A Ring of Endless Light: The Austin Family Chronicles, Book 4

by L'Engle, Madeleine;

  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 really 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 prov
e 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.

  “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.

  And I realized, too, that Adam or no Adam, I would still have pulled away from Zachary.

  We got in the Alfa Romeo and he drove too quickly and I hated it, and at the same time I was excited by the speed, because it was all I could think about, and I forgot my inner turmoil.

  Leo and his friend were playing chess, but when Zachary said, “Hey, Leo, let’s go,” Leo stood up, leaving the game unfinished. We didn’t talk on the trip back to the Island. I don’t know what Zachary or Leo was thinking. All I wanted was to get home, to my cot in the loft, where everything was simple and uncomplicated.

  But as Zachary left me at the screen door he said, “Don’t fret, Vicky-O. There’ll be other times and other places. No matter what, you’re my sanity, don’t you ever forget that.” He kissed me, lightly, and said, “After we go flying on Wednesday I’ll take you to a nice little French restaurant I’ve discovered. Only half a dozen or so tables and really beautiful food. So relax.”

  I let myself in quietly and went up to the loft. I was anything but relaxed, and it took me a long time to get quiet enough to go to sleep.

  Eight

  Sunday evening we cooked hamburgers down in Grandfather’s evening we cooked hamburgers down in Grandfather’s cove—all of us except Grandfather. It was a clear, beautiful night, although John said that the wind was shifting and that it would rain by morning.

  I tried to go back to just enjoying the evening, but flickers of the turmoil of the night before moved across my mind like small clouds. Suzy was envious of my having gone up in a plane, and wanted me to ask Zachary if he’d take her.

  “And Adam said he’d take me to see the dolphins and he hasn’t,” Rob complained. “He took Suzy, but he hasn’t taken me.”

  “I could take you,” John said.

  “But I want to see Adam’s dolphins. You’re working with starfish.”

  There was no way I could avoid thinking about Adam. Or Zachary. After a year in New York when the boys at school had sometimes called me about the homework, but none of them had asked me for a date or even walked home with me (and Suzy always had some kid carrying her books), now here I was with three, count them, three boys on my mind. It was small comfort to know that I was more on Leo’s mind than he on mine, because it gave me a vague feeling of responsibility tow
ard him.

  Zachary was like being out in a storm. It was exciting and frightening at the same time.

  Adam represented the grownup world, the world of the lab, and Jeb Nutteley and Nora Zand and all the other scientists there. And Adam was swimming out to meet Basil, and sharing the loveliness of Norberta and Njord. But if I was more on Leo’s mind than he on mine, the reverse was obviously true with Adam and me. I thought about Leo only if he called, or I was going out with him, or he was taking Zachary and me to or from the mainland. But Adam appeared in my mind without warning or reason.

  Did he ever think about me except in connection with the dolphins and his experiment? Not likely. Does it ever even out, what two people feel for each other? Or does one always care more?

  I’d lost track of the conversation.

  Suzy was talking about my date with Zachary.

  “Love is a little thing shaped like a lizard.

  It runs up and down and tickles your gizzard,”

  she intoned.

  “Don’t be vulgar,” I said automatically. However, her idiot rhyme wasn’t a bad description of what Zachary did to me. And suddenly I didn’t like it. Not the rhyme, but the way Zachary made me feel. I didn’t like it because it was only a part of me, only the physical part. Zachary fascinated me, like a cobra. And I didn’t want just to be fascinated. I wanted more than that. Because I hadn’t ever had it, I wasn’t sure what that more was. I only knew I wanted it.

  Daddy handed me my hamburger, just the way I like it. I slathered on mustard and catsup and put on a big slice of sweet onion.

  “I want mine cooked in the middle,” Suzy said, “not raw, like Vicky’s. Say, John, why didn’t you ask Adam tonight?”

  “I did,” John said.

  “Why didn’t he come?”

  “We’re not the only people he knows on the Island. He probably was going somewhere else.”

  “Next time we have a picnic,” Suzy continued, “maybe we should ask the Rodneys.”

  Daddy turned the hamburgers on the grill. “Sometimes it’s good to be just the family.”