Such a wave of despondency came over Meg that she was no longer able to eat.
‘Our friends here,’ he continued, ‘feel that it was only the fact that I still wore the glasses your Mrs Who gave you that kept me within this solar system. Here are the glasses, Meg. But I am afraid that the virtue has gone from them and now they are only glass. Perhaps they were meant to help only once and only on Camazotz. Perhaps it was going through the Black Thing that did it.’ He pushed the glasses across the table to her.
‘These people know about tessering,’ Calvin gestured at the circle of great beasts, ‘but they can’t do it on to a dark planet.’
‘Have you tried to call Mrs Whatsit?’ Meg asked.
‘Not yet,’ her father answered.
‘But if you haven’t thought of anything else, it’s the only thing to do! Father, don’t you care about Charles at all!’
At that Aunt Beast stood up, saying, ‘Child,’ in a reproving way. Mr Murry said nothing, and Meg could see that she had wounded him deeply. She reacted as she would have reacted to Mr Jenkins. She scowled down at the table, saying, ‘We’ve got to ask them for help now. You’re just stupid if you think we don’t.’
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.
Calvin swung away from her and hunched himself up. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that we’ve been trying to tell them about our ladies? What do you think we’ve been up to all this time? Just stuffing our faces? Okay, you have a shot at it.’
‘Yes. Try, child.’ Aunt Beast seated herself again, and pulled Meg up beside her. ‘But I do not understand this feeling of anger I sense in you. What is it about? There is blame going on, and guilt. Why?’
‘Aunt Beast, don’t you know?’
‘No,’ Aunt Beast said. ‘But this is not telling me about – whoever they are you want us to know. Try.’
Meg tried. Blunderingly. Fumblingly. At first she described Mrs Whatsit and her man’s coat and multicoloured shawls and scarves, Mrs Who and her white robes and shimmering spectacles, Mrs Which in her peaked cap and black gown quivering in and out of body. Then she realized that this was absurd. She was describing them only to herself. This wasn’t Mrs Whatsit or Mrs Who or Mrs Which. She might as well have described Mrs Whatsit as she was when she took on the form of a flying creature of Uriel.
‘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!’
‘I thought for a moment –’Aunt Beast started, then subsided, sighing. ‘No. It’s not clear enough.’
‘How strange it is that they can’t tell us what they themselves seem to know,’ a tall, thin beast murmured.
One of Aunt Beast’s tentacled arms went around Meg’s waist again. ‘They are very young. And on their Earth, as they call it, they never communicate with other planets. They revolve about all alone in space.’
‘Oh,’ the thin beast said. ‘Aren’t they lonely?’
Suddenly a thundering voice reverberated throughout the great hall:
‘WWEEE ARRE HHERRE!’
12. The Foolish and the Weak
MEG COULD see nothing, but she felt her heart pounding with hope. With one accord all the beasts rose to their feet, turned towards one of the arched openings, and bowed their heads and tentacles in greeting. Mrs Whatsit appeared, standing between two columns. Beside her came Mrs Who, behind them a quivering of light. The three of them were somehow not quite the same as they had been when Meg had first seen them. Their outlines seemed blurred; colours ran together as in a wet watercolour painting. But they were there; they were recognizable; they were themselves.
Meg pulled herself away from Aunt Beast, jumped to the floor, and rushed at Mrs Whatsit. But Mrs Whatsit held up a warning hand and Meg realized that she was not completely materialized, that she was light and not substance, and embracing her now would have been like trying to hug a sunbeam.
‘We had to hurry so there wasn’t quite time … You wanted us?’ Mrs Whatsit asked.
The tallest of the beasts bowed again and took a step away from the table and towards Mrs Whatsit. ‘It is a question of the little boy.’
‘Father left him!’ Meg cried. ‘He left him on Camazotz!’
Appallingly, Mrs Whatsit’s voice was cold. ‘And what do you expect us to do?’
Meg pressed her knuckles against her teeth so that her brace cut her skin. Then she flung out her arms pleadingly. ‘But it’s Charles Wallace! IT has him, Mrs Whatsit! Save him, please save him!’
‘You know that we can do nothing on Camazotz,’ Mrs Whatsit said, her voice still cold.
‘You mean you’ll let Charles be caught by IT for ever?’ Meg’s voice rose shrilly.
‘Did I say that?’
‘But we can’t do anything! You know we can’t! We tried! Mrs Whatsit, you have to save him!’
‘Meg, this is not our way,’ Mrs Whatsit said sadly. ‘I thought you would know that this is not our way.’
Mr Murry took a step forward and bowed, and to Meg’s amazement the three ladies bowed back to him. ‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ Mrs Whatsit said.
‘It’s father, you know it’s father,’ Meg’s angry impatience grew. ‘Father, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which.’
‘I’m very glad to –’ Mr Murry mumbled, then went on, ‘I’m sorry, my glasses are broken, and I can’t see you very well.’
‘It’s not necessary to see us,’ Mrs Whatsit said.
‘If you could teach me enough about the tesseract so that I could get back to Camazotz –’
‘Wwhatt tthenn?’ came Mrs Which’s surprising voice.
‘I will try to take my child away from IT.’
‘Annd yyou kknoww tthatt yyou wwill nnott ssucceeedd?’
‘There’s nothing left except to try.’
Mrs Whatsit spoke gently. ‘I’m sorry. We cannot allow you to go.’
‘Then let me,’ Calvin suggested. ‘I almost got him away before.’