A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle [32]
There was the by-now-familiar tingling in her hands and feet and the push through hardness, and she was on her feet, breathless but unharmed, standing beside Calvin and Charles Wallace.
“Is this Camazotz?” Charles Wallace asked as Mrs Whatsit materialized in front of him.
“Yes,” she answered. “Now let us just stand and get our breath and look around.”
They were standing on a hill and as Meg looked about her she felt that it could easily be a hill on earth. There were the familiar trees she knew so well at home: birches, pines, maples. And though it was warmer than it had been when they so precipitously left the apple orchard, there was a faintly autumnal touch to the air; near them were several small trees with reddened leaves very like sumac, and a big patch of goldenrod-like flowers. As she looked down the hill she could see the smokestacks of a town, and it might have been one of any number of familiar towns. There seemed to be nothing strange, or different, or frightening, in the landscape.
But Mrs Whatsit came to her and put an arm around her comfortingly. “I can’t stay with you here, you know, love,” she said. “You three children will be on your own. We will be near you; we will be watching you. But you will not be able to see us or to ask us for help, and we will not be able to come to you.”
“But is Father here?” Meg asked tremblingly.
“Yes.”
“But where? When will we see him?” She was poised for running, as though she were going to sprint off, immediately, to wherever her father was.
“That I cannot tell you. You will just have to wait until the propitious moment.”
Charles Wallace looked steadily at Mrs Whatsit. “Are you afraid for us?”
“A little.”
“But if you weren’t afraid to do what you did when you were a star, why should you be afraid for us now?”
“But I was afraid,” Mrs Whatsit said gently. She looked steadily at each of the three children in turn. “You will need help,” she told them, “but all I am allowed to give you is a little talisman. Calvin, your great gift is your ability to communicate, to communicate with all kinds of people. So, for you, I will strengthen this gift. Meg, I give you your faults.”
“My faults!” Meg cried.
“Your faults.”
“But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!”
“Yes,” Mrs Whatsit said. “However, I think you’ll find they’ll come in very handy on Camazotz. Charles Wallace, to you I can give only the resilience of your childhood.”
From somewhere Mrs Who’s glasses glimmered and they heard her voice. “Calvin,” she said, “a hint. For you a hint. Listen well:
. . . For that he was a spirit too delicate
To act their earthy and abhorr’d commands,
Refusing their grand hests, they did confine him
By help of their most potent ministers,
And in their most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprisoned, he didst painfully remain. . . .
Shakespeare. The Tempest.”
“Where are you, Mrs Who?” Charles Wallace asked. “Where is Mrs Which?”
“We cannot come to you now,” Mrs Who’s voice blew to them like the wind. “Allwissend bin ich nicht; doch viel ist mir bewisst. Goethe. I do not know everything; still many things I understand. That is for you, Charles. Remember that you do not know everything.” Then the voice was directed to Meg. “To you I leave my glasses, little blind-as-a-bat. But do not use them except as a last resort. Save them for the final moment of peril.” As she spoke there was another shimmer of spectacles, and then it was gone, and the voice faded out with it. The spectacles were in Meg’s hand. She put them carefully into the breast pocket of her blazer, and the knowledge that they were there somehow made her a little less afraid.
“Tto alll tthreee off yyou I ggive mmy ccommandd,” Mrs Which said. “Ggo ddownn innttoo tthee ttownn. Ggo ttogetherr. Ddoo nnott llett tthemm ssepparate yyou. Bbee sstrongg.” There was a flicker and then it vanished. Meg shivered.
Mrs Whatsit must have seen the shiver, for she patted Meg on the shoulder. Then she turned to Calvin. “Take care of Meg.”
“I can take care of Meg,” Charles