A Wind in the Door (15 page)
Read A Wind in the Door Online
Authors: Madeleine L'Engle
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Classics, #Time Travel, #Retail, #Personal
O
f course Mr. Jenkins’s hand would be damp. He’d be scared out of his wits. He was years away from games of Make Believe and Let’s Pretend.
f course Mr. Jenkins’s hand would be damp. He’d be scared out of his wits. He was years away from games of Make Believe and Let’s Pretend.
“Mr. Jenkins, are you all right?”
She felt a fumbling kything, a frightened inability to accept that they were actually in a mitochondrion, a mitochondrion within one of Charles Wallace’s cells. “How long have we been here?”
“I’m not sure. So much has happened. Progo—you’re sure we’re in farandola time, not earth time?”
“Farandola time.”
“Whew!” she told Mr. Jenkins in relief. “That means that time on earth is passing much more slowly than time is for us—aeons more slowly. Charles Wallace’s heart beats only once every decade or so.”
“Even so,” Proginoskes warned, “there’s no time to waste.”
Another flash of Charles Wallace’s face, ashen, eyes closed, breathing labored; of her mother’s face, tight with pain; of Dr. Louise, watchful, waiting. She stood with her small hand lightly against Charles Wallace’s wrist.
“I know,” Meg answered the cherubim. A cold wind seemed to blow through the interstices of her ribs. She must be strong for Charles Wallace now, so that he could draw on that strength. She held her mind quiet and steady until it calmed.
Then she opened herself again to Mr. Jenkins. Muddied thoughts which could hardly qualify as kything moved about her like sluggish water, and yet she understood that Mr. Jenkins was being more open with her than he had ever been before, or than he ever was able to be with most people. His mind shuddered into Meg’s as he tried to grasp the extraordinary fact that he was still himself, still Mr. Jenkins, at the same time that he was a minuscule part of the child who had been one of his most baffling and irritating problems at school.
Meg tried to let him know, in as unalarming a way as possible, that at least one of the Echthroid-Mr. Jenkinses was with them on Yadah. She did not want to recall her terror during her encounter with one of them, but she had to help Mr. Jenkins understand.
He sent her a response, first of bafflement, then fear,
then a strange tenderness towards her. “You should not be asked to endure such things, Margaret.”
then a strange tenderness towards her. “You should not be asked to endure such things, Margaret.”
“There’s more,” she told him. This more was hardest of all, to make him understand that some of the little farandolae, some of the playful, dancing creatures, had saved her from the Echthros-Mr. Jenkins, and had sacrificed themselves in doing so.
Mr. Jenkins groaned.
From Proginoskes Meg relayed to the principal, “It was better than letting the Echthroi X them. They’re still—they’re still part of Creation this way.” She turned her kything to Proginoskes. “If the Echthroi X something, or if something Xs itself, is it forever?”
The cherubim surrounded her with the darkness of his unknowing. “But we don’t need to know, Meg,” he told her firmly, and the darkness began to blow away. “I am a cherubim. All I need to know is that all the galaxies, all the stars, all creatures, cherubic, human, farandolan, all, all, are known by Name.” He seemed almost to be crooning to himself.
Meg kythed at him sharply. “You’re Progo. I’m Meg. He’s Mr. Jenkins. Now what are we supposed to do?”
Proginoskes came back into focus. “Mr. Jenkins does not want to understand what a farandola is.”
“Evil is evil,” Mr. Jenkins sent fumblingly Megwards. She felt his mind balking at the idea of communication
where distance was no barrier. “Mice talk by squeaking, and shrimp by—I don’t know much marine biology but they must make some sound. But trees!” he expostulated. “Mice who put down roots and turn into trees—you did say trees?”
where distance was no barrier. “Mice talk by squeaking, and shrimp by—I don’t know much marine biology but they must make some sound. But trees!” he expostulated. “Mice who put down roots and turn into trees—you did say trees?”
“No.” Meg was impatient, not so much at Mr. Jenkins as at her own ineptitude in communicating with him. “The farae—well, they aren’t unlike trees, sort of primordial ones, and they aren’t unlike coral and underwater things like that.”
“Trees cannot talk with each other.”
“Farae can. And as for trees—don’t they?”
“Nonsense.”
“Mr. Jenkins, when you walk through the woods at home, and the wind moves in the trees, don’t you ever have the feeling that if you knew how, you’d be able to understand what they were saying?”
“Never.” It had been a long time since he had walked in the woods. He moved from his lodgings to the school, from the school to his lodgings, driving himself both ways. He did not have time to go for walks in the woods …
She felt a dim regret in his kything, so she tried to make him hear the sound of wind in the pine woods. “If you close your eyes it sounds like ocean waves, even though we’re not anywhere near the ocean.”
All she felt from Mr. Jenkins was another cold wash of incomprehension.
So she envisioned a small grove of aspens for him, each leaf shivering and shaking separately, whispering softly in the still summer air.
“I’m too old,” was Mr. Jenkins’s response. “I’m much too old. I’m just holding you back. You ought to return me to Earth.”
Meg forgot that she had recently made exactly that suggestion. “Anyhow, Yadah is on Earth, or in Earth, sort of, since it’s in Charles Wallace …”
“No, no,” Mr. Jenkins said, “it’s too much. I’m no help. I don’t know why I thought I might be—” His kything trailed off.
Through his discouragement she became aware of Calvin. “Hey, Meg! Communication implies sound. Communion doesn’t.” He sent her a brief image of walking silently through the woods, the two of them alone together, their feet almost noiseless on the rusty carpet of pine needles. They walked without speaking, without touching, and yet they were as close as it is possible for two human beings to be. They climbed up through the woods, coming out into the brilliant sunlight at the top of the hill. A few sumac trees showed their rusty candles. Mountain laurel, shiny, so dark a green the leaves seemed black in the fierceness of sunlight,
pressed towards the woods. Meg and Calvin had stretched out in the thick, late-summer grass, lying on their backs and gazing up into the shimmering blue of sky, a vault interrupted only by a few small clouds.
pressed towards the woods. Meg and Calvin had stretched out in the thick, late-summer grass, lying on their backs and gazing up into the shimmering blue of sky, a vault interrupted only by a few small clouds.
And she had been as happy, she remembered, as it is possible to be, and as close to Calvin as she had ever been to anybody in her life, even Charles Wallace, so close that their separate bodies, daisies and buttercups joining rather than dividing them, seemed a single enjoyment of summer and sun and each other.
That was surely the purest kind of kything.
Mr. Jenkins had never had that kind of communion with another human being, a communion so rich and full that silence speaks more powerfully than words.
Again Calvin was kything with quick, urgent words.
“The Wall Street Journal.”
“The Wall Street Journal.”
“What!”
“Mr. Jenkins reads
The Wall Street Journal
. Maybe he might have read this.”
The Wall Street Journal
. Maybe he might have read this.”
“Read what?”
“You remember, just a few weeks ago I was telling you about a science project I did years ago when I was in fourth grade. Even the twins were interested.”
Meg listened intently, trying to kythe simultaneously to Mr. Jenkins.
The subject of the old science project had come up
because of the twins’ garden. Sandy and Dennys were baffled and irritated. Some of the pepper plants had large, firm, healthy fruit. On others the peppers were wizened and wrinkled and pale. Calvin had been taken out to look at the undersized, flabby plants, which showed no visible sign of disease, and he had been reminded of his fourth-grade science project.
because of the twins’ garden. Sandy and Dennys were baffled and irritated. Some of the pepper plants had large, firm, healthy fruit. On others the peppers were wizened and wrinkled and pale. Calvin had been taken out to look at the undersized, flabby plants, which showed no visible sign of disease, and he had been reminded of his fourth-grade science project.
Meg asked, “Could the plants be having the same kind of trouble mitochondria are having? Could Echthroi bother things like gardens?”
Calvin pushed this question aside to think about later. “Not now, Meg. Listen. I think my science project will help Mr. Jenkins understand.”
Meg seemed to see Mr. Jenkins’s nose twitching as it always did when he was reluctant.
“Okay, then.” She kythed to him, slowly, as simply as possible, Calvin’s kything always a strong current under and through hers.
At nine years of age Calvin read avidly, every book that came into the small village library. The librarian, seeing his pleasure in books, encouraged him, gave him a special corner in the library as his own, and gave him all the old classics of the imagination to read. His span of concentration on these stories was infinite.
But he considered most of the work he was given at
school a bore, particularly science projects. However, he was also fiercely competitive, and determined to be the top of his class in all subjects, even those he considered a waste of time.
school a bore, particularly science projects. However, he was also fiercely competitive, and determined to be the top of his class in all subjects, even those he considered a waste of time.
When the week came when he must turn in the topic for his science project by Friday, he was disinterested and planless, but he knew he had to choose something. He was thinking about this with particular urgency on Thursday afternoon when he was helping old Mrs. Buncombe clean out her attic. What could he choose which would interest the teacher and class and not bore him completely? Mrs. Buncombe was not paying him for the dirty and dusty job—her attic had not been touched for years—but she had bribed him to do it by telling him that there was an old set of china up in the attic, and he could take it as payment. Perhaps she knew that the O’Keefes could never sit down to a meal together, even if they had wanted to, because there weren’t enough plates and cups and saucers to go round.
The china was in a box at the back of the attic, and it was wrapped in old newspapers. Some of it was broken; much of it was cracked; it certainly was not a set of forgotten Wedgwood or Dresden. Who had bothered to wrap it up as carefully as though it were a priceless heirloom? However, there was enough of the set left to make it worth taking home. He unwrapped it for his
mother, who complained ungraciously, if correctly, that it was junk.
mother, who complained ungraciously, if correctly, that it was junk.
He cleared up the crumpled, yellowed newspapers, and began to read one. It was an old
Wall Street Journal;
the date had been torn off, but the paper was brittle and stained and he knew that it must be a good many years old. His eye caught an article about a series of experiments made by a biologist.
Wall Street Journal;
the date had been torn off, but the paper was brittle and stained and he knew that it must be a good many years old. His eye caught an article about a series of experiments made by a biologist.
The biologist had the idea, unusual at the time, that plants were capable of subjective reactions to stimuli, and he decided to measure the strength of these reactions by attaching electrodes, like those used in a lie detector, to the leaves of a large, healthy philodendron.
At that point in the account a section of paper was torn away, and Calvin lost several sentences. He picked up a statement that electronic needles would record the plant’s responses on a graph, much as brain waves or heart patterns are recorded by the electro-encephalogram or electrocardiogram machines.
The biologist spent an entire morning looking at the needles moving in a straight line across the paper. Nothing happened. No reactions. The needle did not quiver. The line moved slowly and steadily.
The biologist thought, “I’ll make that plant react. I’ll burn one of its leaves.”
The stylus made wild up and down markings of alarm.
The rest of the article was torn off.
Mr. Jenkins’s thoughts came to Meg quite clearly, a little irritably. “I read that article. I thought it was nonsense. Just some crackpot.”
Calvin kythed, “Most major scientific discoveries have been made by crackpots—or at least, people who were thought to be crackpots.”
“My own parents, for instance,” Meg added, “until some of their discoveries were proved to be true.”
Calvin continued. “Listen. There’s more. I found another article among the papers.”
This one described the biologist going on a crosscountry lecturing tour. He asked one of his students to take care of, watch, and record the reactions of his philodendron.
The plant’s alarm needles jumped nervously whenever the biologist’s plane took off or landed.
“How would it know?” Meg asked.
“It did.”
“But distance,” she protested, “how could a plant, just an ordinary domestic philodendron, know what was happening miles and miles away?”
“Or care,” came dourly from Mr. Jenkins.
“Distance doesn’t seem to be any more important than size. Or time. As for caring—well, that’s outside the realm of provable fact.”
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