“I love you, Charles!” she cried again, her sobs almost as loud as his, her tears mingling with his. “I love you! I love you! I love you!”
A whirl of darkness. An icy cold blast. An angry, resentful howl that seemed to tear through her. Darkness again. Through the darkness to save her came a sense of Mrs. Whatsit’s presence, so that she knew it could not be IT who now had her in its clutches.
And then the feel of earth beneath her, of something in her arms, and she was rolling over on the sweet smelling autumnal earth, and Charles Wallace was crying out, “Meg! Oh, Meg!”
Now she was hugging him close to her, and his little arms were clasped tightly about her neck. “Meg, you saved me! You saved me!” he said over and over.
“Meg!” came a call, and there were her father and Calvin hurrying through the darkness toward them.
Still holding Charles she struggled to stand up and look around. “Father! Call Where are we?”
Charles Wallace, holding her hand tightly, was looking around, too, and suddenly he laughed, his own, sweet, contagious laugh. “In the twins’ vegetable garden! And we landed in the broccoli!”
Meg began to laugh, too, at the same time that she was trying to hug her father, to hug Calvin, and not to let go of Charles Wallace for one second.
“Meg, you did it!” Calvin shouted. “You saved Charles!”
*Tm very proud of you, my daughter.” Mr. Murry kissed her gravely, then turned toward the house. “Now I must go in to Mother.” Meg could tell that he was trying to control his anxiety and eagerness.
“Look!” she pointed to the house, and there were the twins and Mrs. Murry walking toward them through the long, wet grass.
“First thing tomorrow I must get some new glasses,” Mr. Murry said, squinting in the moonlight, and then starting to run toward his wife.
Dennys’ voice came crossly over the lawn. “Hey, Meg, it’s bedtime.”
Sandy suddenly yelled, “Father!”
Mr. Murry was running across the lawn, Mrs. Murry running toward him, and they were in each other’s arms, and then there was a tremendous happy jumble of arms and legs and hugging, the older Murrys and Meg and Charles Wallace and the twins, and Calvin grinning by them until Meg reached out and pulled him in and Mrs. Murry gave him a special hug all of his own. They were talking and laughing all at once, when they were startled by a crash, and Fortinbras, who could bear being left out of the happiness not one second longer, catapulted his sleek black body right through the screened door to the kitchen. He dashed across the lawn to join in the joy, and almost knocked them all over with the exuberance of his greeting.
Meg knew all at once that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which must be near, because all through her she felt a flooding of joy and of love that was even greater and deeper than the joy and love which were already there.
She stopped laughing and listened, and Charles listened, too. “Hush.”
Then there was a whirring, and Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which were standing in front of them, and the joy and love were so tangible that Meg felt that if she only knew where to reach she could touch it with her bare hands.
Mrs. Whatsit said breathlessly, “Oh, my darlings, I’m sorry we don’t have time to say good-by to you properly. You see, we have too-”
But they never learned what it was that Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone.