“We stopped here,” Mrs. Whatsit explained, “more or less to catch our breaths. And to give you a chance to know what you’re up against.”
“But what about Father?” Meg asked. “Is he all right?”
“For the moment, love, yes. He’s one of the reasons we’re here. But you see, he’s only one.”
“Well, where is he? Please take me to him!”
“We can’t, not yet,” Charles said. “You have to be patient, Meg.”
“But I’m not patient!” Meg cried passionately. “I’ve never been patient!”
Mrs. Who’s glasses shone at her gently. “If you want to help your father then you must learn patience. Vitam impendere vero. To stake one’s life for the truth. That is what we must do.”
“That is what your father is doing.” Mrs. Whatsit nodded, her voice, like Mrs. Who’s, very serious, very solemn. Then she smiled her radiant smile. “Now! Why don’t you three children wander around and Charles can explain things a little. You’re perfectly safe on Uriel. That’s why we stopped here to rest.”
“But aren’t you coming with us?” Meg asked fearfully.
There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. Which raised her authoritative hand. “Sshoww themm,” she said to Mrs. Whatsit, and at something in her voice Meg felt prickles of apprehension.
“Now?” Mrs. Whatsit asked, her creaky voice rising to a squeak. Whatever it was Mrs. Which wanted them to see, it was something that made Mrs. Whatsit uncomfortable, too.
“Nnoww,” Mrs. Which said. “Tthey mmay aas welll knoww.”
“Should-should I change?” Mrs. Whatsit asked.
“Bbetter.”
“I hope it won’t upset the children too much,” Mrs. Whatsit murmured, as though to herself.
“Should I change, too?” Mrs. Who asked. “Oh, but I’ve had fun in these clothes. But I’ll have to admit Mrs. Whatsit is the best at it. DOS Work lobt den Meister. German. The work proves the craftsman. Shall I transform now, too?”
Mrs. Which shook her head. “Nnott yett. Nnott heere. Yyou mmay wwaitt.”
“Now, don’t be frightened, loves,” Mrs. Whatsit said. Her plump little body began to shimmer, to quiver, to shift. The wild colors of her clothes became muted, whitened. The pudding-bag shape stretched, lengthened, merged. And suddenly before the children was a creature more beautiful than any Meg had even imagined, and the beauty lay in far more than the outward description. Outwardly Mrs. Whatsit was surely no longer a Mrs. Whatsit. She was a marble white body with powerful flanks, something like a horse but at the same time completely unlike a horse, for from the magnificently modeled back sprang a nobly formed torso, arms, and a head resembling a man’s, but a man with a perfection of dignity and virtue, an exaltation of joy such as Meg had never before seen. No, she thought, it’s not like a Greek centaur. Not in the least.
From the shoulders slowly a pair of wings unfolded, wings made of rainbows, of light upon water, of poetry.
Calvin fell to his knees.
“No,” Mrs. Whatsit said, though her voice was not Mrs. Whatsit’s voice. “Not to me, Calvin. Never to me. Stand up.”
“Ccarrry themm,” Mrs. Which commanded.
With a gesture both delicate and strong Mrs. Whatsit knelt in front of the children, stretching her wings wide and holding them steady, but quivering. “Onto my back, now,” the new voice said.
The children took hesitant steps toward the beautiful creature.
“But what do we call you now?” Calvin asked.
“Oh, my dears,” came the new voice, a rich voice with the warmth of a woodwind, the clarity of a trumpet, the mystery of an English horn. “You can’t go on changing my name each time I metamorphose. And I’ve had such pleasure being Mrs. Whatsit I think you’d better keep to that.” She? he? it? smiled at them, and the radiance of the smile was as tangible as a soft breeze, as directly warming as the rays of the sun.
“Come.” Charles Wallace clambered up.
Meg and Calvin followed him, Meg sitting between the two boys. A tremor went through the great wings and then Mrs. Whatsit lifted and they were moving through the air.
Meg soon found that there was no need to cling to Charles Wallace or Calvin. The great creature’s flight was serenely smooth. The boys were eagerly looking around the landscape.
“Look.” Charles Wallace pointed. “The mountains are so tall that you can’t see where they end.”
Meg looked upwards and indeed the mountains seemed to be reaching into infinity.
They left the fertile fields an(l flew across a great plateau of granite-like rock shaped into enormous monoliths. These had a definite, rhythmic form, but they were not statues; they were like nothing Meg had ever seen before, and she wondered if they had been made by wind and weather, by the formation of this earth, or if they were a creation of beings like the one on which she rode.
They left the great granite plain and flew over a garden even more beautiful than anything in a dream. In it were gathered many of the creatures like the one Mrs. Whatsit had become, some lying among the flowers, some swimming in a broad, crystal river that flowed through the garden, some flying in what Meg was sure must be a kind of dance, moving in and out above the trees. They were making music, music that came not only from their throats but from the movement of their great wings as well.
“What are they singing?” Meg asked excitedly.
Mrs. Whatsit shook her beautiful head. “It won’t go into your words. I can’t possibly transfer it to your words. Are you getting any of it, Charles?”
Charles Wallace sat very still on the broad back, on his face an intently listening look, the look he had when he delved into Meg or his mother. “A little. Just a very little. But I think I could get more in time.”
“Yes. You could learn it, Charles. But there isn’t time, We can only stay here long enough to rest up and make a few preparations.”
Meg hardly listened to her. “I want to know what they’re saying! I want to know what it means.”
“Try, Charles,” Mrs. Whatsit urged. “Try to translate. You can let yourself go, now. You don’t have to hold back.”
“But I can’t!” Charles Wallace cried in an anguished voice. “I don’t know enough! Not yet!”
“Then try to work with me and I’ll see if I can’t verbalize it a little for them.”
Charles Wallace got his look of probing, of listening.
-I know that look! Meg thought suddenly. Now I think I know what it means! Because I’ve had it myself, sometimes, doing math with Father, when a problem is just about to come clear-
Mrs. Whatsit seemed to be listening to Charles’s thoughts. “Well, yes, that’s an idea. I can try. Too bad you don’t really know it so you can give it to me direct, Charles. It’s so much more work this way.”
“Don’t be lazy,” Charles said.
Mrs. Whatsit did not take offense. She explained, “Oh, it’s my favorite kind of work, Charles. That’s why they chose me to go along, even though I’m so much younger. It’s my one real talent. But it takes a tremendous amount of energy, and we’re going to need every ounce of energy for what’s ahead of us. But I’ll try. For Calvin and Meg I’ll try.”
She was silent; the great wings almost stopped moving; only a delicate stirring seemed to keep them aloft. “Listen, then,” Mrs. Whatsit said. The resonant voice rose and the words seemed to be all around them so that Meg felt that she could almost reach out and touch them: “Sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof. Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift their voice; let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains. Let them give glory unto the Lord!”
Throughout her entire body Meg felt a pulse of joy such as she had never known before. Calvin’s hand reached out; he did not clasp her hand in his; he moved his fingers so that they were barely touching hers, but joy flowed through them, back and forth between them, around them and about them and inside them.
When Mrs. Whatsit sighed it seemed completely incomprehensible that through this bliss could come the faintest whisper of doubt.
“We must go now, children.” Mrs. Whatsit’s voice was deep with sadness, and Meg could not understand. Raising her head, Mrs. Whatsit gave a call that seemed to be a command, and one of the creatures flying above the trees nearest them raised its head to listen, and then flew off and picked three flowers from a tree growing near the river and brought them over. “Each of you take one,” Mrs. Whatsit said. “I’ll tell you how to use them later.”