stand what this means, to see."
"Well, it's what things look like," Meg said helplessly.
"We do not know what things look like, as you say," the beast said. "We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing."
"Oh, no!" Meg cried. "It's--it's the most wonderful thing in the world!"
"What a very strange world yours must be!" the beast said, "that such a peculiar-seeming thing should be of such importance. Try to tell me, what is this thing called light that you are able to do so little without?"
"Well, we can't see without it," Meg said, realizing that she was completely unable to explain vision and light and dark. How can you explain sight on a world where no one has ever seen and where there is no need of eyes? "Well, on this planet," she fumbled, "you have a sun, don't you?"
"A most wonderful sun, from which comes our warmth, and the rays which give us our flowers, our food, our music, and all the things which make life and growth."
"Well," Meg said, "when we are turned toward the sun--our earth, our planet, I mean, toward our sun--we receive its light. And when we're turned away from it, it is night. And if we want to see we have to use artificial lights."
"Artificial lights," the beast sighed. "How very complicated life on your planet must be. Later on you must try to explain some more to me."
"All right," Meg promised, and yet she knew that to try to explain anything that could be seen with the eyes would be impossible, because the beasts in some way saw, knew, understood, far more completely than she, or her parents, or Calvin, or even Charles Wallace.
"Charles Wallace!" she cried. "What are they doing about Charles Wallace? We don't know what IT's doing to him or making him do. Please, oh, please, help us!"
"Yes, yes, little one, of course we will help you. A meeting is in session right now to study what is best to do. We have never before been able to talk to anyone who has managed to escape from a dark planet, so although your father is blaming himself for everything that has happened, we feel that he must be quite an extraordinary person to get out of Camazotz with you at all. But the little boy, and I understand that he is a very special, a very important little boy--ah, my child, you must accept that this will not be easy. To go back through the Black Thing, back to Camazotz--I don't know. I don't know."
"But Father left him!" Meg said. "He's got to bring him back! He can't just abandon Charles Wallace!"
The beast's communication suddenly became crisp. "Nobody said anything about abandoning anybody. That is not our way. But we know that just because we want something does not mean that we will get what we want, and we still do not know what to do. And we cannot allow you, in your present state, to do anything that would jeopardize us all. I can see that you wish your father to go rushing back to Camazotz, and you could probably make him do this, and then where would we be? No. No. You must wait until you are more calm. Now, my darling, here is a robe for you to keep you warm and comfortable." Meg felt herself being lifted again, and a soft, light garment was slipped about her. "Don't worry about your little brother." The tentacles' musical words were soft against her. "We would never leave him behind the shadow. But for now you must relax, you must be happy, you must get well."
The gentle words, the feeling that this beast would be able to love her no matter what she said or did, lapped Meg in warmth and peace. She felt a delicate touch of tentacle to her cheek, as tender as her mother's kiss.
"It is so long since my own small ones were grown and gone," the beast said. "You are so tiny and vulnerable. Now I will feed you. You must eat slowly and quietly. I know that you are half starved, that you have been without food far too long, but you must not rush things or you will not get well."
Something completely and indescribably and incredibly delicious was put to Meg's lips, and she swallowed gratefully. With each swallow she felt strength returning to her body, and she realized that she had had nothing to eat since the horrible fake turkey dinner on Camazotz which she had barely tasted. How long ago was her mother's stew? Time no longer had any meaning.
"How long does night last here?" she murmured sleepily. "It will be day again, won't it?"
"Hush," the beast said. "Eat, small one. During the coolness, which is now, we sleep. And, when you waken, there will be warmth again and many things to do. You must eat now, and sleep, and I will stay with you."
"What should I call you, please?" Meg asked.
"Well, now. First, try not to say any words for just a moment. Think within your own mind. Think of all the things you call people, different kinds of people."
While Meg thought, the beast murmured to her gently. "No, mother is a special, a one-name; and a father you have here. Not just friend, nor teacher, nor brother, nor sister. What is acquaintance? What a funny, hard word. Aunt. Maybe. Yes, perhaps that will do. And you think of such odd words about me. Thing, and monster! Monster, what a horrid sort of word. I really do not think I am a monster. Beast. That will do. Aunt Beast."
"Aunt Beast," Meg murmured sleepily, and laughed.
"Have I said something funny?" Aunt Beast asked in surprise. "Isn't Aunt Beast all right?"
"Aunt Beast is lovely," Meg said. "Please sing to me, Aunt Beast."
If it was impossible to describe sight to Aunt Beast, it would be even more impossible to describe the singing of Aunt Beast to a human being. It was a music even more glorious than the music of the singing creatures on Uriel. It was a music more tangible than form or sight. It had essence and structure. It supported Meg more firmly than the arms of Aunt Beast. It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.
Meg did not know when she fell asleep within the body of the music. When she wakened Aunt Beast was asleep, too, the softness of her furry, faceless head drooping. Night had gone and a dull gray light filled the room. But she realized now that here on this planet there was no need for color, that the grays and browns merging into each other were not what the beasts knew, and that what she, herself, saw was only the smallest fraction of what the planet was really like. It was she who was limited by her senses, not the blind beasts, for they must have senses of which she could not even dream.
She stirred slightly, and Aunt Beast bent over her immediately, "What a lovely sleep, my darling. Do you feel all right?"
"I feel wonderful," Meg said. "Aunt Beast, what is this planet called?"
"Oh, dear," Aunt Beast sighed. "I find it not easy at all to put things the way your mind shapes them. You call where you came from Camazotz?"
"Well, it's where we came from, but it's not our planet."
"You can call us Ixchel, I guess," Aunt Beast told her. "We share the same sun as lost Camazotz, but that, give thanks, is all we share."
"Are you fighting the Black Thing?" Meg asked.
"Oh, yes," Aunt Beast replied. "In doing that we can never relax. We are the called according to His purpose, and whom He calls, them He also justifies. Of course we have help, and without help it would be much more difficult."
"Who helps you?" Meg asked.
"Oh, dear, it is so difficult to explain things to you, small one. And I know now that it is not just because you are a child. The other two are as hard to reach into as you are. What can I tell you that will mean anything to you? Good helps us, the stars help us, perhaps what you would call light helps us, love helps us. Oh, my child, I cannot explain! This is something you just have to know or not know."
"But--"
"We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal."
"Aunt Beast, do you know Mrs Whatsit?" Meg asked with a sudden flooding of hope.
"Mrs Whatsit?" Aunt Beast was puzzled. "Oh, child, your language is so utterly simple and limited that it has the effect of extreme complication." Her four arms, tentacles waving, were outflung in a gesture of helplessness. "Would you like me to take you to your father and your Calvin?"
"Oh, yes, please!"
"Let us go, then. They are waiting for you to make plans. And we thought you would enjoy eating--what is it you call it? oh, yes, breakfast--together. You will be too warm in that heavy fur, now. I will dress you in something lighter, and then we will go."
As though Meg were a baby, Aunt Beast bathed and dressed her, and this new garment, though it was made of a pale fur, was lighter than the lightest summer clothes on earth. Aunt Beast put one tentacled arm about Meg's waist and led her through long, dim corridors in which she could see only shadows, and shadows of shadows, until they reached a large, columned chamber. Shafts of light came in from an open skylight and converged about a huge, round, stone table. Here were seated several of the great beasts, and Calvin and Mr. Murry, on a stone bench that circled the table. Because the beasts were so tall, even Mr. Murry's feet did not touch the ground, and lanky Calvin's long legs dangled as though he were Charles Wallace. The hall was partially enclosed by vaulted arches leading to long, paved walks. There were no empty walls, no covering roofs, so that although the light was dull in comparison to earth's sunlight, Meg had no feeling of dark or of chill. As Aunt Beast led Meg in, Mr. Murry slid down from the bench and hurried to her, putting his arms about her tenderly.
"They promised us you were all right," he said.
While she had been in Aunt Beast's arms Meg had felt safe and secure. Now her worries about Charles Wallace and her disappointment in her father's human fallibility rose like gorge in her throat.
"I'm fine," she muttered, looking not at Calvin or her father, but at the beasts, for it was to them she turned now for help. It seemed to her that neither her father nor Calvin were properly concerned about Charles Wallace.
"Meg!" Calvin said gaily. "You've never tasted such food in your life! Come and eat!"
Aunt Beast lifted Meg up onto the bench and sat down beside her, then heaped a plate with food, strange fruits and breads that tasted unlike anything Meg had ever eaten. Everything was dull and colorless and unappetizing to look at, and at first, even remembering the meal Aunt Beast had fed her the night before, Meg hesitated to taste, but once she had managed the first bite she ate eagerly; it seemed that she would never have her fill again.
The others waited until she slowed down. Then Mr. Murry said gravely, "We were trying to work out a plan to rescue Charles Wallace. Since I made such a mistake in tessering away from IT, we feel that it would not be wise for me to try to get back to Camazotz, even alone. If I missed the mark again I could easily get lost and wander forever from galaxy to galaxy, and that would be small help to anyone, least of all to Charles Wallace."
Such a wave of despondency came over Meg that she was no longer able to eat.
"Our friends here," he continued, "feel that it was only the fact that I still wore the glasses your Mrs Who gave you that kept me within this solar system. Here are the glasses, Meg. But I am afraid that the virtue has gone from them and now they are only glass. Perhaps they were meant to help only once and only on Camazotz. Perhaps it was going through the Black Thing that did it." He pushed the glasses across the table at her.
"These people know about tessering," Calvin gestured at the circle of great beasts, "but they can't do it onto a dark planet."
"Have you tried to call Mrs Whatsit?" Meg asked.
"Not yet," her father answered.
"But if you haven't thought of anything else, it's the only thing to do! Father, don't you care about Charles at all!"
At that Aunt Beast stood up, saying, "Child," in a reproving way. Mr. Murry said nothing, and Meg could see that she had wounded him deeply. She reacted as she would have reacted to Mr. Jenkins. She scowled down at the table, saying, "We've got to ask them for help now. You're just stupid if you think we don't."
Aunt Beast spoke to the others. "The child is distraught. Don't judge her harshly. She was almost taken by the Black Thing. Sometimes we can't know what spiritual damage it leaves even when physical recovery is complete."
Meg looked angrily around the table. The beasts sat there, silent, motionless. She felt that she was being measured and found wanting.
Calvin swung away from her and hunched himself up. "Hasn't it occurred to you that we've been trying to tell them about our ladies? What do you think we've been up to all this time? Just stuffing our faces? Okay, you have a shot at it."
"Yes. Try, child." Aunt Beast seated herself again, and pulled Meg up beside her. "But I do not understand this feeling of anger I sense in you. What is it about? There is blame going on, and guilt. Why?"
"Aunt Beast, don't you know?"
"No," Aunt Beast said. "But this is not telling me about--whoever they are you want us to know. Try."
Meg tried. Blunderingly. Fumblingly. At first she described Mrs Whatsit and her man's coat and multicolored shawls and scarves. Mrs Who and her white robes and shimmering spectacles, Mrs Which in her peaked cap and black gown quivering in and out of body. Then she realized that this was absurd. She was describing them only to herself. This wasn't Mrs Whatsit or Mrs Who or Mrs Which. She might as well have described Mrs Whatsit as she was when she took on the form of a flying creature of Uriel.
"Don't try to use words," Aunt Beast said soothingly. "You're just fighting yourself and me. Think about what they are. This look doesn't help us at all."
Meg tried again, but she could not get a visual concept out of her mind. She tried to think of Mrs Whatsit explaining tessering. She tried to think of them in terms of mathematics. Every once in a while she thought she felt a flicker of understanding from Aunt Beast or one of the others, but most of the time all that emanated from them was gentle puzzlement.
"Angels!" Calvin shouted suddenly from across the table. "Guardian angels!" There was a moment's silence, and he shouted again, his face tense with concentration, "Messengers! Messengers of God!"
"I thought for a moment--" Aunt Beast started, then subsided, sighing. "No. It's not clear enough."
"How strange it is that they can't tell us what they themselves seem to know," a tall, thin beast murmured.
One of Aunt Beast's tentacled arms went around Meg's waist again. "They are very young. And on their earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space."
"Oh," the thin beast said. "Aren't they lonely?"
Suddenly a thundering voice reverberated throughout the great hall:
"WWEEE ARRE HHERRE!"
TWELVE
The Foolish and the Weak
Meg could see nothing, but she felt her heart pounding with hope. With one accord all the beasts rose to their feet, turned toward one of the arched openings, and bowed their heads and tentacles in greeting. Mrs Whatsit appeared, standing between two columns. Beside her came Mrs Who, behind them a quivering of light. The three of them were somehow not quite the same as they had been when Meg had first seen them. Their outlines seemed blurred; colors ran together as in a wet water color painting. But they were there; they were recognizable; they were themselves.
Meg pulled herself away from Aunt Beast, jumped to the floor, and rushed at Mrs Whatsit. But Mrs Whatsit held up a warning hand and Meg realized that she was not completely materialized, that she was light and not substance, and embracing her now would have been like trying to hug a sunbeam.
"We had to hurry so there wasn't quite time. . . . You wanted us?" Mrs Whatsit asked.
The tallest of the beasts bowed again and took a step away from the table and toward Mrs Whatsit. "It is a question of the little boy."
"Father left him!" Meg cried. "He left him on Camazotz!"
Appallingly, Mrs Whatsit's voice was cold. "And what do you expect us to do?"
Meg pressed her knuckles against her teeth so that her braces cut her skin. Then she flung out her arms pleadingly. "But it's Charles Wallace! IT has him, Mrs Whatsit! Save him, please save him!"
"You know that we can do nothing on Camazotz," Mrs Whatsit said, her voice still cold.
"You mean you'll let Charles be caught by IT forever?" Meg's voice rose shrilly.
"Did I say that?"
"But we can't do anything! You know we can't! We tried! Mrs Whatsit, you have to save him!"
"Meg, this is not our way," Mrs Whatsit said sadly. "I thought you would know that this is not our way."
Mr. Murry took a step forward and bowed, and to Meg's amazement the three ladies bowed back to him. "I don't believe we've been introduced," Mrs Whatsit said.
"It's Father, you know it's Father." Meg's angry impatience grew. "Father--Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which."
"I'm very glad to--" Mr. Murry mumbled, then went on, "I'm sorry, my glasses are broken, and I can't see you very well."
"It's not necessary to see us," Mrs Whatsit said.
"If you could teach me enough more about the tesseract so that I could get back to Camazotz--"
"Wwhatt tthenn?" came Mrs Which's surprising voice.
"I will try to take my child away from IT."
"Annd yyou kknoww tthatt yyou wwill nnott ssucceeedd?"
"There's nothing left except to try."
Mrs Whatsit spoke gently. "I'm sorry. We cannot allow you to go."
"Then let me," Calvin suggested. "I almost got him away before."
Mrs Whatsit shook her head. "No, Calvin. Charles has gone even deeper into IT. You will not be permitted to throw yourself in with him, for that, you must realize, is what would happen."
There was a long silence. All the soft rays filtering into the great hall seemed to concentrate on Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and the faint light that must be Mrs Which. No one spoke. One of the beasts moved a tendril slowly back and forth across the stone tabletop. At last Meg could stand it no longer and she cried out despairingly, "Then what are you going to do? Are you just going to throw Charles away?"
Mrs Which's voice rolled formidably across the hall. "Ssilencce, cchilldd!"
But Meg could not be silent. She pressed closely against Aunt Beast, but Aunt Beast did not put the protecting tentacles around her. "I can't go!" Meg cried. "I can't! You know I can't!"
"Ddidd annybbodyy asskk