#sandy murry

[iviarellereads]

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.

[joemerl]

It’s suddenly occurred to me, about a year after I read Many Waters, that Mr. Murray invented time travel. He just has a computer that can send you back in time. He has the power to completely rewrite history, no angel-witches or unicorns required. Was he trying to do that? Either way, the twins should probably tell him about it. 

[marauders4evr]

Sandy and Dennys Murry watching A Wrinkle In Time (2018) like:

[almostawinchester]

Watching the A Wrinkle in Time Trailer: okay but where’s Sandy and Dennys

[iviarellereads]

A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Chapter 9 The rocks with their steepness

(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 events call for a mild CSA and pretty major domestic abuse warning on this story.

Meg is awakened by the telephone. She's panicked, but hears her father telling Mrs. O'Keefe that someone will pick her up presently. Sandy is aghast that she'd call this late, but Dennys points out she's never called them… ever. Sandy offers to go, so Mr. Murry doesn't have to leave the phone in case the president calls again. Mrs. Murry prepares a snack.

Meg is frustrated that she lost the gist of the kything, so startled by the phone ring.(1) She knows, however, that it's important she sees Mrs. O'Keefe about something. At least with some bread and tea, she can relax a bit.

Shortly, Mrs. O'Keefe arrives with Sandy, cobwebs in her hair and her face smudged. Meg cries out Beezie, and startles her violently. Mrs. O'Keefe asks how Meg knows that name, but Meg continues on that Chuck was her younger brother, and she loved him so much. Mrs. O'Keefe tells her to leave the past in the past. She's been digging in the attic, and finally found the letter, and that Mr. Murry should read it.

The letter is from a Bran Maddox in Vespugia, to a Matthew Maddox here. The twins are startled at the coincidence, having talked with Meg about Matthew. The date lines up, as well: 1865. Mr. Murry reads the letter.

In it, Bran is doing well with the Welsh group, and he met a native man with blue eyes who swore he was descended from, well, a story very like the one we've seen. He doesn't know how his ancestors got to South America, but his mother sang him songs about a Welsh prince. He goes by Gedder, and his sister is Zillie and reminds Bran of his love Zillah though she doesn't have the blue eyes. He asks if Matthew can convince Zillah to come be his wife, or to come and bring her with him.

Mr. Murry is at a loss as to how this can be relevant. Mrs. O'Keefe says he's supposed to be smart. Mrs. Murry says it's strange that they'd have a letter from Vespugia, like that. Meg brings up her maiden name, Maddox, so Bran and Matthew are her forebears. Yes, Mrs. O'Keefe says, Maddoxes and Llawcae's for a long way back in her family.

Dennys puts together that some of her ancestors must have joined that colony, then. Mrs. O'Keefe says that Branzillo being from there, she just knows it's connected: just look at the names, Bran and Zillie and Zillah, together they're almost Branzillo.(2)

Mr. Murry asks if there are other letters. She says there were, once: she and Chuck used to read them and make up more stories. But, she made herself forget when something happened to Chuck, and he couldn't play pretend anymore.

Speaking of Chuck, Mrs. O'Keefe asks where Charles is. Mr. Murry says he went for a walk, about an hour ago. Mrs. O'Keefe says it's rich that people accuse her of not taking care of her kids, when they'd let theirs do that, and him only twelve. Her Chuck needs special care. Dennys offers to go find Charles, but Mr. Murry suggests they have to trust him. Mrs. O'Keefe says she'll stay until she can see Chuck.(3)

Meg excuses herself to go back to bed. Charles is fifteen, but she said Chuck was twelve, when something happened. How old is Chuck in the kythe when Charles is Within him? She goes upstairs, asking them to call her when Charles gets in, and Ananda follows again. She wraps up tight in the covers, feeling cold.

—Those people in the letter must be important, she thought,—and the Bran who wrote the letter, and his sister Gwen. Certainly the name Zillie must have some connection with Madoc’s Zyll, and Ritchie Llawcae’s Zylle, who was nearly burned for witchcraft. —And then, the Matthew he wrote to must be the Matthew Maddox who wrote the books. There’s something in that second book that matters, and the Echthroi don’t want us to know about it. It’s all interconnected, and we still don’t know what the connections mean. —And what happened to Beezie, that she should end up as Mom O’Keefe?(4)

Back in the kythe, Beezie is wondering why her father had to die. Grandma says there's never an answer to that question.

In the aftermath, Mrs. Maddox goes over the accounting ledger, and says she didn't know it was this bad. Chuck crawls into every space he can find looking for hidden treasures, but finds only pennies, some china, and a strongbox. He brings it all downstairs, and breaks open the lock with everyone present. Inside is a sheaf of letters, a bound notebook, and a watercolour sketch of the star watching rock, labeled as by Zillah Llawcae in 1864, at Madrun.

Grandmother reads the first entry in the notebook. It's from a sixteen year old Zillah, yearning for Bran Maddox, who's suffering from what we might call PTSD. Throughout the notebook are more watercolour paintings, and more entries of yearning as Zillah turns seventeen. The letters are from Bran, the top one the one we've already seen.

The china and the old pennies, they sell to an antiques dealer. The notebook, he's not interested in. Mrs. Maddox wishes she could remember to whom her late husband sold his family copy of his ancestor's book.

In the meantime, they make a new cover for the notebook to protect its crumbling binding, and the children read the letters and the notebook to each other and their grandmother. Chuck borrows books from the library about Vespugia to add context. One of the paintings is of Zillah's guess at what Gedder looks like, the man "descended from Madoc's brother."

Beezie takes up babysitting jobs, and grandmother is doing ironing and sewing, leaving less and less time for tales. But, one night, when Chuck gets home to the apartment above the store, his mother is still down in the store, talking to Duthbert Mortmain. Grandmother says he wants to marry her and take over the store for them. The store's in trouble, they're not making enough money, and it may be the only choice she has. And, grandmother wants to be sure that the next generations are taken care of when she dies.

At this, Chuck smells dandelion spore again,(5) and Beezie says grandmother will never die. But, grandmother says it's soon time for her to "go home", to see her Patrick again. Beezie's protest turns to Duthbert himself, surely her mother couldn't love him, and Beezie hates him. Grandmother says hate hurts the hater more than the hated, at which Beezie asks about Branwen, didn't she hate? No, she loved and was betrayed, but she never hated. Beezie asks if she ever loved again, but grandmother has forgotten.

Beezie wonders if they could use the rune against Duthbert, but grandmother cautions that the rune isn't to be used lightly, and this might not be serious enough for it. She says that Beezie will use the rune, but when the time is right. Beezie asks how she'll know the time is right, but grandmother simply says it's not now, because now's the time for bed. On the way, Beezie and Chuck agree they'll never call Mortmain "pa".

Mortmain, being an adult, is fine with them calling him "Mr. Mortmain." He dotes on their mother, though she still doesn't smile. Chuck notes that she doesn't smell of fear, but she also doesn't smell of the early morning sky, more of a dusky evening one.

There's never a sign of Mortmain's temper in the store, but the next spring, he starts to hit his wife, and the children. Beezie has to wear sweaters all year to hide the bruises from his pinching her arms. One of the other kids, Paddy O'Keefe,(6) asks if Mortmain's been after her. Chuck tells him to buzz off, but Paddy says, if Beezie ever needs help, he'll take care of it.

That night, Mortmain really loses his temper. He pinches Beezie's bottom, at which even her mother protests. Grandmother, though, is what tips him over, telling him to take care. He raises a hand to hit her, but Chuck gets in the way and takes the blow, and falls all the way down the stairs.

Chuck lay in a distorted position at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her with eyes that did not see. “Gedder pushed me. He pushed me. Don’t let him marry Gwen. Zillah, don’t let Gedder, don’t let …”

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(1) It's bad enough when it's a dream you want to remember. So much worse when the fate of the world depends on you, I'm sure. (2) It feels a little condescending how big of a deal this is made out to be in the narration. I'm just saying. I didn't need to remember the book to see it and lay it out in the notes. (3) Poor thing has the past and present all mixed up. And she's still so young for that. (4) Well, we get that one here, at least. (5) I think we're supposed to make the leap that dandelion spore -> dandelion clocks -> the passing of time (derogatory). But, I also don't think that's made at all clear by the narrative, and unless you're really looking for it, it's easy to feel it comes out of nowhere. (6) Nice setup. Also, giving her a Paddy to her grandmother's Pat, since the one girl was named for the other.

[iviarellereads]

A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Chapter 1 In this fateful hour

(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, if you read the table of contents, you know something's popping off almost immediately.

In the kitchen of the Murry house, Meg Murry O'Keefe(1) is grateful to be home for Thanksgiving with the family. Calvin is in London presenting a paper. She and the twins are talking, and Dennys asks how she, Mrs. O'Keefe, is doing. She looks over at Calvin's mom, sitting next to the fireplace, and comments that name's still strange to her, too. Dennys, home from med school, dotes on Meg and comments on her pregnancy.

Across the room, Charles Wallace and Mr. Murry are bent over a model of a tesseract.(2) Charles's silence has a different quality from usual. The senior Mrs. O'Keefe is also silent, but more surprising is that she agreed to come at all. Mrs. Murry says there's more to Mrs. O'Keefe than meets the eye, but Meg hasn't found it yet.

After thinking of how much she's grown up, and hoping that Charles finds himself similarly soon, she remarks that she misses their old dog, Fortinbras, who died of old age. Meg asks why they haven't a new one yet, and Mr. Murry says the right dog finds them, usually.

Mrs. Murry diverts Meg's inquest about the dog situation by asking her to make the sauce for the plum pudding. Mr. Murry gets a call from the White House, and the smile he wore to start quickly gets wiped away. The whole room seems to take notice and go silent at once, even though he's just listening. Meg worries that there's something supernaturally wrong with the weather.(3)

When the phone call ends, after everyone asks him what's happened, he says war's broken out. "Mad Dog Branzillo", the dictator of Vespugia,(4) has gotten a nuke and is threatening, credibly, to use it.

Mrs. O'Keefe asks if they're playing some trick on her, and asks why the president would call them. Mrs. Murry explains that the current president considers Mr. Murry a nonpartisan scientific advisor.

The whole family starts discussing how this could be the end of civilization, the end of humanity. Mrs. O'Keefe starts mumbling some prayer, over and over, between the discussion bits. Charles points out that as long as no missile has been launched yet, there's a chance it won't happen, and says they should celebrate Thanksgiving in all its meaning.

As they serve up, Mrs. O'Keefe keeps saying her prayer, and the family tries to be more hopeful. Mrs. Murry says her mother told her a story about having lived through a time when experts believed nuclear war would break out by the end of summer between the US and Soviet Union, and how she walked her street wondering if the pussy willows would ever bloom again, and never took their blooming for granted in the springs thereafter.

As Sandy passes Mrs. O'Keefe the cranberry sauce, he finally hears her muttering, and asks what it is. She says it's Patrick's rune and she can't remember but she feels she needs it. Her grandmother from Ireland gave her the verse, and she's forgotten it. They keep talking, the twins in particular whistling in the dark as she keeps trying.

Finally, Meg goes to her, and helps her to remember, and the verse as it's recited causes great, strange things to happen in the room.

At Tarah in this fateful hour, I place all Heaven with its power, And the sun with its brightness, And the snow with its whiteness, And the fire with all the strength it hath, And the lightning with its rapid wrath, And the winds with their swiftness along its path, And the sea with its deepness, And the rocks with their steepness, And the Earth with its starkness All these I place by God's almighty help and grace Between myself and the powers of darkness.(5)

Meg is sure her shoulder will be bruised from her mother-in-law's grip, but it's done, and Mrs. O'Keefe wonders why it occurred to her now, after all these years. Sandy compares it to Patrick's Breastplate, a song his glee club sang in college. Mrs. O'Keefe is firm that it's Patrick's Rune, a ward against danger.

Suddenly, all the lights go out, even the fireplace dwindles to near darkness. Charles Wallace calls on Mrs. O'Keefe to say the rune again, but she's already forgetting. He says he'll say it with her, but she has to help. They repeat it together, as the storm rages outside. Dennys lights the candles at the line about the sun, the power comes back up at the lightning line, and at the end Charles looks out the window and observes that the rain turned to snow somewhere in there.

Sandy asks what that was all about. Meg thinks it might mean that there's hope yet to be found. Both Sandy and Dennys are their usual skeptical dismissive selves.

Mrs. O'Keefe says she came because of "Chuck". She charges him to stop Mad Dog Branzillo, though she can't say his name properly. Meg thinks she looks so small and weak, and how strange that she called Charles Wallace "Chuck" when nobody else in his life has ever. Mrs. O'Keefe continues that she wasn't going to come, but that morning she woke up and felt compelled to, for some reason, and she didn't know why until the rune came back to her. Finally, she asks for someone to take her home, now that she feels she's done what she came for. Dennys says there's still salad, and dessert, but she insists, so he does the duty.

The rest of the family discusses what just happened, with Sandy the lone holdout skeptic, until the phone startles them all. It's Calvin, calling from London to say his presentation went well. Meg can hardly say a thing, but she hopes Calvin didn't notice because she's always overwhelmed on international calls. Just after he disconnects, Dennys gets back, so Meg conveys Calvin's love, and Dennys suggests they get on with the rest of dinner.

—Why are we trying to act normal? Meg wondered, but did not speak her thought aloud. But Charles Wallace replied, “It’s sort of like the string holding the package together, Meg. We’d all fall apart otherwise.” Her father said, “You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.”(6) “Even at a time like this?” Meg asked. The call from Calvin, the sound of her husband’s voice, had nearly broken her control. “Especially at a time like this,” her mother said gently.

Again, the twins act the skeptics to the rest of the family's belief in whatever just happened. Dennys asks Charles what he thinks, and Charles says he's sure if he's supposed to do something, he'll be told what. Sandy asks about aliens, but Charles says no, he'll feel it inside. To deflect, he suggests they skip the salad and go straight to the pudding, to gather around the light of the flame on it. The family oblige, though Meg wants the comfort of the lights.

“And the fire with all the strength it hath,” Charles Wallace said softly. “But what kind of strength?” Meg asked. She looked at the logs crackling merrily in the fireplace. “It can keep you warm, but if it gets out of hand it can burn your house down. It can destroy forests. It can burn whole cities.” “Strength can always be used to destroy as well as create,” Charles Wallace said. “This fire is to help and heal.” “I hope,” Meg said. “Oh, I hope.”

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(1) Yeah, some time has passed! 9 years, as we'll find shortly from Charles's age. (2) Not that you can ever truly model something in fewer dimensions than the thing exists in. You can draw a cube but you can't necessarily convey cubeness unless someone knows what the indicators mean. (3) Ah, still catastrophizing, I see. Some things never change. (4) A fictional country just for L'Engle's setting. Not sure if it's better or worse than using a real one. (5) If you look at the table of contents, that's sure the chapter titles, all in order. It's a slightly edited version of a James Clarence Mangan poem, St. Patrick’s Hymn before Tarah, which itself is altered from a real medieval piece, Saint Patrick's Breastplate. It's been adapted a lot of times, hence the glee club classic Sandy remembers. (6) And, we DO need to keep a place for peace and love in our hearts and in our lives. Everything can't be fear or we lock ourselves away and the work can never get started. Everything can't be anger or we burn ourselves out, and set fire to those near us besides, before the work can be finished. We have to be able to balance ourselves out somewhere.

[hauntedwizardtree]

Re-reading Madeline L’Engle’s “Many Waters”, and I find it hilarious how, in-universe, Sandy, Dennys and the whole of the human race after the flood have a nephil (fallen Angel) ancestor (Oholibama, Japheth’s wife, being the daughter of a nephil)

.

.

...maybe that’s why Charles Wallace is so odd?

[interretialia]

Sunt in geminorum holitorio horto dracones.

There are dragons in the twins’ vegetable garden.