Madeleine L'Engle - Wrinkle in Time

‘I’m a boy. A — a young man.’

‘You, too, are afraid?’

‘I’m — not sure.’

‘Tell me,’ the beast said. ‘What do you suppose you’d do if three of us suddenly arrived on your home planet?’

‘Shoot you, I guess,’ Calvin admitted.

‘Then isn’t that what we should do with you?’

Calvin’s freckles seemed to deepen, but he answered quietly.’I’d really rather you didn’t. I mean, the Earth’s my home, and I’d rather be there than anywhere in the world — I mean, the universe — and I can’t wait to get back, but we make some awful bloopers there.’

The smallest beast, the one holding Meg, said, ‘And perhaps they aren’t used to visitors from other planets.’

‘Used to it!’ Calvin exclaimed.’We’ve never had any, as far as I know.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

The middle beast said anxiously, ‘You aren’t from a dark planet, are you?’

‘No.’ Calvin shook his head firmly, though the beast couldn’t see him. ‘We’re — we’re shadowed. But we’re fighting the shadow.’

The beast holding Meg questioned, ‘You three are fighting?’

‘Yes,’ Calvin answered. ‘Now that we know about it.’

The tall one turned back to Mr Murry, speaking sternly. ‘You. The oldest. Man. From where have you come? Now.’

Mr Murry answered steadily. ‘From a planet called Camazotz.’ There was a mutter from the three beasts. ‘We do not belong there,’ Mr Murry said, slowly and distinctly. ‘We were strangers there as we are here. I was a prisoner there, and these children rescued me. My youngest son, my baby, is still there, trapped in the dark mind of IT.’

Meg tried to twist round in the beast’s arms to glare at her father and Calvin. Why were they being so frank? Weren’t they aware of the danger? But again her anger dissolved as the gentle warmth from the tentacles flowed through her. She realized that she could move her fingers and toes with comparative freedom, that the pain was no longer so acute.

‘We must take this child back with us,’ the beast holding her said.

Meg shouted at her father. ‘Don’t leave me the way you left Charles!’ With this burst of terror a spasm of pain wracked her body and she gasped.

‘Stop fighting,’ the beast told her. ‘You make it worse. Relax.’

‘That’s what IT said,’ Meg cried.’Father! Calvin! Help!’

The beast turned towards Calvin and Mr Murry. ‘This child is in danger.You must trust us.’

‘We have no alternative,’ Mr Murry said. ‘Can you save her?’

‘I think so.’

‘May I stay with her?’

‘No. But you will not be far away. We feel that you are hungry, tired, that you would like to bathe and rest. And this little — what is the word?’ the beast cocked its tentacles at Calvin.

‘Girl,’ Calvin said.

‘This little girl needs prompt and special care. The coldness of the — what is it you call it?’

‘The Black Thing.’

‘The Black Thing. Yes.The Black Thing burns unless it is counteracted properly.’ The three beasts stood round Meg, and it seemed that they were feeling into her with their softly waving tentacles. The movement of the tentacles was as rhythmic and flowing as the dance of an undersea plant, and lying there, cradled in the four strange arms, Meg, despite herself, felt a sense of security that was deeper than anything she had known since the days when she lay in her mother’s arms in the old rocking chair and was sung to sleep. With her father’s help she had been able to resist IT. Now she could hold out no longer. She leaned her head against the beast’s chest, and realized that the grey body was covered with the softest, most delicate fur imaginable, and the fur had the same beautiful odour as the air.

— I hope I don’t smell awful to it, she thought. But then she knew with a deep sense of comfort that even if she did smell awful the beasts would forgive her. As the tall figure cradled her she could feel the frigid stiffness of her body relaxing against it. This bliss could not come to her from a thing like IT. IT could only give pain, never relieve it. The beasts must be good. They had to be good. She sighed deeply, like a very small child, and suddenly she was asleep.

When she came to herself again there was in the back of her mind a memory of pain, of agonizing pain. But the pain was over now and her body was lapped in comfort. She was lying on something wonderfully soft in an enclosed chamber. It was dark. All she could see were occasional tall moving shadows which she realized were beasts walking about. She had been stripped of her clothes, and something warm and pungent was gently being rubbed into her body. She sighed and stretched and discovered that she could stretch. She could move again, she was no longer paralysed, and her body was bathed in waves of warmth. Her father had not saved her; the beasts had.

‘So you are awake, little one?’ The words came gently to her ears. ‘What a funny little tadpole you are! Is the pain gone now?’

‘All gone.’

‘Are you warm and alive again?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She struggled to sit up.

‘No, lie still, small one.You must not exert yourself as yet. We will have a fur garment for you in a moment, and then we will feed you. You must not even try to feed yourself. You must be as an infant again. The Black Thing does not relinquish its victims willingly.’

‘Where are father and Calvin? Have they gone back for Charles Wallace?’

‘They are eating and resting,’ the beast said, ‘and we are trying to learn about each other and see what is best to help you. We feel now that you are not dangerous, and that we will be allowed to help you.’

‘Why is it so dark in here?’ Meg asked. She tried to look round, but all she could see was shadows. Nevertheless there was a sense of openness, a feel of a gentle breeze moving lightly about, that kept the darkness from being oppressive.

Perplexity came to her from the beast. ‘What is this dark? What is this light? We do not understand. Your father and the boy, Calvin, have asked this, too. They say that it is night now on our planet, and that they cannot see.They have told us that our atmosphere is what they call opaque, so that the stars are not visible, and then they were surprised that we know stars, that we know their music and the movements of their dance far better than beings like you who spend hours studying them through what you call telescopes. We do not understand what this means, to see .’

‘Well, it’s what things look like,’ Meg said helplessly.

‘We do not know what things look like, as you say,’ the beast said. ‘We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing.’

‘Oh, no!’ Meg cried.’It’s — it’s the most wonderful thing in the world!’

‘What a very strange world yours must be!’ the beast said, ‘that such a peculiar-seeming thing should be of such importance. Try to tell me, what is this thing called light that you are able to do so little without?’

‘Well, we can’t see without it,’ Meg said, realizing that she was completely unable to explain vision and light and dark. How can you explain sight on a world where no one has ever seen and where there is no need of eyes? ‘Well, on this planet,’ she fumbled, ‘you have a sun, don’t you?’

‘A most wonderful sun, from which comes our warmth, and the rays which give us our flowers, our food, our music, and all the things which make life and growth.’

‘Well,’ Meg said, ‘when we are turned towards the sun — our Earth, our planet, I mean, towards our sun — we receive its light. And when we’re turned away from it, it is night. And if we want to see we have to use artificial lights.’