‘Yyouu arre sstill verry yyoungg,’ Mrs Which said, her voice faintly chiding.
The Medium sat looking happily at the star-filled sky in her ball, smiling and nodding and chuckling gently. But Meg noticed that her eyes were drooping, and suddenly her head fell forward and she gave a faint snore.
‘Poor thing,’ Mrs Whatsit said, ‘we’ve worn her out. It’s very hard work for her.’
‘Please, Mrs Whatsit,’ Meg asked, ‘what happens now? Why are we here? What do we do next? Where is father? When are we going to him?’ She clasped her hands pleadingly.
‘One thing at a time, love!’ Mrs Whatsit said.
Mrs Who cut in. ‘As paredes tem ouvidos. That’s Portuguese. Walls have ears.’
‘Yes, let us go outside,’ Mrs Whatsit said. ‘Come, we’ll let her sleep.’
But as they turned to go, the Medium jerked her head up and smiled at them radiantly. ‘You weren’t going to go without saying goodbye to me, were you?’ she asked.
‘We thought we’d just let you sleep, dear,’ Mrs Whatsit patted the Medium’s shoulder. ‘We worked you terribly hard and we know you must be very tired.’
‘But I was going to give you some ambrosia or nectar or at least some tea –’
At this Meg realized that she was hungry. How much time had passed since they had had their bowls of stew? she wondered.
But Mrs Whatsit said, ‘Oh, thank you, dear, but I think we’d better be going.’
‘They don’t need to eat, you know,’ Charles Wallace whispered to Meg. ‘At least not food, the way we do. Eating’s just a game with them. As soon as we get organized again I’d better remind them that they’ll have to feed us sooner or later.’
‘Let’s go!’ Meg cried harshly. ‘Let’s do something!’
‘Well, kiss me goodbye for good luck,’ the Medium said.
Meg went over to her and gave her a quick kiss, and so did Charles Wallace. The Medium looked smilingly at Calvin, and winked. ‘I want the young man to kiss me, too. I always did love red hair. And it’ll give you good luck, Laddie-me-love.’
Calvin bent down, blushing, and awkwardly kissed her cheek.
The Medium tweaked his nose. ‘You’ve got a lot to learn, my boy,’ she told him.
‘Now, goodbye Medium dear, and many thanks,’ Mrs Whatsit said. ‘I dare say we’ll see you in an aeon or two.’
‘Where are you going in case I want to tune in?’ the Medium asked.
‘Camazotz,’ Mrs Whatsit told her. (Where and what was Camazotz? Meg did not like the sound of the word or the way in which Mrs Whatsit pronounced it.) ‘But please don’t distress yourself on our behalf. You know you don’t like looking in on the dark and it’s very upsetting to us when you aren’t happy.’
‘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. Goodbye everyb–’ and her word got lost in the general b-b-bz-z of a snore.
‘Ccome,’ Mrs Which ordered, and they followed her out of the darkness of the cave to the impersonal greyness of the Medium’s planet.
‘Nnoww, cchilldrenn, yyouu musstt nott bee frrightennedd att whatt iss ggoingg tto hhappenn,’ Mrs Which warned.
‘Be angry, little Meg,’ Mrs Whatsit whispered. ‘You will need all your anger now.’
Without warning Meg was swept into nothingness again. This time the nothingness was interrupted by a feeling of clammy coldness such as she had never felt before. The coldness deepened and swirled all about her and through her, and was filled with a new and strange kind of darkness that was a completely tangible thing, a thing that wanted to eat and digest her like some enormous malignant beast of prey.
Then the darkness was gone. Had it been the shadow, the Black Thing? Had they had to travel through it to get to her father?
There was the by-now-familiar tingling in her hands and feet and the push through hardness, and she was on her feet, breathless but unharmed, standing beside Calvin and Charles Wallace.
‘Is this Camazotz?’ Charles Wallace asked as Mrs Whatsit materialized in front of him.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Now let us just stand and get our breath and look around.’
They were standing on a hill and as Meg looked about her she felt that it could easily be a hill on earth. There were the familiar trees she knew so well at home: birches, pines, maples. And though it was warmer than it had been when they so precipitously left the apple orchard, there was a faintly autumnal touch to the air; near them were several small trees with reddened leaves very like sumac, and a big patch of goldenrod-like flowers. As she looked down the hill she could see the smokestacks of a town, and it might have been one of any number of familiar towns. There seemed to be nothing strange, or different, or frightening, in the landscape.
But Mrs Whatsit came to her and put an arm around her comfortingly. ‘I can’t stay with you here, you know, love,’ she said. ‘You three children will be on your own. We will be near you; we will be watching you. But you will not be able to see us or to ask us for help, and we will not be able to come to you.’
‘But is father here?’ Meg asked tremblingly.
‘Yes.’
‘But where? When will we see him?’ She was poised for running, as though she were going to sprint off, immediately, to wherever her father was.
‘That I cannot tell you. You will just have to wait until the propitious moment.’
Charles Wallace looked steadily at Mrs Whatsit. ‘Are you afraid for us?’
‘A little.’
‘But if you weren’t afraid to do what you did when you were a star, why should you be afraid for us now?’
‘But I was afraid,’ Mrs Whatsit said gently. She looked steadily at each of the three children in turn. ‘You will need help,’ she told them, ‘but all I am allowed to give you is a little talisman. Calvin, your great gift is your ability to communicate, to communicate with all kinds of people. So, for you, I will strengthen this gift. Meg, I give you your faults.’
‘My faults!’ Meg cried.
‘Your faults.’
‘But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults!’
‘Yes,’ Mrs Whatsit said. ‘However, I think you’ll find they’ll come in very handy on Camazotz. Charles Wallace, to you I can give only the resilience of your childhood.’
From somewhere Mrs Who’s glasses glimmered and they heard her voice. ‘Calvin,’ she said, ‘a hint. For you a hint. Listen well:
“… For that thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act their earthy and abhorr’d commands,
Refusing their grand hests, they did confine thee
By help of their more potent ministers,
And in their most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprisoned, thou didst painfully remain …”
Shakespeare. The Tempest.’