A Ring of Endless Light

by Madeleine L'engle

  I rolled over on my back and floated, my body rising and lowering gently in the swells. I closed my eyes, not so much against the radiant blue as against distractions, and imaged Basil. In my mind's eye I saw him clearly, butting against me and asking me to scratch his chest.

  Then I imaged Basil and Norberta leaping together, coming to swim one on each side of Adam. I concentrated on Basil and Norberta the way I concentrate when I'm deep in the world of a book, or when I'm caught up in writing a poem, the way I was earlier in the morning. I was concentrating so completely that at first I didn't hear Adam.

  "Vic. Vicky! Vicky!"

  I opened my eyes and rolled over in the water.

  There, coming toward us, were not two but three dolphins, Basil and Norberta and a baby, not as small as Ynid's, but definitely a child, and alive, beautifully alive. It swam close to its mother, imitating her every flick of fluke, and making small chirruping noises.

  It swam close to us, curious as to these two strange creatures who weren't fish but certainly weren't dolphins. It butted me with its little head and I reached out my hand, underwater, and very gently scratched its belly, and it wriggled with pleasure.

  Norberta chirped at it, and then they swam around us, mother and baby, once, twice, thrice. It was obvious to me that Norberta was showing off her baby. Then she patted it briskly with her flipper, a sort of love spank, and turned and headed for the open sea, the baby beside her.

  Basil stayed. Adam was staring after Norberta and the baby, and Basil nudged him to get his attention, gently at first, then roughly enough so that he went underwater.

  He came up and grabbed Basil's dorsal fin and the two of them went into one of their great splashing wrestling matches. Then it was my turn. Again Basil dove under me and came up so that I was sitting astride his back. I did my best to hold on while he swam swiftly after Norberta and the baby. For a moment I thought he might be making off with me forever, and then I could feel him telling me to trust him, and he turned in a great slow circle so I wouldn't fall off, and swam back to where Adam was waiting. Then he leapt up into the air so that I slid off his back and into the water, and off he went, to vanish into the horizon.

  "C'mon," Adam ordered, and swam shoreward.

  When we were standing on the beach, with me hopping on one foot to try to get water out of my ear, Adam took my hand and shook it heartily. "You did it. Thanks. Wait till I tell Jeb."

  I waited for him to turn a cartwheel or stand on his head, but he just stood there. "Did I? Maybe they'd have come anyhow."

  "They've never come for me that way. And I've tried to ride Basil and he's never let me."

  "I didn't try to--"

  He said impatiently. "I know you didn't. It was Basil's idea. He's teaching you how to play with him. Did you enjoy it?"

  I flung out my arms to the sun and the wind and the golden day. Then I started to twirl like a whirling dervish, twirled until I fell onto the sand, and the world continued to circle round me.

  Adam stood over me. "Did Norberta tell you anything? Was there anything she wanted you to know?"

  "I think so. But maybe it's just my imagination everybody tells me I have so much of."

  Adam rode over that. "What did Norberta tell you?"

  "That she's sorry about Ynid's baby. That she's happy about hers. That he's going to be my friend."

  "He?"

  "Yes."

  "How'd you know?"

  "I guess--I guess she told me."

  "Did she tell you how old he is?"

  "About a year."

  He stared at me. "Yah, that's just about right. What're you going to call him?"

  "Njord, the god of the sea."

  At this, Adam smiled. "Oh, you think he's pretty terrific, don't you?"

  "I do. He is. Adam, would Jeb like to see him?"

  Adam flopped down onto the sand. "I'll write up everything that happened this morning and give the report to Jeb. But as to bringing him to see Njord--I'm not at all sure the dolphins would come for him, for one thing. For another, I haven't taken anybody to see Basil except John and you. So, for my project's sake, I'm not inviting him to meet my dolphins. Not yet."

  My dolphins. He sounded mighty possessive. My dolphins. My project. My child helper. I stood up, shaking sand off me. "I'd better go rinse."

  "Me, too."

  We splashed about in the shallow waves until the sand was off. Then Adam shook himself like a dog. "Good morning's work, Vic." His voice was brisk and impersonal. "I'd better get on back to the lab. I want to write it all up while it's fresh. You'll be okay?"

  "Sure." I thought of the cafeteria English muffins. "Would you like to come on over to the stable for dinner this evening?"

  "Not tonight," he replied shortly. "I don't want to wear out my welcome, and I have a lot to do. I'll be in touch."

  I was dismissed.

  This wasn't the Adam who'd turned cartwheels of joy along the beach, or who had talked to me the night before as though I was a real human being, not just John's kid sister.

  I'd gone to bed thinking that my growing friendship with Adam had to be part of that pattern Grandfather had talked about, and here he was throwing the pattern out as deliberately as though he'd thrown a partly finished jigsaw puzzle onto the floor.

  I looked at his retreating back. I was furious. I wanted to burst into tears. I wanted to lie down on the sand and kick. All I was to Adam, obviously, was a part of his project, not as important a part as the dolphins, of course. I wasn't there because I was Vicky, but only because I was a child who was useful to him. Child, child, child. He'd rammed it down my throat.

  But I was more than a mere child to the dolphins. Something in me was sure of that.

  I got on my bike and pedaled home.

  I felt sore, as though something inside me had been bruised.

  I peeked into Grandfather's study and he was awake, so I read to him for a while. I kept fumbling over words, which I don't normally do, and Grandfather stopped me, asking, "What's on your mind?"

  "I went to the lab this morning."

  Grandfather nodded. "What went wrong?"

  "I'm not sure. The only thing I can think of--well, Grandfather, this sounds like blowing my own horn, but the thing is that in a way I communicated better with the dolphins than Adam did. Do you think that would make him jealous?"

  Grandfather thought this over for a moment. "He doesn't strike me as the jealous type. But it might give him pause."

  "Here he is, trained in marine biology, and I don't know anything about it at all, but, Grandfather, I do have a thing with dolphins. I can't explain it, but Adam's dolphins really communicated with me. I can't explain any better, because his project's sort of classified--I mean, he doesn't want it talked about."

  Grandfather put his hand gently over mine. "I get enough of the picture to see that you may have made the young man do some serious thinking."

  "Last night he was treating me as a--as a peer, and today he kept calling me a child, and going on about how dolphins respond better to children than to adults ..."

  Grandfather patted my hand. "As I said, you probably made him think. Just give him time to absorb whatever it was that happened this morning."

  "Thanks, Grandfather. I feel better. I'll go on reading."

  The next day I heard not a word from Adam. Leo called. Zachary called. Adam called, but not for me, for Suzy, to arrange to take her to the dolphin pens.

  That night she was full of talk about the dolphins and Dr. Nutteley and Adam and the dolphins again. She'd fed Una and Nini. She'd held a fish in her teeth and Una had taken it and she hadn't been the least bit scared and Adam had said she was terrific. "He's nice, even if he is kind of square."

  "He's not square," John defended.

  "He's so serious-minded. Doesn't he ever do anything but study? All he has on his mind is that project of his."

  "What project?" I asked sharply.

  "You know, working on dolphin-human communication. He re
ally does communicate with Una and Nini. Maybe they'll teach him not to be so square."

  Which was the real Adam? The single-minded scientist, concentrating on his experiment? The philosopher of that night with me on the beach? The Adam full of fun, turning cartwheels?

  At any rate, Suzy didn't mention Basil or Norberta and Njord. It was at least a small consolation that Adam had introduced her only to the dolphins in the pens.

  Mrs. Rodney came daily to bathe Grandfather and help him shave. He stayed more and more on the hospital bed, though when most of us were out he would take a cane and walk slowly to the porch to be with the ocean.

  When Mrs. Rodney was through, it was my time to read to him. Sometimes he paid keen attention. Other times his mind wandered. Once he interrupted me. "Sogdian."

  "What?" I lowered the book.

  "Nubian, Persian, Caucasian, Old Saxon."

  I was frightened. "What, Grandfather?"

  "I'm dreaming in languages I haven't thought of in years, haven't needed."

  He smiled at me and his eyes were clear.

  I asked, "You know--knew--all those?"

  "In seminary. And while I was working on my dissertation. And for a few years after that. I wanted to read the New Testament in all the earliest versions--and I'm dreaming in them now, as though in tongues, and sometimes Tongues, too, which may be the language of Angels--though it's understood and spoken by the fallen angels, too, and not enough people remember that."

  He paused, and I asked, "What about the fallen angels?"

  "They take many guises. Demonic possession, for instance. Have you heard from young Adam?"

  I shook my head.

  "And how about dark Zachary?"

  "I'm going out with him this afternoon."

  "How are things going there?"

  "At any rate he doesn't treat me like a child."

  "And how is he, himself?"

  "With Zachary it's hard to know. He gives the impression of being in control of everything. And then he opens a chink, and there's all that lostness and frightenedness within."

  "It's in most of us," Grandfather said. "Perhaps we don't cover it up as well. What are the two of you going to do?"

  "He's taking flying lessons, and his teacher has a small charter plane, and he's going to take me up in it. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

  Flying!

  Flying was like playing with Basil, which is as great a thing as I can say about it. I understood why Zachary was willing to stay out of trouble during his first year in college in order to have his own plane. For a moment I felt a little wistful about not having all the money in the world.

  Art, the pilot, was a chunky young man, a good head shorter than Zachary, but there was something comfortable about his muscular body and white teeth gleaming in his dark face. He couldn't have been a great deal older than Zachary, but he exuded confidence as he strapped me into the Piper Cub in the seat beside his own. Zachary sat behind us, giving a running commentary.

  Art flew the little plane with such loving tenderness that I felt only the tiniest flutter in my middle when we lifted from the runway. We flew across the water and all the familiar buildings on the Island looked different, seen from the air. When we flew over the stable, the pilot dipped first the left wing, then the right, and Rob and Mother and Daddy were standing at the edge of the bluff, waving, because Zachary had told them approximately when we'd be there.

  Then we were back over the sea again, and Art sent the plane into swirls and dives and loops and if it hadn't been for Basil I'd probably have been terrified.

  When he righted the plane and we were flying along a straight line, Art rubbed his strong fingers through his tight black curls and gave me a steady, hard look that reminded me of Grandfather. "Hey. Sure you've never been up before?"

  "Positive."

  "Thought I'd scare you out of your wits."

  I couldn't tell him that I might not have been up in a plane but I had flown a dolphin. "It was fun." I was excited and pleased with myself because I hadn't been afraid.

  "This kid's okay," Art called back to Zachary. "Most people would have been screaming bloody murder. But she's okay."

  "Told you she would be."

  I wondered if Zachary'd told Art to do all that stunt stuff, and thought he probably had. Did he know it was going to exhilarate me? Or did he want to scare me? Zach being Zach, it could be either one.

  Before we left the airport, we made a date with Art for the following Wednesday. Wednesday I'd come to think of as my day with Adam and the dolphins, but I hadn't heard a word from Adam. Sure, I'd love to go flying on Wednesday.

  We drove from the airport to the country club for dinner. This time, because of the dance to follow, dinner was an elegant and elaborate buffet. There were more dishes beautifully arranged in silver serving pieces than I could count. Zachary offered me champagne and I turned it down--not that I haven't had plenty of sips of champagne at home, but I felt more grownup being free to refuse than I would have if I'd felt I had to prove something by accepting.

  I'm a lot more at home in the water than I am on the dance floor, but Zachary was a beautiful dancer and I found that dancing wasn't that much different from swimming, after all.

  The ballroom was like something out of one of the old fairy tales of princes and princesses, dripping with crystal chandeliers, and gilt chairs along the wall, and a small band at one end, and a buffet with wines and punches and sherbets and cakes at the other. Despite the air-conditioning, which was going full blast, the long glass doors were open to a flagstoned terrace, and couples danced in and out of the night. It was lovely, but the country club was surely using more than its fair share of energy. Zachary turned me toward one of the open doors, and then we were on the terrace, and then on the short-clipped velvety green lawn, and then under the sheltering branches of an ancient maple tree.

  "Let's rest." Zachary's breathing was short and shallow. "That's the most exercise I've had since ... and I'm feeling it a bit." He dropped down to the grass and I followed. I had on the pale-blue dress, and I hoped I wouldn't get grass stains on it.

  I leaned against the rough bark of the tree. Zachary, with a graceful movement, lay down with his head in my lap. Light streaming across terrace and lawn touched his black hair with strange silver lights.

  "Okay, Vicky-O," he said abruptly. "What does life hold for you?"

  That was a Zachary-type question, because of its unexpectedness if nothing else. "School, and then college."

  "And then what?"

  "I don't know. I wish I did. John and Suzy both know where they're going, and Rob's too little still."

  "So where are John and Suzy going?"

  "John's always been interested in space, space exploration, and everything it involves, so I suppose he'll be an astrophysicist. Suzy's going to be a doctor or a vet."

  "Goody for them." He reached for my hand and put it against his check. "Rub my hair," he commanded. "And you don't have any idea about you?"

  "Oh, I have some ideas." His hair felt silky and soft beneath my fingers. "I'm interested in writing, but not the kind you earn a living from right away, like journalism and feature articles."

  "What kind, then? That feels lovely. Don't stop."

  I continued moving my fingers through his hair. "Poetry." I thought of the sonnet for Jeb and Ynid still stuck in a wrinkled wad in my jeans pocket. "Stories, maybe, and novels."

  "Still evading the real world, eh?"

  I took my fingers out of his hair. "That's how you find the real world."

  "You'd make a lousy lawyer."

  "I have no intention of being any kind of lawyer. You know what Shakespeare says about lawyers?"

  "Okay, egghead, what does Shakespeare say?"

  "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. It's in one of the Henrys, I forget which."

  Zachary stretched his arms up and pulled my head down toward his. We kissed. And then the kiss was going too far, and I pulled away.<
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  "Why?" Zachary demanded.

  "I just--I just need to catch my breath."

  "I scare you?"

  "No."

  "We do have something very special going, Vicky. You know that. Our chemistry really works. Why don't you just let go and enjoy it?"

  "I do enjoy it, Zach, but--"

  "But me no buts. I can quote Shakespeare, too, I'm not as illiterate as you may think." Swiftly, Zachary turned himself so that he was kneeling, facing me. He was right about chemistry. Ours really fizzed. It fizzed too much.

  And I saw Adam's face, felt Adam's hands, not Zachary's.

  Why did Adam have to intrude? He hadn't called me; he'd made it quite clear that all I was to him was a child. And even if he wasn't jealous of my communicating with the dolphins, it wasn't bringing us any closer. Adam didn't want me, and Zachary did. So why was he superimposing on Zachary, like a double negative? I did not like it, and I couldn't blot out his image.

  Again I pushed his hands away.

  "Why?" Zachary demanded, his fingers clamping tight about my wrists.

  "Ouch, you hurt."

  He did not loosen his grip. "Everything about you is saying 'Come on,' and then you pull away. Why?"

  "Zachary." I pulled my hands away from his with a jerk. "I'm not sixteen. You could be arrested for assaulting a minor."

  I thought he was going to hit me. Then he said, "Vicky, sweetie, I won't do anything you don't want to do. I thought you wanted to. Be honest. Didn't you?"

  I rubbed my wrist where it hurt from his grasp. "I'm not ready. Not yet."

  "Don't throw that not-quite-sixteen stuff at me. Lots of kids--"

  "I'm not lots of kids, I'm Vicky. And I'm not ready. Not yet."

  There was a damp edge to the breeze.

  "Don't tell me I don't turn you on, because I know I do."

  He did. He did, and then Adam got in the way. Does this kind of thing ever happen to other people? this being confused and torn between two people you care about? For once I was glad I was still fifteen. What would I do if I was old enough to marry, and this kind of thing, this double image, happened to me?

  "Come on," Zachary said. "Let's go back in." He took my hand and we walked over the soft grass, which was beginning to be damp with dew. We passed a couple under another tree, lying together and kissing, in complete oblivion of anybody who might be passing. And I realized that Zachary and I would have been equally visible to passers-by, despite the sheltering branches of the tree.