A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle (6)

 

Thanks, Meg,” Charles Wallace whispered. “Oh, Gaudior, she really did help us, she and the twins.” He leaned forward to rest his cheek against the unicorn’s neck. “The book was by Matthew Maddox. I don’t think I ever read it, but I remember Dennys talking about it. And Mrs. O’Keefe was a Maddox, so she’s got to be descended from Matthew.”

“Descended,” Gaudior snorted. “You make it sound like a fall.”

“If you look at Mrs. O’Keefe, that’s what it’s like,” Charles Wallace admitted. “1865. Can we go there?”

“Then,” the unicorn corrected. “When. We can try, if you think it’s important. We’ll hope for a favorable wind.”

Charles Wallace looked alarmed. “You mean we might get blown into another Projection?”

“It’s always a risk. We know the Echthroi are after us, to stop us. So you must hold on.”

“I’ll hold on for dear life. The last thing I want is to get blown into another Projection.”

Gaudior blew softly through his teeth. “I find our most recent information not very helpful.”

“But it could be important, a group of Welshmen going to South America in 1865. I think we should try to go to Vespugia.”

“That’s a long way, and unicorns do not travel well to different Wheres. And to try to move in both space and time—I don’t like it.” He flicked his tail.

“Then how about trying to move to 1865, right here, the year Matthew Maddox published his first novel? Then we could try to move from 1865 here to 1865 in Vespugia. And maybe we could learn something from Matthew Maddox.”

“Very well. It’s less dangerous to go elsewhen first than to try to go elsewhen and elsewhere simultaneously.” He began to gallop, and as he flung himself onto a gust of wind, the wings lifted and they soared upward.

The attack, just as they went through a shower of stars, was completely unexpected. A freezing gust blasted the wind on which they were riding, taking away Charles Wallace’s breath. His knuckles whitened as he clenched the mane, which seemed to strengthen into steel wire to help him hold his grasp. He had a horrible sense of Gaudior battling with a darkness which was like an antiunicorn, a flailing of negative wings and iron hoofs. The silver mane was torn from his hands as he was assailed by the horrible stench which accompanied Echthroi. Dark wings beat him from the unicorn’s back and he felt the burning cold of outer space. This was more horrible than any Projection. His lungs cracked for lack of air. He would become a burnt-out body, a satellite circling forever the nearest sun …

A powerful wrench, and air rushed into his battered lungs. He felt a sharp tug at the nape of his neck, and the blue anorak tightened against his throat. The agonizing stench was gone and he was surrounded by the scent of unicorn breath, smelling of stars and frost. Gaudior was carrying him in his mouth, great ivory teeth clamped on the strong stuff of the anorak.

Gaudior’s iridescent wings beat against the dark. Charles Wallace held his breath. If Gaudior dropped him, the Echthroi would be waiting. His armpits were cut from the pulling of the anorak, but he knew that he must not struggle. Gaudior’s breath gusted painfully from between clenched teeth.

Then the silver hoofs touched stone, and they were safely at the star-watching rock. Gaudior opened his teeth and dropped the boy. For the first moments Charles Wallace was so weak that he collapsed onto the rock. Then he struggled to his feet, still trembling from the near disaster. He stretched his arms to ease his sore armpits and shoulders. Gaudior was breathing in great, panting gusts, his flanks heaving.

The soft breeze around them filled and healed their seared lungs.

Gaudior rolled his lips, and took a deep draught of clear air. Then he bent down and nuzzled Charles Wallace in the first gesture of affection he had shown. “I wasn’t sure we were going to get away. The Echthroi are enraged that the wind managed to send you Within Madoc, and they’re trying to stop you from going Within anyone else.”

Charles Wallace stroked the unicorn’s muzzle. “You saved me. I’d be tumbling in outer space forever if you hadn’t grabbed my anorak.”

“It was one chance in a million,” Gaudior admitted. “And the wind helped me.”

Charles Wallace reached up to put his arms around Gaudior’s curving neck. “Even with help, it wasn’t easy. Thank you.”

Gaudior made a unicorn shrug; his curly beard quivered. “Unicorns find it embarrassing to be thanked. Please desist.”

It was a hot, midsummer’s day, with thunderheads massed on the horizon. The lake was gone, and the familiar valley stretched to the hills. The woods were a forest of mighty elms and towering oaks and hemlock. In the far distance was what looked like a cluster of log cabins.

“I don’t think this looks like 1865,” he told Gaudior.

“You’d know more about that than I would. I didn’t have much opportunity to learn earth’s history. I never expected this assignment.”

“But, Gaudior, we have to know When we are.”

“Why?”

Charles Wallace tried to quell his impatience, which was all the sharper after the terror of the attack. “If there’s a Might-Have-Been we’re supposed to discover, we have to know When it is, don’t we?”

Gaudior’s own impatience was manifested by prancing. “Why? We don’t have to know everything. We have a charge laid on us, and we have to follow where it leads. You’ve been so busy trying to do the leading that we almost got taken by the Echthroi.”

Charles Wallace said nothing.

“Perhaps,” Gaudior granted grudgingly, “it wasn’t entirely your fault. But I think we should not try to control the Whens and the Wheres, but should go Where we’re sent. And what with all that contretemps with the Echthroi, you’re still in your own body, and you’re supposed to be Within.”

“Oh. What should I do?”

Gaudior blew mightily through flared nostrils. “I will have to ask the wind.” And he raised his head and opened his jaws. Charles Wallace waited anxiously until the unicorn lowered his head and raised one wing, stretching it to its full span. “Step close to me,” he ordered.

Charles Wallace moved under the wing and leaned against Gaudior’s flank. “Did the wind say When we are?”

“You make too many demands,” Gaudior chided, and folded his wing until Charles Wallace felt smothered. Gasping for breath, he tried to push his way out into the air, but the wing held him firmly, and at last his struggling ceased.

When he opened his eyes the day had vanished, and trees and rock were bathed in moonlight.

He was Within. Lying on the rock, looking up at the moon-bathed sky. Only the most brilliant stars could compete with the silver light. Around him the sounds of summer sang sweetly. A mourning dove complained from her place deep in the darkest shadows. A grandfather frog boomed his bull-call. A pure trilling of bird song made him sit up and call out in greeting, “Zylle!”

A young woman stepped out from the shadows of the forest. She was tall and slender, except for her belly, which was heavy with child. “Thanks for meeting me, Brandon.”

Charles Wallace-within-Brandon Llawcae gave her a swift hug. “Anything I do with you is fun, Zylle.”

Again, as when he was Within Harcels, he was younger than fifteen, perhaps eleven or twelve, still very much a child, an eager, intelligent, loving child.

In the moonlight she smiled at him. “The herbs I need to ease the birthing of my babe are found only when the moon is full, and only here. Ritchie fears it would offend Goody Adams, did she know.”

Goody, short for Goodwife. That’s what the Pilgrims said, instead of Mrs. This was definitely not 1865, then. More than a century earlier, perhaps even two centuries. Brandon Llawcae must be the son of early settlers …

“Let yourself go,” Gaudior knelled. “Let yourself be Brandon.”

“But why are we here?” Charles Wallace demurred. “What can we learn here?”

“Stop asking questions.”

“But I don’t want to waste time …” Charles Wallace said anxiously.

Gaudior whickered irritably. “You are here, and you are in Brandon. Let go.”

Let go.

Be Brandon.

Be.

“So,” Zylle continued, “it is best that Ritchie not know, either. I can always trust you, Brandon. You don’t open your mouth and spill everything out when to do so would bring no good.”

Brandon ducked his head shyly, then looked swiftly up at Zylle’s eyes, which were a startling blue in her brown face. “I have learned from the People of the Wind that ’tis no harm to hold a secret in the heart.”

Zylle sighed. “No, it is no harm. But it grieves me that you and I may not share our gifts with those we love.”

“My pictures.” Brandon nodded. “My parents want me to try not to see my pictures.”

“Among my people,” Zylle said, “you would be known as a Seer, and you would be having the training in prayer and trusting that would keep your gift very close to the gods, from whom the gift comes. My father had hoped that Maddok might have the gift, because it is rare to have two with blue eyes in one generation. But my little brother’s gift is to know about weather, when to plant and when to harvest, and that is a good gift, and a needed one.”

“I miss Maddok.” Bran scowled down at the rock. “He never comes to the settlement any more.”

Zylle placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. “It’s different in the settlement now that there are more families. Maddok no longer feels welcome.”

“I welcome him!”

“He knows that. And he misses you, too. But it isn’t only that the settlement is larger. Maddok is older, and has to do more work at home. But he will always be your friend.”

“And I’ll always be his. Always.”

“Your pictures—” Zylle looked at him intently. “Are you able to stop seeing them?”

“Not always. When I look at something that holds a reflection, sometimes the pictures come, whether I will or no. But I try not to ask them to come.”

“When you see your pictures, it is all right to tell me what you see, the way you used to tell Maddok.”

“Ritchie is afraid of them.”

She pressed his shoulder gently. “Life has been nothing but hard work for Ritchie, with no time for seeing pictures or dreaming dreams. Your mother tells me that in Wales there are people who are gifted with the second sight, and that these people may be feared for their gift but they are not frowned on.”

“Ritchie says I would be frowned on. It is different here than in Wales. Especially since Pastor Mortmain came and built the church and scowled whenever Maddok visited the settlement or I went to the Indian compound.”

“Pastor Mortmain would try to separate the white people from the Indians.”

“But why?” Brandon demanded. “We were friends.”

“And still are,” Zylle assured him. “When did you last see a picture?”

“Tonight,” he told her. “I saw the reflection of a candle on the side of the copper kettle Mother had just polished, and I saw a picture of here, this very place, but the rock was much higher, and there”—he pointed to the valley—“it was all a lake, with the sun sparkling on the water.”

She looked at him wonderingly. “My father, Zillo, says that the valley was once a lake bed.”

“And I saw Maddok—at least, it wasn’t Maddok, because he was older, and his skin was fair, but he looked so like Maddok, at first I thought it was.”

“The legend,” she murmured. “Oh, Brandon, I feel we are very close, you and I. Perhaps it is having to keep our gifts hidden that brings us added closeness.” While they were talking she had been gathering a small plant that grew between the grasses. She held the blossoms out to the moonlight. “I know where to find the healing herbs, herbs that will keep babies from choking to death in the winter, or from dying of the summer sickness when the weather is hot and heavy as it is now. But your mother warns me that I must not offer these gifts; they would not be well received. But for myself, and the birthing of Ritchie’s and my baby, I will not be without the herbs which will help give me a good birthing and a fine child.” She began to spread the delicate blossoms on the rock. As the moonlight touched them, petals and leaf alike appeared to glow with inner silver. Zylle looked up at the moon and sang,

Then she knelt and breathed in the fragrance of the blossoms, took them up in her hands, and pressed them against her forehead, her lips, her breasts, against the roundness of her belly.

Brandon asked, “Do we take the flowers home with us?”

“I would not want Goody Adams to see them.”

“When Ritchie and I were born, there wasn’t a midwife in the settlement.”

“Goody Adams is a fine midwife,” Zylle assured him. “Had she been here, your mother might not have lost those little ones between you and Ritchie. But she would not approve of what I have just done. We will leave the birthing flowers here for the birds and moon and the wind. They have already given me their help.”

“When—oh, Zylle, do you know when the baby will come?”

“Tomorrow.” She stood. “It’s time we went home. I would not want Ritchie to wake and find me not beside him.”

Brandon reached for her long, cool fingers. “It was the best day in the world when Ritchie married you.”

She smiled swiftly, concealing a shadow of worry in her eyes. “The people of the settlement look with suspicion on an Indian in their midst, and a blue-eyed Indian at that.”

“If they’d only listen to our story that comes from Wales, and to your story—”

She pressed his fingers. “Ritchie warns me not to talk about our legend of the white man who came to us in the days when there were only Indians on this continent.”

“Long ago?”

“Long, long ago. He came from across the sea, from a land at the other end of the world, and he was a brave man, and true, who lusted neither after power nor after land. My little brother is named after him.”

“And the song?” Brandon asked.

“It’s old, very old, the prayer for a blue-eyed baby to keep the strength of the prince from over the sea within the Wind People, and the words may have changed over the years. And I have changed, for I have made my life with the white people, as the Golden Prince made his with the Wind People. For love he stayed with the princess of a strange land, and made her ways his ways. For love I leave my people and stay with Ritchie, and my love is deep, deep, for me to be able to leave my home. I sing the prayer because it is in my blood, and must be sung; and yet I wonder if my child will be allowed to know the Indian half of himself?”

“He?”

“It will be a boy.”

“How do you know?”

“The trees have told me in the turning of their leaves under the moonlight. I would like a girl baby, but Ritchie will be pleased to have a son.”

The footpath through the grasses led them to a brook, which caught the light of the moon and glimmered in the shifting shadows of the leaves. The brook was spanned by a natural stone bridge, and here Zylle paused, looking down at the water.

Brandon, too, looked at their reflections shifting and shimmering as the wind stirred the leaves. While he looked at Zylle’s reflection, the water stirring her mouth into a tender smile, he saw, too, a baby held close in her arms, a black-haired, blue-eyed baby with gold behind its eyes.

Then, while he gazed, the eyes changed in the child and turned sullen, and the face was no longer the face of a baby but the face of a man, and he could not see Zylle anywhere. The man wore a strange-looking uniform with many medals, and his jowls were dark, jutting pridefully. He was thinking to himself, and he was thinking cruel thoughts, vindictive thoughts, and then Brandon saw fire, raging fire.

His body gave a mighty shudder and he gasped and turned toward Zylle, then glanced fearfully at the brook. The fire was gone, and only their two faces were reflected.

She asked, “What did you see?”

Eyes lowered, gazing on the dark stone of the bridge, he told her, trying not to let the images reappear in his mind’s eye.

She shook her head somberly. “I make nothing out of it. Certainly nothing good.”

Still looking down, Brandon said, “Before I was made to feel afraid of my pictures, they were never frightening, only beautiful.”

Zylle squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’d like to tell my father about this one, for he is trained in the interpretation of visions.”

Brandon hesitated, then: “All right, if you want to.”

“I want him to give me comfort,” she said in a low voice.

They turned from the brook and walked on home in silence, to the dusty clearing with its cluster of log cabins.

The Llawcaes’ cabin was the first, a sizable building with a central room for sitting and eating, and a bedroom at either end. Brandon’s room was a shed added to his parents’ room, and was barely large enough to hold a small bed, a chest, and a chair. But it was all his, and Ritchie had promised that after the baby was born he would cut a fine window in the wall, as people were beginning to do now that the settlement was established.

Brandon’s cubbyhole was dark, but he was used to his own room’s night and moved in it as securely as though he had lit a candle. Without undressing, he lay down on the bed. In the distance the thunder growled, and with the thunder came an echo, a low, rhythmic rumbling which Brandon recognized as the drums of the Wind People as they sang their prayers for rain.

In the morning when he wakened, he heard bustling in the central room, and went in to find his mother boiling water in the big black kettle suspended from a large hook in the fireplace. Goody Adams, the midwife, was bustling about, exuding importance.

“This is a first birth,” she said. “We’ll need many kettles of water for the Indian girl.”

“Zylle is our daughter,” Brandon’s mother reminded the midwife.

“Once an Indian, always an Indian, Goody Llawcae. Not forgetting that we’re all grateful that her presence among us causes us to live in peace with the savage heathen.”

“They’re not—” Brandon started fiercely.

But his mother said, “The chores are waiting, Brandon.”

Biting his lip, he went out.

The morning was clear, with a small mist drifting across the ground and hazing the outline of the hills. When the sun was full, the mist would go. The settlers were grateful for the mist and the heavy dews, which were all that kept the crops from drying up and withering completely, for there had been no rain for more than a moon.

Brandon went to the small barn behind the cabin to let their cow out into the daylight. She would graze with the other cattle all day, and at dusk Brandon would ride out on his pony to bring her home for milking. He gave the pony some oats, then fed the horse. In the distance he could hear hammering. Goodman Llawcae and his son Ritchie were the finest carpenters for many miles around, and were always busy with orders.

—I’m glad Ritchie didn’t hear Goody Adams call Zylle’s people savage heathens, he thought.—It’s a good thing he was in with Zylle. Then he started back to the house. The picture he had seen in the brook the night before troubled him. He was afraid of the dark man with cruel thoughts, and he was afraid of the fire. Since he had tried to repress the pictures, they had become more and more frightening.

When he reached the cabin and went in through the door, which was propped open to allow all the fresh air possible to enter, his mother came out of the bedroom and spoke to Ritchie, who was pacing up and down in front of the fireplace.

“Your father needs you, Ritchie. Zylle is resting now, between pains. I will call you at once should she need you.”

Goody Adams muttered, “The Indian girl does not cry. It is an omen.”

Ritchie flung back his head. “It is the mark of the Indian, Goody. Zylle will shed no tears in front of you.”

“Heathen—” Goody Adams started.

But Goody Llawcae cut her short. “Ritchie. Brandon. Go to your father.”

Ritchie flung out the door, not deigning to look at the midwife. Brandon followed him, calling, “Ritchie—”

Ritchie paused, but did not turn around.

“I hate Goody Adams!” Brandon exploded.

Now Ritchie looked at his young brother. “Hate never did any good. Everyone in the settlement feels the lash of Goody Adams’s tongue. But her hands bring out living babies, and there’s been no childbed fever since she’s been here.”

“I liked it better when I was little and there was only us Llawcaes, and the Higginses, and Davey and I used to play with Maddok.”

“It was simpler then,” Ritchie agreed, “but change is the way of the world.”

“Is change always good?”

Ritchie shook his head. “There was more joy when there were just the two families of us, and no Pastor Mortmain to put his dead hand on our songs and stories. I cannot find it in me to believe that God enjoys long faces and scowls at merriment. Get along with you now, Bran. I have work to do, and so do you.”

When Brandon finished his chores and hurried back to the cabin, walking silently, one foot directly in front of the other, as Maddok had taught him, Ritchie, too, had returned, and was standing in the doorway. The sun was high in the sky and beat fiercely on the cabins and the dusty compound. The grass was turning brown, and the green leaves had lost their sheen.

Ritchie shook his head. “Not yet. It’s fiercely hot. Look at those thunderheads.”

“They’ve been there every day.” Brandon looked at the heavy clouds massed on the horizon. “And not a drop of rain.”

A low, nearly inaudible moan came from the cabin, and Ritchie hurried indoors. From the bedroom came a sharp cry, and Brandon’s skin prickled with gooseflesh, despite the heat. “Oh God, God, make Zylle be all right.” He focused on one small cloud in the dry blue, and there he saw a picture of Zylle and the black-haired, blue-eyed baby. And as he watched, both mother and child changed, and the mother was still black-haired, but creamy of skin, and the baby was bronze-skinned and blue-eyed, and the joy in the face of the mother was the same as in the picture of Zylle. But the fair-skinned mother was not in the familiar landscape but in a wild, hot country, and her clothes were not like the homespun or leather he was accustomed to, but different, finer than clothes he had seen before.

The baby began to cry, but the cry came not from the baby in the picture but from the cabin, a real cry, the healthy squall of an infant.

Goody Llawcae came to the door, her face alight. “It’s a nephew you have, Brandon, a bonny boy, and Zylle beaming like the sun. Though sorrow endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning.”

“It’s afternoon.”

“Don’t be so literal, lad. Run to let your father know. Now!”

“But when may I see Zylle and the baby?”

“After his grandfather has had the privilege. Run!”

When Goody Adams had at last taken herself off, the Llawcaes gathered about the mother and child. Zylle lay on the big carved bed which Richard Llawcae had made for her and Ritchie as a wedding present. Light from the door to the kitchen-living room fell across her as she held the newborn child in her arms. Its eyes were tightly closed, and it waved tiny fists in searching gestures, and its little mouth opened and closed as though it were sipping its strange new element, air.

“Oh, taste and see,” Zylle murmured, and touched her lips softly to the dark fuzz on the baby’s head. His copper skin was still moist from the effort of birth and the humidity of the day. In the distance, thunder growled.

“His eyes?” Brandon whispered.

“Blue. Goody Adams says the color of the eyes often changes, but Bran’s won’t. No baby could ask for a better uncle. May we name him after you?”

Brandon nodded, blushing with pleasure, and reached out with one finger to touch the baby’s cheek.

Richard Llawcae opened the big, much-used Bible, and read aloud, “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of the Lord. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. I was brought low, and he helped me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”

“Amen,” Zylle said.

Richard Llawcae closed the Book. “You are my beloved daughter, Zylle. When Ritchie chose you for his betrothed, his mother and I were uncertain at first, as were your own people. But it seemed to your father, Zillo, and to me that two legends were coming together in this union. And time has taught us that it was a blessed inevitability.”

“Thank you, Father.” She reached out to his leathery hand. “Goody Adams did not like it that I shed no tears.”

Goody Llawcae ran her hand gently over Zylle’s shining black hair. “She knows that it is the way of your people.”

—Savages, heathen savages, Brandon thought.—That’s what Goody Adams thinks of Zylle’s people.

When Bran went to do his evening chores a shadow materialized from behind the great trunk of a pine tree. Maddok.

Brandon greeted him with joy. “I’m glad, glad to see you! Father was going to send me to the Indian compound after chores, but now I can tell you: the baby’s come! A boy, and all is well.”

The shadow of a smile moved across Maddok’s face, in which the blue eyes were as startling as they were in Zylle. “My father will be glad. Your family will allow us to come tonight, to see the baby?”

“Of course.”

Maddok’s eyes clouded. “It’s not ‘of course.’ Not any more.”

“It is with us Llawcaes. Maddok—how did you know to come, just now?”

“I saw Zylle yesterday. She told me it would be today.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“You weren’t alone. Davey Higgins was with you.”

“But you and Davey and I always played together. It was the three of us.”

“Not any more. Davey has been forbidden to leave the settlement and come to the compound. Your medicine man’s gods do not respect our gods.”

Brandon let his breath out in a sigh that was nearly a groan. “Pastor Mortmain. It’s not our gods that don’t respect your gods. It’s Pastor Mortmain.”

Maddok nodded. “And his son is courting Davey’s sister.”

Brandon giggled. “I’d love to see Pastor Mortmain’s face if he heard himself referred to as a medicine man.”

“He is not a good medicine man,” Maddok said. “He will cause trouble.”

“He already has. It’s his fault Davey can’t see you.”

Maddok looked intently into Brandon’s eyes. “My father also sent me to warn you.”

“Warn? Of what?”

“We have had runners out. In the town there is much talk of witchcraft.”

Witchcraft. It was an ugly word. “But not here,” Brandon said.

“Not yet. But there is talk among your people.”

“What kind of talk?” Brandon asked sharply.

“My sister shed no tears during the birth.”

“They know that it is the way of the Indian.”

“It is also the mark of a witch. They say that a cat ran screaming through the street at the time of the birth, and that Zylle put her pain into the cat.”

“That is nonsense.” But Brandon’s eyes were troubled.

“My father says there are evil spirits abroad, hardening men’s hearts. He says there is lust to see evil in innocence. Brandon, my friend and brother, take care of Zylle and the baby.”

“Zylle and I picked herbs for the birthing,” Brandon said in a low voice.

“Zylle was taught all the ways of a good delivery, and she has the healing gifts. But that, too, would be looked upon as magic. Black magic.”

“But it’s not magic—”

“No. It is understanding the healing qualities of certain plants and roots. People are afraid of knowledge that is not yet theirs. My father is concerned for Zylle, and for you.”

Brandon protested. “But we are known as God-loving people. Surely they couldn’t think—”

“Because you are known as such, they will wish to think,” Maddok said. “My father says you should go more with the other children of the settlement, where you can see and hear. It’s better to be prepared. I, too, will keep my ears open.” Without saying goodbye, he disappeared into the forest.

Late in the evening, when most of the settlement was sleeping, Zylle’s people came through the woods, silently, in single file, approaching the cabin from behind, as Maddok had done in the afternoon.

They clustered around Zylle and the baby, were served Goody Llawcae’s special cold herb tea, and freshly baked bread, fragrant with golden cheese and sweet butter.

Zillo took his grandson into his arms, and a shadow of tenderness moved across his impassive face. “Brandon, son of Zylle of the Wind People and son of Ritchie of Llawcae, son of a prince from the distant land of Wales; Brandon, bearer of the blue,” he murmured over the sleeping baby, rocking him gently in his arms.

Out of the corner of his eye, Brandon saw one of the Indian women go to his mother, talking to her softly. His mother put her hand to her head in a worried gesture.

And before the Indians left, he saw Zillo take his father aside.

Despite his joy in his namesake, there was heaviness in his heart when he went to bed, and it was that, as much as the heat, which kept him from sleeping. He could hear his parents talking with Ritchie in the next room, and he shifted position so that he could hear better.

Goody Llawcae was saying, “People do not like other people to be different. It is hard enough for Zylle, being an Indian, without being part of a family marked as different, too.”

“Different?” Ritchie asked sharply. “We were the first settlers here.”

“We come from Wales. And Brandon’s gift is feared.”

Richard asked his wife, “Did one of the Indians give you a warning?”

“One of the women. I had hoped this disease of witch-hunting would not touch our settlement.”

“We must try not to let it start with us,” Goodman Llawcae said. “At least the Higginses will stand by us.”

“Will they?” Ritchie asked. “Goodman Higgins seems much taken with Pastor Mortmain. And Davey Higgins hasn’t come to do chores with Brandon in a long time.”

Richard said, “Zillo warned me of Brandon, too.”

“Brandon—” Goody Llawcae drew in her breath.

“He saw one of his pictures last night.”

On hearing this, Brandon hurried into the big room. “Zylle told you!”

“She did not, Brandon,” his father said, “and eavesdroppers seldom hear anything pleasant. You did give Zylle permission to speak to her father, and it was he who told me. Are you ashamed to tell us?”

“Ashamed? No, Father, not ashamed. I try not to ask for the pictures, because you don’t want me to see them, and I know it disturbs you when they come to me anyhow. That is why I don’t tell you. I thought you would prefer me not to.”

His father lowered his head. “It is understandable that you should feel this way. Perhaps we have been wrong to ask you not to see your pictures if they are God’s gift to you.”

Brandon looked surprised. “Who else would send them?”

“In Wales it is believed that such gifts come from God. There is not as much fear of devils there as here.”

“Zylle and Maddok say my pictures come from the gods.”

“And Zillo warned me,” his father said, “that you must not talk about your pictures in front of anybody, especially Pastor Mortmain.”

“What about Davey?”

“Not anybody.”

“But Davey knows about my pictures. When we were little, I used to describe them to Davey and Maddok.”

The parents looked at each other. “That was long ago. Let’s hope Davey has forgotten.”

Ritchie banged his fist against the hard wood of the bedstead. Richard held up a warning hand. “Hush. You will wake your wife and son. Once the heat breaks, people’s temperaments will be easier. Brandon, go back to bed.”

Back in his room, Brandon tossed hotly on his straw pallet. Even after the rest of the household was quiet, he could not sleep. In the distance he heard the drums. But no rain came.

The next evening when he was bringing the cow home from the day’s grazing, Davey Higgins came up to him. “Bran, Pastor Mortmain says I am not to speak to you.”

“You’re speaking.”

“We’ve known each other all our lives. I will speak as long as I can. But people are saying that Zylle is preventing the rain. The crops are withering. We do not want to offend the Indians, but Pastor Mortmain says that Zylle’s blue eyes prove her to be not a true Indian, and that the Indians were afraid of her and wished her onto us.”

“You know that’s not true!” Brandon said hotly. “The Indians are proud of the blue eyes.”

“I know it,” Davey said, “and you know it, but we are still children, and people do not listen to children. Pastor Mortmain has forbidden us to go to the Indian compound, and Maddok is no longer welcome here. My father believes everything Pastor Mortmain says, and my sister is being courted by his son, that pasty-faced Duthbert. Bran, what do your pictures tell you of all this?” Davey gave Brandon a sidewise glance.

Brandon looked at him directly. “I’m twelve years old now, Davey. I’m no longer a child with a child’s pictures.” He left Davey and took the cow to the shed, feeling that denying the pictures had been an act of betrayal.

Maddok came around the corner of the shed. “My father has sent me to you, in case there is danger. I am to follow you, but not be seen. But you know Indian ways, and you will see me. So I wanted you to know, so that you won’t be afraid.”

“I am afraid,” Brandon said flatly.

“If only it would rain,” Maddok said.

“You know about weather. Will it rain?”

Maddok shook his head. “The air smells of thunder, but there will be no rain this moon. There is lightning in the air, and it turns people’s minds. How is Zylle? and the baby?”

Now Brandon smiled. “Beautiful.”

At family prayers that evening the Llawcae faces were sober. Richard asked for wisdom, for prudence, for rain. He asked for faithfulness in friendship, and for courage. And again for rain.

The thunder continued to grumble. The heavy night was sullen with heat lightning. And no drop fell.

* * *

The children would not talk with Brandon. Even Davey shamefacedly turned away. Mr. Mortmain, confronting Brandon, said, “There is evil under your roof. You had better see to it that it is removed.”

When Brandon reported this, Ritchie exploded. “The evil is in Mr. Mortmain’s own heart.”

The evil was as pervasive as the brassy heat.

Pastor Mortmain came in the evening to the Llawcaes’ cabin, bringing with him his son, Duthbert, and Goodman Higgins. “We would speak with the Indian woman.”

“My wife—” Ritchie started, but his father silenced him.

“It is late for this visit, Pastor Mortmain,” Richard said. “My daughter-in-law and the baby have retired.”

“Then they must be wakened. It is our intention to discover if the Indian woman is a Christian, or—”

Zylle walked into the room, carrying her child. “Or what, Pastor Mortmain?”

Duthbert looked at her, and his eyes were greedy. Goodman Higgins questioned her gently. “We believe you to be a Christian, Zylle. That is true, is it not?”

“Yes, Goodman Higgins. When I married Ritchie I accepted his beliefs.”

“Even though they were contrary to the beliefs of your people?” Pastor Mortmain asked.

“But they are not contrary.”

“The Indians are pagans,” Duthbert said.

Zylle looked at the pasty young man over the baby’s head. “I do not know what pagan means. I only know that Jesus of Nazareth sings the true song. He knows the ancient harmonies.”

Pastor Mortmain drew in his breath in horror. “You say that our Lord and Saviour sings! What more do we need to hear?”

“But why should he not sing?” Zylle asked. “The very stars sing as they turn in their heavenly dance, sing praise of the One who created them. In the meeting house do we not sing hymns?”

Pastor Mortmain scowled at Zylle, at the Llawcaes, at his son, who could not keep his eyes off Zylle’s loveliness, at Goodman Higgins. “That is different. You are a heathen and you do not understand.”

Zylle raised her head proudly. “Scripture says that God loves every man. That is in the Psalms. He loves my people as he loves you, or he is not God.”

Higgins warned, “You must not blaspheme, child.”

“Why,” demanded Pastor Mortmain, “are you holding back the rain?”

“Why ever should I wish to hold back the rain? Our corn suffers as does yours. We pray for rain, twice daily, at morning and at evening prayer.”

“The cat,” Duthbert said. “What about the cat?”

“The cat is to keep rodents away from house and barn, like all the cats in the settlement.”

Pastor Mortmain said, “Goody Adams tells us the cat is to help you fly through the air.”

Duthbert’s mouth dropped slightly, and Ritchie shouted with outrage. But Zylle silenced him with a gesture, asking, “Does your cat help you to fly through the air, Pastor Mortmain? No more does mine. The gift of flying through the air is given to only the most holy of people, and I am only a woman like other women.”

“Stop, child,” Goodman Higgins ordered, “before you condemn yourself.”

“Are you a true Indian?” Pastor Mortmain demanded. She nodded. “I am of the People of the Wind.”

“Indians do not have blue eyes.”

“You have heard our legend.”

“Legend?”

“Yes. Though we believe it to be true. My father has the blue eyes, too, as does my little brother.”

“Lies!” Pastor Mortmain cried. “Storytelling is of the devil.”

Richard Llawcae took a step toward the small, dark figure of the minister. “How strange that you should say that, Pastor Mortmain. Scripture says that Jesus taught by telling stories. And he spake many things unto them in parables … and without a parable spake he not unto them. That is in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew.”

Pastor Mortmain’s face was hard. “I believe this Indian woman to be a witch. And if she is, she must die like a witch. That, too, is in Scripture.” He gestured to Goodman Higgins and Duthbert. “We will meet in church and make our decision.”

“Who will make the decision?” Ritchie demanded, not heeding his father’s warning hand. “All the men of the settlement, in fair discussion, or you, Pastor Mortmain?”

“Be careful,” Goodman Higgins urged. “Ritchie, take care.”

“David Higgins,” Richard Llawcae said, “our two cabins were the first in this settlement. You have known us longer than anyone else here. Do you believe that my son would marry a witch?”

“Not knowingly, Richard.”

“You were here with us during the evenings when the Indians came to listen to our stories, and we heard their own legend that matched ours. You saw how the Indian legend and the Welsh one insured peace between us and the People of the Wind, did you not, now, David?”

“Yes, that is so.”

Pastor Mortmain intervened. “Goodman Higgins has told me of the storytelling which preceded the sop of reading from Scripture.”

“Scripture was never a sop for us, Pastor. Those early years were hard. Goody Higgins died birthing Davey, and after her death in one week three of David’s children died of diphtheria, and another only a year later coughed his life away. My wife lost four little ones between Richard and Brandon, one at birth, the other three as children. We were sustained and strengthened by Scripture then, as we are still. As for the stories, the winter evenings were long, and it was a pleasant way to while away the time as we worked with our hands.”

Goodman Higgins shuffled his feet. “There was no harm in the stories, Pastor Mortmain. I have assured you of that.”

“Perhaps not for you,” Pastor Mortmain said. “Come.”

Goodman Higgins did not look up as he followed Pastor Mortmain and Duthbert out of the cabin.

Nightmare. Brandon wanted to scream, to make himself wake up, but he was not asleep, and the nightmare was happening. When he did his chores he was aware that Maddox was invisibly there, watching over him. Sometimes he heard him rustling up in the branches of a tree. Sometimes Maddok let Brandon have a glimpse of him behind a tree trunk, behind the corner of a barn or cabin. But wherever he went, Maddok was there, and that meant that the Indians knew all that was happening.

A baby in the settlement died of the summer sickness, which had always been the chief cause of infant mortality during the hot months, but it was all that was needed to convict Zylle.

Pastor Mortmain sent to the town for a man who was said to be an expert in the detection of witches. He had sent many people to the gallows.

“And that’s supposed to make him an expert?” Ritchie demanded.

The settlement crackled with excitement. It seemed to Brandon that people were enjoying it. The Higgins daughter walked along the dusty street with Duthbert, and did not raise her eyes, but Pastor Mortmain’s son smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. People lingered in their doorways, staring at Pastor Mortmain and the expert on witches as they stood in front of the church. Davey Higgins stayed in his cabin and did not come out, though the other children were as eager as their parents to join in the witch hunt.

It was part of the nightmare when the man from the city who had hanged many people gave Pastor Mortmain and the elders of the village his verdict: there was no doubt in his mind that Zylle was a witch.

A sigh of excitement, of horror, of pleasure, went along the street.

That evening when Brandon went to the common pasture to bring the cow home, one of the other boys spat on the ground and turned away. Davey Higgins, tying the halter on the Higgins cow, said, “It is the Lord’s will that the witch should die.”

“Zylle is not a witch.”

“She’s a heathen.”

“She’s a Christian. A better one than you are.”

“She’s a condemned witch, and tomorrow they take her to the jail in town, though she’ll be brought back here to be hanged—”

“So we can all see.” One of the boys licked his lips in anticipation.

“No!” Brandon cried. “No!”

Davey interrupted him. “You’d better hold your tongue, or I could tell things about you to make Pastor Mortmain condemn you as a witch, too.”

Brandon looked levelly at Davey while the others teased him to tell.

Davey flushed. “No. I didn’t mean anything. Brandon is my friend. It’s not his fault his brother married a witch.”

“How could you let them take Zylle and the baby away?” Brandon demanded of Ritchie and his parents. “How could you!”

“Son,” Richard Llawcae said, “Zylle is not safe here, not now with feelings running high. There are those who would hang her immediately. Your brother and I are going to town tomorrow to speak to people we know there. We think they will help us.”

But the witch-hunting fever was too high. There was no help. There was no reason. There was only nightmare.

Goody Llawcae stayed in the town to tend Zylle and the baby; that much was allowed, but it was not through kindness; there were those who feared that Zylle might try to take her own life, or that something might happen to prevent them seeing a public hanging.

Richard and Ritchie refused to erect the gallows.

Avoiding their eyes, Goodman Higgins pleaded, “You must not refuse to do this, or you, too, will be accused. In the town they have convicted entire families.”

Richard said, “There was another carpenter, once, and he would have refused to do this thing. Him I will follow.”

There were others more than willing to erect a crude gallows. A gallows is more easily built than a house, or a bed, or a table.

The date for the hanging was set.

On the eve, Brandon went late to bring the cow in from the pasture, in order to avoid the others. When he got to the barn. Maddok was waiting there in the shadows.

“My father wants to see you.”

“When?” Bran asked.

“Tonight. After the others are asleep, can you slip away without being seen?”

Bran nodded. “You have taught me how to do that. I will come. It has meant much to me to know that you have been with me.”

“We are friends,” Maddok said without a smile.

“Is it going to rain soon?” Brandon asked.

“No. Not unless prayer changes things.”

“You pray every night. So do we.”

“Yes. We pray,” Maddok said, and slipped silently into the woods.

In the small hours of the morning, before dawn, when he was sure everybody in the settlement would be asleep, Brandon left the cabin and ran swiftly as a young deer into the protecting shadows of the woods.

Maddok was standing at the edge of the forest, waiting. “Come. I know the way in the dark more easily than you.”

“Zillo knows everything? You’ve told him?”

“Yes. But he wants to meet with you.”

“Why? I’m still only a child.”

“You have the gift of seeing.”

Brandon shivered.

“Come,” Maddok urged. “My father is waiting.”

They traveled swiftly, Brandon following Maddok as he led the way, over the brook, through the dark shadows of the forest.

At the edge of the Indian clearing, Zillo stood. Maddok nodded at his father, then vanished into the shadows.

“You won’t let it happen?” Brandon begged. “If Zylle is harmed, Ritchie will kill.”

“We will not let it happen.”

“The men of the settlement expect the Indians to come. They have guns. They are out of their right minds, and they will not hesitate to shoot.”

“They must be prevented. Have you seen anything in a vision lately?”

“I have tried not to. I am afraid.”

“No one knows you are here?”

“Only Maddok.”

Zillo pulled a polished metal sphere from a small pouch and held it out to catch the light of the late moon. “What do you see?”

Brandon hesitantly looked into it. “This is right for me to do, when my father …?”

Zillo’s eyes were expressionless. “I have held this action in prayer all day. It is not your father’s wish to deny a gift of the gods, and at this time we have no one in the tribe with the gift of seeing.”

As Brandon looked, the light in the metal sphere shifted, and he saw clouds moving swiftly across the sky, clouds reflected in water. Not taking his eyes from the scrying metal he said, “I see a lake where the valley should be, a lake I have seen before in a picture. It is beautiful.”

Zillo nodded. “It is said there was a lake here in longgone days. In the valley people have found stones with the bones of fish in them.”

“The sky is clouding up,” Brandon reported. “Rain is starting to fall, spattering into the water of the lake.”

“You see no fire?”

“Before, I saw fire, and I was afraid. Now there is only rain.”

The severity of Zillo’s face lifted barely perceptibly.

“That is good, that picture. Now I will teach you some words. You must learn them very carefully, and you must make sure that you do not use them too soon. Only the blue-eyed children of the Wind People are taught these words, and never before have they been given to one not of the tribe. But I give them to you for Zylle’s saving.”

On the morning of the execution Zylle was returned to the settlement. Infant Brandon was taken from her and given to Goody Llawcae.

“He is too young to be weaned,” Goody Llawcae objected. “He will die of the summer sickness.”

“The witch will not harm her own child,” Pastor Mortmain said.

It took six of the strongest men in the settlement to restrain Ritchie and Richard.

“Tie the witch’s hands,” the man from the city ordered.

“I will do it,” Goodman Higgins said. “Hold out your hands, child.”

“Show her no gentleness, Higgins,” Pastor Mortmain warned, “unless you would have us think you tainted, too. After all, you have listened to their tales.”

Goody Llawcae, holding the crying baby, said, “Babies have died of the summer sickness for years, long before Zylle came to dwell among us, and no one thought of witchcraft.”

Angry murmurs came from the gathered people. “The witch made another baby die. Let her brat die as well.”

Ritchie, struggling compulsively, nearly broke away.

Pastor Mortmain said, “When the witch is dead, you will come back to your senses. We are saving you from the evil.”

The people of the settlement crowded about the gallows in ugly anticipation of what was to come. Davey Higgins stayed in the doorway of his cabin.

Goodman Higgins and Pastor Mortmain led Zylle across the dusty compound and up the steps to the gallows.

Brandon thought his heart would beat its way out of his body. He felt a presence beside him, and there was Maddok, and he knew that the rest of the tribe was close by.

“Now,” Maddok whispered.

And then Brandon cried aloud the words which Zillo had taught him.

Thunderstorms seldom came till late afternoon. But suddenly the sky was cleft by a fiery bolt, and the church bore the power of its might. The crash of thunder was almost simultaneous. The sky darkened from a humid blue to a sulfurous dimness. Flame flickered about the doorway of the church.

The Indians stepped forward until the entire settlement was aware of their presence, silent and menacing. Several men raised guns. As Duthbert fired, lightning flashed again and sent Duthbert sprawling, a long burn down his arm, his bullet going harmlessly into the air. Flames wreathed the belfry of the church.

Zillo sprang across the compound and up the steps to the gallows. “No guns,” he commanded, “or the lightning will strike again. And this time it will kill.”

Duthbert was moaning with pain. “Put down the guns—don’t shoot—”

Pastor Mortmain’s face was distorted. “You are witches, all of you, witches! The Llawcae boy has the Indian girl’s devil with him that he can call lightning! He must die!”

The Indians drew in closer. Maddok remained by Brandon. And then Davey Higgins came from the door of his cabin and stood on Brandon’s other side.

Ritchie broke away from the men who were holding him, and sprang up onto the gallows. “People of the settlement!” he cried. “Do you think all power is of the devil? What we have just seen is the wrath of God!” He turned his back on the crowd and began to untie Zylle.

The mood of the people was changing. Richard was let loose and he crossed the dusty compound to Pastor Mortmain. “Your church is burning because you tried to kill an innocent woman. Our friends and neighbors would never have consented to this madness had you not terrified them with your fire and brimstone.”

Goodman Higgins moved away from Pastor Mortmain. “That is right. The Llawcaes have always been Godfearing people.”

The Indians drew closer.

Ritchie had one arm about Zylle. He called out again: “The Indians have always been our friends. Is this how we return their friendship?”

“Stop them—” Pastor Mortmain choked out. “Stop the Indians! They will massacre us—stop them—”

Ritchie shouted, “Why should we? Do you want us to show you more compassion than you have shown us?”

“Ritchie!” Zylle faced him. “You are not like Pastor Mortmain. You have a heart in you. Show them your compassion!”

Zillo raised a commanding hand. “This evil has been stopped. As long as nothing like this ever happens again, you need not fear us. But it must never happen again.”

Murmurs of “Never, never, we are sorry, never, never,” came from the crowd.

Pastor Mortmain moaned, “The fire, the fire, my God, the church, the church is burning.”

Ritchie led Zylle down the steps and to his mother, who put the baby into her daughter-in-law’s waiting arms. Brandon, standing between Maddok and Davey, watched as his mother and Zylle, his father and brother, turned their backs on the burning church and walked across the compound, past their chastened neighbors, past the watchful Indians, and went into their cabin. He stayed, his feet rooted to the ground as though he could not move, while the people of the settlement brought ineffectual buckets of water to try to control the flames and keep the fire from spreading to the cabins around the church. He watched the belfry collapse, a belfry erected more to the glory of Pastor Mortmain than to the glory of God.

And then he felt the rain, a gentle rain which would fall all day and sink into the thirsty ground, a rain which would continue until the deepest roots of plant and tree had their chance to drink. A rain which put out the fire before it spread to any of the dwellings.

Behind the three boys the People of the Wind stood silently, watching, as the people went slowly into their cabins. When there was no one left by the empty gallows except the three children, Zillo barked a sharp command and the Indians quickly dismantled the ill-built platform and gallows, threw the wood on the smoking remains of the church, and left, silently.

* * *

The horror was over, but nothing would ever be the same again.

When Brandon and Maddok went into the Llawcae cabin, Zillo was there, holding the baby. The kettle was simmering, and Goody Llawcae was serving herb tea, “to quieten us.”

“I am angry.” Ritchie looked past Brandon to his mother. “Your herbs will not stop my anger.”

“You have cause to be angry,” his father said. “Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man’s heart and mind forever. Anger spends itself in its own time. Small Brandon will help to ease the anger.”

Zillo handed the baby to Ritchie, who took his son and held him against his strong shoulder. Ritchie looked, then, at his brother. “Where did you get those words you called out just before the storm?”

“From Zillo.”

“When?”

“Last night. He sent for me.”

Zillo looked at Richard and Ritchie, his eyes fathomless. “He is a good lad, your young one.”

Richard Llawcae returned Zillo’s gaze, and put his arm lightly around Brandon’s shoulders. “The ways of the Lord are mysterious, and we do not need to understand them. His ways are not our ways—though we would like them to be. We do not need to understand Brandon’s gifts, only to know that they are given to him by God.” He turned to the Bible and leafed through the pages until he had found the passage he wanted. “The Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep you from evil. And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God. Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always by all means …”

Brandon, worn out by lack of sleep, by terror and tension, put his head down on his arms and slid into sleep, only half hearing as Ritchie said that he could not continue to live in the settlement. He would take Zylle and the baby and return to Wales, where they could start a new life …

The world was bleak for Brandon when Ritchie and Zylle and the baby left.

One day as he was doing his chores, Maddok appeared, helped him silently, and then together they went through the woods toward the Indian compound.

Under the great shadowing branches of an oak, Maddok paused. He looked long at Brandon. “It is right that Zylle should have gone with Ritchie.”

Brandon looked at Maddok, then at the ground.

“And it is right that you and I should become brothers. My father will perform the ceremony tonight, and you will be made one of the People of the Wind.”

A spark of the old light appeared in Brandon’s face. “Then no one can keep us apart.”

“No one. And perhaps you will marry one of the People of the Wind. And perhaps our children will marry, so that our families will be united until eternity.”

Brandon reached for Maddok’s hands. “Until eternity,” he said.