Mrs Whatsit shook her head. ‘No, Calvin. Charles has gone even deeper into IT. You will not be permitted to throw yourself in with him, for that, you must realize, is what would happen.’
There was a long silence. All the soft rays filtering into the great hall seemed to concentrate on Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and the faint light that must be Mrs Which. No one spoke. One of the beasts moved a tendril slowly back and forth across the stone tabletop. At last Meg could stand it no longer and she cried out despairingly, ‘Then what are you going to do? Are you just going to throw Charles away?’
Mrs Which’s voice rolled formidably across the hall. ‘Ssilencce, cchilldd!’
But Meg could not be silent. She pressed closely against Aunt Beast, but Aunt Beast did not put the protecting tentacles around her. ‘I can’t go!’ Meg cried. ‘I can’t! You know I can’t!’
‘Ddidd annybbodyy asskk yyou ttoo?’ The grim voice made Meg’s skin prickle into gooseflesh.
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 towards her father and her confused anger was gone and she only felt love and pride. She smiled at him, asking forgiveness, and then pressed up against Aunt Beast. This time Aunt Beast’s arm went round her.
Mrs Which’s voice was grave. ‘Wwhatt ddoo yyou unndderrsstanndd?’
‘That it has to be me. It can’t be anyone else. I don’t understand Charles, but he understands me. I’m the one who’s closest to him. Father’s been away for so long, since Charles Wallace was a baby. They don’t know each other. And Calvin’s only known Charles for such a little time. If it had been longer then he would have been the one, but – oh, I see, I see, I understand, it has to be me. There isn’t anyone else.’
Mr Murry, who had been sitting, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists, rose. ‘I will not allow it!’
‘Wwhyy?’ Mrs Which demanded.
‘Look, I don’t know what or who you are, and at this point I don’t care. I will not allow my daughter to go alone into this danger.’
‘Wwhyy?’
‘You know what the outcome will probably be! And she’s weak, now, weaker than she was before. She was almost killed by the Black Thing. I fail to understand how you can even consider such a thing.’
Calvin jumped down. ‘Maybe IT is right about you! Or maybe you’re in league with IT. I’m the one to go if anybody goes! Why did you bring me along at all? To take care of Meg! You said so yourself!’
‘But you have done that,’ Mrs Whatsit assured him.
‘I haven’t done anything!’ Calvin shouted. ‘You can’t send Meg! I won’t allow it! I’ll put my foot down! I won’t permit it!’
‘Don’t you see that you’re making something that is already hard for Meg even harder?’ Mrs Whatsit asked him.
Aunt Beast turned tentacles towards Mrs Whatsit. ‘Is she strong enough to tesser again? You know what she has been through.’
‘If Which takes her she can manage,’ Mrs Whatsit said.
‘If it will help I could go too, and help her.’ Aunt Beast’s arm around Meg tightened.
‘Oh, Aunt Beast –’ Meg started.
But Mrs Whatsit cut her off. ‘No.’
‘I was afraid not,’ Aunt Beast said humbly. ‘I just wanted you to know that I would.’
‘Mrs – uh – Whatsit.’ Mr Murry frowned and pushed his hair back from his face. Then he shoved with his middle finger at his nose as though he were trying to get spectacles closer to his eyes. ‘Are you remembering that she is only a child?’
‘And she’s backward,’ Calvin bellowed.
‘I resent that,’ Meg said hotly, hoping that indignation would control her trembling. ‘I’m better than you at math and you know it.’
‘Do you have the courage to go alone?’ Mrs Whatsit asked her.
Meg’s voice was flat. ‘No. But it doesn’t matter.’ She turned to her father and Calvin. ‘You know it’s the only thing to do. You know they’d never send me alone if –’
‘How do we know they’re not in league with IT?’ Mr Murry demanded.
‘Father!’
‘No, Meg,’ Mrs Whatsit said. ‘I do not blame your father for being angry and suspicious and frightened. And I cannot pretend that we are doing anything but sending you into the gravest kind of danger. I have to acknowledge quite openly that it may be a fatal danger. I know this. But I do not believe it. And the Happy Medium doesn’t believe it, either.’
‘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 metre, 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’m 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.’
‘Please,’ Meg said. ‘Please. If I’ve got to go I want to go and get it over with. Each minute you put it off makes it harder.’
‘Sshee iss rrightt,’ boomed Mrs Which’s voice. ‘Itt iss ttime.’
‘You may say goodbye.’ Mrs Whatsit was giving her not permission, but a command.
Meg curtsied clumsily to the beasts. ‘Thank you all. Very much. I know you saved my life.’ She did not add what she could not help thinking: Saved it for what? So that IT could get me?
She put her arms about Aunt Beast, pressed up against the soft, fragrant fur. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I love you.’
‘And I, you, little one.’ Aunt Beast pressed gentle tendrils against Meg’s face.