A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle [42]
Charles Wallace took a bite, made a face, and spit out his mouthful. “It’s unfair!” he shouted at the man.
Laughter again. “Go on, little fellow. Eat.”
Meg sighed and sat. “I don’t think we should eat this stuff, but if you’re going to, I’d better, too.” She took a mouthful. “It tastes all right. Try some of mine, Charles.” She held out a forkful of turkey.
Charles Wallace took it, made another face, but managed to swallow. “Still tastes like sand,” he said. He looked at the man. “Why?”
“You know perfectly well why. You’ve shut your mind entirely to me. The other two can’t. I can get in through the chinks. Not all the way in, but enough to give them a turkey dinner. You see, I’m really just a kind, jolly old gentleman.”
“Ha,” Charles Wallace said.
The man lifted his lips into a smile, and his smile was the most horrible thing Meg had ever seen. “Why don’t you trust me, Charles? Why don’t you trust me enough to come in and find out what I am? I am peace and utter rest. I am freedom from all responsibility. To come in to me is the last difficult decision you need ever make.”
“If I come in can I get out again?” Charles Wallace asked.
“But of course, if you want to. But I don’t think you will want to.”
“If I come—not to stay, you understand—just to find out about you, will you tell us where Father is?”
“Yes. That is a promise. And I don’t make promises lightly.”
“Can I speak to Meg and Calvin alone, without your listening in?”
“No.”
Charles shrugged. “Listen,” he said to Meg and Calvin. “I have to find out what he really is. You know that. I’m going to try to hold back. I’m going to try to keep part of myself out. You mustn’t stop me this time, Meg.”
“But you won’t be able to, Charles! He’s stronger than you are! You know that!”
“I have to try.”
“But Mrs Whatsit warned you!”
“I have to try. For Father, Meg. Please. I want—I want to know my father—” For a moment his lips trembled. Then he was back in control. “But it isn’t only Father, Meg. You know that, now. It’s the Black Thing. We have to do what Mrs Which sent us to do.”
“Calvin—” Meg begged.
But Calvin shook his head. “He’s right, Meg. And we’ll be with him, no matter what happens.”
“But what’s going to happen?” Meg cried.
Charles Wallace looked up at the man. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Now the red eyes and the light above seemed to bore into Charles, and again the pupils of the little boy’s eyes contracted. When the final point of black was lost in blue he turned away from the red eyes, looked at Meg, and smiled sweetly, but the smile was not Charles Wallace’s smile.
“Come on, Meg, eat this delicious food that has been prepared for us,” he said.
Meg snatched Charles Wallace’s plate and threw it on the floor, so that the dinner splashed about and the plate broke into fragments. “No!” She cried, her voice rising shrilly. “No! No! No!”
From the shadows came one of the dark-smocked men and put another plate in front of Charles Wallace, and he began to eat eagerly. “What’s wrong, Meg?” Charles Wallace asked. “Why are you being so belligerent and uncooperative?” The voice was Charles Wallace’s voice, and yet it was different, too, somehow flattened out, almost as a voice might have sounded on the two-dimensional planet.
Meg grabbed wildly at Calvin, shrieking, “That isn’t Charles! Charles is gone!”
EIGHT
The
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Charles Wallace sat there tucking away turkey and dressing as though it were the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. He was dressed like Charles Wallace; he looked like Charles Wallace; he had the same sandy brown hair, the same face that had not yet lost its baby roundness. Only the eyes were different, for the black was still swallowed up in blue. But it was far more than this that made Meg feel that Charles Wallace was gone, that the little boy in his place was only a copy of Charles Wallace, only a doll.
She fought down a sob. “Where is he?” she demanded of the man with red eyes. “What have you done