‘So’re you,’ Charles Wallace said.
‘Okay, old sport,’ Calvin said, ‘I’ll tell you this much. Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?’
‘Constraint. Obligation. Not a very good definition, but it’s the Concise Oxford.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Calvin sighed. ‘I must remember I’m preconditioned in my concept of your mentality.’
Meg sat down on the coarse grass at the edge of the woods. Fort gently twisted his collar out of Charles Wallace’s hands and came over to Meg, lying down beside her and putting his head in her lap.
Calvin tried now politely to direct his words towards Meg as well as Charles Wallace. ‘When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can’t explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn’t happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That’s all I know, kid. I’m not holding anything back. Maybe it’s because I’m supposed to meet you. You tell me.’
Charles Wallace looked at Calvin probingly for a moment; then an almost glazed look came into his eyes, and he seemed to be thinking at him. Calvin stood very still, and waited.
At last Charles Wallace said, ‘Okay. I believe you. But I can’t tell you. I think I’d like to trust you. Maybe you’d better come home with us and have dinner.’
‘Well, sure, but – what would your mother say to that?’ Calvin asked.
‘She’d be delighted. Mother’s all right. She’s not one of us. But she’s all right.’
‘What about Meg?’
‘Meg has it tough,’ Charles Wallace said. ‘She’s not really one thing or the other.’
‘What do you mean, one of us?’ Meg demanded. ‘What do you mean I’m not one thing or the other?’
‘Not now, Meg,’ Charles Wallace said. ‘Slowly. I’ll tell you about it later.’ He looked at Calvin, then seemed to make a quick decision. ‘Okay, let’s take him to meet Mrs Whatsit. If he’s not okay she’ll know.’ He started off on his short legs towards the dilapidated old house.
The haunted house was half in the shadows of the clump of elms in which it stood. The elms were almost bare now, and the ground around the house was yellow with damp leaves. The late afternoon light had a greenish cast which the blank windows reflected in a sinister way. An unhinged shutter thumped. Something else creaked. Meg did not wonder that the house had a reputation for being haunted.
A board was nailed across the front door, but Charles Wallace led the way round to the back. The door there appeared to be nailed shut, too, but Charles Wallace knocked, and the door swung slowly outwards, creaking on rusty hinges. Up in one of the elms an old black crow gave its raucous cry, and a woodpecker went into a wild ratatat-tat. A large grey rat scuttled around the corner of the house and Meg let out a stifled shriek.
‘They get a lot of fun out of using all the typical props,’ Charles Wallace said in a reassuring voice. ‘Come on. Follow me.’
Calvin put a strong hand to Meg’s elbow, and Fort pressed against her leg. Happiness at their concern was so strong in her that her panic fled, and she followed Charles Wallace into the dark recesses of the house without fear.
They went into a sort of kitchen. There was a huge fireplace with a big black pot hanging over a merry fire. Why had there been no smoke visible from the chimney? Something in the pot was bubbling, and it smelled more like one of Mrs Murry’s chemical messes than something to eat. In a dilapidated rocking chair sat a plump little woman. She wasn’t Mrs Whatsit, so she must, Meg decided, be one of Mrs Whatsit’s two friends. She wore enormous spectacles, twice as thick and twice as large as Meg’s, and she was sewing busily, with rapid jabbing stitches, on a sheet. Several other sheets lay on the dusty floor.
Charles Wallace went up to her, ‘I really don’t think you ought to have taken Mrs Buncombe’s sheets without consulting me,’ he said, as cross and bossy as only a very small boy can be. ‘What on earth do you want them for?’
The plump little woman beamed at him. ‘Why, Charlsie, my pet! Le c?ur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French. Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing.’
‘But that’s not appropriate at all,’ Charles said crossly.
‘Your mother would find it so.’ A smile seemed to gleam through the roundness of spectacles.
‘I’m not talking about my mother’s feelings about my father,’ Charles Wallace scolded. ‘I’m talking about Mrs Buncombe’s sheets.’
The little woman sighed. The enormous glasses caught the light again and shone like an owl’s eyes. ‘In case we need ghosts, of course,’ she said. ‘I should think you’d have guessed. If we have to frighten anybody away Whatsit thought we ought to do it appropriately. That’s why it’s so much fun to stay in a haunted house. But we really didn’t mean you to know about the sheets. Auf frischer Tat ertappt. German. In flagrante delicto. Latin. Caught in the act. English. As I was saying –’
But Charles Wallace held up his hand in a peremptory gesture. ‘Mrs Who, do you know this boy?’
Calvin bowed. ‘Good afternoon, Ma’am. I didn’t quite catch your name.’
‘Mrs Who will do,’ the woman said. ‘He wasn’t my idea, Charlsie, but I think he’s a good one.’
‘Where’s Mrs Whatsit?’ Charles asked.
‘She’s busy. It’s getting near time, Charlsie, getting near time. Ab honesto virum bonum nihil deterret. Seneca. Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable. And he’s a very good man, Charlsie, darling, but right now he needs our help.’
‘Who?’ Meg demanded.
‘And little Megsie! Lovely to meet you, sweetheart. Your father, of course. Now go home, loves. The time is not yet ripe. Don’t worry, we won’t go without you. Get plenty of food and rest. Feed Calvin up. Now, off with you! Justitiae soror fides. Latin again, of course. Faith is the sister of justice. Trust in us! Now, shoo!’ And she fluttered up from her chair and pushed them out of the door with surprising power.
‘Charles,’ Meg said. ‘I don’t understand.’
Charles took her by the hand and dragged her away from the house. Fortinbras ran on ahead, and Calvin was close behind them. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t either, yet. Not quite. I’ll tell you what I know as soon as I can. But you saw Fort, didn’t you? Not a growl. Not a quiver. Just as though there weren’t anything strange about it. So you know it’s okay. Look, do me a favour, both of you. Let’s not talk about it till we’ve had something to eat. I need fuel so I can sort things out and assimilate them properly.’
‘Lead on, moron,’ Calvin cried gaily. ‘I’ve never even seen your house, and I have the funniest feeling that for the first time in my life I’m going home.’
3. Mrs Which