"As she pressed against her father all was forgotten except joy. There was only the peace and comfort of leaning against him, the wonder of the protecting circle of his arms, the feeling of complete reassurance and safety that his presence always gave her. Her voice broke on a happy sob. "Oh, Father! Oh,
Father!" "Meg!" he cried in glad surprise."
"Yes," he said. "Yes. The wall is transparent, now. How extraordinary! I could almost see the atoms rearranging!" His voice had its old, familiar sound of excitement and discovery. It was the way he sounded sometimes when he came home from his laboratory after a good day and began to tell his wife about his work. Then he cried out, "Charles! Charles Wallace!" And then, "Meg, what's happened to him? What's wrong? That is Charles, isn't it?"
"IT has him, Father," she explained tensely. "He's gone into IT. Father, we have to help him."
For a long moment Mr. Murry was silent. The silence was filled with the words he was thinking and would not speak out loud to his daughter. Then he said, "Meg, I'm in prison here. I have been for-"
"Father, these walls. You can go through them. I came through the column to get in to you. It was Mrs. Who's glasses."
Mr. Murry did not stop to ask who Mrs. Who was. He slapped his hand against the translucent column. "It seems solid enough."
"But I got in," Meg repeated. "I'm here. Maybe the glasses help the atoms rearrange. Try it, Father."
She waited, breathlessly, and after a moment she realized that she was alone in the column. She put out her hands in the darkness and felt its smooth surface curving about her on all sides. She seemed utterly alone, the silence and dark- she heard her father's voice coming to her very faintly. ness impenetrable forever. She fought down panic until
"I'm coming back in for you, Meg."
"It was almost a tangible feeling as the atoms of the strange material seemed to part to let him through to her. In their beach house at Cape Canaveral there had been a curtain between dining and living room made of long strands of rice. It looked like a solid curtain, but you could walk right through it. At first Meg had flinched each time she came up to the curtain; but gradually she got used to it and would go running right through, leaving the long strands of rice swinging behind her. Perhaps the atoms of these walls were arranged in somewhat the same fashion."
"Her father's arms her, and she clung to his neck in a strangle hold, but she was no longer lost in panic. She knew that if her father tightened about could not get her through the wall he would stay with her rather than leave her; she knew that she was safe as long as she was in his arms."
"Who's Calvin?" Mr. Murry asked.
"He's " Meg started, but Charles Wallace cut her short.
"You'll have to defer your explanations. Let's go."
"Go where?"
"To IT."
"No," Mr. Murry said. "You can't take Meg there."
"Oh, can't I!"
"No, you cannot. You're my son, Charles, and I'm afraid you will have to do as I say."
"But he isn't Charles!" Meg cried in anguish. Why didn't her father understand? "Charles is nothing like that, Father! You know he's nothing like that!" "He was only a baby when I left," Mr. Murry said heavily.
"Father, it's IT talking through Charles. IT isn't Charles. He's-he's bewitched."
(Again, that's a prefect description of some incidents I have experienced with certain individuals.)
"Fairy tales again," Charles said.
"You know IT, Father?" Meg asked.
"Yes."
"Have you seen IT?"
"Yes, Meg."
"She felt that she was beyond fear now. Charles Wallace was no longer Charles Wallace. Her father had been found but he had not made everything all right. In- stead everything was worse than ever, and her adored father was bearded and thin and white and not omnipotent after all. No matter what happened next, things could be no more terrible or frightening than they already were.
Oh, couldn't they?
As she continued to step slowly forward, at last she realized what the Thing on the dais was.
IT was a brain.
(Oh, like a synthetic one.)
"A disembodied brain. An oversized brain, just enough larger than normal to be completely revolting and terrifying. A living brain. A brain that pulsed and quivered, that seized and commanded. No wonder the brain was called IT. IT was the most horrible, the most repellent thing she had ever seen, far more nauseating than anything she had ever imagined with her conscious mind, or that had ever tormented her in her most terrible nightmares.
But as she had felt she was beyond fear, so now she was beyond screaming."
"As she cried out the words she felt a mind moving in on her own, felt IT seizing, squeezing her brain. Then she realized that Charles Wallace was speaking, or being spoken through by IT.
"But that's exactly what we have on Camazotz. Complete equality. Everybody exactly alike."
For a moment her brain reeled with confusion. Then came a moment of blazing truth. "No!" she cried triumphantly. "Like and equal are not the same thing at all!"
"Good girl, Meg!" her father shouted at her. But Charles Wallace continued as though there had been no interruption. "In Camazotz all are equal. In Camazotz everybody is the same as everybody else," but he no argument, provided no answer, and she held on to her moment of revelation. gave her
Like and equal are two entirely different things. For the moment she had escaped from the power of IT. But how?
She knew that her own puny little brain was no match for this great, bodiless, pulsing, writhing mass on the round dais. She shuddered as she looked at IT."
"Was their life completely dependent on IT? Were they beyond all possibility of salvation?"
"The periodic table
of elements, Meg! Say it!
(I wonder why they chose to say that?)
Her father: "Yes. Nothing seemed important any more but west, and of course IT offered me complete rest. I had almost come to the conclusion that I was wrong to fight, that IT was right after all, and everything I believed in most passionately was nothing but a madman's dream. But then and Meg came in to me, broke through my prison, you and hope and faith returned."
"Calvin: "Sir, why were you on Camazotz at all? Was there a particular reason for going there?" Her father, with a frigid laugh: "Going to Camazotz was a complete accident. I never intended even to leave our own solar system. I was heading for Mars. Tessering is
even more complicated than we had expected."
Calvin: "Sir, how was IT able to get Charles Wallace before it got Meg and me?"
Her father: "From what you've told me it's because Charles Wallace thought he could deliberately go into IT and return. He trusted too much to his own strength listen! I think the heartbeat is getting stronger!"
His words no longer sounded to her quite as frozen. Was it his words that were ice, or her ears? Why did she hear only her father and Calvin? Why didn't Charles Wallace speak?
"Tell me," the beast said. "What do you suppose you'd do if three of us suddenly arrived on your home planet."
Obviously I dont agree with everything but it's a good "starting point to understanding as it were.)
"You mean you're comparing our lives to a sonnet?
A strict form, but freedom within it?"
"Yes." Mrs. Whatsit said. "You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."
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