Meg sat propped up on pillows in the old brass bed in the attic and tried to read, because thinking hurt too much, was not even thinking but projection into a fearful future. And Calvin was not beside her, to share, to strengthen … She let the book drop; it was one of her old volumes of fairy tales. She looked around the room, seeking comfort in familiar things. Her hair was down for the night and fell softly about her shoulders. She glanced at herself in the old, ripply mirror over the chest of drawers and despite her anxiety was pleased at the reflection. She looked like a child again, but a far lovelier child than she actually had been.
Her ears pricked up as she heard a soft, velvety tread, and a stripy kitten minced across the wide floorboards, sprang up onto the bed, and began grooming itself while purring loudly. There was always at least one kitten around, it seemed. She missed the old black dog. What would Fortinbras have made of the events of the evening? She would have been happier if the old dog had been in his usual forbidden place at the foot of the bed, because he had an unusual degree of sensitivity, even for a dog, to anything which could help or harm his human family.
Meg felt cold and pulled her battered quilt about her shoulders. She remembered Mrs. O’Keefe calling on all Heaven with its power, and thought shudderingly that she would settle for one large, loving dog. Heaven had shown considerable power that evening, and it was too wild and beyond control for comfort.
And Charles Wallace. She wanted her brother. Mrs. O’Keefe had called on Charles to stop Branzillo: he’d need all the powers Heaven could give him.
He had said good night to Meg in a brusque and preoccupied way, and then given her one quick blue glance which had made her keep the light on and the book open. Sleep, in any event, was far away, lost somewhere in that time which had been shattered by the president’s phone call.
The kitten rose high on its legs, made three complete turns, and dropped, heavily for such a little creature, into the curve of her body. The purr slowly faded out and it slept. Meg wondered if she would ever again sleep in that secure way, relinquishing consciousness without fear of what might happen during the night. Her eyes felt dry with fatigue but she did not want to close them and shut out the reassurance of the student lamp with its double yellow globes, the sagging bookshelves she had made with boards and bricks, the blue print curtains at the window; the hem of the curtains had been sagging for longer than she cared to remember and she had been meaning to sew it up since well before her marriage.—Tomorrow, she thought,—if there is a tomorrow.
When she heard footsteps on the attic stairs she stiffened, then relaxed. They had all got in the habit of automatically skipping the seventh step, which not only creaked when stepped on, but often made a sound like a shot. She and Charles Wallace had learned to put one foot on the extreme left of the step so that it let out only a long, slow sigh; when either one of them did this, it was a signal for a conference.
She listened to his progress across the attic, heard the rocking of the old wooden horse as he gave it his usual affectionate slap on the rump, followed by the whing of a dart going into the cork board: all the little signals they had built up over the years.
He pushed through the long strands of patterned rice which curtained the doorway, stood at the foot of the bed, and rested his chin on the high brass rail of the footboard. He looked at her without smiling, then climbed over the footboard as he used to do when he was a little boy, and sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed. “She really does expect me to do something.”
Meg nodded.
“For once I’m feeling more in sympathy with the twins than with Mother and Father. The twins think the whole thing is unreasonable and impossible.”
“Well—remember, Mother always said there’s more to her than meets the eye.”
“What about the rune?”
Meg sighed. “She gave it to you.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Stop Branzillo. And I guess I’m feeling like the twins, too. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“Have you ever really talked with her? Do you know her at all?”
“No. I don’t think anyone does. Calvin thinks she stopped herself from being hurt long, long ago by not letting herself love anybody or anything.”
“What’s her maiden name?” Charles Wallace asked abruptly.
Meg frowned. “I don’t remember. Why?”
“I’m not sure. I feel completely in the dark. But she said her grandmother gave her the rune … Do you know her first name?”
Meg closed her eyes, thinking. “Branwen. That’s it. And she gave me a pair of linen sheets for a wedding present. They were filthy. I had to wash them half a dozen times, and then they turned out to be beautiful. They must have been from her hope chest, and they had embroidered initials, bMz.”
“Z and M for what?”
“I don’t remember …”
“Think, Meg. Let me try to kythe it.”
Again she closed her eyes and tried to relax. It was as though too much conscious intensity of thinking made her brain rigid and closed, and if she breathed slowly and deeply it opened up, and memories and thoughts were freed to come to her consciousness where she could share them with Charles Wallace.
“The M—” she said slowly. “I think it’s Maddox.”
“Maddox. It’s trying to tell me something, Maddox, but I’m not sure what. Meg, I want you to tell me everything about her you possibly can.”
“I don’t know much.”
“Meg—” The pupils of his eyes enlarged so that the iris was only a pale blue ring. “Somehow or other she’s got something to do with Branzillo.”
“That’s—that’s—”
“—absurd. That’s what the twins would say. And it is. But she came tonight of all nights, when she’s never been willing to come before. And you heard her say that she didn’t want to come but she felt impelled to. And then she began to remember a rune she hadn’t thought of since she was a child, and she told me to use it to stop Branzillo.”
“And she said we thought she was crackers.”
“But she isn’t. Mother and Father know that. And nobody can accuse them of being dimwitted daydreamers. What does the Z stand for?”
Again Meg shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even remember if I asked, though I think I must have.”
“Branwen Maddox. Branwen Z. Maddox.” He rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “Maddox. There’s a clue there.”
The kitten yawned and went brrtt as though they were disturbing it. Meg reached out and gently knuckled its hard little head and then scratched the soft fur under the chin until it started to purr again and slowly closed its eyes.
“Maddox—it’s in a song, or a ballad, about two brothers fighting, like Childe Harold maybe. Or maybe a narrative poem—” He buried his head in his hands. “Why can’t I remember!” he demanded in frustration.
“Is it that important?”
“Yes! I don’t know why, but it is. Maddox—fighting his brother and angering the gods …”
“But, Charles—what does some old story have to do with anything?”
“It’s a clue. But I can’t get enough … Is it very cold out?”
Meg looked surprised. “I don’t think so. Why?”
Charles Wallace gazed out the window. “The snow hasn’t melted, but there isn’t much wind. And I need to listen.”
“The best listening place is the star-watching rock.”
He nodded thoughtfully. The large, flattish glacial rock left over from the time when oceans of ice had pushed across the land, and which the family called the star-watching rock because it gave them a complete and unobstructed view of the sky, was indeed a good place to listen. When they lay on it to watch the stars they looked straight across the valleys to the hills. Behind the rock was a small woods. There was no sight of civilization, and little sound. Occasionally they heard the roar of a truck far away on the highway, or a plane tracking across the sky. But mostly it was quiet enough so that all they heard was the natural music of the seasons. Sometimes in the spring Meg thought she could hear the grass grow. In the autumn the tree toads sang back and forth as though they couldn’t bear to let the joys of summer pass. In the winter when the temperature dropped swiftly she was sometimes startled by the sound of ice freezing with a sharp cracking noise like a rifle retort. This Thanksgiving night—if nothing more unusual or horrible happened—would be quiet. It was too late in the year for tree toads and locusts and crickets. They might hear a few tired leaves sighing wearily from their branches, or the swoosh of the tall grasses parting as a small nocturnal animal made its way through the night.
Charles Wallace said, “Good idea. I’ll go.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. Stay here.”
“But—”
“You know Dr. Louise was afraid you were going to get pneumonia last week when you had that bad chest cold. You mustn’t risk getting cold again, for the baby’s sake.”
“All right, Charles, but, oh—”
“Meg,” he said gently. “Something’s blocking me, and I need to get unblocked. I have to be alone. But I’ll need you to kythe with me.”
She looked troubled. “I’m out of practice—” Kything was being able to be with someone else, no matter how far away they might be, was talking in a language that was deeper than words. Charles Wallace was born with this gift; slowly she became able to read the thoughts he sent her, to know what he wanted her to know. Kything went far beyond ordinary ESP, and while it came to Charles Wallace as naturally as breathing, for Meg it took intense concentration. Charles Wallace and Calvin were the only two people with whom she was able to give and receive this language that went far beyond words.
Charles Wallace assured her. “It’s like swimming, or riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget.”
“I know—but I want to go with you.” She tried to hold back the thought,—To protect you.
“Meg.” His voice was urgent. “I’m going to need you, but I’m going to need you here, to kythe with me, all the way.”
“All the way where?”
His face was white and strained. “I don’t know yet. I have a feeling it will be a long way, and yet what has to be done has to be done quickly.”
“Why you?”
“It may not be me. We’re not certain. But it has to be somebody.”
—If it’s not somebody, Meg thought,—then the world, at least the world as we know it, is likely to come to an end.
She reached out and gave her little brother a hug and a kiss. “Peace go with you.”
She turned out the light and lay down to wait until she heard him in her mind. The kitten stretched and yawned and slept, and its very indifference was a comfort. Then the sharp sound of a dog barking made her sit up.
The barking continued, sharp and demanding, very much like Fortinbras when he was asking for attention. She turned on the light. The barking stopped. Silence. Why had it stopped?
She got out of bed and hurriedly slipped into a robe and slippers and went downstairs, forgetting the seventh step, which groaned loudly. In the kitchen she saw her parents and Charles Wallace all stroking a large, nondescript dog.
Mrs. Murry looked with no surprise at Meg. “I think our dog has found us.”
Mr. Murry pulled gently at the dog’s upright ear; the other drooped. “She’s a ‘yaller dog’ in looks, but she appears to be gentle and intelligent.”
“No collar or anything,” Charles Wallace said. “She’s hungry, but not overly thin.”
“Will you fix her some food, Meg?” Mrs. Murry asked. “There’s still some in the pantry left over from Fortinbras.”
As Meg stirred up a bowl of food she thought,—We’re all acting as though this dog is going to be with us for a long time.
It wasn’t the coming of the dog that was strange, or their casual acceptance of it. Fortinbras had come to them in the same way, simply appearing at the door, an overgrown puppy. It was the very ordinariness of it which made tears prickle briefly against her lashes.
“What are we going to call her?” Mrs. Murry asked.
Charles Wallace spoke calmly. “Her name is Ananda.”
Meg looked at him, but he only smiled slightly. She put the food down and the dog ate hungrily, but tidily.
“Ananda,” Mrs. Murry said thoughtfully. “That rings some kind of bell.”
“It’s Sanskrit,” Charles Wallace said.
Meg asked, “Does it mean anything?”
“That joy in existence without which the universe will fall apart and collapse.”
“That’s a mighty big name for one dog to carry,” Mrs. Murry said.
“She’s a large dog, and it’s her name,” Charles Wallace responded.
When Ananda had finished eating, licking Fortinbras’s old bowl till it was clean, she went over to Meg, tail wagging, and held up one paw. Meg took it; the pads felt roughly leathery and cool. “You’re beautiful, Ananda.”
“She’s hardly that,” Mr. Murry said, smiling, “but she certainly knows how to make herself at home.”
The kettle began to sing. “I’m making tea against the cold.” Mrs. Murry turned off the burner and filled the waiting pot. “Then we’d better go to bed. It’s very late.”
“Mother,” Meg asked, “do you know what Mrs. O’Keefe’s first name is? Is it Branwen?”
“I think so, though I doubt if I’ll ever feel free to call her that.” She placed a steaming cup in front of Meg.
“You remember the sheets she gave us?”
“Yes, superb old linen sheets.”
“With initials. A large M in the middle, with a smaller b and z on either side. Do you know what the Z stands for?”
“Zoe or Zillah or something unusual like that. Why?”
Meg answered with another question. “Does the name Branwen mean anything? It’s sort of odd.”
“It’s a common enough Irish name. I think the first Branwen was a queen in Ireland, though she came from England. Perhaps she was a Pict, I’m not sure.”
“When?” Charles Wallace asked.
“I don’t know exactly. Long ago.”
“More than two thousand years?”
“Maybe three thousand. Why?”
Charles Wallace poured milk into his tea and studied the cloudy liquid. “It just might be important. After all, it’s Mom O’Keefe’s name.”
“She was born right here in the village, wasn’t she?” Meg asked.
Her father replied, “There’ve been Maddoxes here as far back as anybody remembers. She’s the last of the name, but they were an important family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They’ve known hard times since then.”
“What happened?” Charles Wallace pursued.
Mr. Murry shook his head. “I keep thinking that one of these years your mother or I’ll have time to do research into the early years of the village. Our roots are here, too, buried somewhere in the past. I inherited this house from a great-aunt I hardly knew, just at the time we were making up our minds to leave the pressures of the city and continue our research in peace and quiet—and getting the house swung the balance.”
“As for time for other interests”—Mrs. Murry sounded rueful—“we don’t have any more time than we did in the city. But at least here the pressure to work is our own, and not imposed on us.”
“This Branwen—” Charles Wallace persisted, “was she an important queen?”
Mrs. Murry raised her fine brows. “Why this sudden and intense interest?”
“Branwen Maddox O’Keefe was extraordinarily interesting this evening.”
Mrs. Murry sipped her tea. “I haven’t thought about the mythologies of the British Isles since you all grew too old for reading aloud at bedtime. I suspect Branwen must have been important or I wouldn’t remember her at all. Sorry not to be able to tell you more. I’ve been thinking more about cellular biology than mythology these last few years.”
Charles Wallace finished his tea and put the cup in the sink. “All right if I go for a walk?”
“I’d rather not,” his father said. “It’s late.”
“Please, Father, I need to listen.” He sounded and looked very young.
“Can’t you listen here?”
“Too many distractions, too many people’s thoughts in the way …”
“Can’t it wait?”
Charles Wallace looked at his father without answering.
Mr. Murry sighed. “None of us takes Mrs. O’Keefe and all that happened this evening lightly, but you’ve always tended to take too much on yourself.”
The boy’s voice strained. “This time I’m not taking it on myself. Mrs. O’Keefe put it on me.”
His father looked at him gravely, then nodded. “Where are you going?”
“Not far. Just to the star-watching rock.”
Mr. Murry rinsed his teacup, rinsed it, and rinsed it again. “You’re still a child.”
“I’m fifteen. And there’s nothing to hurt me between home and the star-watching rock.”
“All right. Don’t stay long.”
“No longer than necessary.”
“Take Ananda with you.”
“I need to be alone. Please, Father.”
Mr. Murry took off his glasses, looked at his son through them at a distance, put them on again. “All right, Charles.”
Meg looked at her mother and guessed that she was holding back from telling her youngest child not to forget to put on boots and a warm jacket.
Charles Wallace smiled toward their mother. “I’ll wear the blue anorak Calvin brought me from Norway.” He turned the last of his smile to his sister, then went into the pantry, shutting the kitchen door firmly behind him.
“Time for the rest of us to go to bed,” Mrs. Murry said. “You particularly, Meg. You don’t want to catch more cold.”
“I’ll take Ananda with me.”
Her father objected. “We don’t even know if she’s housebroken.”
“She ate like a well-trained dog.”
“It’s up to you, then.”
Meg did not know why she felt such relief at the coming of the big yellow dog. After all, Ananda could not be her dog. When Calvin returned from London they would go back to their rented apartment, where pets were not allowed, and Ananda would remain with the Murrys. But that was all right; Ananda, she felt, was needed.
The dog followed Meg upstairs as though she’d been with the Murrys all her life, trotted through the cluttered attic and into Meg’s room. The kitten was asleep on the bed, and the big dog sniffed the small puff of fur, tail wagging in an ecstasy of friendliness. Her tail was large and long, with a smattering of golden feathers, which might possibly indicate some kind of setter or Labrador blood in her genetic pattern, the kind of tail which could create as much havoc in a china shop as a bull. The kitten opened its eyes, gave a small, disinterested hiss, and went back to sleep. With one leap, Ananda landed on the bed, thumping heavily and happily with her mighty tail. The kitten rose and stalked to the pillow.
As she had so often said to Fortinbras, Meg announced, “Sleeping on the bed isn’t allowed.” Ananda’s amber eyes looked at her imploringly and she whined softly. “Well—only up here. Never downstairs. If you want to be part of this household you’ll have to understand that.”
Ananda thumped; light from the student lamp glinted against her eyes, turning them to gold. Her coat shone with a healthy glow.
“Make way for me.” Meg climbed back into bed. “Now, Ananda”—she was taking comfort in reverting to her child’s habit of talking out loud to the family animals—“what we’re going to do is listen, very intently, for Charles Wallace. You have to help me kythe, or you’ll have to get off the bed.” She rubbed her hand over Ananda’s coat, which smelled of ferns and moss and autumn berries, and felt a warm and gentle tingling, which vibrated through her hand and up her arm. Into her mind’s eye came a clear image of Charles Wallace walking across what had once been the twins’ vegetable garden, but which was now a small grove of young Christmas trees, a project they could care for during vacations. Their magnificent vegetable garden had been plowed under when they went to college. Meg missed it, but she knew that both her parents were much too busy to tend to more than a small patch of lettuce and tomatoes.
Charles Wallace continued to walk along the familiar route.
Hand resting on Ananda, the tingling warmth flowing back and forth between them, Meg followed her brother’s steps. When he reached the open space where the star-watching rock was, Ananda’s breathing quickened; Meg could feel the rise and fall of the big dog’s rib cage under her hand.
There was no moon, but starlight touched the winter grasses with silver. The woods behind the rock were a dark shadow. Charles Wallace looked across the valley, across the dark ridge of pines, to the shadows of the hills beyond. Then he threw back his head and called,
“In this fateful hour I call on all
Heaven with its power!”
The brilliance of the stars increased. Charles Wallace continued to gaze upward. He focused on one star which throbbed with peculiar intensity. A beam of light as strong as a ladder but clear as water flowed between the star and Charles Wallace, and it was impossible to tell whether the light came from the piercing silver-blue of the star or the light blue eyes of the boy. The beam became stronger and firmer and then all the light resolved itself in a flash of radiance beside the boy. Slowly the radiance took on form, until it had enfleshed itself into the body of a great white beast with flowing mane and tail. From its forehead sprang a silver horn which contained the residue of the light. It was a creature of utter and absolute perfection.
The boy put his hand against the great white flanks, which heaved as though the creature had been racing. He could feel the warm blood coursing through the veins as the light had coursed between star and boy. “Are you real?” he asked in a wondering voice.
The creature gave a silver neigh which translated itself into the boy’s mind as “I am not real. And yet in a sense I am that which is the only reality.”
“Why have you come?” The boy’s own breath was rapid, not so much with apprehension as with excitement and anticipation.
“You called on me.”
“The rune—” Charles Wallace whispered. He looked with loving appreciation at the glorious creature standing beside him on the star-watching rock. One silvershod hoof pawed lightly, and the rock rang with clarion sound. “A unicorn. A real unicorn.”
“That is what you call me. Yes.”
“What are you, really?”
“What are you, really?” the unicorn countered. “You called me, and because there is great need, I am here.”
“You know the need?”
“I have seen it in your mind.”
“How is it that you speak my language?”
The unicorn neighed again, the sound translucent as silver bubbles. “I do not. I speak the ancient harmony.”
“Then how is it that I understand?”
“You are very young, but you belong to the Old Music.”
“Do you know my name?”
“Here, in this When and Where, you are called Charles Wallace. It is a brave name. It will do.”
Charles Wallace stretched up on tiptoe to reach his arms about the beautiful beast’s neck. “What am I to call you?”
“You may call me Gaudior.” The words dropped on the rock like small bells.
Charles Wallace looked thoughtfully at the radiance of the horn. “Gaudior. That’s Latin for more joyful.”
The unicorn neighed in acquiescence.
“That joy in existence without which …”
Gaudior struck his hoof lightly on the rock, with the sound of a silver trumpet. “Do not push your understanding too far.”
“But I’m not wrong about Gaudior?”
“In a sense, yes; in a sense, no.”
“You’re real and you’re not real; I’m wrong and I’m right.”
“What is real?” Gaudior’s voice was as crystal as the horn.
“What am I supposed to do, now that I’ve called on all Heaven with its power and you’ve come?”
Gaudior neighed. “Heaven may have sent me, but my powers are closely defined and narrowly limited. And I’ve never been sent to your planet before. It’s considered a hardship assignment.” He looked down in apology.
Charles Wallace studied the snow-dusted rock at his feet. “We haven’t done all that well by our planet, have we?”
“There are many who would like to let you wipe yourselves out, except it would affect us all; who knows what might happen? And as long as there are even a few who belong to the Old Music, you are still our brothers and sisters.”
Charles Wallace stroked Gaudior’s long, aristocratic nose. “What should I do, then?”
“We’re in it together.” Gaudior knelt delicately and indicated that Charles Wallace was to climb up onto his back. Even with the unicorn kneeling, it was with difficulty that the boy clambered up and sat astride, up toward the great neck, so that he could hold on to the silver mane. He pressed his feet in their rubber boots as tightly as he could against the unicorn’s flanks.
Gaudior asked, “Have you ridden the wind before?”
“No.”
“We have to be careful of Echthroi,” Gaudior warned. “They try to ride the wind and throw us off course.”
“Echthroi—” Charles Wallace’s eyes clouded. “That means the enemy.”
“Echthroi,” Gaudior repeated. “The ancient enemy. He who distorted the harmony, and who has gathered an army of destroyers. They are everywhere in the universe.”
Charles Wallace felt a ripple of cold move along his spine.
“Hold my mane,” the unicorn advised. “There’s always the possibility of encountering an Echthros, and if we do, it’ll try to unseat you.”
Charles Wallace’s knuckles whitened as he clutched the heavy mane. The unicorn began to run, skimming over the tops of the grasses, up, over the hills, flinging himself onto the wind and riding with it, up, up, over the stars …