Wrinkle in Time

‘I feel wonderful,’ Meg said. ‘Aunt Beast, what is this planet called?’

‘Oh, dear,’ Aunt Beast sighed. ‘I find it not easy at all to put things the way your mind shapes them. You call where you came from Camazotz?’

‘Well, it’s where we came from, but it’s not our planet.’

‘You can call us Ixchel,’ Aunt Beast told her. ‘We share the same sun as lost Camazotz, but that, give thanks, is all we share.’

‘Are you fighting the Black Thing?’ Meg asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Aunt Beast replied. ‘In doing that we can never relax. We are the called according to his purpose, and whom he calls, them he also justifies. Of course we have help, and without help it would be much more difficult.’

‘Who helps you?’ Meg asked.

‘Oh, dear, it is so difficult to explain things to you, small one. And I know now that it is not just because you are a child. The other two are as hard to reach into as you are. What can I tell you that will mean anything to you? Good helps us, the stars help us, perhaps what you would call light helps us, love helps us. Oh, my child, I cannot explain! This is something you just have to know or not know.’

‘But —’

‘We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal.’

‘Aunt Beast, do you know Mrs Whatsit?’ Meg asked with a sudden flooding of hope.

‘Mrs Whatsit?’Aunt Beast was puzzled. ‘Oh, child, your-language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the effect of extreme complication.’ Her four arms, tentacles waving, were outflung in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Would you like me to take you to your father and your Calvin?’

‘Oh, yes, please!’

‘Let us go, then.They are waiting for you to make plans. And we thought you would enjoy eating — what is it you call it? Oh, yes, breakfast — together.You will be too warm in that heavy fur, now. I will dress you in something lighter, and then we will go.’

As though Meg were a baby, Aunt Beast bathed and dressed her, and this new garment, though it was made of a pale fur, was lighter than the lightest summer clothes on earth. Aunt Beast put one tentacled arm about Meg’s waist and led her through long, dim corridors in which she could see only shadows, and shadows of shadows, until they reached a large, columned chamber. Shafts of light came in from an open skylight and converged about a huge, round, stone table. Here were seated several of the great beasts, and Calvin and Mr Murry, on a stone bench that circled the table. Because the beasts were so tall, even Mr Murry’s feet did not touch the ground, and lanky Calvin’s long legs dangled as though he were Charles Wallace. The hall was partially enclosed by vaulted arches leading to long, paved walks. There were no empty walls, no covering roofs, so that although the light was dull in comparison to Earth’s sunlight, Meg had no feeling of dark or of chill. As Aunt Beast led Meg in, Mr Murry slid down from the bench and hurried to her, putting his arms about her.

‘They promised us you were all right,’ he said.

While she had been in Aunt Beast’s arms, Meg had felt safe and secure. Now her worries about Charles Wallace and her disappointment in her father’s human fallibility rose like gorge in her throat.

‘I’m fine,’ she muttered, looking not at Calvin nor her father, but at the beasts, for it was to them she turned now for help.

Aunt Beast lifted Meg up on to the bench and sat down beside her, then heaped a plate with food, strange fruits and breads that tasted unlike anything Meg had ever eaten. Everything was dull and colourless and unappetizing to look at, and at first, even remembering the meal Aunt Beast had fed her the night before, Meg hesitated to taste, but once she had managed the first bite she ate eagerly.

The others waited until she slowed down. Then Mr Murry said gravely, ‘We were trying to work out a plan to rescue Charles Wallace. Since I made such a mistake in tessering away from IT, we feel that it would not be wise for me to try to get back to Camazotz, even alone. If I missed the mark again I could easily get lost and wander for ever from galaxy to galaxy and that would be small help to anyone, least of all to Charles Wallace.’

Such a wave of despondency came over Meg that she was no longer able to eat.

‘Our friends here,’ he continued, ‘feel that it was only the fact that I still wore the glasses your Mrs Who gave you that kept me within this solar system. Here are the glasses, Meg. But I am afraid that the virtue has gone from them and now they are only glass. Perhaps they were meant to help only once and only on Camazotz. Perhaps it was going through the Black Thing that did it.’ He pushed the glasses across the table to her.

‘These people know about tessering,’ Calvin gestured at the circle of great beasts, ‘but they can’t do it on to a dark planet.’

‘Have you tried to call Mrs Whatsit?’ Meg asked.

‘Not yet,’ her father answered.

‘But if you haven’t thought of anything else, it’s the only thing to do! Father, don’t you care about Charles at all!’

At that Aunt Beast stood up, saying, ‘Child,’ in a reproving way. Mr Murry said nothing, and Meg could see that she had wounded him deeply. She reacted as she would have reacted to Mr Jenkins. She scowled down at the table, saying, ‘We’ve got to ask them for help now. You’re just stupid if you think we don’t.’

Aunt Beast spoke to the others. ‘The child is distraught. Don’t judge her harshly. She was almost taken by the Black Thing. Sometimes we can’t know what spiritual damage it leaves even when physical recovery is complete.’

Meg looked angrily around the table. The beasts sat there, silent, motionless. She felt that she was being measured and found wanting.

Calvin swung away from her and hunched himself up. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that we’ve been trying to tell them about our ladies? What do you think we’ve been up to all this time? Just stuffing our faces? Okay, you have a shot at it.’

‘Yes. Try, child.’ Aunt Beast seated herself again, and pulled Meg up beside her. ‘But I do not understand this feeling of anger I sense in you. What is it about? There is blame going on, and guilt. Why?’

‘Aunt Beast, don’t you know?’

‘No,’ Aunt Beast said. ‘But this is not telling me about — whoever they are you want us to know. Try.’

Meg tried. Blunderingly. Fumblingly. At first she described Mrs Whatsit and her man’s coat and multicoloured shawls and scarves, Mrs Who and her white robes and shimmering spectacles, Mrs Which in her peaked cap and black gown quivering in and out of body. Then she realized that this was absurd. She was describing them only to herself. This wasn’t Mrs Whatsit or Mrs Who or Mrs Which. She might as well have described Mrs Whatsit as she was when she took on the form of a flying creature of Uriel.

‘Don’t try to use words,’ Aunt Beast said soothingly. ‘You’re just fighting yourself and me. Think about what they are.This look doesn’t help us at all.’

Meg tried again, but she could not get a visual concept out of her mind. She tried to think of Mrs Whatsit explaining tessering. She tried to think of them in terms of mathematics. Every once in a while she thought she felt a flicker of understanding from Aunt Beast or one of the others, but most of the time all that emanated from them was gentle puzzlement.

‘Angels!’ Calvin shouted suddenly from across the table. ‘Guardian angels!’ There was a moment’s silence, and he shouted again, his face tense with concentration, ‘Messengers! Messengers of God!’

‘I thought for a moment —’Aunt Beast started, then subsided, sighing. ‘No. It’s not clear enough.’

‘How strange it is that they can’t tell us what they themselves seem to know,’ a tall, thin beast murmured.

One of Aunt Beast’s tentacled arms went around Meg’s waist again. ‘They are very young. And on their Earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space.’

‘Oh,’ the thin beast said. ‘Aren’t they lonely?’

Suddenly a thundering voice reverberated throughout the great hall:

‘WWEEE ARRE HHERRE!’