie pushed her fingers through her curls--"Ma doesn't love Duthbert Mortmain. She can't! I hate him!"

  "Hate hurts the hater more'n the hated."

  "Didn't Branwen?"

  "Branwen hated not. Branwen loved, and was betrayed, and cried the rune for help, and not for hate or revenge. And the sun melted the white snow so that she could sleep warm at night, and the fire in her little stove did not burn out but flickered merrily to keep her toasty, and the lightning carried her message to her brother, Bran, and her Irish king fled to his ship and the wind blew him across the sea and his ship sank in its depths and Bran came to his sister Branwen and blessed the stark earth so that it turned green and flowering once more."

  Beezie asked, "Did she ever love anybody again, after the Irish king?"

  "I've forgotten," the old woman said.

  "Grandma! Why don't we use the rune? Then maybe Ma won't have to marry Duthbert Mortmain."

  "The rune is not to be used lightly."

  "This wouldn't be lightly."

  "I don't know, my Beezie. Patterns have to be worked out, and only the very brash tamper with them. The rune is only for the most dire emergency."

  "Isn't this an emergency?"

  "Perhaps not the right one." The old woman closed her eyes and rocked back and forth in silence, and when she spoke it was in a rhythmic singsong, much as when she intoned the words of the rune. "You will use the rune, my lamb, you will use the rune, but not before the time is ripe." She opened her eyes and fixed Beezie with a piercing gaze which seemed to go right through her.

  "But how will I know when the time is ripe? Why isn't it ripe now?"

  The old woman shook her head and closed her eyes and rocked again. "This moment is not the moment. The night is coming and the clouds are gathering. We can do nothing before they are all assembled. When the time is ripe, Chuck will let you know. From the other side of darkness, Chuck will let you know, will let you know, will let ..." Her words trailed off, and she opened her eyes and spoke in her natural voice. "To bed with both of you. It's late."

  "Horrid old Duthbert Mortmain," Beezie said to Chuck one fine summer's day. "I won't call him Pa."

  "Nor I."

  Duthbert Mortmain seemed quite content to have them call him Mr. Mortmain.

  He ran the store with stern efficiency. With their mother he was gentle, occasionally caressing her soft hair. People remarked on how he doted on her.

  A sign over the cash register read NO CREDIT. Beezie and Chuck helped out in the afternoons and on Saturdays as usual. And their mother still did not smile, not even when Duthbert Mortmain brought her a box of chocolates tied with a lavender ribbon.

  She no longer smelled of fear, Chuck thought, but neither did she smell of the blue sky of early morning. Now it was the evening sky, with a thin covering of cloud dimming the blue.

  Duthbert Mortmain saved his pleasantries for the customers. He laughed and made jokes and gave every appearance of being a hearty, kindly fellow. But upstairs in the evenings his face was sour.

  "Don't be noisy, children," their mother warned. "Your--my husband is tired."

  Beezie whispered to Chuck, "Pa was tired, too, but he liked to hear us laugh."

  "We were his own children," Chuck replied. "We don't belong to Duthbert Mortmain, and he doesn't like what doesn't belong to him."

  Duthbert Mortmain did not show his vicious temper until the following spring. There was never a sign of it in the store, even with the most difficult customers or salesmen, but upstairs he began to let it have its way. One morning his wife ("I hate it when people call her Mrs. Mortmain!" Beezie exploded) came to breakfast with a black eye, explaining that she had bumped into a door in the dark. The grandmother, Beezie, and Chuck looked at her, but said nothing.

  And it became very clear that Duthbert Mortmain did not like children, even when they were quiet. Whenever Chuck did anything which displeased his stepfather, which was at least once a day, Mortmain boxed his ears, so that at last they rang constantly.

  When Beezie sat at the cash register, her stepfather pinched her arm every time he passed, as though in affection. But her arms were so full of black and blue marks that she kept her sweater on all the time to hide the bruises.

  One day at recess in the schoolyard, Chuck saw Paddy O'Keefe come up to Beezie, and hurried over to them to hear Paddy asking, "Old Mortmain after you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know what I mean."

  "No. I don't." But she shivered.

  Chuck intervened, "You leave my sister alone."

  "Better tell old Mortmain to leave her alone, runt. You ever need any help, Beezie, you just let me know. Li'l ole Paddy'll take care of you."

  That night Duthbert Mortmain's temper flared totally out of control.

  They had finished the evening meal, and when Beezie was clearing the table, her stepfather reached out and pinched her bottom, and Chuck saw the look of cold hatred she turned on him.

  "Duthbert--" their mother protested.

  "Duthbert Mortmain, take care." The grandmother gave him a long, level gaze. She spoke not another word, but warning was clear in her eyes. She put cups and glasses on a tray, and started for the sink.

  Mortmain, too, left the table, and as the old woman neared the stairway he raised his arm to strike her.

  "No!" Beezie screamed.

  Chuck thrust himself between his grandmother and stepfather and took the full force of Mortmain's blow.

  Again Beezie screamed, as Chuck fell, fell down the steep stairs in a shower of broken china and glass. Then she rushed after him.

  Chuck lay in a distorted position at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her with eyes that did not see. "Gedder pushed me. He pushed me. Don't let him marry Gwen. Zillah, don't let Gedder, don't let ..."

  TEN

  The earth with its starkness

  A field of dandelions. Yellow. Yellow. Exploding into white, into a blizzard of white, a terror of white. Green stems, sickly trickling ooze.

  Grandma.

  Grandma.

  Grandma, you're not going to die. Not ever.

 
Gedder.

  Smell. Bad smell.

  Gun. Gedder's gun. Stop him

  terrible fall

  Gwen Zillah

  head hurts

  hurts

  crystal horn heals Matthew's unicorn comes

  tip touches head with light heals

  Beezie! Grandma! Ma! Pa!

  Two stones in the cemetery.

  A fight at the edge of the cliff, like Gwydyr and Madoc at the edge of the lake. Bad. Bad.

  Beezie, never let him touch you.

  From inside himself Charles Wallace watched as the unicorn lowered his head and the blazing tip of the horn touched Chuck's head, pouring light into it. He kept the horn there until the light had poured itself out, and the spasms of pain subsided and the boy stopped babbling and slept.

  "Charles Wallace!"

  He listened. The voice sounded like Gaudior, and yet it was not Gaudior, and he no longer saw the silver beauty of the unicorn nor the light of the horn. Nothing was visible, not even darkness. Something was happening, and he did not know what. He was still Within Chuck, and yet he was intensely conscious of himself as Charles Wallace, and something was pulling him.

  Meg sat up, blinking and rubbing her hand against Ananda's fur. The kitten had returned and was sleeping on the pillow. At first Meg did not know why there were tears on her cheeks, or why she was frightened.

  She closed her eyes in sadness and saw the unicorn standing motionless by the star-watching rock. A pear-shaped drop of crystal slid from Gaudior's eye and shattered into a thousand fragments on the stone. The unicorn looked up at the sky. The stars were sparkling brilliantly. Small wisps of starlit cloud moved in the rapid north wind. She thought she heard Gaudior saying, "The Old Music was in them once. That was a victory for the Echthroi."

  Meg thought of Mrs. O'Keefe waiting downstairs. Yes. That was a victory for the enemy, indeed. That Beezie, the golden child, should have become the old hag with missing teeth and resentful eyes was unbearable.

  There's more to her than meets the eye.

  Infinitely more.

  And what now? What's going to happen?

  To Chuck?

  To Charles Wallace?