A Wind in the Door Read online

  "Why is it silly? Why can't I see? Why can't I move?"

  "Meg, you must stop panicking or I won't be able to kythe with you. We won't be able to help each other."

  She made a tremendous effort to calm down, but with each heartbeat she felt only more tense, more frightened. How could her heart be pounding so rapidly if Charles Wallace's beat only once a decade?

  Proginoskes thought noisily at her, "Time isn't any more important than size. All that is required of you is to be in the Now, in this moment which has been given us."

  "I don't feel like myself. I'm not myself! I'm part of Charles Wallace."

  "Meg. You are Named forever."

  "But Progo--"

  "Say the multiplication table."

  "Now who's being silly?"

  "Megling, it will help bring you to yourself. Try."

  "I can't." Her mind felt battered and numb. She could not even remember enough to count to ten.

  "What's 7 times 8?"

  She responded automatically. "56."

  "What's the product of 2/3 and 5/7."

  Her mind whirled, cleared. "10 over 21."

  "What's the next prime number after 67?"

  "71"

  "Can we think together now?" There was considerable concern in Proginoskes's questioning.

  The concentration the cherubim had thrust on Meg had calmed her panic. "I'm okay. Where's Calvin? Where's Mr. Jenkins? And that--that Sporos?"

  "They're all here. You'll be able to kythe with them soon. But first we have to find out what the second test is."

  "Find out?" Her mind was still blurred from pain and fright.

  He was patient with her. "As we found out what the first test was."

  "You guessed that," she said. "Do you know what this one is?"

  "I think it has to do with Sporos."

  "But what?"

  "This is what we must discover."

  "We have to hurry, then." She tried to check her impatience.

  "Meg, I have to work with you and Mr. Jenkins together, because he isn't capable of letting me move about in his mind as you can, so you'll have to help. The grown farandolae don't talk the way people do, they kythe."

  "Like cherubim?"

  "Some of the Ancient Ones, yes. With the younger ones it's a little closer to what you called mental telepathy. Never mind the degree; Mr. Jenkins can't understand kything at all, and you'll have to help him."

  "I'll try. But you'll have to help me, Progo."

  "Stretch out your right hand--"

  "I can't move."

  "That doesn't matter. Move your hand in your mind. Kythe it. Kythe that Mr. Jenkins is standing by you, and that you're reaching out to hold his hand. Are you doing it?"

  "I'm trying."

  "Can you feel his hand?"

  "I think so. At least, I'm making believe I can."

  "Hold it. Tightly. So that he knows you're there."

  Her hand, which was no longer her hand in any way she had known before, nevertheless moved in the remembered pattern, and she thought she felt a slight pressure in return. She tried to kythe to the principal. "Mr. Jenkins, are you there?"

  "Hheere." It was like an echo of a faintly remembered voice hoarse with chalk dust; but she knew that she and Mr. Jenkins were together.

  "Meg, you will have to kythe him everything I tell you. If I move into his mind I hurt him; he can't absorb my energy. Now, try to translate simultaneously for him: make him see that a grown farandola's matter does not move, except as a plant does, or a tree when there is no breeze to cause its motion, or as the great kelp forests move. A grown farandola moves by kything. Kything is not going to be easy for Mr. Jenkins, because it has been a great many years since he's known himself, his real self."

  Meg sighed with a kind of anxious fatigue, suddenly realizing the enormous amount of energy taken by this intense kything. The cherubim moved lightly, swiftly within her, and his kything moved through and beyond her senses to an awareness she had never known before. She groped to contain it in images which were within Mr. Jenkins's comprehension.

  The sea, a vast, curving, never-ending sea; it was as though they were in that sea, deep down under the water's surface, deeper than a whale can dive. The surface of the sea, and any light which might penetrate the surface, was hundreds of fathoms away. In the dark depths there was movement, movement which was part of the rhythm she had mistaken for Charles Wallace's heartbeat. The movement assumed shape and form, and images were kythed to her mind's eye, visual projections superimposed swiftly one over the other; she tried to send them to Mr. Jenkins:

  a primordial fern forest;

  a giant bed of kelp swaying to submarine currents;

  a primeval forest of ancient trees with rough, silver bark;

  underwater trees with silver-gold-green foliage which undulated regularly, rhythmically, not as though the long fronds were being blown by wind or current but of their own volition, like the undulation of those strange sea creatures halfway between plant life and animal life.

  To the visual images music was added, strange, unearthly, rich, the surging song of the surrounding sea.

  Farandolae.

  She felt confusion and questioning from Mr. Jenkins. To him farandolae were little scampering creatures like Sporos, not like the sea trees she had been trying to show him.

  Proginoskes kythed, "The sea trees, as you call them are what Sporos will become when he Deepens. They are then called fara. Once he has Deepened he will no longer have to run about. A grown fara is far less limited than a human being is by time and place, because farae can be with each other any time in any place; distance doesn't separate them."

  "They move without moving?" Meg asked.

  "You might put it that way."

  "Am I to learn to move without moving, too?"

  "Yes, Meg. There's no other way in a mitochondrion. There's nothing for you to stand on in Yadah, and no space for you to move through. But because you're an earthling, and earthlings excel in adaptability, you can learn this motionless motion. Are you translating for Mr. Jenkins?"

  "I'm trying."

  "Keep on, Meg. We'll have time to rest later, unless--" She felt a small, sharp pain, which was immediately withdrawn. "Some of the Ancient Ones can kythe not only from mitochondrion to mitochondrion within their human hosts, but to farandolae on mitochondria in other human hosts. Do you remember how shocked Sporos was when Calvin told him that human beings can't do that kind of thing?"

  "Yes, but Progo, Mr. Jenkins doesn't understand about Sporos running around like a toy mouse. I don't understand it either. He isn't a bit like the sort of sea things you just showed us."

  "Sporos is, as he said, only a child, although he was juggling chronologies when he said he was born yesterday. A farandola well into adolescence has already passed through its early stages and taken root and is becoming a grown fara. It is nearly time for Sporos to leave childhood and Deepen. If he does not, it will be another victory for the Echthroi."

  "But why wouldn't he Deepen?"

  "Calvin is having trouble kything with him. Sporos is holding back. We have to help him Deepen, Meg. That's our second test, I'm sure it is."

  To make an unwilling Sporos Deepen; it seemed a more impossible ordeal than Naming one of three Mr. Jenkinses. "How do we do it?"

  He countered with another question. "Are you calm?"

  Calm! Then, once again, she moved into that strange place which is on the other side of feeling. With one part of herself she knew that she was in Charles Wallace, actually inside her brother; that she was so small that she couldn't be seen in the most powerful micro-electron microscope, or heard in the micro-sonarscope; she knew, too, that Charles Wallace's life depended on what was going to happen now. She was beginning to get a glimmer of what Proginoskes meant when he talked about the dangers of feeling. She held herself very still, very cold, then turned towards the cherubim in quiet kything.

  "Be a fara," he told her. "Make believe. Do the inhabitant
s of Yadah seem more limited than human beings because once they have taken root they can't move from their Deepening Place? But human beings need Deepening Places, too. And far too many never have any. Think about your Deepening Places, Meg. Open yourself into kything. Open."

  She returned to the strange world which was below light, below sound, penetrated only by the rhythm of tides pulled by the moon, by the sun, by the rhythm of the earth itself. She became one with the kything, Deepened creatures moving in the intricate pattern of song, of the loveliness of rhythm, of joy.

  Then a coldness came, a horrible, blood-freezing chill. Tendrils were drawn back, pulled away from her, isolating themselves, isolating Meg, Proginoskes, each other. The song jerked, out of rhythm, out of tune, rejecting her--

  Something was wrong, horrifyingly wrong--

  She felt Proginoskes hurling himself at her, into her. "Meg! That's enough for now. We must be with the others, Calvin, Mr. Jenkins, Sporos, before--"

  "Before what?"

  "Before the second test. We must all be together. Open. Kythe to Calvin."

  "Where is he?"

  "It doesn't matter where he is, Meg. You've got to get it through your head that where doesn't make any difference in a mitochondrion. It's why. And how. And who."

  "Calvin--" She seemed to feel every muscle in her body straining, and protesting at the strain.

  "You're trying too hard," the cherubim said. "Relax, Megling. You kythe with me without all that effort. You and Calvin often kythe without realizing it. And when Charles Wallace knows when something's upset you at school, knows it even before you come home, that's kything. Just be Meg. Open. Be. Kythe."

  Through the darkness of under-sea she kythed. "Calvin--"

  "Meg!"

  "Where are you?"

  Proginoskes flicked sharply at her. "Forget where."

  "How are you?"

  "All right. A little confused by everything. Sporos--"

  "Where--no, how is Sporos?"

  "Meg, he doesn't want to kythe or be with me. He doesn't want to share his world. He says that human beings are unworthy, and that may be so, but--"

  She felt a swirling of kything all around her, as though the words and images of the kything were the drops of water which go to make up the ocean, drops of water which are not separate one from the other as human beings are separate. Within the flowing of the deep tides images flashed by, many little creatures like Sporos, scampering about, carefree, merry, always in the protection of the great kelp-fern-trees, the Deepened Ones, about which they flitted and fluttered.

  "Are you translating for Mr. Jenkins?"

  "I'm trying, Progo, but I'm not sure I really feel him. I know that I'm with you, and with Calvin, but Mr. Jenkins--"

  "Be with him, Meg. He needs you. He's frightened."

  "If Blajeny wanted him along, there must be a reason for it. But it seems to me he's an awful liability."

  She thought she felt a thin, distant "I am aware of that."

  She stretched herself towards that faint response. "Mr. Jenkins--"

  "That's right," Proginoskes said. "Remember, he hasn't much imagination. Or, rather, it's been frozen for a long while and hasn't had time to thaw. You'll have to kythe your whole self to him; you'll have to hold his hand, tightly, so that he can feel you and return your kythe. Can you feel his hand?"

  "I--I imagine so."

  "Can he feel you?"

  "Mr. Jenkins! Mr. Jenkins?" she kythed questioningly. "Wait a minute, Progo, Cal, I'm not sure, something's wrong--" She broke off, gasped, "Calvin! Progo! Pro--" With every particle of herself she screamed, not a scream made with her voice, but with all of her, a scream of pain that was beyond terror.

  It was the same pain that had torn across a galaxy when Proginoskes had shown her the Xing of the Echthroi; it was the pain which had slashed across the sky in the schoolyard when she had Named Mr. Jenkins; it was the pain which had almost annihilated her when Proginoskes took her the strange journey through his eye to Yadah.

  She was being Xed.

  NINE

  Farandolae and Mitochondria

  This was the end of Meg. There was to be no more anything. Ever. Exit Meg. Ex-Meg. X-Meg.

  Then she realized that if she could think this, if she could think at all, then it was not happening. One who is Xed cannot think. The pain still burned like ice, but she could think through it. She still was.

  With all of her she kythed away from the Xness. "Progo! Calvin! Help me!"

  Through her cries she felt the cherubim. "Meg! I Name you! You are!"

  And then numbers, numbers moving as strong and steady and rhythmic as tide.

  Calvin. He was sending numbers to her, Calvin was sending back to her those first trigonometry problems they had done together. She held on to the strength of numbers as to a lifeline, until the Echthroi-pain was gone and she was free to move back into the realm of words again, human words which were much easier for Calvin than numbers.

  "Calvin," she called. "Oh, Calvin." And then her kything was an anguished longing for her parents. Where was her father? Had Dr. Louise or her mother called Brookhaven? What had they told her father? Was he on his way home? And her mother--she wanted to retreat, reverse, revert, to climb back into her mother's lap as she had done when she was Charles Wallace's age and needed healing from some small hurt ...

  No, Meg.

  She felt as though gentle fingers were pushing her down, forcing her to walk alone. She tried to kythe, to get her mind's voice into focus, sent its beam at last to Proginoskes and Calvin. "What happened?"

  She felt a series of major earthquakes before Proginoskes managed words for her. Whatever it was that had happened, it had certainly upset the cherubim. He kythed at last, "As though once weren't enough, when you reached out for Mr. Jenkins's hand you got an Echthros-Mr. Jenkins. Now we know that at least one of them followed us here."

  "How?"

  "Not through Mr. Jenkins, though it's still using a Jenkins-body. Perhaps Sporos--"

  "Sporos!"

  "Pride has always been the downfall of the Deepening Ones. Sporos may have listened to an Echthros--we aren't sure."

  "What did you do? How did you get me away from it? It hurt--it hurt more than I knew anything could hurt. And then I felt you Naming me, Progo, and you, Cal, you were sending numbers to me, and the pain went and I was back into myself again."

  Calvin kythed, "Proginoskes got a lot of little farandolae to rush up and tickle the Echthros-Mr. Jenkins. It was so startled, it let you go."

  "Where is it now--the Echthros-Mr. Jenkins?"

  Proginoskes was sharp. "It doesn't matter where, Meg. It's here. It's with us in Yadah."

  "Then we're still in danger from it?"

  "All Yadah is in danger. Every mitochondrion in this human host is in danger."

  "This human host?"

  Proginoskes did not reply. This human host was Charles Wallace.

  "What are we going to do?"

  There was another volcanic upheaval before Proginoskes replied, "We must not give way to panic."

  She kythed Calvinwards and felt him returning the kything. She asked, "Did you know what was happening to me?"

  "Not at first. Then Progo told me." There was a terrible quietness to Calvin's reply. She felt that he was holding something back from her.

  "The little farandolae--the ones who saved me--are they all right?"

  There was silence.

  "Are they all right, the little farandolae who startled the Echthros and saved me?"

  "No." The kything came reluctantly from both Calvin and Proginoskes.

  "What happened to them?"

  "To surprise an Echthros is not a safe thing to do."

  "The Echthros Xed them?"

  "No, Meg. They Xed themselves. That's a very different matter."

  "What will happen to them now?"

  Proginoskes kythed slowly, "I've never seen it happen before. I've heard about it, but I've never seen it. Now I understa
nd more than I used to. The farandolae are known by name just as the stars are. That's all I need to know."

  "You haven't told me anything! Where are the little farandolae who saved me? If they Xed themselves, then where are they?"

  She heard a faint "Where doesn't matter. Meg, you must get in touch with Mr. Jenkins. The real Mr. Jenkins."

  Instinctively she withdrew her kything. "I don't dare try again. Do you have any idea how much that hurt?"

  "Your scream shook the entire mitochondrion. I only hope it didn't hurt Charles Wallace."

  She flinched, then held on to something, she wasn't sure what, but it felt like a lifeline. After a moment she knew that it was coming from the cherubim, an outflowing of love, love so tangible that she could hold on to it.

  "Reach for Mr. Jenkins," Proginoskes urged. "Name him for himself again. See how much you've been able to kythe to him. And remember, you have to go at his speed, not your own."

  "Why! He's holding us back!"

  "Hush, Meg." Calvin kythed. "Adults take longer at this kind of thing than we do, particularly adults like Mr. Jenkins who hasn't tried new thoughts for a long time."

  "But we don't have time! Charles Wallace--"

  "I said he takes longer than we do, and that's true. But sometimes adults can go deeper than we can, if we're patient."

  "We don't have time to be patient!"

  "Meg, trust Blajeny. Mr. Jenkins must be with us for a reason. Help him. Do what Progo says."

  Proginoskes kythed urgently, "We may need Mr. Jenkins to get Sporos to Deepen. Blajeny wouldn't have sent him unless--oh, Meg, a Teacher never does anything without reason. Try to reach Mr. Jenkins, Meg."

  She pushed her terror aside and opened herself to kything and she was with Charles Wallace,

  not within him,

  not without him,

  but with him,

  part of his exhaustion,

  his terrifying energy loss,

  his struggle to breathe.

  Oh, fight, Charles,

  don't stop struggling,

  breathe,

  breathe,

  I'll try to help,

  I'll do anything I can to help, even

  then

  She was with the twins. Charles Wallace, she thought, had sent her.

  The twins were in the garden, digging, grimly spading up and turning under the old tomato plants, the frost-blackened zinnias, the lettuce gone to seed, turning them under to enrich the earth for the next spring, the next planting, with set faces working silently, taking out their anxiety over Charles Wallace in physical labor.