A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Chapter 12 Between myself and the powers of darkness
(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index for the Time Quintet, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)
In which it couldn't have ended any other way.
Meg and the twins and Mrs. O'Keefe run to the star watching rock. Charles is there, pale and unmoving. Mrs. O'Keefe and Meg cry out the rune, and Charles finds himself on the rock again, with Gaudior.
The unicorn explains that Matthew died sooner than they expected, and they barely got Charles out in time.(1) Charles marvels at having the use of his legs again, after so long in Matthew. As he rides Gaudior home, he passes through the memory of all the people he has been in the book.
When they land, Gaudior's horn flashes, blinding each of those present in turn. Meg hears Charles call a goodbye to Gaudior, but she forgets who Gaudior is. Sandy and Dennys talk about the lightning flash they interpreted. Charles says they came just in time, and thanks them, especially Mrs. O'Keefe, Beezie.
Dennys and Sandy both tell them they need to get inside and out of this chill. They support Mrs. O'Keefe on the way back, and Meg holds Charles's hand as though they were children again. The Murry parents fuss over them coming back in, though more over Ananda's excited tail wagging disturbing their work in the lab.
Meg remembers a phone call from the president, but only vaguely. Everyone asks where Charles was, and there are some cheeky double-entendres about his going for a walk and an adventure. Meg tells them to show Charles the letter, which has changed: it's now from Bran and Zillah to Gwen and Rich, the sadness over the death of Mr. Maddox, and Bran and Zillah's sons, Rich and Matthew, the latter of whom picked up an odd nickname from the "Indian" children,(2) who combined his parents' names into Branzillo.(3)
Mr. Murry asks if that's the same letter he read before. Mrs. Murry says it sounded a bit different, but they're all quite tired. Sandy says it has to be the same letter, logically.
Charles asks Beezie what happened to Chuck. She says he died, about six months after going to the institution. As for her other half-brother, he took after his father, and went to prison for embezzlement and died there. Meg connects that Beezie married Paddy for the same reason Beezie's mother married Mortmain.(4)
Another phone call, from the president, but this time about El Zarco AKA Madog Branzillo setting up a peace plan conference, inviting Mr. Murry to consult. When the call is over, Meg asks about the threats, but Mr. Murry no longer remembers any. In fact, only Charles and Beezie remember it the way Meg does, because they traveled with Gaudior.
Mrs. O'Keefe gestures at Meg and says the baby will be born. Meg asks if she's glad to be a grandmother, but she says she's not going to make it. Her grandmother and her Chuck are waiting for her. As Mr. Murry takes her home, Dennys says Mrs. O'Keefe is showing signs of heart failure, and really probably won't live to see the baby, especially after running to the star watching rock.
Sandy says the whole evening's been one big confusion and they should all go to bed and forget it. Meg's just sad at the thought of losing Beezie just as they really found her.
Charles Wallace had once again been contemplating the intricate model of the tesseract. He spoke softly to his sister. “Meg, no matter what happens, even if Dennys is right about her heart, remember that it was herself she placed, for the baby’s sake, and yours, and Calvin’s, and all of us—”
Meg looked at him questioningly.
Charles Wallace’s eyes as he returned her gaze were the blue of light as it glances off a unicorn’s horn, pure and clear and infinitely deep. “In this fateful hour, it was herself she placed between us and the powers of darkness.”
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(1) Every story has certain things you have to handwave to get past, as part of immersion and as part of story structure. But I think this book uses a few too many of the convenient just in time rescues, even though I also think that no explanation would really make it better, and making it longer just to explain would just make it more tedious. I'm not a fan of the structure, is what I'm getting at.
(2) I'm still super annoyed at how white men's presence basically takes over Indigeneity in this book, and overwrites it, and subsumes it. It's been a journey of colonialism all over again. We! Are! Still! Here! Living among you, everywhere, every day. And all this has just smacked of the whole "1/32 Cherokee princess" white people like to trot out, which also complicates it for people like me whose cultural practices were banned so hard it was almost entirely lost until the last couple of generations. Just. This book has made me so tired I fell a whole week behind on posts out of dread of each next development. I need to rant somewhere. (The next one will be slightly less personally relevant at least.)
(3) And, even though it couldn't have ended any other way because of it, here's where I start getting real skeptical of what L'Engle was trying to say in this book besides the Indigenous stuff. The name "Branzillo" hasn't changed since the opening chapter's fearfulness about him. Without that connection there couldn't have been the story at all, but, why did the evil one have the same name, when it's derived from the "good" people? His nickname changed from the rabid to the blue-eyed, but "Mad dog" to "Madog" is barely anything, and "Branzillo" didn't change at all. What do you think she was getting at with this, intentionally or otherwise, because I'm at a loss.
(4) It's more or less a children's book, YA at oldest, so I'm not mad at L'Engle for saying it directly, but I do find it a little puzzling that she says this out loud but passes right on past so much else in this book.
It seemed like such a long time he’d been here — a lifetime. He’d never known before what it was like to hold someone when he cried. Or to feel fear for someone else, a thousand times more gut-wrenching than on your own behalf. Or to fall into the pattern of somebody’s breathing.
+ Mercy of the Fallen by @things-that-are-great as gaudior
A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Chapter 11 All these I place
(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index for the Time Quintet, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)
In which we continue the ableism, and the info dump, without a whole lot of real climax.
Charles comes to his senses on the star-watching rock with Gaudior again. Gaudior explains that the wind drew him out of Chuck, after he was institutionalized after all.(1) Charles asks if the visions of a fight on a cliff are real, and Gaudior asks what real even means, when it comes to this.
The wind tells them to hurry, there's not even time to tie Charles to Gaudior again. The journey is hard, and they land in a Projection from the Echthroi first. They see men with gas masks and guns, and flee before they can determine if the men can see them, though they're still in the Projection for now.
Meg shivered. Within the kythe she saw the star-watching rock and a golden summer’s day. There were two people on the rock, a young woman, and a young man—or a boy? She was not sure, because there was something wrong with the boy. But from their dress she was positive that it was the time of the Civil War—around 1865.(2)
Going Within is agony, this time, because Matthew is disabled from the waist down after a horse riding accident. He's in deep and unrequited love with Zillah, who he's meeting on the star watching rock, having asked a friend to wheel him out. She asks him what's wrong, and he says, something's happened to Bran. They were always closer than most twins, but after the accident, Matt feels it was Bran who brought him back to life, and now they share a kything connection.
Matt and Zillah talk about their families' closeness for a bit, then Zillah asks if Matt's told his family about Bran. Matt says they don't understand the connection, so he'd rather not freak them out.
A week later, they receive confirmation that Bran was wounded, and will "be invalided home."(3) Mrs. Maddox is relieved he's alive, and he'll come home with no worse than a bad leg. Matt, to himself, believes it is worse than just that, as Bran's been shutting him out of their connection, cutting himself off.
Mr. Maddox is glad that Bran will be able to make the store Maddox and Son. Matt notices the unspoken part: that it's never "and Sons", and never will be. He's dedicated to his writing, but it still hurts to be excluded. Most of a page is spent describing the store, the house behind it, and the name they gave the house: Merioneth, in honour of a cousin in Wales.
Then Gwen asks what Matt's lost in thought about, and he lies that he's plotting another book. The family turns to cooing over his stories and his successes, but Matt warns them gently that Bran will need their support when he gets home. And of course, when Bran arrives, he was right.
About three months after that, Matt sends word to Zillah to meet him at the rock again. This time he wheels himself out, though it's exhausting work. Zillah asks after Bran, and Matt says he's still not improved. Zillah thinks he just needs more time, but Matt says he's had nothing but time, what Matt thinks Bran needs is to open up and talk.
Zillah shares that Bran asked her to return the engagement ring, because he doesn't want to burden her as a husband. She asks how she can help Bran. Matt just tells how Bran wouldn't take him riding, blaming his leg despite that it should have healed well enough by now to be tolerable.(4)
On that note, Matt tangents into seeing Gwen and Jack O'Keefe, the hired hand, making out in the stable. Matt is uncomfortable with Jack, as he scorns anything that's not physically perfect, and he's cruel about it. But, he's brimming with life, while Gwen's home life is two brothers who are both disabled in one way or another, so Jack makes an enticing escape.
One evening, Mr. Maddox tells Bran he should take up the Welsh lessons Matt and Zillah still attend. Bran is dismissive about it. Matt distracts by suggesting how Gwen's cheekbones make her look "more Indian than Welsh", but Mr. Maddox says Mrs. Maddox is ashamed of the Indigenous heritage in their line, and besides, black hair and blue eyes are quite common among the Welsh, as well as (with a pointed look at Bran) a strong work ethic.
That night, Matt confronts Bran about shutting him and Zillah out. Bran asks Matt not to be impatient with him, too, their father's bad enough. Matt agrees, that's their Papa. Bran says he's not made to be a storekeeper. The war(5) confirmed his love of travel and adventure, he just… doesn't like the killing, and he's not sure one comes without the other. Still, Matt is hopeful, as this is the best conversation they've had since Bran's return.
Later, Matt is writing, when Bran comes to him, and finally, really opens up. He thought he was going to fight a noble war, but there's nothing noble about the carnage he witnessed. Finally, Bran's heart's wound lets loose, and he weeps with his twin. When he's done, they confirm their reconnection, but declares his intent to go to Patagonia with their cousin, to see about that Welsh colony. Matt is sad, because he surely can't go with his disability, even if Bran's is minor enough to allow him, and they'd wanted to go together. But, Bran promises to share everything he can with Matt, so he can help inspire more stories. Matt reminds Bran that he should tell Zillah as well, since she still wears his ring.
That night, the families dine together, and talk about the Welsh expedition. Bran declares his intent to go, and reminds them that Dr. Llawcae suggested a warmer climate would do him good. Mr. Maddox asks if he couldn't go to Georgia for that, but Bran reminds him where he was injured. Mrs. Maddox doesn't want her son going so far away so soon after getting him back.
Bran supports his case by saying how much he relates, in a way, to Madoc, leaving his homeland because of a ghastly war between men who should be brothers to each other. The fathers approve of his memory of a specific passage, in the original Welsh no less, from a poem about it.
Zillah, finally, confronts him about leaving. Her father protests, she's only seventeen, she can't get married. She says plenty of women are married at seventeen, mothers even, and she still wants to be Bran's wife. Her father says after Bran is settled there a year or two, to be sure of his situation and her safety.
Instead, Gwen is sent with Bran, after Mr. Maddox catches her smooching Jack. Gwen and Zillah bond over neither having control of her own life and choices before they leave.
While the journey is still underway, Matt relays to Zillah about their progress, and how Bran sends his love. Matt remembers "the old Indian verses" about Madoc's descendants.
“It’s beautiful,” Zillah said, “but I don’t really know what it means.”
“It’s not to be taken literally. The Indians believed that as long as there was one blue-eyed child in each generation, all would be well.”
“But it wasn’t, was it? They’ve been long gone from around here.”
“I think it was a bigger all-rightness than just for their tribe.(6) Anyhow, both you and Gwen have at least a drop of Indian blood, and you both have the blue eyes of the song.”
“So, in a way,” Zillah said dreamily, “we’re the last of the People of the Wind. Unless—”
Matthew smiled at her. “I think you’re meant to have a black-haired, blue-eyed baby.”
“When?” Zillah demanded. “Bran’s a world away from me. And I’ll be old and white-haired and wrinkled before Papa realizes I’m grown up and lets me go.”
Matthew's work starts really taking off, and his father finally acknowledges it as real work and helps him set up an unused room as a study with a better lap desk that he can use and look out at the forest.
At midsummer, letters start to arrive back from Bran, and he sends Matthew the most vivid accounts that he can, as promised, on top of their connection. Bran tells of a Richard Llawcae, who from description we can assume descended from Ritchie after he went back to Wales with Zylle. And, he describes Gwen's attraction to Gedder, much the same as she was to Jack. But, Gedder worries Bran. He's too ambitious and lordly and misogynist. Still, it's odd how Gwen and Zillie and Zillah look so alike. Bran misses his Zillah so much more when he sees how Zillie behaves and is ordered about.
That winter is hard on Matt. He's writing his book about Madoc and Gwydyr, but the cold seems inescapable as he's forced to think about brother fighting brother all the way back to Cain and Abel. Zillah is a comfort to him, though he's sure somehow that Vespugia is the next place to watch.
Bran sends word of the first death in the colony: a child who climbed up a cliff they shouldn't have. Rich was the greatest comfort to the mother, and Matt comments how much Rich loves Gwen, as he knows from observing to some uncertain degree through Bran.
Matt catches a bad cold, and is heavily weakened. He doesn't leave the study anymore, but he wrote a few more stories and started keeping the funds in a safe there. When he's too tired to write, he sleeps, and dreams of Charles who dreams of everything else.
Zillah and Matt renew their campaign to convince her father to let her go to Vespugia with Bran as Matt realizes that time is short, and she's needed there, soon. Alas, he will not be moved. As winter gives way to spring, Matt gives her the money from his books since she doesn't have her father's support. He's already bought the ticket for the ship that leaves in four days.
Dr. Llawcae is furious when she leaves without telling him. He complains shoutingly at the elder Maddoxes. When he comes to check Matt's heart after, he says he supposes Matt is well pleased about it. Matt just says Zillah and Bran should be together, they love each other so. And, Dr. Llawcae could go visit them, he's due a vacation after all these years. Dr. Llawcae isn't convinced.
Summer comes slowly, and Matt watches tensions build in the Welsh colony through Bran while he waits for Zillah to arrive. Gedder's favourite place is up on the cliff, overlooking the colony he wants to rule. One day, he and Rich quarrel up there, and Gedder falls to his death, the conflict on the cliff that's been so foreshadowed.
Matt finally gets a letter from Bran with more detail. Nobody blames Rich, not even Zillie, but Rich felt he couldn't stay. Bran says Gwen wants to go home, so Rich will take her.(7) Matt muses that his father will have a partner in the store at last, it can be Maddox and Llawcae instead of Maddox and Son.
Another verse of the song, about righting the ancient wrong, and the way being long, but blue shining through. A coughing fit hits Matt, and then things go dark, with a terrible smell.
Meg wakes from the kythe, worried for Matthew, though he's been dead at least two hundred years. She wonders what happened to him, and to Charles. She goes downstairs, where everyone's still up, and asks the twins to get her a cup of bouillon before she asks Mrs. O'Keefe what she remembers, and if Zillah really did get to Vespugia. Sandy maintains that the past is fixed, the only way you can affect time is the present shaping the future. But, Meg insists she needs to know who Branzillo's ancestors were because of the Might-Have-Been.
At all this, Mrs. O'Keefe tells them to stop talking and take her to Chuck, and quickly.
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(1) I don't particularly want to have seen it, but I also… don't like that it just happened off screen, taken for granted that it was the only way to get Charles to let go.
(2) Well, they're finally in the right time period. Just in time for the penultimate chapter and the climax, of course.
(3) Such a charming (derogatory) turn of phrase, no matter how historically accurate it is.
(4) That's not really how chronic injuries work, though. Like, it's true that within the narrative it's not a matter of the leg itself, it's the psychological issue, the PTSD or whatever you want to call it. But, that's also not how injuries always work.
(5) The war they keep referring to is probably the US civil war, given the reference to freeing slaves (and, at least Bran was on the historically correct side and acknowledges what that war was really about) and the reluctance to go to Georgia. It was historically a war that left a lot of PTSD behind it which is why people keep blaming things like the rise of modern ghost stories on it.
(6) Flames. Flames, on the side of my face.
(7) It's not entirely clear why this is slower than the letter, given how mail actually worked back then.
Like he kept the other half of his heart in Tsuzuki's chest, and he'd never noticed until he came this close and the two halves could finally beat together.
+ Mercy of the Fallen by @things-that-are-great as gaudior
The book, Hisoka thought, flipping past adultery and sex research and pornography, didn't have any pictures of how it felt to hold onto someone and feel like you've come home.
