A Swiftly Tilting Planet (3 page)

“Not a song,” Mrs. O’Keefe contradicted. “A rune. Patrick’s rune. To hold up against danger. In this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power—”

Without warning, the lights went out. A gust of wind dashed across the table, blowing out the candles. The humming of the refrigerator ceased. There was no purring from the furnace in the cellar. A cold dampness clutched the room, filling their nostrils with a stench of decay. The flames in the fireplace dwindled.

“Say it, Mom!” Charles Wallace called. “Say it all!”

Mrs. O’Keefe’s voice was weak. “I forget—”

The lightning outside was so brilliant that light penetrated the closed curtains. A tremendous crash of thunder followed immediately.

“I’ll say it with you.” Charles Wallace’s voice was urgent. “But you’ll have to help me. Come on. In this fateful hour I place all Heaven with its power …”

Lightning and thunder were almost simultaneous. Then they heard a gigantic crackling noise.

“One of the trees has been struck,” Mr. Murry said.

“All Heaven with its power,” Charles Wallace repeated.

The old woman’s voice took up the words. “And the sun with its brightness …”

Dennys struck a match and lit the candles. At first the flames flickered and guttered wildly, but then steadied and burned straight and bright.

Meg waited for the lightning to flash again, for the house itself to be struck. Instead, the power came back on as abruptly as it had gone off. The furnace began to hum. The room was filled with light and warmth.

Charles Wallace lifted the curtains away from one corner of the window. “The rain’s turned to snow. The ground’s all white and beautiful.”

“All right—” Sandy looked around the room. “What’s this all about? I know something’s happened, but what?”

For a moment no one spoke. Then Meg said, “Maybe there’s hope.”

Sandy waved her words away. “Really, Meg, be reasonable.”

“Why? We don’t live in a reasonable world. Nuclear war is not reasonable. Reason hasn’t got us anywhere.”

“But you can’t throw it out. Branzillo is mad and there’s no reason in him.”

Dennys said, “Okay, Sandy, I agree with you. But what happened?”

Meg glanced at Charles Wallace, but he had his withdrawn, listening look.

Sandy replied, “Much as we’d like it to, a freak of weather here in the northeastern United States isn’t going
to have anything to do with whether or not a South American madman pushes that button to start the war that very likely
will
be the war to end wars.”

The baby moved within Meg, a strong affirmation of life. “Father, is the president going to call again?”

“He said he would when—when there’s any news. One way or other.”

“Within twenty-four hours?”

“Yes. I would not want to be in his position at the moment.”

“Or in ours,” Dennys said. “It strikes me the whole world is in it together.”

Charles Wallace continued to look out the window. “The snow’s stopping. The wind has shifted to the northwest. The clouds are moving. I see a star.” He let the curtain drop.

Mrs. O’Keefe jerked her chin toward him. “You. Chuck. I come because of you.”

“Why, Mom?” he asked gently.

“You know.”

He shook his head.

“Stop him, Chuck. Stop Mad Dog Bran … Stop him.” She looked old and small and Meg wondered how she could have pressed down so heavily on her shoulder. And twice Mrs. O’Keefe had called Charles Wallace
Chuck
. Nobody ever called him Chuck. Occasionally plain Charles, but never Charlie or Chuck.

Mrs. Murry asked, “Mrs. O’Keefe, would you like some tea? or coffee?”

Mrs. O’Keefe cackled without mirth. “That’s right. Don’t hear. Think I’m crackers. Not such a fool as all that. Chuck knows.” She nodded toward Charles Wallace. “Woke up this morning, and wasn’t going to come. Then something told me I was to come, like it or not, and didn’t know why till I saw you with them big ancient eyes and the rune started to come back to me, and I knowed once more Chuck’s no idiot. Haven’t thought of the rune since my grandma and Chuck, till now. You’ve got it, Chuck. Use it.” Her breath ran out. It was the longest speech they had ever heard her give. Panting, she finished. “I want to go home.” And, as no one spoke: “Someone take me home.”

“But, Mrs. O’Keefe,” Dennys wheedled, “we haven’t had salad, and it’s got lots of avocado and tomato in it, and then there’s flaming plum pudding.”

“Flame yourself. I done what I come for. Someone take me home.”

“Very well, Mrs. O’Keefe.” Mr. Murry rose. “Den or Sandy, will you drive Mrs. O’Keefe home?”

“I will,” Dennys said. “I’ll get your coat, ma’am.”

When the car had driven off, Sandy said, “One could almost take her seriously.”

The Murry parents exchanged glances, and Mrs. Murry replied, “I do.”

“Oh, come on, Mother, all that rune stuff, and Charles Wallace stopping Mad Dog Branzillo singlehanded?”

“Not necessarily that. But I take Mrs. O’Keefe seriously.”

Meg looked anxiously at Charles Wallace, spoke to her mother. “You’ve always said there was more to her than meets the eye. I guess we’ve just seen some of that more.”

“I rather think we have,” her father said.

“All right, then, what was it all about? It was all—all unnatural.”

“What’s natural?” Charles Wallace asked.

Sandy raised his eyebrows. “Okay, little brother, what do you make of it, then? How do you plan to stop Branzillo?”

“I don’t know,” Charles Wallace replied seriously. “I’ll use the rune.”

“Do you remember it?” Meg asked.

“I remember it.”

“Did you hear her call you Chuck?”

“I heard.”

“But nobody ever calls you Chuck. Where did she get it?”

“I’m not sure. Out of the past, maybe.”

The phone rang, and they all jumped. Mr. Murry hurried to the phone table, then drew back an instant before picking up the receiver.

But it was not the president. It was Calvin, calling from London. He spoke briefly to everybody, was sorry to miss his mother and Dennys; but he was delighted that his mother had come; his paper had gone extremely well; the conference was interesting. At the last he asked to speak to Meg again, and said only, “I love you,” and hung up.

“I always fall apart on overseas calls,” she said, “so I don’t think he noticed anything. There isn’t any point telling him when he can’t do anything about it, and it would just make it awful for him …” She turned away as Dennys came in, blowing on his fingers.

“Calvin called from London.” She swallowed her tears. “He sends you his best.”

“Sorry to have missed him. How about some salad, now, and then that plum pudding?”

—Why are we trying to act normal? Meg wondered, but did not speak her thought aloud.

But Charles Wallace replied, “It’s sort of like the string holding the package together, Meg. We’d all fall apart otherwise.”

Her father said, “You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.”

“Even at a time like this?” Meg asked. The call from
Calvin, the sound of her husband’s voice, had nearly broken her control.

“Especially at a time like this,” her mother said gently. “We don’t know what the next twenty-four hours are going to bring, and if it should be what we fear, then the peace and quiet within us will come to our aid.”

“Will it?” Meg’s voice faltered again.

“Remember,” Mr. Murry said, “your mother and I take Mrs. O’Keefe seriously.”

“Father,” Sandy chided, “you’re a pure scientist. You can’t take that old woman seriously.”

“I take the response of the elements to her rune seriously.”

“Coincidence,” Dennys said without much assurance.

“My training in physics has taught me that there is no such thing as coincidence.”

“Charles Wallace still hasn’t said anything.” Meg looked to her small brother.

Dennys asked, “What about it, Charles?”

He shook his head slowly. He looked bewildered. “I don’t know. I think I’m supposed to do something, but I don’t know what. But if I’m meant to do something, I’ll be told.”

“By some little men from outer space?” Sandy asked.

“Something in me will tell me. I don’t think any of us wants more salad. Let’s turn out the lights and let Father flame the pudding.”

“I’m not sure I want the lights out,” Meg said. “Maybe there isn’t going to be any more electricity, ever. Let’s enjoy it while we have it.”

“I’d rather enjoy the light of the plum pudding,” Charles Wallace said.

Mrs. Murry took the pudding from the double boiler where it had been steaming, and turned it out onto a plate. Dennys took a sprig of holly and stuck it on the top. Mr. Murry got a bottle of brandy and poured it liberally over the pudding. As he lit the match, Charles Wallace turned out the lights and Sandy blew out the candles. The brandy burned with a brilliant blue flame; it seemed brighter than Meg remembered from other Thanksgivings. It had always been their traditional holiday dessert because, as Mrs. Murry remarked, you can’t make pie crust over a Bunsen burner, and her attempts at mince or pumpkin pie had not been successes.

Mr. Murry tilted the dish so that all the brandy would burn. The flames continued, bright and clear and blue, a blue that held in it the warmth of a summer sky rather than the chill of winter.

“And the fire with all the strength it hath,” Charles Wallace said softly.

“But what kind of strength?” Meg asked. She looked at the logs crackling merrily in the fireplace. “It can keep you warm, but if it gets out of hand it can burn your
house down. It can destroy forests. It can burn whole cities.”

“Strength can always be used to destroy as well as create,” Charles Wallace said. “This fire is to help and heal.”

“I hope,” Meg said. “Oh, I hope.”

TWO

All Heaven with its power

Meg sat propped up on pillows in the old brass bed in the attic and tried to read, because thinking hurt too much, was not even thinking but projection into a fearful future. And Calvin was not beside her, to share, to strengthen … She let the book drop; it was one of her old volumes of fairy tales. She looked around the room, seeking comfort in familiar things. Her hair was down for the night and fell softly about her shoulders. She glanced at herself in the old, ripply mirror over the chest of drawers and despite her anxiety was pleased at the reflection. She looked like a child again, but a far lovelier child than she actually had been.

Her ears pricked up as she heard a soft, velvety tread, and a stripy kitten minced across the wide floorboards, sprang up onto the bed, and began grooming itself while purring loudly. There was always at least one kitten
around, it seemed. She missed the old black dog. What would Fortinbras have made of the events of the evening? She would have been happier if the old dog had been in his usual forbidden place at the foot of the bed, because he had an unusual degree of sensitivity, even for a dog, to anything which could help or harm his human family.

Meg felt cold and pulled her battered quilt about her shoulders. She remembered Mrs. O’Keefe calling on all Heaven with its power, and thought shudderingly that she would settle for one large, loving dog. Heaven had shown considerable power that evening, and it was too wild and beyond control for comfort.

And Charles Wallace. She wanted her brother. Mrs. O’Keefe had called on Charles to stop Branzillo: he’d need all the powers Heaven could give him.

He had said good night to Meg in a brusque and preoccupied way, and then given her one quick blue glance which had made her keep the light on and the book open. Sleep, in any event, was far away, lost somewhere in that time which had been shattered by the president’s phone call.

The kitten rose high on its legs, made three complete turns, and dropped, heavily for such a little creature, into the curve of her body. The purr slowly faded out and it slept. Meg wondered if she would ever again sleep in that
secure way, relinquishing consciousness without fear of what might happen during the night. Her eyes felt dry with fatigue but she did not want to close them and shut out the reassurance of the student lamp with its double yellow globes, the sagging bookshelves she had made with boards and bricks, the blue print curtains at the window; the hem of the curtains had been sagging for longer than she cared to remember and she had been meaning to sew it up since well before her marriage.—Tomorrow, she thought,—if there is a tomorrow.

When she heard footsteps on the attic stairs she stiffened, then relaxed. They had all got in the habit of automatically skipping the seventh step, which not only creaked when stepped on, but often made a sound like a shot. She and Charles Wallace had learned to put one foot on the extreme left of the step so that it let out only a long, slow sigh; when either one of them did this, it was a signal for a conference.

She listened to his progress across the attic, heard the rocking of the old wooden horse as he gave it his usual affectionate slap on the rump, followed by the whing of a dart going into the cork board: all the little signals they had built up over the years.

He pushed through the long strands of patterned rice which curtained the doorway, stood at the foot of the bed, and rested his chin on the high brass rail of the
footboard. He looked at her without smiling, then climbed over the footboard as he used to do when he was a little boy, and sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed. “She really does expect me to do something.”

Meg nodded.

“For once I’m feeling more in sympathy with the twins than with Mother and Father. The twins think the whole thing is unreasonable and impossible.”