Wind in the Door Read online

  Nevertheless, she pressed closer to Calvin; she had never felt very secure around Louise, and the snake’s strange behavior that afternoon and evening made her seem even more alien than when she was only the twins’ pet.

  Now Louise was weaving slowly back and forth in a gentle rhythm, almost as though she were making a serpentine version of a deep curtsy; and the sibilant sound was a gentle, treble fluting.

  Blajeny bowed to the snake.

  Louise most definitely returned the bow.

  Blajeny explained gravely, “She is a colleague of mine.”

  “But—but—hey, now,” Calvin sputtered, “wait a minute—”

  “She is a Teacher. That is why she is so fond of the two boys—Sandy and Dennys. One day they will be Teachers, too.”

  Meg said, “They’re going to be successful businessmen and support the rest of us in the way to which we are not accustomed.”

  Blajeny waved this aside. “They will be Teachers. It is a High Calling, and you must not be distressed that it is not yours. You, too, have a Work.”

  Louise, with a last burst of her tiny, strange melody, dropped back to the wall and disappeared among the stones.

  “Perhaps we’re dreaming after all,” Calvin said, wonderingly.

  “What is real?” the Teacher asked again. “I will say good night to you now.”

  Charles Wallace was reluctant to leave. “We won’t wake up in the morning and find it all never happened? We won’t wake up and find we dreamed everything?”

  “If only one of us does,” Meg said, “and nobody else remembers any of it, then it’s a dream. But if we all wake up remembering, then it really happened.”

  “Wait until tomorrow to find what tomorrow holds,” Blajeny advised. “Good night, my children.”

  They did not ask him where he was going to spend the night—though Meg wondered—because it was the kind of presumptuous question one could not possibly ask Blajeny. They left him standing and watching after them, the folds of his robes chiseled like granite, his dark face catching and refracting the moonlight like fused glass.

  They crossed the orchard and garden and entered the house, as usual, by the back way, through the pantry. The door to the lab was open, and the lights on. Mrs. Murry was bent over her microscope, and Dr. Colubra was curled up in an old red leather chair, reading. The lab was a long, narrow room with great slabs of stone for the floor. It had originally been used to keep milk and butter and other perishables, long before the days of refrigerators, and it was still difficult to heat in winter. The long work counter with the stone sink at one end was ideal for Mrs. Murry’s lab equipment. In one corner were two comfortable chairs and a reading lamp, which softened the clinical glare of the lights over the counter. But Meg could not think of a time when she had seen her mother relaxing in one of those chairs; she inevitably perched on one of the lab stools.

  She looked up from the strange convolutions of the micro-electron microscope. “Charles! What are you doing out of bed?”

  “I woke up,” Charles Wallace said blandly. “I knew Meg and Calvin were outside, so I went to get them.”

  Mrs. Murry glanced sharply at her son, then greeted Calvin warmly.

  Charles Wallace asked, “Is it okay if we make some cocoa?”

  “It’s very late for you to be up, Charles, and tomorrow’s a school day.”

  “It’ll help me get back to sleep.”

  Mrs. Murry seemed about to refuse, but Dr. Colubra closed her book, saying, “Why not, for once? Let Charles have a nap when he gets home in the afternoon. I’d like some cocoa myself. Let’s make it out here while your mother goes on with her work. I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll get the milk and stuff from the kitchen,” Meg said.

  With Dr. Louise present they were not, she felt, free to talk to their mother about the events of the evening. The children were all fond of Dr. Louise, and trusted her completely as a physician, but they were not quite sure that she had their parents’ capacity to accept the extraordinary. Almost sure, but not quite. Dr. Colubra had a good deal in common with their parents; she, too, had given up work which paid extremely well in both money and prestige, to come live in this small rural village. (“Too many of my colleagues have forgotten that they are supposed to practice the art of healing. If I don’t have the gift of healing in my hands, then all my expensive training isn’t worth very much.”) She, too, had turned her back on the glitter of worldly success. Meg knew that her parents, despite the fact that they were consulted by the president of the United States, had given up much when they moved to the country in order to devote their lives to pure research. Their discoveries, many of them made in this stone laboratory, had made the Murrys more, rather than less, open to the strange, to the mysterious, to the unexplainable. Dr. Colubra’s work was perforce more straightforward, and Meg was not sure how she would respond to talk of a strange dark Teacher, eight or nine feet tall, and even less sure how she would react to their description of a cherubim. She’d probably insist they were suffering from mass psychosis and that they all should see a psychiatrist at once.

  —Or is it just that I’m afraid to talk about it, even to Mother? Meg wondered, as she took sugar, cocoa, milk, and a saucepan from the kitchen and returned to the pantry.

  Dr. Colubra was saying, “That stuff about cosmic screams and rips in distant galaxies offends every bit of the rational part of me.”

  Mrs. Murry leaned against the counter. “You didn’t believe in farandolae, either, until I proved them to you.”

  “You haven’t proven them to me,” Dr. Louise said. “Yet.” She looked slightly ruffled, like a little grey bird. Her short, curly hair was grey; her eyes were grey above a small beak of a nose; she wore a grey flannel suit. “The main reason I think you may be right is that you go to that idiot machine—” she pointed at the micro-electron microscope—“the way my husband used to go to his violin. It was always like a lovers’ meeting.”

  Mrs. Murry turned away from her “idiot machine.” “I think I wish I’d never heard of farandolae, much less come to the conclusions—” She stopped abruptly, then said, “By the way, kids, I was rather surprised, just before you all barged into the lab, to have Mr. Jenkins call to suggest that we give Charles Wallace lessons in selfdefense.”

  Mr. Jenkins? Meg wondered. Aloud she said, “But Mr. Jenkins never calls parents. Parents have to go to him.” She almost asked, “Are you sure it was Mr. Jenkins?” And stopped herself as she remembered that she had not told Blajeny about the horrible Mr. Jenkins-not-Mr. Jenkins who had turned into a bird of nothingness, the Mr. Jenkins Louise had resented so fiercely. She should have told Blajeny; she would tell him first thing in the morning.

  Charles Wallace climbed up onto one of the lab stools and perched close to his mother. “What I really need are lessons in adaptation. I’ve been reading Darwin, but he hasn’t helped me much.”

  “See what we mean?” Calvin asked Dr. Louise. “That’s hardly what one expects from a six-year-old.”

  “He really does read Darwin,” Meg assured the doctor.

  “And I still haven’t learned how to adapt,” Charles Wallace added.

  Dr. Louise was making a paste of cocoa, sugar, and a little hot water from one of Mrs. Murry’s retorts. “This is just water, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “From our artesian well. The very best water.”

  Dr. Louise added milk, little by little. “You kids are too young to remember, and your mother is a good ten years younger than I am, but I’ll never forget, a great many years ago, when the first astronauts went to the moon, and I sat up all night to watch them.”

  “I remember it all right,” Mrs. Murry said. “I wasn’t that young.”

  Dr. Louise stirred the cocoa which was heating over a Bunsen burner. “Do you remember those first steps on the moon, so tentative to begin with, on that strange, airless, alien terrain? And then, in a short time, Armstrong and Aldrin were striding about confidently, and the commentator rem
arked on this as an extraordinary example of man’s remarkable ability to adapt.”

  “But all they had to adapt to was the moon’s surface!” Meg objected. “It wasn’t inhabited. I’ll bet when our astronauts reach some place with inhabitants it won’t be so easy. It’s a lot simpler to adapt to low gravity, or no atmosphere, or even sandstorms, than it is to hostile inhabitants.”

  Fortinbras, who had an uncanine fondness for cocoa, came padding out to the lab, his nose twitching in anticipation. He stood on his hind legs and put his front paws on Charles Wallace’s shoulders.

  Dr. Colubra asked Meg, “Do you think the first-graders in the village school are hostile inhabitants, then?”

  “Of course! Charles isn’t like them, and so they’re hostile towards him. People are always hostile to anybody who’s different.”

  “Until they get used to him,” the doctor said.

  “They’re not getting used to Charles.”

  Charles Wallace, fondling the big dog, said, “Don’t forget to give Fort a saucer—he likes cocoa.”

  “You have the strangest pets,” Dr. Louise said, but she poured a small dish of cocoa for Fortinbras. “I’ll let it cool a bit before I put it on the floor. Meg, we need mugs.”

  “Okay.” Meg hurried off to the kitchen, collected a stack of mugs, and returned to the laboratory.

  Dr. Louise lined them up and poured the cocoa. “Speaking of pets, how’s my namesake?”

  Meg nearly spilled the cocoa she was handing to her mother. She looked closely at Dr. Louise, but though the question had seemed pointed, the little bird face showed nothing more than amused interest; as Charles Wallace said, Dr. Louise was very good at talking on one level and thinking on another.

  Charles Wallace answered the question. “Louise the Larger is a magnificent snake. I wonder if she’d like some cocoa? Snakes like milk, don’t they?”

  Mrs. Murry said firmly, “You are not going back out tonight to find if the snake, magnificent though she be, likes cocoa. Save your experimental zeal for daylight. Louise is undoubtedly sound asleep.”

  Dr. Louise carefully poured out the last of the cocoa into her own mug. “Some snakes are very sociable at night. Many years ago when I was working in a hospital in the Philippines I had a boa constrictor for a pet; we had a problem with rats in the ward, and my boa constrictor did a thorough job of keeping the rodent population down. He also liked cream-of-mushroom soup, though I never tried him on cocoa, and he was a delightful companion in the evenings, affectionate and cuddly.”

  Meg did not think that she would enjoy cuddling with a snake, even Louise.

  “He also had impeccable judgment about human nature. He was naturally a friendly creature, and if he showed me that he disliked or distrusted somebody, I took him seriously. We had a man brought to the men’s ward who seemed to have nothing more seriously wrong with him than a slightly inflamed appendix, but my boa constrictor took a dislike to him the moment he was admitted. That night he tried to kill the man in the next bed—fortunately we got to him in time. But the snake knew. After that, I listened to his warnings immediately.”

  “Fortinbras has the same instinct about people,” Mrs. Murry said. “Too bad we human beings have lost it.”

  Meg wanted to say, “So does Louise the Larger,” but her mother or the doctor would have asked her on what experience she based such a remark; it would have sounded more likely coming from the twins.

  Charles Wallace regarded Dr. Colubra, who had returned to the red leather chair and was sipping cocoa, her legs tucked under her like a child; as a matter of fact, she was considerably smaller than Meg. Charles said, “We take Louise very seriously, Dr. Louise. Very seriously.”

  Dr. Louise nodded. Her voice was light and high. “That was what I had in mind.”

  Calvin finished his cocoa. “Thank you very much. I’d better get on home now. See you in school tomorrow, Meg. Thanks again, Mrs. Murry and Dr. Colubra. Good night.”

  When he had gone, Mrs. Murry said, “All right, Charles. The twins have been in bed for an hour. Meg, it’s time for you, too. Charles, I’ll come check on you in a few minutes.”

  As they left the lab, Meg could see her mother turning back to the micro-electron microscope.

  Meg undressed slowly, standing by her attic window, wondering if Dr. Louise’s talk about snakes had been entirely casual chat over a cup of cocoa; perhaps it was only the strange events of the evening which caused her to look for meanings under the surface of what might well be unimportant conversation. She turned out the lights and looked out the window. She could see across the vegetable garden to the orchard, but the trees still held enough leaves so that she could not see into the north pasture.

  Was there really a cherubim waiting at the star-watching rock, curled up into a great feathery ball, all those eyes closed in sleep?

  Was he real?

  What is real?

  FOUR

  Proginoskes

  Meg woke up before dawn, suddenly and completely, as though something had jerked her out of sleep. She listened: only the usual noises of the sleeping house. She turned on the light and looked at her clock; she had set the alarm for six, as usual. It was now five. She had another whole hour in which she could curl up under the covers, and luxuriate in warmth and comfort, and doze—

  Then she remembered.

  She tried to reassure herself that she was remembering a dream, although it was not the way that a dream is remembered. It must have been a dream, obviously it must have been a dream—

  The only way to prove that it was nothing but a dream, without waking Charles Wallace and asking him, was to get dressed and go out to the star-watching rock and make sure that there was no cherubim there. And—if by some slim chance it had not been a dream, she had promised the cherubim that she would come to him before breakfast.

  Had it not been for the horrible moments with Mr. Jenkins screeching across the sky, she would not have wanted it to be a dream. She desperately wanted Blajeny to be real, to take care of everything. But the unreality of Mr. Jenkins, who had always been disagreeably predictable, was far more difficult for her to accept than the Teacher, or even a cherubim who looked like a drive of dragons.

  She dressed hurriedly, putting on her kilt and a clean blouse. She tiptoed downstairs as quietly and carefully as she had the night before, through the kitchen and into the pantry, where she put on her heaviest jacket, and a multicolored knitted tam o’shanter, one of her mother’s rare successful ventures into domesticity.

  This time no wind blew, no doors slammed. She turned on the flashlight to guide her. It was a still, chill pre-dawn. The grass was white with spider-web tracings of dew and light frost. A thin vapor moved delicately across the lawn. The mountains were curtained by ground fog, although in the sky she could see stars. She ran across the garden, looking warily about her. But there was no Mr. Jenkins, of course there was no Mr. Jenkins. At the stone wall she looked carefully for Louise, but there was no sign of the big snake. She crossed the orchard, climbed the wall again—still no Louise, it was much too early and much too cold for snakes, anyhow—and ran across the north pasture, past the two glacial rocks, and to the star-watching rock.

  There was nothing there except the mist whirling gently in the faint breeze.

  So it had all been a dream.

  Then the mist seemed to solidify, to become moving wings, eyes opening and shutting, tiny flickers of fire, small puffs of misty smoke …

  “You’re real,” she said loudly. “You’re not something I dreamed after all.”

  Proginoskes delicately stretched one huge wing skywards, then folded it. “I have been told that human beings seldom dream about cherubim. Thank you for being prompt. It is in the nature of cherubim to dislike tardiness.”

  Meg sighed, in resignation, in fear, and, surprisingly, in relief. “Okay, Progo, I guess you’re not a figment of my imagination. What do we do now? I’ve got just about an hour before breakfast.”

  “Are
you hungry?”

  “No, I’m much too excited to be hungry, but if I don’t turn up on time, it won’t go down very well if I explain that I was late because I was talking with a cherubim. My mother doesn’t like tardiness, either.”

  Proginoskes said, “Much can be accomplished in an hour. We have to find out what our first ordeal is.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Why would I know?”

  “You’re a cherubim.”

  “Even a cherubim has limits. When three ordeals are planned, then nobody knows ahead of time what they are; even the Teacher may not know.”

  “Then what do we do? How do we find out?”

  Proginoskes waved several wings slowly back and forth in thought, which would have felt very pleasant on a hot day, but which, on a cold morning, made Meg turn up the collar of her jacket. The cherubim did not notice; he continued waving and thinking. Then she could feel his words moving slowly, tentatively, within her mind. “If you’ve been assigned to me, I suppose you must be some kind of a Namer, too, even if a primitive one.”

  “A what?”

  “A Namer. For instance, the last time I was with a Teacher—or at school, as you call it—my assignment was to memorize the names of the stars.”

  “Which stars?”

  “All of them.”

  “You mean all the stars, in all the galaxies?”

  “Yes. If he calls for one of them, someone has to know which one he means. Anyhow, they like it; there aren’t many who know them all by name, and if your name isn’t known, then it’s a very lonely feeling.”

  “Am I supposed to learn the names of all the stars, too?” It was an appalling thought.

  “Good galaxy, no!”

  “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  Proginoskes waved several wings, which, Meg was learning, was more or less his way of expressing “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Well, then, if I’m a Namer, what does that mean? What does a Namer do?”

  The wings drew together, the eyes closed, singly, and in groups, until all were shut. Small puffs of mist-like smoke rose, swirled about him. “When I was memorizing the names of the stars, part of the purpose was to help them each to be more particularly the particular star each one was supposed to be. That’s basically a Namer’s job. Maybe you’re supposed to make earthlings feel more human.”