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 understand 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.
Sandy broke the silence. “Where’s Meg?”
Dennys paused, his foot on his pitchfork as he pressed it into the earth. “She should be getting home from school soon.”
“Charles Wallace said she isn’t in school. He said that Meg is in him. I heard him.”
“Charles Wallace is delirious.”
“Have you ever seen anyone die?”
“Only animals.”
“I wish Meg would come home.”
“So do I.”
They went on with their preparation of the garden for the winter cold and snow.
—If the twins’ job is simply to take care of their garden—Meg told herself,—your job is to reach Mr. Jenkins. Where? Nowhere. Just Mr. Jenkins.
“Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins. You are you and nobody else and I Named you. I’m kything, Mr. Jenkins. Here I am. Me. Meg. You know me and I know you.”
She thought she heard a sniff, a Mr. Jenkins sniff. Then he seemed to recede again. This minuscule under-sea world was totally beyond his comprehension. She tried to kythe to him once more all the images in earth equivalents which she had received, but he responded with nothing beyond anxious blankness.
“Name him,” Proginoskes urged. “He is afraid to be. When you Named him in the schoolyard, that was kything, that was how you knew him from the two Echthroi-Mr. Jenkinses, how you must know him this time.”
Mr. Jenkins. Unique, as every star in the sky is unique, every leaf on every tree, every snowflake, every farandola, every cherubim, unique: Named.
He gave Calvin shoes. And he didn’t have to come with us to this danger and horribleness, but he did. He chose to throw in his lot with us when he could have gone back to school and his safe life as a failure.
Yes, but for an unimaginative man to come with them into the unimaginably infinitesimal unknown isn’t the kind of thing a failure does.
Nevertheless, Mr. Jenkins had done it, was doing it.
“Mr. Jenkins, I love you!”
She did.
Without stopping to think she put her imagined hand into his. His fingers were slightly damp and chill, just as clammy as she had always thought Mr. Jenkins’s hand would be.
And real.
HTML layout and style by Stephen Thomas, University of Adelaide.
Modified by Skip for ESL Bits English Language Learning.