A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet, #1)

by Madeleine L'Engle

It’s not just the weather, she thought.—It’s the weather on top of everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong.

But it was still not possible to think about her father without the danger of tears.

Surely it must hurt her as it did Meg. But if it did she gave no outward sign. Nothing ruffled the serenity of her expression. —Why can’t I hide it, too? Meg thought. Why do I always have to show everything?

How did Charles Wallace always know about her? How could he always tell? He never knew—or seemed to care—what Dennys or Sandy were thinking. It was his mother’s mind, and Meg’s, that he probed with frightening accuracy.

It was true that Charles Wallace seldom spoke when anybody was around, so that many people thought he’d never learned to talk. And it was true that he hadn’t talked at all until he was almost four. Meg would turn white with fury when people looked at him and clucked, shaking their heads sadly. “Don’t worry about Charles Wallace, Meg,” her father had once told her. Meg remembered it very clearly because it was shortly before he went away. “There’s nothing the matter with his mind. He just does things in his own way and in his own time.”

How right he had been about that, though he himself had left before Charles Wallace began to speak, suddenly, with none of the usual baby preliminaries, using entire sentences. How proud he would have been!

Mrs. Murry gently touched Meg’s bruised cheek. Meg looked up at her mother, half in loving admiration, half in sullen resentment.

“Usually no matter what happens people think it’s my fault, even if I have nothing to do with it at all. But I’m sorry I tried to fight him. It’s just been an awful week. And I’m full of bad feeling.” Mrs. Murry stroked Meg’s shaggy head. “Do you know why?” “I hate being an oddball,” Meg said. “It’s hard on Sandy and Dennys, too. I don’t know if they’re really like everybody else, or if they’re just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend, but it isn’t any help.” “You’re much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren’t,” Mrs. Murry said.

“My, but isn’t he cunning.” Mrs Whatsit beamed at him fondly. “It’s lucky he has someone to understand him.” “But I’m afraid he doesn’t,” Mrs. Murry said. “None of us is quite up to Charles.” “But at least you aren’t trying to squash him down.” Mrs Whatsit nodded her head vigorously. “You’re letting him be himself.”

“I shall just sit down for a moment and pop on my boots and then I’ll be on my way. Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.” Mrs. Murry went very white and with one hand reached backward and clutched at a chair for support. Her voice trembled. “What did you say?” Mrs Whatsit tugged at her second boot. “I said,” she grunted, shoving her foot down in, “that there is”—shove—“such a thing”—shove—“as a tesseract.

We had rather an interrupted night, if you remember.” “I hoped it was a dream,” Meg said. Her mother carefully turned over four slices of French toast, then said in a steady voice, “No, Meg. Don’t hope it was a dream. I don’t understand it any more than you do, but one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be. I’m sorry I showed you I was upset. Your father and I used to have a joke about tesseract.”

They walked in silence for a moment through the fragrant woods, the rusty pine needles gentle under their feet. Up above them the wind made music in the branches. Charles Wallace slipped his hand confidingly in Meg’s, and the sweet, little-boy gesture warmed her so that she felt the tense knot inside her begin to loosen. Charles loves me at any rate, she thought.

“I just came to get away from my family.” Charles Wallace nodded. “What kind of family?” “They all have runny noses. I’m third from the top of eleven kids. I’m a sport.” At that Charles Wallace grinned widely. “So ’m I.” “I don’t mean like in baseball,” Calvin said. “Neither do I.” “I mean like in biology,” Calvin said suspiciously. “A change in gene,” Charles Wallace quoted, “resulting in the appearance in the offspring of a character which is not present in the parents but which is potentially transmissible to its offspring.”

I’m bright. Listen, did anybody ask you to come here this afternoon?” Charles Wallace, holding Fort by the collar, looked at Calvin suspiciously. “What do you mean, asked?” Calvin shrugged. “You still don’t trust me, do you?” “I don’t distrust you,” Charles Wallace said. “Do you want to tell me why you’re here, then?” “Fort and Meg and I decided to go for a walk. We often do in the afternoon.” Calvin dug his hands down in his pockets. “You’re holding out on me.” “So ’re you,” Charles Wallace said. “Okay, old sport,” Calvin said, “I’ll tell you this much. Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?” “Constraint. Obligation. Because one is compelled. Not a very good definition, but it’s the Concise Oxford.” “Okay, okay,” Calvin sighed. “I must remember I’m preconditioned in my concept of your mentality.”

“When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can’t explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn’t happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That’s all I know, kid. I’m not holding anything back. Maybe it’s because I’m supposed to meet you. You tell me.” Charles Wallace looked at Calvin probingly for a moment; then an almost glazed look came into his eyes, and he seemed to be thinking at him. Calvin stood very still, and waited. At last Charles Wallace said. “Okay. I believe you. But I can’t tell you. I think I’d like to trust you. Maybe you’d better come home with us and have dinner.” “Well, sure, but—what would your mother say to that?” Calvin asked. “She’d be delighted. Mother’s all right. She’s not one of us. But she’s all right.” “What about Meg?” “Meg has it tough,” Charles Wallace said. “She’s not really one thing or the other.” “What do you mean, one of us?” Meg demanded. “What do you mean I’m not one thing or the other?” “Not now, Meg,” Charles Wallace said. “Slowly. I’ll tell you about it later.” He looked at Calvin, then seemed to make a quick decision. “Okay, let’s take him to meet Mrs Whatsit. If he’s not okay she’ll know.”

A board was nailed across the front door, but Charles Wallace led the way around to the back. The door there appeared to be nailed shut, too, but Charles Wallace knocked, and the door swung slowly outward, creaking on rusty hinges. Up in one of the elms an old black crow gave its raucous cry, and a woodpecker went into a wild rat-a-tat-tat. A large gray rat scuttled around the corner of the house and Meg let out a stifled shriek. “They get a lot of fun out of using all the typical props,” Charles Wallace said in a reassuring voice. “Come on. Follow me.” Calvin put a strong hand to Meg’s elbow, and Fort pressed against her leg. Happiness at their concern was so strong in her that her panic fled, and she followed Charles Wallace into the dark recesses of the house without fear.

Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.” “But that’s not appropriate at all,” Charles said crossly. “Your mother would find it so.” A smile seemed to gleam through the roundness of spectacles. “I’m not talking about my mother’s feelings about my father,” Charles Wallace scolded. “I’m talking about Mrs. Buncombe’s sheets.” The little woman sighed. The enormous glasses caught the light again and shone like an owl’s eyes. “In case we need ghosts, of course,” she said. “I should think you’d have guessed. If we have to frighten anybody away Whatsit thought we ought to do it appropriately. That’s why it’s so much fun to stay in a haunted house. But we really didn’t mean you to know about the sheets. Auf frischer Tat ertappt. German. In flagrante delicto. Latin. Caught in the act. English. As I was saying—” But Charles Wallace held up his hand in a peremptory gesture. “Mrs Who, do you know this boy?” Calvin bowed. “Good afternoon, Ma’am. I didn’t quite catch your name.” “Mrs Who will do,” the woman said. “He wasn’t my idea, Charlsie, but I think he’s a good one.” “Where’s Mrs Whatsit?” Charles asked. “She’s busy. It’s getting near time, Charlsie, getting near time. Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret. Seneca. Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable. And he’s a very good man, Charlsie, darling, but right now he needs our help.” “Who?” Meg demanded. “And little Megsie! Lovely to...

“But I love her. That’s the funny part of it. I love them all, and they don’t give a hoot about me. Maybe that’s why I call when I’m not going to be home. Because I care. Nobody else does. You don’t know how lucky you are to be loved.”

With a sudden enthusiastic gesture Calvin flung his arms out wide, as though he were embracing Meg and her mother, the whole house. “How did all this happen? Isn’t it wonderful? I feel as though I were just being born! I’m not alone anymore! Do you realize what that means to me?” “But you’re good at basketball and things,” Meg protested. “You’re good in school. Everybody likes you.” “For all the most unimportant reasons,” Calvin said. “There hasn’t been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn’t me.”

“Do you think things always have an explanation?” “Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we’re not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.” “I like to understand things,” Meg said. “We all do. But it isn’t always possible.” “Charles Wallace understands more than the rest of us, doesn’t he?” “Yes.” “Why?” “I suppose because he’s—well, because he’s different, Meg.” “Different how?” “I’m not quite sure. You know yourself he’s not like anybody else.” “No. And I wouldn’t want him to be,” Meg said defensively. “Wanting doesn’t have anything to do with it. Charles Wallace is what he is. Different. New.” “New?” “Yes. That’s what your father and I feel.” Meg twisted her pencil so hard that it broke. She laughed. “I’m sorry. I’m really not being destructive. I’m just trying to get things straight.” “I know.” “But Charles Wallace doesn’t look different from anybody else.” “No, Meg, but people are more than just the way they look. Charles Wallace’s difference isn’t physical. It’s in essence.” Meg sighed heavily, took off her glasses and twirled them, put them back on again. “Well, I know Charles Wallace is different, and I know he’s something more. I guess I’ll just have to accept it without understanding it.” Mrs. Murry smiled at her. “Maybe that’s really the point I was trying to put across.” “Yah,” Meg said dubiously. Her mother smiled again. “M...

“Uriel, the third planet of the star Malak in the spiral nebula Messier 101.”

face. “Even traveling at the speed of light it would take us years and years to get here.” “Oh, we don’t travel at the speed of anything,” Mrs Whatsit explained earnestly. “We tesser. Or you might say, we wrinkle.”

The resonant voice rose and the words seemed to be all around them so that Meg felt that she could almost reach out and touch them: “Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift their voice; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord!” Throughout her entire body Meg felt a pulse of joy such as she had never known before. Calvin’s hand reached out; he did not clasp her hand in his; he moved his fingers so that they were barely touching hers, but joy flowed through them, back and forth between them, around them and about them and inside them.

“My child, do not despair. Do you think we would have brought you here if there were no hope? We are asking you to do a difficult thing, but we are confident that you can do it. Your father needs help, he needs courage, and for his children he may be able to do what he cannot do for himself.”

“Que la terre est petite à qui la voit des cieux! Delille. How small is the earth to him who looks from heaven,”

The outlines of this planet were not clean and clear. It seemed to be covered with a smoky haze. Through the haze Meg thought she could make out the familiar outlines of continents like pictures in her Social Studies books. “Is it because of our atmosphere that we can’t see properly?” she asked anxiously. “Nno, Mmegg, yyou knnoww thatt itt iss nnott tthee attmosspheeere,” Mrs Which said. “Yyou mmusstt bee brrave.” “It’s the Thing!” Charles Wallace cried. “It’s the Dark Thing we saw from the mountain peak on Uriel when we were riding on Mrs Whatsit’s back!” “Did it just come?” Meg asked in agony, unable to take her eyes from the sickness of the shadow which darkened the beauty of the earth. “Did it just come while we’ve been gone?” Mrs Which’s voice seemed very tired. “Ttell herr,” she said to Mrs Whatsit. Mrs Whatsit sighed. “No, Meg. It hasn’t just come. It has been there for a great many years. That is why your planet is such a troubled one.”

“But what is it?” Calvin demanded. “We know that it’s evil, but what is it?” “Yyouu hhave ssaidd itt!” Mrs Which’s voice rang out. “Itt iss Eevill. Itt iss thee Ppowers of Ddarrkknesss!”

“And we’re not alone, you know, children,” came Mrs Whatsit, the comforter. “All through the universe it’s being fought, all through the cosmos, and my, but it’s a grand and exciting battle. I know it’s hard for you to understand about size, how there’s very little difference in the size of the tiniest microbe and the greatest galaxy. You think about that, and maybe it won’t seem strange to you that some of our very best fighters have come right from your own planet, and it’s a little planet, dears, out on the edge of a little galaxy. You can be proud that it’s done so well.” “Who have our fighters been?” Calvin asked. “Oh, you must know them, dear,” Mrs Whatsit said. Mrs Who’s spectacles shone out at them triumphantly, “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” “Jesus!” Charles Wallace said. “Why of course, Jesus!” “Of course!” Mrs Whatsit said. “Go on, Charles, love. There were others. All your great artists. They’ve been lights for us to see by.” “Leonardo da Vinci?” Calvin suggested tentatively. “And Michelangelo?” “And Shakespeare,” Charles Wallace called out, “and Bach! And Pasteur and Madame Curie and Einstein!” Now Calvin’s voice rang with confidence. “And Schweitzer and Gandhi and Buddha and Beethoven and Rembrandt and St. Francis!” “Now you, Meg,” Mrs Whatsit ordered. “Oh, Euclid, I suppose.” Meg was in such an agony of impatience that her voice grated irritably. “And Copernicus. But what about Father? Please, what about Father?” “...

She contented herself with looking at Mrs Whatsit. Even though she was used to Mrs Whatsit’s odd getup (and the very oddness of it was what made her seem so comforting), she realized with a fresh shock that it was not Mrs Whatsit herself that she was seeing at all. The complete, the true Mrs Whatsit, Meg realized, was beyond human understanding. What she saw was only the game Mrs Whatsit was playing; it was an amusing and charming game, a game full of both laughter and comfort, but it was only the tiniest facet of all the things Mrs Whatsit could be. “I didn’t mean to tell you,” Mrs Whatsit faltered. “I didn’t mean ever to let you know. But, oh, my dears, I did so love being a star!”

The tears that she could never learn to control swam to her eyes as she watched. Mrs. Murry looked up from her letter, almost as though she were looking toward the children, and then her head drooped and she put it down on the paper, and sat there, huddled up, letting herself relax into an unhappiness that she never allowed her children to see.

“But I must know what happens to the children,” the Medium said. “It’s my worst trouble, getting fond. If I didn’t get fond I could be happy all the time. Oh, well, ho hum, I manage to keep pretty jolly, and a little snooze will do wonders for me right now. Good-bye, everyb—” and her word got lost in the general b-b-bz-z of a snore.

You see, what you will soon realize is that there is no need to fight me. Not only is there no need, but you will not have the slightest desire to do so. For why should you wish to fight someone who is here only to save you pain and trouble? For you, as well as for the rest of all the happy, useful people on this planet, I, in my own strength, am willing to assume all the pain, all the responsibility, all the burdens of thought and decision.”

The man gave a wince and the thought of his voice was a little breathless, as though Charles Wallace’s punch had succeeded in winding him. “May I ask why you did that?” “Because you aren’t you,” Charles Wallace said. “I’m not sure what you are, but you”—he pointed to the man on the chair—“aren’t what’s talking to us. I’m sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t think you were real. I thought perhaps you were a robot, because I don’t feel anything coming directly from you. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, but it’s coming through you. It isn’t you.”

“Put your arms around my neck, Meg,” Mr. Murry said. “Hold on to me tightly. Close your eyes and don’t be afraid.” He picked her up and she wrapped her long legs around his waist and clung to his neck.

“We drew straws, and I was second. We know Hank went. We saw him go. We saw him vanish right in front of the rest of us. He was there and then he wasn’t. We were to wait for a year for his return or for some message. We waited. Nothing.” Calvin, his voice cracking: “Jeepers, sir. You must have been in sort of a flap.” Her father: “Yes. It’s a frightening as well as an exciting thing to discover that matter and energy are the same thing, that size is an illusion, and that time is a material substance. We can know this, but it’s far more than we can understand with our puny little brains. I think you will be able to comprehend far more than I. And Charles Wallace even more than you.”

Disappointment was as dark and corrosive in her as the Black Thing. The ugly words tumbled from her cold lips even as she herself could not believe that it was to her father, her beloved, longed-for father, that she was talking to in this way. If her tears had not still been frozen they would have gushed from her eyes. She had found her father and he had not made everything all right. Everything kept getting worse and worse. If the long search for her father was ended, and he wasn’t able to overcome all their difficulties, there was nothing to guarantee that it would all come out right in the end. There was nothing left to hope for. She was frozen, and Charles Wallace was being devoured by IT, and her omnipotent father was doing nothing. She teetered on the seesaw of love and hate, and the Black Thing pushed her down into hate. “You don’t even know where we are!” she cried out at her father. “We’ll never see Mother or the twins again! We don’t know where earth is! Or even where Camazotz is! We’re lost out in space! What are you going to do!” She did not realize that she was as much in the power of the Black Thing as Charles Wallace.

We were sent here for something. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

The movement of the tentacles was as rhythmic and flowing as the dance of an undersea plant, and lying there, cradled in the four strange arms, Meg, despite herself, felt a sense of security that was deeper than anything she had known since the days when she lay in her mother’s arms in the old rocking chair and was sung to sleep.

Perplexity came to her from the beast. “What is this dark? What is this light? We do not understand. Your father and the boy, Calvin, have asked this, too. They say that it is night now on our planet, and that they cannot see. They have told us that our atmosphere is what they call opaque, so that the stars are not visible, and then they were surprised that we know stars, that we know their music and the movements of their dance far better than beings like you who spend hours studying them through what you call telescopes. We do not understand what this means, to see.”

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.”

“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.

“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 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.

“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!”

She burst into tears. She started beating at Aunt Beast like a small child having a tantrum. Her tears rained down her face and spattered Aunt Beast’s fur. Aunt Beast stood quietly against the assault. “All right, I’ll go!” Meg sobbed. “I know you want me to go!” “We want nothing from you that you do without grace,” Mrs Whatsit said, “or that you do without understanding.” Meg’s tears stopped as abruptly as they had started. “But I do understand.” She felt tired and unexpectedly peaceful. Now the coldness that, under Aunt Beast’s ministrations, had left her body had also left her mind. She looked toward her father and her confused anger was gone and she felt only love and pride. She smiled at him, asking forgiveness, and then pressed up against Aunt Beast. This time Aunt Beast’s arm went around her.

“Can’t she see what’s going to happen?” Calvin asked. “Oh, not in this kind of thing.” Mrs Whatsit sounded surprised at his question. “If we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we’d be—we’d be like the people on Camazotz, with no lives of our own, with everything all planned and done for us. How can I explain it to you? Oh, I know. In your language you have a form of poetry called the sonnet.” “Yes, yes,” Calvin said impatiently. “What’s that got to do with the Happy Medium?” “Kindly pay me the courtesy of listening to me.” Mrs Whatsit’s voice was stern, and for a moment Calvin stopped pawing the ground like a nervous colt. “It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?” “Yes.” “There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?” “Yes.” Calvin nodded. “And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?” “No.” “But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn’t he?” “Yes.” Calvin nodded again. “So,” Mrs Whatsit said. “So what?” “Oh, do not be stupid, boy!” Mrs Whatsit scolded. “You know perfectly well what I am driving at!” “You mean you’re comparing our lives to a sonnet? A strict form, but freedom within it?” “Yes.” Mrs Whatsit said. “You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”

He took both her hands in his, bent down to her with his short-sighted eyes. “Sorry for what, Megatron?” Tears almost came to her eyes at the gentle use of the old nickname. “I wanted you to do it all for me. I wanted everything to be all easy and simple. . . . So I tried to pretend that it was all your fault . . . because I was scared, and I didn’t want to have to do anything myself—” “But I wanted to do it for you,” Mr. Murry said. “That’s what every parent wants.” He looked into her dark, frightened eyes. “I won’t let you go, Meg. I am going.” “No.” Mrs Whatsit’s voice was sterner than Meg had ever heard it. “You are going to allow Meg the privilege of accepting this danger. You are a wise man, Mr. Murry. You are going to let her go.”

The momentary vision and faith that had come to Meg dwindled. “But suppose I can’t get Charles Wallace away from IT—” “Stop.” Mrs Whatsit held up her hand. “We gave you gifts the last time we took you to Camazotz. We will not let you go empty-handed this time. But what we can give you now is nothing you can touch with your hands. I give you my love, Meg. Never forget that. My love always.”

And what I have to give you this time you must try to understand not word by word, but in a flash, as you understand the tesseract. Listen, Meg. Listen well. The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.” She paused, and then she said, “May the right prevail.”