A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle (1)

 

The big kitchen of the Murrys’ house was bright and warm, curtains drawn against the dark outside, against the rain driving past the house from the northeast. Meg Murry O’Keefe had made an arrangement of chrysanthemums for the dining table, and the yellow, bronze, and pale-gold blossoms seemed to add light to the room. A delectable smell of roasting turkey came from the oven, and her mother stood by the stove, stirring the giblet gravy.

It was good to be home for Thanksgiving, she thought, to be with the reunited family, catching up on what each one had been doing. The twins, Sandy and Dennys, home from law and medical schools, were eager to hear about Calvin, her husband, and the conference he was attending in London, where he was—perhaps at this very minute—giving a paper on the immunological system of chordates.

“It’s a tremendous honor for him, isn’t it, Sis?” Sandy asked.

“Enormous.”

“And how about you, Mrs. O’Keefe?” Dennys smiled at her. “Still seems strange to call you Mrs. O’Keefe.”

“Strange to me, too.” Meg looked over at the rocker by the fireplace, where her mother-in-law was sitting, staring into the flames; she was the one who was Mrs. O’Keefe to Meg. “I’m fine,” she replied to Sandy. “Absolutely fine.”

Dennys, already very much the doctor, had taken his stethoscope, of which he was enormously proud, and put it against Meg’s burgeoning belly, beaming with pleasure as he heard the strong heartbeat of the baby within. “You are fine, indeed.”

She returned the smile, then looked across the room to her youngest brother, Charles Wallace, and to their father, who were deep in concentration, bent over the model they were building of a tesseract: the square squared, and squared again: a construction of the dimension of time. It was a beautiful and complicated creation of steel wires and ball bearings and Lucite, parts of it revolving, parts swinging like pendulums.

Charles Wallace was small for his fifteen years; a stranger might have guessed him to be no more than twelve; but the expression in his light blue eyes as he watched his father alter one small rod on the model was mature and highly intelligent. He had been silent all day, she thought. He seldom talked much, but his silence on this Thanksgiving day, as the approaching storm moaned around the house and clapped the shingles on the roof, was different from his usual lack of chatter.

Meg’s mother-in-law was also silent, but that was not surprising. What was surprising was that she had agreed to come to them for Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. O’Keefe must have been no more than a few years older than Mrs. Murry, but she looked like an old woman. She had lost most of her teeth, and her hair was yellowish and unkempt, and looked as if it had been cut with a blunt knife. Her habitual expression was one of resentment. Life had not been kind to her, and she was angry with the world, especially with the Murrys. They had not expected her to accept the invitation, particularly with Calvin in London. None of Calvin’s family responded to the Murrys’ friendly overtures. Calvin was, as he had explained to Meg at their first meeting, a biological sport, totally different from the rest of his family, and when he received his M.D./Ph.D. they took that as a sign that he had joined the ranks of the enemy. And Mrs. O’Keefe shared the attitude of many of the villagers that Mrs. Murry’s two earned Ph.D.s, and her experiments in the stone lab which adjoined the kitchen, did not constitute proper work. Because she had achieved considerable recognition, her puttering was tolerated, but it was not work, in the sense that keeping a clean house was work, or having a nine-to-five job in a factory or office was work.

—How could that woman have produced my husband? Meg wondered for the hundredth time, and imaged Calvin’s alert expression and open smile.—Mother says there’s more to her than meets the eye, but I haven’t seen it yet. All I know is that she doesn’t like me, or any of the family. I don’t know why she came for dinner. I wish she hadn’t.

The twins had automatically taken over their old job of setting the table. Sandy paused, a handful of forks in his hand, to grin at their mother. “Thanksgiving dinner is practically the only meal Mother cooks in the kitchen—”

“—instead of out in the lab on her Bunsen burner,” Dennys concluded.

Sandy patted her shoulder affectionately. “Not that we’re criticizing, Mother.”

“After all, those Bunsen-burner stews did lead directly to the Nobel Prize. We’re really very proud of you, Mother, although you and Father give us a heck of a lot to live up to.”

“Keeps our standards high.” Sandy took a pile of plates from the kitchen dresser, counted them, and set them in front of the big platter which would hold the turkey.

—Home, Meg thought comfortably, and regarded her parents and brothers with affectionate gratitude. They had put up with her all through her prickly adolescence, and she still did not feel very grown up. It seemed only a few months ago that she had had braces on her teeth, crooked spectacles that constantly slipped down her nose, unruly mouse-brown hair, and a wistful certainty that she would never grow up to be a beautiful and self-confident woman like her mother. Her inner vision of herself was still more the adolescent Meg than the attractive young woman she had become. The braces were gone, the spectacles replaced by contact lenses, and though her chestnut hair might not quite rival her mother’s rich auburn, it was thick and lustrous and became her perfectly, pulled softly back from her face into a knot at the nape of her slender neck. When she looked at herself objectively in the mirror she knew that she was lovely, but she was not yet accustomed to the fact. It was hard to believe that her mother had once gone through the same transition.

She wondered if Charles Wallace would change physically as much as she had. All his outward development had been slow. Their parents thought he might make a sudden spurt in growth.

She missed Charles Wallace more than she missed the twins or her parents. The eldest and the youngest in the family, their rapport had always been deep, and Charles Wallace had an intuitive sense of Meg’s needs which could not be accounted for logically; if something in Meg’s world was wrong, he knew, and was there to be with her, to help her if only by assuring her of his love and trust. She felt a deep sense of comfort in being with him for this Thanksgiving weekend, in being home. Her parents’ house was still home, because she and Calvin spent many weekends there, and their apartment near Calvin’s hospital was a small, furnished one, with a large sign saying NO PETS, and an aura that indicated that children would not be welcomed, either. They hoped to be able to look for a place of their own soon. Meanwhile, she was home for Thanksgiving, and it was good to see the gathered family and to be surrounded by their love, which helped ease her loneliness at being separated from Calvin for the first time since their marriage.

“I miss Fortinbras,” she said suddenly.

Her mother turned from the stove. “Yes. The house feels empty without a dog. But Fort died of honorable old age.”

“Aren’t you going to get another dog?”

“Eventually. The right one hasn’t turned up yet.”

“Couldn’t you go look for a dog?”

Mr. Murry looked up from the tesseract. “Our dogs usually come to us. If one doesn’t, in good time, then we’ll do something about it.”

“Meg,” her mother suggested, “how about making the hard sauce for the plum pudding?”

“Oh—of course.” She opened the refrigerator and got out half a pound of butter.

The phone rang.

“I’ll get it.” Dropping the butter into a small mixing bowl en route, she went to the telephone. “Father, it’s for you. I think it’s the White House.”

Mr. Murry went quickly to the phone. “Mr. President, hello!” He was smiling, and Meg watched as the smile was wiped from his face and replaced with an expression of—what? Nothingness, she thought.

The twins stopped talking. Mrs. Murry stood, her wooden spoon resting against the lip of the saucepan. Mrs. O’Keefe continued to stare morosely into the fire. Charles Wallace appeared to be concentrating on the tesseract.

—Father is just listening, Meg thought.—The president is doing the talking.

She gave an involuntary shudder. One minute the room had been noisy with eager conversation, and suddenly they were all silent, their movements arrested. She listened, intently, while her father continued to hold the phone to his ear. His face looked grim, all the laughter lines deepening to sternness. Rain lashed against the windows.—It ought to snow at this time of year, Meg thought.—There’s something wrong with the weather. There’s something wrong.

Mr. Murry continued to listen silently, and his silence spread across the room. Sandy had been opening the oven door to baste the turkey and snitch a spoonful of stuffing, and he stood still, partly bent over, looking at his father. Mrs. Murry turned slightly from the stove and brushed one hand across her hair, which was beginning to be touched with silver at the temples. Meg had opened the drawer for the beater, which she held tightly.

It was not unusual for Mr. Murry to receive a call from the president. Over the years he had been consulted by the White House on matters of physics and space travel; other conversations had been serious, many disturbing, but this, Meg felt, was different, was causing the warm room to feel colder, look less bright.

“Yes, Mr. President, I understand,” Mr. Murry said at last. “Thank you for calling.” He put the receiver down slowly, as though it were heavy.

Dennys, his hands still full of silver for the table, asked, “What did he say?”

Their father shook his head. He did not speak.

Sandy closed the oven door. “Father?”

Meg cried, “Father, we know something’s happened. You have to tell us—please.”

His voice was cold and distant. “War.”

Meg put her hand protectively over her belly. “Do you mean nuclear war?”

The family seemed to draw together, and Mrs. Murry reached out a hand to include Calvin’s mother. But Mrs. O’Keefe closed her eyes and excluded herself.

“Is it Mad Dog Branzillo?” asked Meg.

“Yes. The president feels that this time Branzillo is going to carry out his threat, and then we’ll have no choice but to use our antiballistic missiles.”

“How would a country that small get a missile?” Sandy asked.

“Vespugia is no smaller than Israel, and Branzillo has powerful friends.”

“He really can carry out this threat?”

Mr. Murry assented.

“Is there a red alert?” Sandy asked.

“Yes. The president says we have twenty-four hours in which to try to avert tragedy, but I have never heard him sound so hopeless. And he does not give up easily.”

The blood drained from Meg’s face. “That means the end of everything, the end of the world.” She looked toward Charles Wallace, but he appeared almost as withdrawn as Mrs. O’Keefe. Charles Wallace, who was always there for her, was not there now. And Calvin was an ocean away. With a feeling of terror she turned back to her father.

He did not deny her words.

The old woman by the fireplace opened her eyes and twisted her thin lips scornfully. “What’s all this? Why would the president of the United States call here? You playing some kind of joke on me?” The fear in her eyes belied her words.

“It’s no joke, Mrs. O’Keefe,” Mrs. Murry explained. “For a number of years the White House has been in the habit of consulting my husband.”

“I didn’t know he”—Mrs. O’Keefe darted a dark glance at Mr. Murry—“was a politician.”

“He’s not. He’s a physicist. But the president needs scientific information and needs it from someone he can trust, someone who has no pet projects to fund or political positions to support. My husband has become especially close to the new president.” She stirred the gravy, then stretched her hands out to her husband in supplication. “But why? Why? When we all know that no one can win a nuclear war.”

Charles Wallace turned from the tesseract. “El Rabioso. That’s his nickname. Mad Dog Branzillo.”

“El Rabioso seems singularly appropriate for a man who overthrew the democratic government with a wild and bloody coup d’état. He is mad, indeed, and there is no reason in him.”

“One madman in Vespugia,” Dennys said bitterly, “can push a button and it will destroy civilization, and everything Mother and Father have worked for will go up in a mushroom cloud. Why couldn’t the president make him see reason?”

Sandy fed a fresh log onto the fire, as though taking hope from the warmth and light.

Dennys continued, “If Branzillo does this, sends missiles, it could destroy the entire human race—”

Sandy scowled ferociously. “—which might not be so bad—”

“—and even if a few people survive in sparsely inhabited mountains and deserts, there’d be so much fallout all over the planet that their children would be mutants. Why couldn’t the president make him see? Nobody wants war at that price.”

“It’s not for lack of trying,” Mr. Murry said, “but El Rabioso deserves his nickname. If he has to fall, he’d just as soon take the human race with him.”

“So they send missiles from Vespugia, and we return ours to them, and all for what?” Sandy’s voice cracked with anger.

“El Rabioso sees this as an act of punishment, of just retribution. The Western world has used up more than our share of the world’s energy, the world’s resources, and we must be punished,” Mr. Murry said. “We are responsible for the acutely serious oil and coal shortage, the defoliation of trees, the grave damage to the atmosphere, and he is going to make us pay.”

“We stand accused,” Sandy said, “but if he makes us pay, Vespugia will pay just as high a price.”

Mrs. O’Keefe stretched her wrinkled hands out to the flames. “At Tara in this fateful hour …” she mumbled.

Meg looked at her mother-in-law questioningly, but the old woman turned away. Meg said to the room at large, “I know it’s selfish, but I wish Calvin weren’t in London giving that paper. I wish I’d gone with him.”

“I know, love,” Mrs. Murry replied, “but Dr. Louise thought you should stay here.”

“I wish I could at least phone him …”

Charles Wallace moved out of his withdrawn silence to say, “It hasn’t happened yet, nuclear war. No missiles have been sent. As long as it hasn’t happened, there’s a chance that it may not happen.”

A faint flicker of hope moved across Meg’s face.—Would it be better, she wondered,—if we were like the rest of the world and didn’t know the horrible possibility of our lives being snuffed out before another sun rises? How do we prepare?

“… in this fateful hour,” the old woman mumbled again, but turned her head away when the Murrys looked at her.

Charles Wallace spoke calmly to the whole family, but looked at Meg. “It’s Thanksgiving, and except for Calvin, we’re all together, and Calvin’s mother is with us, and that’s important, and we all know where Calvin’s heart is; it’s right here.”

“England doesn’t observe Thanksgiving,” Sandy remarked.

“But we do.” His father’s voice was resolute. “Finish setting the table, please. Dennys, will you fill the glasses?”

While Mr. Murry carved, and Mrs. Murry thickened the gravy, Meg finished beating the hard sauce, and the twins and Charles Wallace carried bowls of rice, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, to the table. Mrs. O’Keefe did not move to help. She looked at her work-worn hands, then dropped them into her lap. “At Tara in this fateful hour …”

This time nobody heard her.

Sandy, trying to joke, said, “Remember the time Mother tried to make oatmeal cookies over the Bunsen burner, in a frying pan?”

“They were edible,” Dennys said.

“Almost anything is, to your appetite.”

“Which, despite everything, is enormous.”

“And it’s time to go to the table,” Mrs. Murry said.

When they were in their places she automatically held out her hands, and then the family, with Mrs. O’Keefe between Mr. Murry and Meg, was linked around the table.

Charles Wallace suggested, “Let’s sing Dona nobis pacem. It’s what we’re all praying for.”

“Sandy’d better start then,” Meg said. “He’s got the best voice. And then Dennys and Mother, and then Father and you and I.”

They raised their voices in the old round, singing over and over, Give us peace, give us peace, give us peace.

Meg’s voice trembled, but she managed to sing through to the end.

There was silence as the plates were served, silence instead of the usual happy noise of conversation.

“Strange,” Mr. Murry said, “that the ultimate threat should come from a South American dictator in an almost unknown little country. White meat for you, Meg?”

“Dark, too, please. Isn’t it ironic that all this should be happening on Thanksgiving?”

Mrs. Murry said, “I remember my mother telling me about one spring, many years ago now, when relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were so tense that all the experts predicted nuclear war before the summer was over. They weren’t alarmists or pessimists; it was a considered, sober judgment. And Mother said that she walked along the lane wondering if the pussy willows would ever bud again. After that, she waited each spring for the pussy willows, remembering, and never took their budding for granted again.”

Her husband nodded. “There was a reprieve then. There may be again.”

“But is it likely?” Sandy’s brown eyes were sober.

“It wasn’t likely then. The pussy willows, nevertheless, have budded for a good many springs.” He passed cranberry sauce to Mrs. O’Keefe.

“In this fateful hour,” she mumbled, and waved the sauce away.

He bent toward her. “What was that?”

“At Tara in this fateful hour,” she said irritably. “Can’t remember. Important. Don’t you know it?”

“I’m afraid not. What is it?”

“Rune. Rune. Patrick’s rune. Need it now.”

Calvin’s mother had always been taciturn. At home she had communicated largely in grunts. Her children, with the exception of Calvin, had been slow to speak, because they seldom heard a complete sentence until they went to school. “My grandmother from Ireland.” Mrs. O’Keefe pointed at Charles Wallace and knocked over her glass.

Dennys fetched paper towels and mopped up the spilled liquid. “I suppose, cosmically speaking, it doesn’t make much difference whether or not our second-rate little planet blows itself up.”

“Dennys!” Meg cried, then turned to her mother. “Excuse me for using this as an example, but Den, remember when Mother isolated farandolae within a mitochondrion?”

He interrupted, “Of course I remember. That’s what she got the Nobel Prize for.”

Mrs. Murry held up her hand. “Let Meg speak.”

“Okay then: farandolae are so minuscule and insignificant it doesn’t seem they could possibly have any importance, and yet they live in a symbiotic relationship with mitochondria—”

“Okay, gotcha. And mitochondria provide us with our energy, so if anything affects our farandolae, that can affect our mitochondria—”

“And,” Meg concluded, “if that happens, we could die from energy loss, as you well know.”

“Go on,” Sandy said.

“So if we blow up our planet it would certainly have some small effect on our solar system, and that could affect our galaxy, and that could …”

“The old chain-reaction theory?” Sandy asked.

“More than that. Interdependence. Not just one thing leading to another in a straight line, but everything and everyone everywhere interreacting.”

Dennys threw out the wet paper towels, put a clean napkin over the soiled tablecloth, and refilled Mrs. O’Keefe’s glass. Despite storm windows, the drawn curtains stirred and a draft moved across the room. Heavy drops of rain spattered down the chimney, making the fire hiss. “I still think,” he said, “that you’re overestimating the importance of this planet. We’ve made a mess of things. Maybe it’s best we get blown up.”

“Dennys, you’re a doctor,” Meg reprimanded.

“Not yet,” Sandy said.

“But he’s going to be! He’s supposed to care about and guard life.”

“Sorry, Sis,” Dennys said swiftly.

“It’s just his way of whistling in the dark.” Sandy helped himself to rice and gravy, then raised his glass to his sister. “Might as well go out on a full stomach.”

“I mean it and I don’t mean it,” Dennys said. “I do think we’ve got our priorities wrong, we human beings. We’ve forgotten what’s worth saving and what’s not, or we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Mean, don’t mean,” Mrs. O’Keefe grunted. “Never understand what you people are going on about. Even you.” And again she pointed at Charles Wallace, though this time she did not overturn her glass.

Sandy glanced across the table at his baby brother, who looked pale and small. “Charles, you’ve eaten hardly anything, and you’re not talking.”

Charles Wallace replied, looking not at Sandy but at his sister, “I’m listening.”

She pricked up her ears. “To what?”

He shook his head so slightly that only she saw; and stopped questioning.

“At Tara in this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power!” Mrs. O’Keefe pointed at Charles and knocked over her glass again.

This time nobody moved to mop up.

“My grandma from Ireland. She taught me. Set great store on it. I place all Heaven with its power …” Her words dribbled off.

Mrs. O’Keefe’s children called her Mom. From everybody except Calvin it sounded like an insult. Meg found it difficult to call her mother-in-law anything, but now she pushed her chair away from the table and knelt by the old woman. “Mom,” she said gently, “what did your grandmother teach you?”

“Set great store on it to ward off the dark.”

“But what?”

Mrs. O’Keefe said in a singsong way,

At that moment it seemed as though a bucketful of water had been dumped down the chimney onto the fire. The flames flickered wildly, and gusts of smoke blew into the room.

“The fire with all the strength it hath,” Charles Wallace repeated firmly.

The applewood logs sizzled but the flames gathered strength and began to burn brightly again.

Mrs. O’Keefe put a gnarled hand on Meg’s shoulder and pressed down heavily as though it helped her to remember.

The wind gave a tremendous gust, and the house shook under the impact, but stood steady.

Mrs. O’Keefe pressed until Meg could barely stand the weight.

Using Meg’s shoulder as a lever, she pushed herself up and stood facing the bright flames in the fireplace.

Her voice rose triumphantly. “That’ll teach Mad Dog Bran-what’s-his name.”

The twins looked at each other as though embarrassed. Mr. Murry carved some more turkey. Mrs. Murry’s face was serene and uncommunicative. Charles Wallace looked thoughtfully at Mrs. O’Keefe. Meg rose from her knees and returned to her chair, escaping the unbelievably heavy pressure of her mother-in-law’s hand. She was sure that her shoulder was going to hold black and blue finger marks.

As Meg moved away, Mrs. O’Keefe seemed to crumple. She collapsed into her chair. “Set high store on that, my grandma did. Haven’t thought of it in years. Tried not to think. So why’d it come to me tonight?” She gasped, as though exhausted.

“It’s something like Patrick’s Breastplate,” Sandy said. “We sang that in glee club in college. It was one of my favorites. Marvelous harmonies.”

“Not a song,” Mrs. O’Keefe contradicted. “A rune. Patrick’s rune. To hold up against danger. In this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power—”

Without warning, the lights went out. A gust of wind dashed across the table, blowing out the candles. The humming of the refrigerator ceased. There was no purring from the furnace in the cellar. A cold dampness clutched the room, filling their nostrils with a stench of decay. The flames in the fireplace dwindled.

“Say it, Mom!” Charles Wallace called. “Say it all!”

Mrs. O’Keefe’s voice was weak. “I forget—”

The lightning outside was so brilliant that light penetrated the closed curtains. A tremendous crash of thunder followed immediately.

“I’ll say it with you.” Charles Wallace’s voice was urgent. “But you’ll have to help me. Come on. In this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power …”

Lightning and thunder were almost simultaneous. Then they heard a gigantic crackling noise.

“One of the trees has been struck,” Mr. Murry said.

“All Heaven with its power,” Charles Wallace repeated.

The old woman’s voice took up the words. “And the sun with its brightness …”

Dennys struck a match and lit the candles. At first the flames flickered and guttered wildly, but then steadied and burned straight and bright.

Meg waited for the lightning to flash again, for the house itself to be struck. Instead, the power came back on as abruptly as it had gone off. The furnace began to hum. The room was filled with light and warmth.

Charles Wallace lifted the curtains away from one corner of the window. “The rain’s turned to snow. The ground’s all white and beautiful.”

“All right—” Sandy looked around the room. “What’s this all about? I know something’s happened, but what?”

For a moment no one spoke. Then Meg said, “Maybe there’s hope.”

Sandy waved her words away. “Really, Meg, be reasonable.”

“Why? We don’t live in a reasonable world. Nuclear war is not reasonable. Reason hasn’t got us anywhere.”

“But you can’t throw it out. Branzillo is mad and there’s no reason in him.”

Dennys said, “Okay, Sandy, I agree with you. But what happened?”

Meg glanced at Charles Wallace, but he had his withdrawn, listening look.

Sandy replied, “Much as we’d like it to, a freak of weather here in the northeastern United States isn’t going to have anything to do with whether or not a South American madman pushes that button to start the war that very likely will be the war to end wars.”

The baby moved within Meg, a strong affirmation of life. “Father, is the president going to call again?”

“He said he would when—when there’s any news. One way or other.”

“Within twenty-four hours?”

“Yes. I would not want to be in his position at the moment.”

“Or in ours,” Dennys said. “It strikes me the whole world is in it together.”

Charles Wallace continued to look out the window. “The snow’s stopping. The wind has shifted to the northwest. The clouds are moving. I see a star.” He let the curtain drop.

Mrs. O’Keefe jerked her chin toward him. “You. Chuck. I come because of you.”

“Why, Mom?” he asked gently.

“You know.”

He shook his head.

“Stop him, Chuck. Stop Mad Dog Bran … Stop him.” She looked old and small and Meg wondered how she could have pressed down so heavily on her shoulder. And twice Mrs. O’Keefe had called Charles Wallace Chuck. Nobody ever called him Chuck. Occasionally plain Charles, but never Charlie or Chuck.

Mrs. Murry asked, “Mrs. O’Keefe, would you like some tea? or coffee?”

Mrs. O’Keefe cackled without mirth. “That’s right. Don’t hear. Think I’m crackers. Not such a fool as all that. Chuck knows.” She nodded toward Charles Wallace. “Woke up this morning, and wasn’t going to come. Then something told me I was to come, like it or not, and didn’t know why till I saw you with them big ancient eyes and the rune started to come back to me, and I knowed once more Chuck’s no idiot. Haven’t thought of the rune since my grandma and Chuck, till now. You’ve got it, Chuck. Use it.” Her breath ran out. It was the longest speech they had ever heard her give. Panting, she finished. “I want to go home.” And, as no one spoke: “Someone take me home.”

“But, Mrs. O’Keefe,” Dennys wheedled, “we haven’t had salad, and it’s got lots of avocado and tomato in it, and then there’s flaming plum pudding.”

“Flame yourself. I done what I come for. Someone take me home.”

“Very well, Mrs. O’Keefe.” Mr. Murry rose. “Den or Sandy, will you drive Mrs. O’Keefe home?”

“I will,” Dennys said. “I’ll get your coat, ma’am.”

When the car had driven off, Sandy said, “One could almost take her seriously.”

The Murry parents exchanged glances, and Mrs. Murry replied, “I do.”

“Oh, come on, Mother, all that rune stuff, and Charles Wallace stopping Mad Dog Branzillo singlehanded?”

“Not necessarily that. But I take Mrs. O’Keefe seriously.”

Meg looked anxiously at Charles Wallace, spoke to her mother. “You’ve always said there was more to her than meets the eye. I guess we’ve just seen some of that more.”

“I rather think we have,” her father said.

“All right, then, what was it all about? It was all—all unnatural.”

“What’s natural?” Charles Wallace asked.

Sandy raised his eyebrows. “Okay, little brother, what do you make of it, then? How do you plan to stop Branzillo?”

“I don’t know,” Charles Wallace replied seriously. “I’ll use the rune.”

“Do you remember it?” Meg asked.

“I remember it.”

“Did you hear her call you Chuck?”

“I heard.”

“But nobody ever calls you Chuck. Where did she get it?”

“I’m not sure. Out of the past, maybe.”

The phone rang, and they all jumped. Mr. Murry hurried to the phone table, then drew back an instant before picking up the receiver.

But it was not the president. It was Calvin, calling from London. He spoke briefly to everybody, was sorry to miss his mother and Dennys; but he was delighted that his mother had come; his paper had gone extremely well; the conference was interesting. At the last he asked to speak to Meg again, and said only, “I love you,” and hung up.

“I always fall apart on overseas calls,” she said, “so I don’t think he noticed anything. There isn’t any point telling him when he can’t do anything about it, and it would just make it awful for him …” She turned away as Dennys came in, blowing on his fingers.

“Calvin called from London.” She swallowed her tears. “He sends you his best.”

“Sorry to have missed him. How about some salad, now, and then that plum pudding?”

—Why are we trying to act normal? Meg wondered, but did not speak her thought aloud.

But Charles Wallace replied, “It’s sort of like the string holding the package together, Meg. We’d all fall apart otherwise.”

Her father said, “You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.”

“Even at a time like this?” Meg asked. The call from Calvin, the sound of her husband’s voice, had nearly broken her control.

“Especially at a time like this,” her mother said gently. “We don’t know what the next twenty-four hours are going to bring, and if it should be what we fear, then the peace and quiet within us will come to our aid.”

“Will it?” Meg’s voice faltered again.

“Remember,” Mr. Murry said, “your mother and I take Mrs. O’Keefe seriously.”

“Father,” Sandy chided, “you’re a pure scientist. You can’t take that old woman seriously.”

“I take the response of the elements to her rune seriously.”

“Coincidence,” Dennys said without much assurance.

“My training in physics has taught me that there is no such thing as coincidence.”

“Charles Wallace still hasn’t said anything.” Meg looked to her small brother.

Dennys asked, “What about it, Charles?”

He shook his head slowly. He looked bewildered. “I don’t know. I think I’m supposed to do something, but I don’t know what. But if I’m meant to do something, I’ll be told.”

“By some little men from outer space?” Sandy asked.

“Something in me will tell me. I don’t think any of us wants more salad. Let’s turn out the lights and let Father flame the pudding.”

“I’m not sure I want the lights out,” Meg said. “Maybe there isn’t going to be any more electricity, ever. Let’s enjoy it while we have it.”

“I’d rather enjoy the light of the plum pudding,” Charles Wallace said.

Mrs. Murry took the pudding from the double boiler where it had been steaming, and turned it out onto a plate. Dennys took a sprig of holly and stuck it on the top. Mr. Murry got a bottle of brandy and poured it liberally over the pudding. As he lit the match, Charles Wallace turned out the lights and Sandy blew out the candles. The brandy burned with a brilliant blue flame; it seemed brighter than Meg remembered from other Thanksgivings. It had always been their traditional holiday dessert because, as Mrs. Murry remarked, you can’t make pie crust over a Bunsen burner, and her attempts at mince or pumpkin pie had not been successes.

Mr. Murry tilted the dish so that all the brandy would burn. The flames continued, bright and clear and blue, a blue that held in it the warmth of a summer sky rather than the chill of winter.

“And the fire with all the strength it hath,” Charles Wallace said softly.

“But what kind of strength?” Meg asked. She looked at the logs crackling merrily in the fireplace. “It can keep you warm, but if it gets out of hand it can burn your house down. It can destroy forests. It can burn whole cities.”

“Strength can always be used to destroy as well as create,” Charles Wallace said. “This fire is to help and heal.”

“I hope,” Meg said. “Oh, I hope.”