A Swiftly Tilting Planet (4 page)

“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.