An Acceptable Time

by Madeleine L'engle

  "Do you think the goddess is withholding rain?" Polly asked.

  Anaral shook her head. "It is not in the goddess's nature to destroy. She sends blessings. It is us, it is people who are destructive." She left the tent abruptly.

  In a few minutes she returned with a wooden bowl full of water, and a soft piece of leather for a washcloth. She wet the leather and gently washed Polly's face, and then her hands, and it was as much a ritual as the banquet and the singing and dancing had been. She handed the bowl to Polly, who understood that she in her turn was to wash Anaral. When Anaral took the bowl out to empty it, Polly felt as clean as though she had just taken a long bath. She lay down on the fern bed, wrapped in the soft fur blanket, and slid into sleep.

  When she woke up, she thought at first that she was at home with her grandparents. But there was no Hadron sleeping beside her. She reached out her hand and touched hair, not the fur of the blanket, but living hair, and Og's moist nose nuzzled into her hand, his warm tongue licked her fingers. She was comforted and lay listening to the night. The quiet was different from the quiet of her own time, where the soughing of the wind in the trees was sometimes broken by the distant roar of a plane going by overhead, by a truck on the road a mile downhill from the house. Here the lake covered the place where the road was, and she could hear small splashings as an occasional fish surfaced. There was also a sense of many presences, that the People of the Wind surrounded her. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could see Anaral's curled-up form on the other pallet, hear her soft breathing.

  Polly sat up carefully. It was cold, so she put on the red anorak and crept out into the first faint light of dawn, Og following her. Stars still shone overhead, but the moon had long since gone to rest, and there was a faint lemon-colored streak of light on the horizon far across the lake. She saw someone sitting on a tree trunk, facing the lake, and she recognized Bishop Colubra by his plaid shirt. Quietly she walked to him.

  "Bishop--"

  He turned and saw her, and invited her with a motion to sit beside him.

  "The time gate--"

  He shook his head. "It is still closed."

  "Yesterday, when Dr. Louise came over, she said you'd gone off in hiking boots--"

  He looked down at his feet in laced-up leather boots. "I thought I'd better be prepared."

  "You mean you knew--"

  "No. I didn't know. I just suspected that something might happen, and if you came to this time and place and couldn't get back, I wanted to be here with you."

  "Are we going to be able to get home? To our own time?"

  "Oh, I think it's highly likely," the bishop said.

  "But you aren't sure?"

  "My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe."

  Polly thought of the bishop's wife, of Dr. Louise's family. She did not know that Karralys was there with them at the lakeside until he said, "Zachary is not in the tent."

  Karralys stood with his back to the lake, looking down at Polly and Bishop Colubra. "I do not wish to raise an alarm. You have not seen him? He has not spoken to you?"

  "No," both the bishop and Polly replied.

  "I had hoped he might be with you. Wait here, please. I will check the other tents. If Zachary should come to you, please keep him here till I return." He turned away from them, walking rapidly. Og looked at Polly, licked her hand, then took off after Karralys.

  "Bishop," Polly said softly, "Zachary is terrified of dying."

  "Yes." The bishop nodded.

  "And he thinks his best hope is here, in this time. So I don't think he'd go off anywhere. He tries to be so glib about everything, but he's frightened."

  The bishop's voice was compassionate. "Poor young man, with his house slipping and sliding on sand."

  Polly said, "If it was my heart, and I was told I had only a year or so to live, I'd be afraid, too."

  "Of course, my dear. The unknown is always frightening, no matter how much we trust in the purposes of love. And I do not think that Zachary has that trust. So the dark must seem very dark to him indeed."

  "It can seem pretty dark to me, too," Polly admitted.

  "To all of us. But to you, and to me, there is the blessing of hope. Isn't there?"

  "Yes. Though I'm not exactly sure what my hope is."

  "That's all right. You've lived well in your short life."

  "Not always. I've been judgmental and unforgiving."

  "But on the whole you've lived life lovingly and fully. And I suspect that much of Zachary's life has been an avoidance of life. Now I'm sounding judgmental, aren't I?"

  Polly laughed. "Yes, well. Being judgmental has always been a problem for me. And Zachary's the kind of person who just seems to get judged. If he weren't so sort of spectacular, people probably wouldn't care."

  They looked up as Karralys returned, his face grave. "I cannot find him. And the raider is gone, too, the one whose head was nearly broken. Brown Earth, he is called. His pallet was by Eagle Woman's, but Cub gave her a potion to ease her pain and she is still asleep."

  The bishop asked, "You think Zachary and the raider went off together?"

  "It is possible the raider took him as hostage," Karralys suggested.

  "But how would they get away? You had watches posted at all points."

  Karralys sat down beside Polly on the fallen log. "Those across the lake move as silently as we do. Brown Earth could have gone into the forest and come out to the lake from another direction. There are many miles of shoreline."

  "But the raider couldn't have taken Zachary if he was unwilling," Polly objected. "Wouldn't he have yelled and made a noise?"

  Karralys appeared to be studying a bird who was flying low over the lake. "We went through the raider's clothes. We took away his knife. He had no arrow, no poison to make Zachary helpless." Suddenly the bird swooped down and flew off into the sky with a fish.

  "But why would Zachary have gone with him?" Polly was incredulous. "Karralys, he thought his hope for life was here, that Cub could help his heart. He wouldn't just have gone off."

  "No one knows what that young man would or would not do," Karralys said. "Is he not--"

  "Unpredictable," the bishop supplied.

  "Well, yes," Polly agreed, "but this doesn't seem reasonable."

  "Many things that people do are unreasonable," the bishop pointed out. "Now what should we do?"

  The lake was bathed in a radiant light as the sun rose, and with the sun the rich singing of the morning song. "I will ask the others," Karralys said. "Then we shall see."

  Karralys went around the compound asking people singly, in pairs, in small groups, Og at his heels, whining a little, anxiously. There was consternation over the disappearance of the raider, more than over Zachary.

  Eagle Woman berated herself. "I should have heard him. Normally, my ears are tuned--"

  "Normally, you do not have a shoulder that has been pierced by an arrow," Karralys said.

  "And the young man--where can he be? Cub told me his heart sounded like a dry leaf in the wind."

  "We will call council at the great stones," Karralys said. "Meanwhile, we must get on with the day's work. We will continue to keep watchers posted to look out for canoes, or perhaps an attack from the forest."

  Polly and the bishop were asked to join the group in the circle within the ring of standing stones.

  "If they think they can use this Zak--" Tav started.

  "Zachary."

  "--as a hostage, they are wrong. He is worth nothing to us."

  "He is our guest," Karralys said quietly. "Under our hospitality."

  "I do not understand why he came," Tav said. "I fear that he will bring us grief."

  "We are still responsible for him."

  Cub turned to Karralys anxiously. "If they treat him roughly, I do not think his heart will stand it."

/>   "That bad?" Eagle Woman asked.

  Cub looked at her soberly.

  "Then," Tav deliberated, "it was just as well he did not fight yesterday?"

  "It might have killed him," Cub said.

  "He is young for his heart to be so feeble," a man wearing a red-fox skin protested.

  "Perhaps he had the child fever with the swollen joints that weakens the heart," Cub suggested.

  --Rheumatic fever, Polly thought.--Yes, that sounded likely.

  "Enough," Tav said. "What are we going to do? Why did the raider take him? Of what use can he be--except as a hostage?"

  "If it is as a hostage," Karralys said, "we will hear from them, and soon."

  There seemed nothing more to discuss. Karralys dismissed the council, doubled the watch. Polly helped Anaral make bread in an oven made of hot stones. She looked around for Og but did not see him. He must be with Karralys, she thought.

  "This goddess," Polly mused, "and the Mother. Are they one and the same?"

  Anaral punched down the risen dough. "To me, and to Karralys, yes. To those who are not druids--Tav, for instance--the goddess is the moon, and the Mother is the earth. For some, it is easier to think of separate gods and goddesses in the wind, in the oaks, in the water. But for me, it is all One Presence, with many aspects, even as you and I have many aspects, but we are one." She placed the bread in the stone oven. "It will be ready when we return."

  "Where are we going?" Polly asked.

  "To the standing stones. In that place is the strongest energy. That is why council is always held there."

  The standing stones. Where, three thousand years in the future, Polly's grandparents' house would be, and the pool which could not be dug as deeply as planned because there was an underground river.

  "Below the place of the standing stones"--Polly followed Anaral away from the tents and the lake--"there is water?"

  "A river. It runs underground and then comes up out of the earth where it flows into the lake. But its source is beneath the standing stones."

  "How do you know?"

  "It is the old knowledge."

  "Whose old knowledge?"

  "The knowledge of the People of the Wind. But Tav would not take my word for it, so I gave him a wand of green wood and told him to hold it straight in front of him, and not to let it touch the ground, and then I asked him to follow me. He thought I was--what does Bishop call it? Oh, yes, primitive. But he followed me, laughing, and holding the wand. And when we got to the standing stones, he could not keep it still, he could not keep it off the ground. It leaped in his hands like a live thing. Then he knew I told true."

  When they got to the standing stones there was someone lying on the altar. With a low cry, Anaral hurried forward, then drew back. "It is Bishop talking with the Presence."

  While Polly watched, the bishop slowly pushed himself into a sitting position and smiled at her and Anaral. Then he returned his stare to some far distance. "But, Lord, I make my prayer to you in an acceptable time," he whispered. "The words of the psalmist. How did he know that the time was acceptable? How do we know? An acceptable time, now, for God's now is equally three thousand years in the future and three thousand years in the past."

  "We are sorry," Anaral apologized. "We did not mean to disturb your prayers."

  The bishop held out his hands, palms up. "I have tried to listen, to understand."

  "Who are you trying to listen to?" Polly asked.

  "Christ," the bishop said simply.

  "But, Bishop, this is a thousand years before--"

  The bishop smiled gently. "There's an ancient Christmas hymn I particularly love. Do you know it? Of the Father's love begotten--"

  "E'er the worlds began to be." Polly said the second line.

  "He is alpha and omega, He the source, the ending--" the bishop continued. "The Second Person of the Trinity always was, always is, always will be, and I can listen to Christ now, three thousand years ago, as well as in my own time, though in my own time I have the added blessing of knowing that Christ, the alpha and omega, the source, visited this little planet. We are that much loved. But nowhere, at any time or in any place, are we deprived of the source. Oh, dear, I'm preaching again."

  "That's okay," Polly said. "It helps."

  "You've had good training," the bishop said. "I can see that you understand."

  "At least a little."

  He slid down from the great altar stone. "Zachary," he said.

  "Do you think he's all right?"

  "That I have no way of knowing. But whatever all this is about, our moving across the threshold of time in this extraordinary way has something to do with Zachary."

  "How could it?" Polly was incredulous.

  "I don't know. I have been lying here contemplating, and suddenly I saw Zachary, not here, but in my spirit's eye, and I knew, at least for a flash I knew, that the true reason I had gone through the time gate was for Zachary."

  Anaral dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged. Polly leaned against one of the stone chairs. "For his heart?"

  The bishop shook his head. "No, I think not. I can't explain it. Why go to all the trouble to bring us three thousand years in the past for the sake of Zachary? I don't find him particularly endearing."

  "Well, he can be--"

  The bishop continued, "But then I think of the people Jesus died for and they weren't particularly endearing, either. Yet He brought back to life a dead young man because his mother was wild with grief. He raised a little girl from the dead and told her parents to give her something to eat. He drove seven demons out of Mary of Magdala. Why those particular people? There were others probably more deserving. So, I ask myself, what is there that makes me think I have crossed three thousand years because of Zachary?"

  Polly plunged her hands into the pocket of the red anorak. None of this made any sense. Zachary was peripheral to her world, not central. If she never saw Zachary again, her life basically would not be changed. Her fingers moved restlessly in the anorak pockets. She felt something hard under her left hand. Zachary's icon. She pulled the small rectangle out, looked at it. "I guess Zachary could use a guardian angel."

  "A great angel and a small child." The bishop, too, looked at the icon. "The bright angels and the dark angels are fighting, and the earth is caught in the battle."

  "Do you believe that?" Polly asked.

  "Oh, yes."

  "What does a dark angel look like?"

  "Probably exactly like a bright angel. The darkness is inner, not outer. Well, my children, go on about whatever it is you need to do. I will stay here and wait."

  "You are all right, Bishop?" Anaral asked.

  "I am fine. My heart is beating steadily and quietly. But I probably should not fight in any more battles." He glanced at the sun, which was high in the sky, then clambered up onto the altar again and lay back down. The shadow of one of the great stones protected his eyes from the glare.

  Polly followed Anaral back to the compound.

  There was an unease to the day. The normal routines were carried on. Fish were caught. Herbs were hung out to dry. Several women, each wearing the bright feathers of her bird--a finch, a lark, a cardinal--were making a cloak of bird feathers.

  Cub called to Polly, "I may need your help."

  Polly had forgotten the second raider, the very young man with the compound fracture, whom Anaral had tended so gently the night before. Now he was lying under the shade of a lean-to. His cheeks were flushed and it was apparent that he had some fever. Cub squatted down beside him. "Here," he said, "I have some of Eagle Woman's medicine to help take away the fever. It is made from the mold of bread and it will not taste pleasant, but you must take it."

  "You are kind," the young raider said gratefully. "If you had been wounded and taken prisoner by my tribe, we would not have cared for you in this way."

  "Could you have cared for me?" Cub asked.

  "Oh, yes, our healer is very great. But we do not waste his power on our pris
oners."

  "Is it a waste?" Cub held out an earthen bowl to the raider's lips and the lad swallowed obediently. "Now I must look at the leg. Please, Poll-ee, hold his hands."

  Polly knelt by the raider. Anaral had followed her and knelt on his other side. Polly found it hard to understand him, but she got the gist of what he was saying in a language that was more primitive than Ogam. "What is your name?" She took his hands in hers.

  "Klep," he said. At least, that is what it sounded like. "I was born at the time of the darkening of the sun, of night coming in the morning as my mother labored to bring me forth. Then, as I burst into the world, the light returned, slowly at first, and then, as I shouted, the sun was back and brilliant. It was a very great omen. I will, one day, be chief of my tribe, and I will do things differently. I, too, will take care of the wounded and not let them die." He gasped with pain, and Polly saw Cub bathing the broken and raw skin with some kind of solution. Anaral turned away while Polly held Klep's hands tight, and he grasped her so hard that it hurt. He grimaced against the pain, clenching his teeth to keep from crying out. Then he relaxed. Turned and looked at Anaral. "I'm sorry."

  She smiled at him gently. "You are very brave."

  "And you are doing well," Cub said. "I will not need to hurt you any more today."

  Klep let out a long breath. "I hear that Brown Earth, my companion, is gone from you, and also one of yours. Or is he one of yours, with the pale skin and dark hair?"

  "He is not one of ours," Cub said. "He comes from a far place."

  Anaral asked eagerly, "Do you know where they are?"

  Klep shook his head. "Not where they are, or how they left. Your medicine made me sleep like a child and I heard nothing."

  Cub asked, "Do you think Brown Earth took Zak with him?"

  "I do not know. Would this Zak want to go?"

  "We don't know," Anaral said. "It is very strange."

  "We don't understand," Polly said.

  "If I knew anything," Klep assured them, "I would tell you. I am grateful. Brown Earth has a big mouth. It may be that he has made promises."

  "Promises he can keep?" Cub asked.

  "Who knows?"

  "Rest now," Cub ordered. "Anaral will bring you food and help you to eat. I will be back this afternoon to put fresh compresses on your leg."

  They reported their conversation to Karralys.