A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle (11)

 

The light came back slowly. There had been shadows, nothing but deepening shadows, and pain, and slowly the pain began to leave and healing light touched his closed lids. He opened them. He was on the star-watching rock with Gaudior.

“The wind brought you out of Chuck.”

“What happened to him?”

“Mortmain had him institutionalized. Are you ready? It’s time—” A ripple of tension moved along the unicorn’s flanks.

Charles Wallace felt the wind all about them, cold, and yet strengthening. “What Chuck saw—two men fighting—was it real?”

“What is real?” Gaudior replied infuriatingly.

“It’s important!”

“We do not always know what is important and what is not. The wind sends a warning to hurry, hurry. Climb up, and hold very tight.”

“Should I bind myself to you again?”

“The wind says there’s no time. We’ll fly out of time and through galaxies the Echthroi do not know. But the wind says it may be difficult to send you Within, even so. Hold on, and try not to be afraid.”

Charles Wallace felt the wind beneath them as Gaudior spread his wings. The flight at first was serene. Then he began to feel cold, a deep, penetrating cold far worse than the cold of the Ice Age sea. This was a cold of the spirit as well as the body. He did not fall off the unicorn because he was frozen to him; his hands were congealed in their clenched grasp on the frozen mane.

Gaudior’s hoofs touched something solid, and the cold lifted just enough so that the boy was able to unclench his hands and open his frozen lids. They were in an open square in a frozen city of tall, windowless buildings. There was no sign of tree, of grass. The blind cement was cracked, and there were great chunks of fallen masonry on the street.

“Where—” Charles Wallace started, and stopped.

The unicorn turned his head slowly. “A Projection—”

Charles Wallace followed his gaze and saw two men in gas masks patrolling the square with machine guns. “Do they see us?”

The question was answered by the two men pausing, turning, looking through the round black eyes of their gas masks directly at unicorn and boy, and raising their guns.

With a tremendous leap Gaudior launched upward, wings straining. Charles Wallace pressed close to the neck, hands twined in the mane. But for the moment they had escaped the Echthroi, and when Gaudior’s hoofs touched the ground, the Projection was gone.

“Those men with guns—” Charles Wallace started. “In a Projection, could they have killed us?”

“I don’t know,” Gaudior said, “and I didn’t want to wait to find out.”

Charles Wallace looked around in relief. When he had left Chuck, it was autumn, the cold wind stripping the trees. Now it was high spring, the old apple and pear trees in full blossom, and the smell of lilac on the breeze. All about them, the birds were in full song.

“What should we do now?” Charles Wallace asked.

“At least you’re asking, not telling.” Gaudior sounded unusually cross, so the boy knew he was unusually anxious.

Meg shivered. Within the kythe she saw the star-watching rock and a golden summer’s day. There were two people on the rock, a young woman, and a young man—or a boy? She was not sure, because there was something wrong with the boy. But from their dress she was positive that it was the time of the Civil War—around 1865.

* * *

The Within-ing was long and agonizing, instead of immediate, as it had always been before. Charles Wallace felt intolerable pain in his back, and a crushing of his legs. He could hear himself screaming. His body was being forced into another body, and at the same time something was struggling to pull him out. He was being torn apart in a battle between two opposing forces. Sun blazed, followed by a blizzard of snow, snow melted by raging fire, and violent flashings of lightning, driven by a mighty wind, which whipped across sea and land …

His body was gone and he was Within, Within a crippled body, the body of a young man with useless legs like a shriveled child’s … Matthew Maddox.

From the waist up he looked not unlike Madoc, and about the same age, with a proud head and a lion’s mane of fair hair. But the body was nothing like Madoc’s strong and virile one. And the eyes were grey, grey as the ocean before rain.

Matthew was looking somberly at the girl, who appeared to be about his age, though her eyes were far younger than his. “Croeso f’annwyl, Zillah.” He spoke the Welsh words of endearment lovingly. “Thank you for coming.”

“You knew I would. As soon as Jack O’Keefe brought your note, I set off. How did you get here?”

He indicated a low wagon which stood a little way from the rock.

She looked at the powerful torso, and deeply muscled shoulders and arms. “By yourself, all the way?”

“No. I can do it, but it takes me a long time, and I had to go over the store ledgers this morning. When I went to the stables to find Jack to deliver the note, I swallowed my pride and asked him to bring me.”

Zillah spread her billowing white skirts about her on the rock. She wore a wide-brimmed leghorn hat with blue ribbons, which brought out the highlights in her straight, shining black hair, and a locket on a blue ribbon at her throat. To Matthew Maddox she was the most beautiful, and desirable, and—to him—the most unattainable woman in the world.

“Matt, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“Something’s happened to Bran.”

She paled. “How do you know? Are you sure?”

“Last night I woke out of a sound sleep with an incredibly sharp pain in my leg. Not my own familiar pain, Bran’s pain. And he was calling out to me to help him.”

“O dear Lord. Is he going to be all right?”

“He’s alive. He’s been reaching out to me all day.”

She buried her face in her hands, so that her words were muffled. “Thank you for telling me. You and Bran—you’ve always been so close, even closer than most twins.”

He acknowledged this with a nod. “We were always close, but it was after my accident that—it was Bran who brought me back into life, Zillah, you know that.”

She dropped her hand lightly on his shoulder. “If Bran is badly wounded, we’re going to need you. As once you needed Bran.”

After the accident, five years earlier, when his horse had crashed into a fence and rolled over on him, crushing his pelvis and legs and fracturing his spine, Bran had shown him no pity; instead, had fiercely tried to push his twin brother into as much independence as possible, and refused to allow him to feel sorry for himself.

“But Rollo jumps fences twice as high with ease.”

“He didn’t jump that one.”

“Bran, just before he crashed, there was a horrible, putrid stink—”

“Stop going back over things. Get on with it.”

They continued to go everywhere together—until the war. Unlike Bran, Matthew could not lie about his age and join the cavalry.

“I lived my life through Bran, vicariously,” Matthew told Zillah. “When he went to war, it was the first time he ever left me out.” Then: “When you and Bran fell in love, I knew that I had to start letting him go, to try to find some kind of life of my own, so that he’d be free. And it was easier to let go with you than with anyone else in the world, because you’ve always treated me like a complete human being, and I knew that the two of you would not exclude me from your lives.”

“Dear Matt. Never. And you are making your own life. You’re selling your stories and poems, and I think they’re as good as anything by Mark Twain.”

Matthew laughed, a warm laugh that lightened the pain lines in his face. “They’re only a beginner’s work.”

“But editors think they’re good, too, and so does my father.”

“I’m glad. I value Dr. Llawcae’s opinion as much as anybody’s in the world.”

“And he loves you and Bran and Gwen as though you were my brothers and sister. And your mother has been a second mother to me since my own dear mama died. As for our fathers—they may be only distant kin, but they’re like as two peas in a pod with their passion for Wales. Matt—have you said anything about Bran to Gwen or your parents?”

“No. They don’t like the idea that Bran and I can communicate without speech or letters the way we do. They pretend it’s some kind of trick we’ve worked out, the way we used to change places with each other when we were little, to fool people. They think what we do isn’t real.”

“It’s real, I don’t doubt that.” Zillah smiled. “Dear Matt, I think I love you nearly as much as Bran does.”

* * *

A week later, Mr. Maddox received official news that his son had been wounded in battle and would be invalided home. He called the family into the dark, book-lined library to inform them.

Mrs. Maddox fanned herself with her black lace fan. “Thank God.”

“You’re glad Bran’s been wounded!” Gwen cried indignantly.

Mrs. Maddox continued to fan herself. “Of course not, child. But I’m grateful to God that he’s alive, and that he’s coming home before something worse than a bullet in the leg happens to him.”

—It is worse, Mama, Matthew thought silently.—Bran has been shutting me out of his thoughts and he’s never done that before. All I get from him is a dull, deadening pain. Gwen is more right than she knows, not to be glad.

He looked thoughtfully at his sister. She was dark of hair and blue of eye like Zillah, making them appear more like sisters than distant cousins. But her face did not have Zillah’s openness, and her eyes were a colder blue and glittered when she was angry. After Matthew’s accident she had pitied him, but had not translated her pity into compassion. Matthew did not want pity.

Gwen returned his gaze. “And how do you feel about your twin’s coming home, Matthew?”

“He’s been badly hurt, Gwen,” he said. “He’s not going to be the same debonair Bran who left us.”

“He’s still only a child.” Mrs. Maddox turned toward her husband, who was sitting behind the long oak library table.

“He’s a man, and when he comes home the store will become Maddox and Son,” her husband said.

—Maddox and Son, Matthew thought without bitterness—not Maddox and Sons.

He turned his wheelchair slightly away. He was totally committed to his writing; he had no wish to be a partner in Maddox’s General Store, which was a large and prosperous establishment in the center of the village, and had the trade of the surrounding countryside for many miles. The first story of the rambling frame building was filled with all the foodstuffs needed for the village. Upstairs were saddles and harnesses, guns, plows, and even a large quantity of oars, as though Mr. Maddox remembered a time when nearly all of the valley had been a great lake. A few ponds were all that remained of the original body of water. Matthew spent most mornings in the store, taking care of the ledgers and all the accounts.

Behind the store was the house, named Merioneth. The Llawcae home, Madrun, stood beyond Merioneth, slightly more ostentatious, with white pillars and pinkbrick façade. Merioneth was the typical three-storied white frame farmhouse with dark shutters which had replaced the original log cabins.

“People think we’re putting on airs, giving our houses names,” Bran had complained one day, before the accident, as he and Matthew were walking home from school.

Matthew did a cartwheel. “I like it,” he said as he came right side up. “Merioneth is named in honor of a distant cousin of ours in Wales.”

“Yah, I know, Michael Jones, a congregational minister of Bala in Merioneth.”

“Cousin Michael’s pleased that we’ve given the house that name. He mentions it almost every time he writes to Papa. Weren’t you listening yesterday when he was telling us about Love Jones Parry, the squire of Madrun, and his plan to take a trip to Patagonia to inspect the land and see if it might be suitable for a colony from Wales?”

“That’s the only interesting bit,” Bran had said. “I love to travel, even just to go with Papa to get supplies. Maybe if the squire of Madrun really does take that trip, we could go with him.”

It was not long after this that the accident happened, and Matthew remembered how Bran had tried to rouse him from despair by telling him that Love Jones Parry had actually gone to Patagonia, and reported that although the land was wild and desolate, he thought that the formation of a Welsh colony where the colonists would be allowed to teach their native tongue in school might be possible. The Spanish government paid scant attention to that section of Patagonia, where there were only a few Indians and a handful of Spaniards.

But Matthew refused to be roused. “Exciting for you. I’m not going to get very far from Merioneth ever again.”

Bran had scowled at him ferociously. “You cannot afford the luxury of self-pity.”

—It is still an expensive luxury, Matthew thought—and one I can ill afford.

“Matt!” It was Gwen. “A penny for your thoughts.”

He had been writing when his father had summoned them, and still had his note pad on his lap. “Just thinking out the plot for another story.”

She smiled at him brightly. “You’re going to make the name of Maddox famous!”

“My brave baby,” Mrs. Maddox said. “How proud I am of you! That was the third story you’ve sold to Harper’s Monthly, wasn’t it?”

“The fourth—Mama, Papa, Gwen: I think I must warn you that Bran is going to need all our love and help when he comes home.”

“Well, of course—” Gwen started indignantly. “No, Gwen,” he said quietly. “Bran is hurt much more than just the leg wound.”

“What are you talking about?” his father demanded. “You might call it Bran’s soul. It’s sick.”

* * *

Bran returned, limping and withdrawn. He shut Matthew out as effectively as though he had slammed a door in his twin’s face.

Once again Matthew sent a note to Zillah to meet him at the flat rock. This time he did not ask Jack O’Keefe for help, but lying on the wagon, he pulled himself over the rough ground. It was arduous work, even with his powerful arms, and he was exhausted when he arrived. But he had allowed more than enough time. He heaved himself off the wagon and dragged over to the rock, stretched out, and slept under the warm autumn sun.

“Matt—”

He woke up. Zillah was smiling down at him. “F’annwyl.” He pushed the fair hair back from his eyes and sat up. “Thanks for coming.”

“How is he today?”

Matthew shook his head. “No change. It’s hard on Papa to have another crippled son.”

“Hush. Bran’s not a cripple!”

“He’ll limp from that leg wound for the rest of his life. And whether or not his spirit will heal is anybody’s guess.”

“Give him time, Matt …”

“Time!” Matthew pushed the word away impatiently. “That’s what Mama keeps saying. But we’ve given him time. It’s three months since he came home. He sleeps half the day and reads half the night. And he’s still keeping himself closed to me. If he’d talk about his experiences it might help him, but he won’t.”

“Not even to you?”

“He seems to feel he has to protect me,” Matthew said bitterly, “and one of the things I’ve always loved most in Bran was his refusal to protect or mollycoddle me in any way.”

“Bran, Bran,” Zillah murmured, “the knight in shining armor who went so bravely to join the cavalry and save the country and free the slaves …” She glanced at the ring on her finger. “He asked me to return his ring. To set me free, he said.”

Matthew stretched out his hand to her, then drew it back.

“There has to be time for me as well as for Bran. When he gave me this ring I promised I’d be here for him when he returned, no matter what, and I intend to keep that promise. What can we do to bring him out of the slough of despond?”

Matthew ached to reach out to touch her fair skin, to stroke her hair as black as the night and as beautiful. He spread his hand on the warm rock. “I tried to get him to take me riding. I haven’t ridden since he went away.”

“And?”

“He said it was too dangerous.”

“For you? Or for him?”

“That’s what I asked him. And he just said, ‘Leave me alone. My leg pains me.’ And I said, ‘You never used to let me talk about it when my legs and back hurt.’ And he just looked at me and said, ‘I didn’t understand pain then.’ And I said, ‘I think you understood it better then than you do now.’ And we stopped talking because we weren’t getting anywhere, and he wouldn’t open an inch to let me near him.”

“Father says his pain should be tolerable by now, and the physical wound is not the problem.”

“That’s right. We’ve got to get him out of himself somehow. And Zillah, something else happened that I need to talk to you about. Yesterday when I hoped I could get Bran to take me riding I wheeled out to the stable to check on my saddle, and when I pushed open the stable door there were Jack and—and—”

“Gwen?”

“How did you guess?”

“I’ve noticed him looking at her. And she’s looked right back.”

“They were doing more than looking. They were kissing.”

“Merchant’s daughter and hired hand. Your parents would not approve. How about you?”

“Zillah, that’s not what I mind about Jack O’Keefe. He’s a big and powerful man and he has nothing but scorn for me—or anything with a physical imperfection. I saw him take a homeless puppy and kill it by flinging it against the wall of the barn.”

She put her hands over her eyes. “Matt! Stop!”

“I think it’s his enormous physical healthiness that attracts Gwen. I’m a total cripple, and Bran’s half a one, at least for now. And Jack is life. She doesn’t see the cruelty behind the wide smile and loud laugh.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. For now. Mama and Papa have enough on their minds, worrying their hearts out over Bran. And if I warn Gwen, she’ll just think I’m jealous of all that Jack can do and all that I cannot. I’ll try to talk to Bran, but I doubt he’ll hear.”

“Dear Matt. It comforts me that you and I can talk like this.” Her voice was compassionate, but it held none of the pity he loathed. “My true and good friend.”

One night after dinner, while the men lingered over the port, Mr. Maddox looked at Bran over the ruby liquid in his glass. “Matthew and Zillah would like you to join them in their Welsh lesson this week.”

“Not yet, Papa.”

“Not yet, not yet, that’s all you’ve been saying for the past three months. Will Llawcae says your wound is healed now, and there’s no reason for your malingering.”

To try to stop his father, Matthew said, “I was remarking today that Gwen looks more Indian than Welsh, with her high cheekbones.”

Mr. Maddox poured himself a second glass of port, then stoppered the cut-glass decanter. “Your mother does not like to be reminded that I have Indian blood, though it’s generations back. The Llawcaes have it, too, through our common forebears, Brandon Llawcae and Maddok of the People of the Wind, whose children intermarried. Maddok was so named because he had the blue eyes of Welsh Madoc—but then, I don’t need to repeat the story.”

“True,” Bran agreed.

“I like it.” Matthew sipped his wine.

“You’re a romanticizer,” Bran said. “Keep it for your writing.”

Mr. Maddox said stiffly, “As your mother has frequently pointed out, black hair and blue eyes are far more common in people of Welsh descent than Indian, and Welsh we indubitably are. And hard-working.” He looked pointedly at Bran.

Later in the evening Matthew wheeled himself into Bran’s room. His twin was standing by the window, holding the velveteen curtains aside to look across the lawn to the woods. He turned on Matthew with a growl. “Go away.”

“No, Bran. When I was hurt I told you to go away, and you wouldn’t. Nor will I.” Matthew wheeled closer to his brother. “Gwen’s in love with Jack O’Keefe.”

“Not surprised. Jack’s a handsome brute.”

“He’s not the right man for Gwen.”

“Because he’s our hired hand? Don’t be such a snob.”

“No. Because he is, as you said, a brute.”

“Gwen can take care of herself. She always has. Anyhow, Papa would put his foot down.”

There was an empty silence which Matthew broke. “Don’t cut Zillah out of your life.”

“If I love Zillah, that’s the only thing to do. Free her.”

“She doesn’t want to be free. She loves you.”

Bran walked over to his bed with the high oak bedstead and flung himself down. “I’m out of love with everything and everybody. Out of love with life.”

“Why?”

“Do you have to ask me?”

“Yes, I do. Because you aren’t telling me.”

“You used to know without my having to tell you.”

“I still would, if you weren’t shutting me out.”

Bran moved his head restlessly back and forth on the pillow. “Don’t you be impatient with me, twin. Papa’s bad enough.”

Matthew wheeled over to the bed. “You know Papa.”

“I’m no more cut out to be a storekeeper than you are. Gwen’s the one who has Papa’s hard business sense. But I don’t have a talent like yours to offer Papa as an alternative. And he’s always counted on me to take over the business. And I don’t want to. I never did.”

“What, then?” Matthew asked.

“I’m not sure. The only positive thing the war did for me was confirm my enjoyment of travel. I like adventure—but not killing. And it seems the two are seldom separated.”

It was the nearest they had come to a conversation since Bran’s return, and Matthew felt hopeful.

Matthew was writing on his lap desk in a sunny corner of the seldom-used parlor.

There Bran found him. “Twin, I need you.”

“I’m here,” Matthew said.

Bran straddled a small gilt chair and leaned his arms on the back. “Matt, nothing is the way I thought it was. I went to war thinking of myself as Galahad, out to free fellow human beings from the intolerable bondage of slavery. But it wasn’t as simple as that. There were other, less pure issues being fought over, with little concern for the souls which would perish for nothing more grand than political greed, corruption, and conniving for power. Matt, I saw a man with his face blown off and no mouth to scream with, and yet he screamed and could not die. I saw two brothers, and one was in blue and one was in grey, and I will not tell you which one took his saber and ran it through the other. Oh God, it was brother against brother, Cain and Abel all over again. And I was turned into Cain. What would God have to do with a nation where brothers can turn against each other with such brutality?” Bran stopped speaking as his voice broke on a sob.

Matthew put down his lap desk and drew his twin to him, and together they wept, as Bran poured out all the anguish and terror and nightmare he had lived through. And Matthew held him and drew the pain out and into his own heart.

When the torrent was spent, Bran looked at his twin. “Thank you.”

Matthew held him close. “You’re back, Bran. We’re together again.”

“Yes. Forever.”

“It’s good to have you coming back to life.”

“Coming back to life hurts. I need to take my pain away.”

Matthew asked, startled, “What?”

“Matt, twin, I’m going away.”

“What!” Matthew looked at Bran standing straight and strong before him. The yellow satin curtains warmed the light and brightened Bran’s hair. “Where?”

“You’ll never guess.”

Matthew waited.

“Papa had a letter from Wales, from Cousin Michael. A group left for Patagonia to start a colony. They’re there by now. I’m going to join them. How’s that for an old dream come true?”

“We were going together …”

“Dear my twin, you’re making a name for yourself here with your pen. I know that the creation of a story is work, even if Papa doesn’t. But you couldn’t manage a life of physical hardship such as I’ll be having in the Welsh colony.”

“You’re right,” Matthew acknowledged. “I’d be a burden.”

“I won’t be far from you, ever again,” Bran assured him, “even in Patagonia. I promise to share it with you, and you’ll be able to write stories about it as vividly as though you’d been there in body. Cousin Michael writes that the colony is settling in well, in a small section known as Vespugia, and I’ll tell you everything about it, and describe a grand cast of characters for you.”

“Have you told Zillah?”

Bran shook his head.

“Twin, this affects Zillah too, you know. She wears your ring.”

“I’ll tell everyone tonight at dinner. I’ll get Mama to ask the Llawcaes.”

Dinner was served in the dining room, a large, dark, oak-paneled chamber that seemed to drink in the light from the crystal chandelier. Heavy brown curtains like the ones in the library were drawn against the cold night. The fire burning brightly did little to warm the vast cavern.

During the meal, conversation was largely about the Welsh expedition to Patagonia, with both Mr. Maddox and Dr. Llawcae getting vicarious excitement out of the adventure.

“What fun,” Gwen said. “Why don’t you go, Papa? If I were a man, I would.”

Matthew and Bran looked at each other across the table, but Bran shook his head slightly.

After dessert, when Mrs. Maddox pushed back her chair, nodding to Gwen and Zillah to follow her, Bran stopped them. “Wait, please, Mama. I have something to tell everybody. We’ve all enjoyed discussing the Patagonian expedition, and the founding of the colony in Vespugia, Years ago, before Matt’s accident, we dreamed of joining the squire of Madrun when he made his journey to see if it would be a suitable place for a colony. So perhaps it won’t surprise you that I have decided to join the colonists and make a new life for myself in Vespugia. Today I’ve written Cousin Michael and Mr. Parry in Wales, and sent letters to Vespugia.”

For a moment there was stunned silence.

Bran broke it, smiling. “Dr. Llawcae says a warmer climate will be better for me.”

Mr. Maddox asked, “Isn’t going to Patagonia rather an excessive way to find a warmer climate? You could go south, to South Carolina or Georgia.”

Bran’s lips shut in a rigid expression of pain. “Papa, do you forget where I’ve come from and what I’ve been doing?”

Mrs. Maddox said, “No, son, your father does not forget. But the war is over, and you must put it behind you.”

“In the South? I doubt I would be welcome in the Confederate states.”

“But Vespugia—so far away—” Tears filled Mrs. Maddox’s eyes. Zillah, her face pale but resolute, drew a fresh handkerchief from her reticule and handed it to her. “If you’d just continue to regain your strength, and go on studying Welsh with Matthew, and come into the business with your father—”

Bran shook his head. “Mama, you know that I cannot go into the business with Papa. And I have no talent, like Matthew’s, which I could use here. It seems that the best way to pull myself together is to get out, and what better way to learn Welsh than to be with people who speak it all the time?”

Mr. Maddox spoke slowly, “You took me by surprise, son, but it does seem to be a reasonable solution for you, eh, Will?” He looked at the doctor, who was tamping his pipe.

“In a way, I identify with Madoc, Papa,” Bran said. “Matt and I were rereading T. Gwynn Jones’s poem about him this evening.” He looked at Gwen. “Remember it?”

She sniffled. “I never read Welsh unless Papa forces me.”

“Madoc left Wales in deep despair because brother was fighting against brother, just as we did in this ghastly war, ‘until it seemed as if God himself had withdrawn his care from the sons of men.’ … ymdroi gyda diflastod as anobaith Madog wrth ystried cyflwr gwlad ei ededigaeth, lle’r oedd brawd un ymladd yn erbyn brawd hyd nes yr oedd petal Duw ei hun wedi peidio â gofalu am feibion dynion.”

Mr. Maddox drew on his pipe. “You do remember.”

“Good lad,” Dr. Llawcae approved.

“I remember, and too well I understand, for there were many nights during the war when God withdrew from our battlefields. When the sons of men fight against each other in hardness of heart, why should God not withdraw? Slavery is evil, God knows, but war is evil, too, evil, evil.”

Zillah pushed her empty dessert plate away and went to kneel by Bran, impulsively taking his hand and pressing it against her cheek.

He took her hand in his. “I went to war thinking that mankind is reasonable, and found that it is not. But it has always been so, and at last I am growing up, as Matthew grew up long before me. I know that he would give a great deal to come to Vespugia with me, and I to have him, but we both know that it cannot be.”

Mrs. Maddox was still weeping into the handkerchief Zillah had given her. “Never again can there be a war that can do such terrible things to people.”

Mr. Maddox said, “My dear, it is not good for us to keep reminding Bran of the war. Perhaps getting away from Merioneth and going to Vespugia will be the best way for him to forget.”

Matthew looked at his father and saw him letting his dream of Maddox and Son disappear into the wilderness of Vespugia.

“Bran.” Zillah rose and looked down at him.

“Little Zillah.”

“I’m not little Zillah any more, Bran. You changed that the night before you went to war when you put this ring on my finger.”

“Child,” Dr. Llawcae remonstrated, “it is the dearest wish of my heart that Llawcaes and Maddoxes be once more united in marriage. I gave Bran my blessing when he came to me to ask for your hand. But not yet. You’re only seventeen.”

“Many women are married and mothers at seventeen. I want to go to Vespugia with Bran, as his wife.”

“Zillah,” Dr. Llawcae said, “you will wait. When Bran is settled, in a year or two, he can send for you.”

Bran pressed Zillah’s hand. “It needn’t all be decided tonight.”

In the end, Bran went with Gwen, not with Zillah. Mr. Maddox caught Gwen and Jack O’Keefe kissing behind the stable door, and announced flatly that she was to accompany her brother to Vespugia. No amount of tears, of hysterics from Gwen, of pleading from Mrs. Maddox, could change his stand.

Gwen and Zillah wept together. “It’s not fair,” Gwen sobbed. “A woman has no say in her own life. I hate men!”

Matthew tried to intercede with Dr. Llawcae for Zillah, but the doctor was adamant that she should wait at least until she was eighteen, and until Bran had suitable living arrangements.

Store and house were empty after they left. Matthew spent the morning working on accounts, and in the afternoon and evenings he stayed in his corner of the empty parlor, writing. His first novel was published and well received and he was hard at work on his second. It was this, and conversations with Zillah, who came frequently to Merioneth from Madrun, which kept him going.

“Bran’s all right,” he assured Zillah. “He sends love.”

“They can’t even have reached Vespugia yet,” Zillah protested. “And there’s certainly been no chance for him to send a letter.”

“You know Bran and I don’t need letters.”

She sighed. “I know. Will Bran and I ever be like that?”

“Yours will be a different kind of unity. Better, maybe, but different.”

“Will he send for me?”

“You must give him time, Zillah—time once again. Time to settle into a new world and a new way of life. And time for your father to get used to the idea of having his only child go half the way across the world from him.”

“How’s Gwen?”

“Part sulking and feeling sorry for herself, and part enjoying all the sailors on the ship making cow’s eyes at her and running to do her bidding. But she’s not going to be happy in Vespugia. She’s always hated hot weather, and she’s never liked roughing it.”

“No, she wasn’t a tomboy, like me. She thought Father was terrible to let me run wild and play rough games with you and Bran. Will your father relent and let her come home?”

“Not while Jack’s around. There’s no second-guessing Papa, though, when he latches on to an unreasonable notion.” He paused. “Remember the old Indian verses, Zillah?”

“About black hair and blue eyes?”

“Yes. They’ve been singing around in my head, and I can’t get them out, especially one verse:

“It’s beautiful,” Zillah said, “but I don’t really know what it means.”

“It’s not to be taken literally. The Indians believed that as long as there was one blue-eyed child in each generation, all would be well.”

“But it wasn’t, was it? They’ve been long gone from around here.”

“I think it was a bigger all-rightness than just for their tribe. Anyhow, both you and Gwen have at least a drop of Indian blood, and you both have the blue eyes of the song.”

“So, in a way,” Zillah said dreamily, “we’re the last of the People of the Wind. Unless—”

Matthew smiled at her. “I think you’re meant to have a black-haired, blue-eyed baby.”

“When?” Zillah demanded. “Bran’s a world away from me. And I’ll be old and white-haired and wrinkled before Papa realizes I’m grown up and lets me go.” She looked at him anxiously.

* * *

Matthew’s work began to receive more and more critical acclaim, and Mr. Maddox began thinking of it as something “real,” rather than fanciful scribbling not to be taken seriously. One of the unused downstairs rooms was fixed up as a study, and Dr. Llawcae designed a larger and more efficient lap desk.

The study was at the back of the house and looked across the lawn to the woods, and in the autumn Matthew feasted on the glory of the foilage. The room was sparsely furnished, at his request, with a black leather couch on which he could rest when sitting became too painful. As the cold weather set in, he began more and more often to spend the nights there. In front of the fireplace was a butler’s table and a comfortable lady chair upholstered in blue, the color of Zillah’s eyes: Zillah’s chair, he thought of it.

It was midsummer before letters began to arrive on a regular basis. True to his promise, Bran sent Matthew vivid descriptions:

 

How amazingly interconnected everything is, at least to us who have Welsh blood in our veins. My closest friends here are Richard Llawcae, his wife, and his son Rich. They must be at least distant kin to all of us, for Llawcae is not a common name, even in Wales. Richard says they have forebears who emigrated to the New World in the very early days, and then went back to Wales, for nothing there was as bad as the witch-hunting in the Pilgrim villages and towns. One of their ancestors was burned, they think, or nearly so. They don’t know exactly where they came from, but probably around Salem.

Rich has eyes for no one but Gwen, and I wish she would see and return his love, for I can think of no one I’d rather have as a brother-in-law. But Gwen sees Gedder before Rich. Gedder is taller and bigger and stronger—perhaps—and certainly more flamboyant. He worries me. Zillie has told me of his fierce ambitions, and his manner toward all of us becomes a little more lordly every day. God knows he is helpful—if it weren’t for the Indians, I’m not sure the colony would have survived, for everything is different from at home—times for planting, what to plant, how to irrigate, etc. We are grateful indeed that the Indians not only have been friendly but have given us all the help they could. Yet I could wish Gedder had been more like his brethren and not so pushy and bossy. None of us likes the way Gedder treats his sister, as though she were his slave and inferior.

It is astounding how Zillie has the same features as Gwen and Zillah, the wide-apart eyes with the faintest suggestion of a tilt—though hers are a warm brown, and not blue—and the high cheekbones and delicate nose. And, of course, the straight, shining black hair. People have remarked on the likeness between Gwen and Zillie. I haven’t talked with anyone except the Llawcaes about the Madoc legend following us to Vespugia, and they don’t laugh it away. Truly, truth is stranger than fiction. Put it into a story for me, Matt.

 

—I will, Matthew promised silently.—I will. But you must tell me more.

 

My house is nearly finished, large and airy, with verandas. Everyone knows that it is being built for my bride, and for our children. Zillie often comes and stands, just out of the way, and looks, and that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t think she comes of her own volition. I think Gedder sends her. I talk much about my Zillah, and how I long for the day when she will arrive. Matthew, twin, use your influence on Dr. Llawcae to let her come soon. Why is he keeping her with him? I need her, now.

 

As winter closed in and Matthew could not go out of doors, Zillah began to come from Madrun to Merioneth nearly every day at teatime, and Matthew missed her more than he liked to admit when she did not appear. He was hurrying to finish his second novel, considerably more ambitious than the first, but he tired quickly, and lay on the black couch, reaching out to Bran and Vespugia, all through the winter, the summer, and into a second winter. He felt closer to his twin than ever, and when he neared the shallows of sleep he felt that he actually was in arid Vespugia, part of all that was happening in the tight-knit colony.

In the mornings, when he worked with his soft, dark pencil and large note pad, it was as though he were setting down what he had seen and heard the night before.

“You’re pale, Matt,” Zillah said one afternoon as she sat in the lady chair and poured his tea.

“It’s this bitter cold. Even with the fire going constantly, the damp seeps into my bones.”

He turned away from her concern and looked out the window at the night drawing in. “I have to get my book finished, and there’s not much time. I have a large canvas, going all the way back to the Welsh brothers who fought over Owain of Gwynedd’s throne. Madoc and his brother, Gwydyr, left Wales, and came to a place which I figure to have been somewhere near here, when the valley was still a lake left from the melting of the ice. And once again brothers fought. Gwydyr wanted power, wanted adulation. Over and over again we get caught in fratricide, as Bran was in that ghastly war. We’re still bleeding from the wounds. It’s a primordial pattern, left us from Cain and Abel, a net we can’t seem to break out of. And unless it is checked it will destroy us entirely.”

She clasped her hands. “Will it be checked?”

He turned back toward her. “I don’t know, Zillah. When I sleep I have dreams, and I see dark and evil things, children being killed by hundreds and thousands in terrible wars which sweep over them.” He reached for her hand. “I do not croak doom casually, f’annwyl. I do not know what is going to happen. And irrationally, perhaps, I am positive that what happens in Vespugia is going to make a difference. Read me the letter from Bran that came today once more, please.”

She took the letter from the tea table and held it to the lamp.

 

Dear my twin, and dear my Zillah, when are you coming? Matthew, if you cannot bring Zillah to me, then Zillah must bring you. She writes that the winter is hard on you, and she is worried. There would be much to hold your attention here. Llewellyn Pugh languishes for love of Zillie, and I think she would turn to him did Gedder not keep forcing her on me, no matter how loudly I say that I am betrothed, and that my Zillah is coming to join us any day now. Do not make me a liar!

We have had our first death, and a sad one it was, too. The children are forbidden to climb up onto the cliff which protects the colony from the winds, but somehow or other, one of them managed the steep climb, and fell. We all grieve. It may be a good thing that there is so much work for everybody that there is little idle time, and this helps us all, particularly the parents of the little one. Rich has been a tower of strength. He was the one of us who was able to bring tears from the mother, partly because he was not ashamed to weep himself.

 

“He is a good man, that Rich,” Matthew said. “He’d do anything in the world for Gwen.”

“You talk as though you know him.”

Matthew smiled at her. “I do. I know him through Bran. And through my novel. What happens with Rich, with Bran, with Gwen, with Zillie—it matters to my story. It could even change it.” She looked at him questioningly. “This book is pushing me, Zillah, making me write it. It excites me, and it drives me. In its pages, myth and matter merge. What happens in one time can make a difference in what happens in another time, far more than we realize. What Gedder does is going to make a difference, to the book, perhaps to the world. Nothing, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.”

In the early winter Matthew caught a heavy chest cold, which weakened him, and Dr. Llawcae came daily. Matthew spent the days on the black leather couch, wrapped in blankets. He continued to work on his novel and sold several more stories. He kept his earnings, which were considerable, in a small safe in his study. And now he left the study not at all.

When he was too exhausted to write, he slid into a shallow sleep, filled with vivid dreams in which Bran and the Vespugian colony were more real than chilly Merioneth.

He was at the flat rock in his dream, the rock where he used to meet Zillah when he sought privacy. But instead of Zillah there was a boy, perhaps twelve years old, dressed in strange, shabby clothes. The boy was lying on the rock, and he, too, was dreaming, and his dream and Matthew’s merged.

Gedder is after Gwen. Stop him. The baby must come from Madoc. Gwydyr’s line is tainted. There is nothing left but pride and greed for power and revenge. Stop him, Matthew.

He saw his twin, but this was not Bran in Vespugia … Was it Bran? It was a young man, about their age, standing by a lake. Behind him stood another, a little older, who looked like Bran and yet not like Bran, for there was resentment behind the eyes. Like Gedder. The two began to wrestle, to engage in mortal combat.

At the edge of the lake a huge pile of flowers smoldered, with little red tongues of flame licking the petals of the roses—

“Matthew!”

He opened his eyes and his mother was hovering over him with a cup of camomile tea.

Beside the growing pages of the manuscript lay a genealogy which he had carefully worked out, a genealogy which could go in two different directions, like a double helix. In one direction there was hope; in the other, disaster. And the book and Bran and the Vespugian colony were intertwined in his mind and heart.

The winter was bitter cold.

“As the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen,” Matthew said to Dr. Llawcae, who listened gravely to Matthew’s heart and his chest.

He leaned back and looked at the young man. “Matthew, you are encouraging Zillah.”

Matthew smiled. “I’ve always encouraged Zillah, from the days when we were all children and she wanted to climb trees as high as Bran and I did.”

“That’s not what I mean. You’re encouraging her in this wild-goose chase to go to Vespugia and join Bran.”

“When Bran asked you for Zillah’s hand, you gave him your blessing,” Matthew reminded the doctor.

“That was with the understanding that Bran would stay here and become his father’s partner.”

“Once a blessing is given, Dr. Llawcae, it cannot be withdrawn.” Matthew urged, “Zillah’s heart is in Vespugia with Bran. I understand how she has taken her mother’s place in your house and at your table. But she is your daughter, Dr. Llawcae, and not your wife, and you must not keep her tied to you.”

The doctor’s face flushed darkly with anger. “How dare you!”

“Because I love Zillah with all my heart, and I always have. I will miss her as much as you. Without Zillah, without Bran, I would be bereft of all that makes life worthwhile. But I will not hold them back out of selfishness.”

The doctor’s face grew darker. “You are accusing me of selfishness?”

“Inadvertent, perhaps, but selfishness, nonetheless.”

“You—you—if you weren’t a cripple, I’d—” Dr. Llawcae dropped his raised hand, turned, and left the room.

One afternoon in March, with occasional splatters of rain coming down the chimney and hissing out in the fire, Matthew looked intensely at Zillah, presiding over the tea tray. “Zillah. It’s time. You must go to Vespugia.”

“You know I want to.” She reached out to hold his thin fingers. “Father says maybe next year.”

“Next year’s too late. Bran needs you now. What are you going to do about your father? Next year will always be next year. He’ll not let you go.”

She stared into the fire. “I’d rather go with Father’s blessing, but I’m afraid you’re right, and he’s not going to give it. The problem is money, and finding a ship, and booking passage—all the things that are difficult, if not impossible, for a girl.”

“You must go, this spring as soon as the ice breaks and ships can sail.”

“Why, Matt, such urgency, all of a sudden?”

“Bran reached out to me last night—”

“Is something wrong?”

“Not with Bran. But Gedder—Rich—” He was seized with a fit of coughing, and when he leaned back he was too weak to talk.

Zillah continued to come daily to sit in the lady chair by the fire, to preside over the tea tray, and warm him with her smile. For the next few weeks he did not mention her going to Vespugia. Then one day, when the bare outlines of the trees were softened with coming buds, he greeted her impatiently.

He could hardly wait for her to sit down behind the tea tray. “Zillah, open the safe.” Carefully, he gave her the combination, watching her fingers twirl the dial as she listened. “All right. Good. Bring out that big manila envelope. It’s for you.”

She looked at him in surprise. “For me?”

“I’ve been busy these last weeks.”

“Father says you’re pushing yourself too hard. Is the book done?”

“To all intents and purposes. There’s some deepening to do, and a certain amount of revision. But I’ve been busy in other ways. Open the envelope.”

She did so. “Money, and—what’s this, Matt?”

“A ticket. There’s a ship sailing for South America in four days. You must be on it.”

“But, Matthew, I can’t let you—”

“I’ve earned the money by my writing. It’s mine to do with what I will Zillah, Bran needs you. You must go. You will swing the balance.”

“What balance?”

“The line must be Madoc’s and not Gwydyr’s—”

“I don’t understand. You’re flushed. Are you—”

“I’m not feverish. It’s part of the book … You do love Bran?”

“With all my heart.”

“Enough to leave Madrun without your father’s blessing, and secretly?”

She held the manila envelope to her breast.

“You’ll go?”

“I’ll go.” She took his cold hand and held it to her cheek.

“All will be well,” he promised. “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For the fire is roses, roses …”

He did not see her again. Neither could bear the pain of parting.

Dr. Llawcae came storming over to Merioneth. Matthew could hear him shouting, “Where did she get the money? How did she get the passage?”

Matthew smiled, fleetingly grateful that Dr. Llawcae considered him such a cripple that he could not possibly have made the necessary arrangements.

When the doctor came into the study to check Matthew’s heart, his temper had cooled enough so that he was no longer shouting. “I suppose you’re pleased about this?”

“Zillah and Bran love each other,” Matthew replied quietly. “It is right that they be together. And you have always been so interested in your Welsh heritage, and in this colony, that you will end up feeling differently. You can visit them—”

“Easy enough to say. What about my practice?”

“You haven’t taken a vacation in years. You’ve earned a few weeks away.”

Dr. Llawcae gave him only a cursory examination, saying, “You’ll feel better when warmer weather comes.”

Summer was slow in coming.

Matthew sent the book off to his publisher. The pain in his back was worse each day, and his heart skipped and galloped out of control. In his dreams he was with Bran, waiting for Zillah. He was with Gwen, still resentful, but beginning to laugh again with Rich, to respond to his steadfast love, his outgoing ways. At the same time she was still intrigued by Gedder, by his fierce dark looks and the hiddenness behind his eyes, so unlike Rich’s candid ones. She knew that Rich loved her, but Gedder’s strangeness fascinated her.

She’s playing with Rich and Gedder and it will make trouble, the boy on the rock told Matthew as he slipped deeper into the dream.

Gedder and Bran. Standing on the cliff and looking down at the houses of the settlement. Gedder urging Bran to marry Zillie, to give Gwen in marriage to him, in order to secure the future.

“What future?” Bran asked.

Gedder looked appraisingly down at the prospering colony. “Ours.”

And Zillie came and looked adoringly at Bran, Zillie so like and so unlike Zillah.

Wait, twin! Wait for Zillah! Do not trust Gedder—Matthew was jolted out of the dream as his supper tray was brought. He ate a few bites, then pushed the tray away and slid back into the dream

Felt the Vespugian heat, warming his chilled bones

Bran, if only I could have come with Zillah

Gedder again. Gedder in his favorite place up on the cliff’s lip, looking down on the colony, the colony he wants for his own.

Someone’s with him. Not Bran. Rich.

Quarreling. Quarreling over Gwen, over the colony. Quarreling at the cliff’s edge.

Danger.

Matthew stirred restlessly on the couch, his eyes tightly closed. The boy was there, the child from another time, urging him. “Matthew, you must help Rich. Please …”

Once upon a time and long ago, men did not quarrel in this way, when the morning stars sang together and the children of men shouted for joy

But dissonance came

Madoc and Gwydyr fought

Gedder and Rich

Rich, watch out! Gedder has a knife—

Rich sees, sees in time, grasps the knife hand, twists it, so that the knife drops. Gedder reaches after it, snarling with anger, reaching for the knife so that he loses his balance and falls—falls after the knife, over the edge of the cliff, falls, falls …

Zillie screams and cannot stop screaming.

Matthew waited for the next letter from Bran, but it did not come until the lilac bushes were in full bloom.

 

My very dear twin,
Zillah is here, at last she is here, but my dearest heart has arrived to a community in confusion and desolation. Gwen weeps and will not stop. Zillie’s tears no longer flow, but her eyes hold anguish. Gedder is dead, and—inadvertently—by Rich’s hand. Gedder provoked a quarrel, and drew a knife. Rich took the knife from him, and Gedder, lunging after it, lost his balance and fell from the cliff to his death. It was an accident; nobody blames Rich, even Zillie. But Rich feels he cannot stay here with us, not with blood on his hands.

Will it ever cease, the turning of brother against brother? Gedder wanted power, and I cannot grieve for his death, only for his life, with its inordinate lust and pride. Why does Gwen weep? I do not think she knows. “I am homesick,” she cries, “I want to go home.” So Rich will take her home. And what will happen then, who knows?

 

Gwydyr fought Madoc and lost and the battle continued through to Gedder, brother against brother

And the ship which brought Zillah carried Gwen and Rich to the Northern continent, to lilies of the valley and lilacs in the dooryard, to Merioneth and the store, and Papa will at last have his partner, and the store will be Maddox and Llawcae

Oh, Zillah, my Zillah

A coughing fit jerked Matthew awake, away from Vespugia, from Bran and Zillah.

“Gwen—” he gasped, “Rich—Can’t wait—sorry—”

Then the coughing took him, and when the racking had passed, there was nothing but agony. His back was an explosion of pain and the room began to get dark, and a rank stink like spoiling flowers choked him. There was no longer any light or warmth in the crackling flames …

“Matthew!” Meg opened her eyes, and she was calling the name aloud. The kitten, disturbed, jumped down from the bed. Ananda did not move.

—What happened? What happened to Matthew? to Charles Wallace? Is Charles Wallace all right?

—Strange, she thought,—the kythe with Matthew was clearer than any since Harcels. Maybe because Matthew and Bran were kythers.

She reached out to Charles Wallace, and felt only absence. Nor did she sense Gaudior. Always, when Charles Wallace was brought out of Within, she could see him, could see the unicorn.

“I’m going downstairs,” she said aloud, and pushed her feet into her slippers.

Ananda followed her downstairs, stepping on the seventh step so that it let out a loud groan, and the dog yelped in surprise. Behind them the kitten padded softly, so light that the seventh step made the merest sigh.

The kitchen fire was blazing, the kettle humming. Everything looked warm and comfortable and normal, except for Mrs. O’Keefe in the rocking chair. The kitten padded across to her and jumped up on her lap, purring, and flexing its sharp little claws.

Meg asked, “Charles Wallace isn’t back yet?”

“Not yet. Are you all right, Meg?” her mother asked.

“I’m fine.”

“You look pale.”

“Maybe I’ll take Sandy and Dennys up on their offer of bouillon, if it’s still good.”

“Sure, Sis,” Sandy said. “I’ll make it. Chicken or beef?”

“Half a spoon of each, please, and a slosh of lemon juice.” She looked at the twins with fresh comprehension. Was she closer to Charles Wallace than to the twins because they were twins, sufficient unto themselves? She glanced at the phone, then at her mother-in-law. “Mom—Beezie, do you remember Zillah?”

Mrs. O’Keefe looked at Meg, nodded her head, shook it, closed her eyes.

“Mom, Zillah really did get to Vespugia, didn’t she?” Meg looked at the old woman, needing reassurance.

Mrs. O’Keefe huddled her arms about herself and rocked. “I forget. I forget.”

Mrs. Murry looked anxiously at her daughter. “Meg, what is this?”

“It makes all the difference who Branzillo’s forebears were.”

Sandy handed Meg a steaming cup. “Sis, the past has happened. Knowing who Branzillo’s ancestors were can’t change anything.”

“There was a time when it hadn’t happened yet,” Meg tried to explain, realizing how strange she sounded. “It’s the Might-Have-Been Charles Wallace was to change, and I think he’s changed it. It’s the charge Mom O’Keefe laid on him when she gave him the rune.”

“Stop talking!” Mrs. O’Keefe pushed herself up out of the rocking chair. “Take me to Chuck. Quickly. Before it’s too late.”