A Wrinkle in Time Quintet (44 page)

She saw neither Charles Wallace nor the unicorn. She saw neither the familiar earth with the star-watching rock, the woods, the hills, nor the night sky with its countless galaxies. She saw nothing. Nothing. There was no wind to ride or be blown by.

Nothing was. She was not. There was no dark. There was no light. No sight
nor sound nor touch nor smell nor taste. No sleeping nor waking. No dreaming, no knowing.

Nothing.

And then a surge of joy.

All senses alive and awake and filled with joy.

Darkness was, and darkness was good. As was light.

Light and darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm.

The morning stars sang
together and the ancient harmonies were new and it was good. It was very good.

And then a dazzling star turned its back on the dark, and it swallowed the dark, and in swallowing the dark it became the dark, and there was something wrong with the dark, as there was something wrong with the light. And it was not good. The glory of the harmony was broken by screeching, by hissing, by laughter which
held no merriment but was hideous, horrendous cacophony.

With a strange certainty Meg knew that she was experiencing what Charles Wallace was experiencing. She saw neither Charles Wallace nor the unicorn, but she knew through Charles Wallace’s knowing.

The breaking of the harmony was pain, was brutal anguish, but the harmony kept rising above the pain, and the joy would pulse with light, and
light and dark once more knew each other, and were part of the joy.

Stars and galaxies rushed by, came closer, closer, until many galaxies were one galaxy, one galaxy was one solar system, one solar system was one planet. There was no telling which planet, for it was still being formed. Steam boiled upward from its molten surface. Nothing could live in this primordial caldron.

Then came the
riders of the wind when all the riders sang the ancient harmonies and the melody was still new, and the gentle breezes cooled the burning. And the boiling, hissing, flaming, steaming, turned to rain, aeons of rain, clouds emptying themselves in continuing torrents
of rain which covered the planet with healing darkness, until the clouds were nearly emptied and a dim light came through their veils
and touched the water of the ocean so that it gleamed palely, like a great pearl.

Land emerged from the seas, and on the land green began to spread. Small green shoots rose to become great trees, ferns taller than the tallest oaks. The air was fresh and smelled of rain and sun, of green of tree and plant, blue of sky.

The air grew heavy with moisture. The sun burned like brass behind a thick
gauze of cloud. Heat shimmered on the horizon. A towering fern was pushed aside by a small greenish head on a long, thick neck, emerging from a massive body. The neck swayed sinuously while the little eyes peered about.

Clouds covered the sun. The tropical breeze heightened, became a cold wind. The ferns drooped and withered. The dinosaurs struggled to move away from the cold, dying as their
lungs collapsed from the radical change in temperature. Ice moved inexorably across the land. A great white bear padded along, snuffling, looking for food.

Ice and snow and then rain again and at last sunlight breaking through the clouds, and green again, green of grass and trees, blue of sky by day, sparkle of stars by night.

* * *

Unicorn and boy were in a gentle, green glade, surrounded
by trees.

“Where are we?” Charles Wallace asked.

“We’re here,” the unicorn replied impatiently.

“Here?”

Gaudior snorted. “Don’t you recognize it?”

Charles Wallace looked around at the unfamiliar landscape. Tree ferns spread their fronds skyward as though drinking blue. Other trees appeared to be lifting their branches to catch the breeze. The boy turned to Gaudior. “I’ve never been here before.”

Gaudior shook his head in puzzlement. “But it’s your own Where, even if it’s not your own When.”

“My own what?”

“Your own Where. Where you stood and called on all Heaven with its power and I was sent to you.”

Again Charles Wallace scanned the unfamiliar landscape and shook his head.

“It’s a very different When,” Gaudior conceded. “You’re not accustomed to moving through time?”

“I’ve moved
through fifteen years’ worth of time.”

“But only in one direction.”

“Oh—” Understanding came to the boy. “This isn’t my time, is it? Do you mean that Where we are now is the same place as the star-watching rock and the woods and the house, but it’s a different time?”

“For unicorns it is easier to move about in time than
in space. Until we learn more what we are meant to do, I am more comfortable
if we stay in the same Where.”

“You know Where we are, then? I mean—When we are? Is it time gone, or time to be?”

“It is, I think, what you would call Once Upon a Time and Long Ago.”

“So we’re not in the present.”

“Of course we are. Whenever we are is present.”

“We’re not in
my
present. We’re not When we were when you came to me.”

“When I was called to you,” Gaudior corrected. “And When
is not what matters. It’s what happens in the When that matters. Are you ready to go?”

“But—didn’t you say we’re right here? Where the star-watching rock was—I mean, will be?”

“That’s what I said.” Gaudior’s hoof pawed the lush green of the young grass. “If you are to accomplish what you have been asked to accomplish, you will have to travel in and out.”

“In and out of time?”

“Time, yes. And
people.”

Charles Wallace looked at him in startlement. “What?”

“You have been called to find a Might-Have-Been, and in order to do this, you will have to be sent Within.”

“Within—Within someone else?… But I don’t know if I can.”

“Why not?” Gaudior demanded.

“But—if I go Within someone else—what happens to my own body?”

“It will be taken care of.”

“Will I get it back?”

“If all goes well.”

“And if all does not go well?”

“Let us hold firmly to all going well.”

Charles Wallace wrapped his arms about himself as though for warmth. “And you wonder that I’m frightened?”

“Of course you’re frightened. I’m frightened, too.”

“Gaudior, it’s a very scary thing just to be told casually that you’re going to be inside someone else’s body. What happens to
me?
”

“I’m not entirely sure. But you
don’t get lost. You stay you. If all goes well.”

“But I’m someone else, too?”

“If you’re open enough.”

“If I’m in another body, do I have to be strong enough for both of us?”

“Perhaps,” Gaudior pointed out, “your host will be the stronger of the two. Are you willing?”

“I don’t know …” He seemed to hear Meg warning him that it was always disastrous when he decided that he was capable of taking
on, singlehanded, more than anyone should take on.

“It would appear,” Gaudior said, “that you have been
called. And the calling is never random, it is always according to the purpose.”

“What purpose?”

Gaudior ignored him. “It appears that you are gifted in going Within.”

“But I’ve never—”

“Are you not able to go Within your sister?”

“When we kythe, then, yes, a little. But I don’t literally
go Within Meg, or become Meg. I stay me.”

“Do you?”

Charles Wallace pondered this. “When I’m kything with Meg, I’m wholly aware of her. And when she kythes with me, then she’s more aware of me than she is of herself. I guess kything is something like your going Within—that makes it sound a little less scary.”

Gaudior twitched his beard. “Now you have been called to go Within in the deepest
way of all. And I have been called to help you.” The light in his horn pulsed and dimmed. “You saw the beginning.”

“Yes.”

“And you saw how a destroyer, almost since the beginning, has tried to break the ancient harmonies?”

“Where did the destroyer come from?”

“From the good, of course. The Echthros wanted all the glory for itself, and when that happens the good becomes not good; and others
have followed that first Echthros. Wherever the Echthroi go, the shadows follow,
and try to ride the wind. There are places where no one has ever heard the ancient harmonies. But there is always a moment when there is a Might-Have-Been. What we must do is find the Might-Have-Beens which have led to this particular evil. I have seen many Might-Have-Beens. If such and such had been chosen, then
this would not have followed. If so and so had been done, then the light would partner the dark instead of being snuffed out. It is possible that you can move into the moment of a Might-Have-Been and change it.”

Charles Wallace’s fingers tightened in the silver mane. “I know I can’t avert disaster just because Mrs. O’Keefe told me to. I may be arrogant, but not that arrogant. But my sister is
having a baby, and I can be strong enough to attempt to avert disaster for her sake. And Mrs. O’Keefe gave me the rune …” He looked around him at the fresh green world. Although he was still wearing boots and the warm Norwegian anorak, he was not uncomfortable. Suddenly song surrounded him, and a flock of golden birds settled in the trees. “When are we, then? How long ago?”

“Long. I took us all
the way back before this planet’s Might-Have-Beens, before people came and quarreled and learned to kill.”

“How did we get to here—to long ago?”

“On the wind. The wind blows where it will.”

“Will it take us Where—When—you want us to go?”

The light of the unicorn’s horn pulsed, and the light in the horn, holding the blue of the sky, was reflected in Charles Wallace’s eyes. “Before the harmonies
were broken, unicorns and winds danced together with joy and no fear. Now there are Echthroi who are greedy for the wind, as for all else, so there are times when they ride the wind and turn it into a tornado, and you had better be grateful we didn’t ride one of those—it’s always a risk. But we did come to When I wanted, to give us a little time to catch our breaths.”

The golden birds fluttered
about them, and then the sky was filled with a cloud of butterflies which joined the birds in patterned flight. In the grass little jeweled lizards darted.

“Here the wind has not been troubled,” Gaudior said. “Come. This glimpse is all I can give you of this golden time.”

“Must we leave so soon?”

“The need is urgent.”

Yes, the need was indeed urgent. Charles Wallace looked up at the unicorn.
“Where do we go now?”

Gaudior pawed the lush green impatiently. “Not Where; can you not get that through your human skull? When. Until we know more than we know now, we will stay right here in your own Where. There is something to be learned here, and we have to find out what.”

“You don’t know?”

“I am a mere unicorn.” Gaudior dropped his silver lashes modestly. “All I know is that there is
something important to the future right here in this place where you watch stars. But whatever it was did not happen until the ancient music of the spheres was distorted. So now we go to a When of people.”

“Do you know when that When is?”

The light in Gaudior’s horn dimmed and flickered, which Charles Wallace was beginning to recognize as a sign that the unicorn was troubled or uncertain. “A
far When. We can ride this wind without fear, for here the ancient harmonies are still unbroken. But it may roughen if the When we enter is a dissonant one. Hold on tight. I will be taking you Within.”

“Within—who am I going Within?” Charles Wallace twined the mane through his fingers.

“I will ask the wind.”

“You don’t know?”

“Questions, questions.” Gaudior stomped one silver hoof. “I am not
some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything.” The light in the horn pulsed with brilliance; sparks flew from Gaudior’s hoofs, and they were off and up. The smooth flanks became fluid, and slowly great wings lifted and moved with the wind.

The boy felt the wind swoop under and about them. Riding the unicorn, riding the wind, he felt wholly in
freedom and joy; wind, unicorn,
boy, merged into a single swiftness.

Stars, galaxies, circled in cosmic pattern, and the joy of unity was greater than any disorder within.

And then, almost without transition, they were in a place of rocks and trees and high grasses and a large lake. What would, many centuries later, become the star-watching rock was a small mountain of stone. The woods behind the rock was a forest of towering
fern trees and giant umbrageous trees he did not recognize. In front of the rock, instead of the valley of Charles Wallace’s When, there was a lake stretching all the way to the hills, sparkling in the sunlight. Between the rock and the lake were strange huts of stone and hide, half house, half tent, forming a crescent at the lake’s edge.

In front of and around the dwellings was activity and
laughter, men and women weaving, making clay from the lake into bowls and dishes, painting the pottery with vivid colors and intricate geometrical designs. Children played at the water’s edge, splashing and skipping pebbles.

A boy sat on an outcropping of rock, whittling a spear with a sharp stone. He was tanned and lean, with shining hair the color of a blackbird’s wing, and dark eyes which
sparkled like the water of the lake. His cheekbones were
high, and his mouth warm and full. He gave the making of the spear his full concentration. He looked across the glinting waters of the lake and sniffed the scent of fish. Then he turned back to his spear, but his sensitive nostrils quivered almost imperceptibly as he smelled in turn the green of grass, the blue of sky, the red blood of an
animal in the forest. He did not appear to notice the unicorn standing behind him on the hill of stone, or if he did, he took the beautiful creature completely for granted. Gaudior’s wings were folded back into the flanks now, so that they were invisible; the light in the horn was steady.

Meg pressed her hand intently against Ananda. The big dog turned her head and licked her hand reassuringly
with her warm, red tongue.