Mrs Whatsit adjusted her stole. ‘But she finds it so difficult to verbalize, Charles dear. It helps her if she can quote instead of working out words of her own.’
‘Anndd wee mussttn’tt looose ourr sensses of hummourr,’ Mrs Which said. ‘Thee onnlly wway ttoo ccope withh ssometthingg ddeadly sseriouss iss ttoo ttry ttoo trreatt itt a llittlle lligghtly.’
‘But that’s going to be hard for Meg,’ Mrs Whatsit said. ‘It’s going to be hard for her to realize that we are serious.’
‘What about me?’ Calvin asked.
‘The life of your father isn’t at stake,’ Mrs Whatsit told him.
‘What about Charles Wallace, then?’
Mrs Whatsit’s unoiled-door-hinge voice was warm with affection and pride. ‘Charles Wallace knows. Charles Wallace knows that it’s far more than just the life of his father. Charles Wallace knows what’s at stake.’
‘But remember,’ Mrs Who said, ‘??λπτον ο?δ?ν, π?ντα δ’ ?λπ?ζειν χρε?ν. Euripides. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.’
‘Where are we now, and how did we get here?’ Calvin asked.
‘Uriel, the third planet of the star Malak in the spiral nebula Messier 101.’
‘This I’m supposed to believe?’ Calvin asked indignantly.
‘Aas yyou llike,’ Mrs Which said coldly.
For some reason Meg felt that Mrs Which, despite her looks and ephemeral broomstick, was someone in whom one could put complete trust. ‘It doesn’t seem any more peculiar than anything else that’s happened.’
‘Well, then, someone just tell me how we got here!’ Calvin’s voice was still angry and his freckles seemed to stand out on his face. ‘Even travelling at the speed of light it would take us years and years to get here.’
‘Oh, we don’t travel at the speed of anything,’ Mrs Whatsit explained earnestly. ‘We tesser. Or you might say, we wrinkle.’
‘Clear as mud,’ Calvin said.
Tesser, Meg thought. – Could that have anything to do with mother’s tesseract?
She was about to ask when Mrs Which started to speak, and one did not interrupt when Mrs Which was speaking. ‘Mrs Whatsit iss yyoungg andd nnaive.’
‘She keeps thinking she can explain things in words,’ Mrs Who said. ‘Qui plus sait, plus se tait. French, you know. The more a man knows, the less he talks.’
‘But she has to use words for Meg and Calvin,’ Charles reminded Mrs Who. ‘If you brought them along, they have a right to know what’s going on.’
Meg went up to Mrs Which. In the intensity of her question she had forgotten all about the tesseract. ‘Is my father here?’
Mrs Which shook her head. ‘Nnott heeere, Megg. Llett Mrs Whatsitt expllainn. Shee isss yyoungg annd thee llanguage of worrds iss eeasierr fforr hherr thann itt iss fforr Mrs Whoo andd mee.’
‘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. Das Werk lobt den Meister. German. The work proves the craftsman.’
‘Now, don’t be frightened, loves,’ Mrs Whatsit said. Her plump little body began to shimmer, to quiver, to shift. The wild colours 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 ever imagined. 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 modelled 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.
Mrs Whatsit knelt in front of the children, stretching her wings wide and holding them steady, but quivering. ‘On to my back, now,’ the new voice said.
The children took hesitant steps towards 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 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.’