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?
4 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 tarn o’shanter, one of her mother’s rare successful ventures into domesticity.
This tune 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. “H 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.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She sat down on the rock beside him; she was somehow no longer afraid of his wildness, his size, his spurts of fire.
He asked, “How do I make you feel?”
She hesitated, not wanting to be rude, forgetting that the cherubim, far more than Charles Wallace, did not need her outward words to know what was being said within. But she answered truthfully, “Confused.”
Several puffs of smoke went up. “Well, we don’t know each other very well yet. Who makes you least confused?”
“Calvin.” There was no hesitation here. “When I’m with Calvin, I don’t mind being me.”
“You mean he makes you more you, don’t you?”