An Acceptable Time

by Madeleine L'engle

  While they were waiting for the bishop, they had breakfast. Mrs. Murry had made oatmeal the night before, and it was on the back of the stove, hot, over a double boiler. Automatically she set out brown sugar, raisins, milk. "Help yourselves."

  "I don't like the implications of this," Mr. Murry said. "There seems to be no way we can protect Polly, except by chaining her to one of us."

  They stopped talking as they heard urgent barking outside. Mr. Murry put his hand to his forehead. "I'd almost forgotten--" He went out through the pantry door and came in with the dog, who pranced about excitedly. "Polly, is this Karralys's dog?"

  "I think so."

  Mr. Murry shook his head, went back out to the garage, and returned with the blanket, which he put down near the wood stove. The dog flopped down on it, tail thumping, and Hadron leaped upon him, playing with his tail as though with a mouse. The dog sighed with resignation.

  "Three thousand years don't seem to make much difference to Hadron," he said. "Somehow I find that comforting. But maybe I'm grasping at straws."

  The bishop arrived with Dr. Louise. "I want to make sure that sanity outweighs my brother's fantasy," she said. "I don't have to be at the hospital for another hour."

  "The dog's still here." The bishop petted the animal's head, stroked the great ears.

  "He was with Karralys last night," Polly said, "whenever last night was..."

  "Have you had breakfast?" Mrs. Murry asked.

  "Long ago," Dr. Louise replied.

  The bishop looked at the stove. "Very long ago."

  Mrs. Murry handed him a bowl. "Help yourself, Nason. It's only oatmeal this morning."

  He filled his bowl, heaped on brown sugar and raisins, added milk, and sat at the table. "I find it comforting that the dog is here. I'm sure he's protection. Now, Polly, tell me exactly what happened last night. Don't leave anything out."

  "I couldn't sleep," she started, "and it was as though the pool was pulling me. I can't explain. I knew I shouldn't go to the pool. I didn't want to go to the pool. But it kept pulling me. And I went."

  The bishop listened carefully, eating all the while, looking up as she described the silver circlet with the crescent moon. "Surely," he said, "a symbol of the moon goddess. You said Annie had one, too?"

  "Yes."

  "The moon goddess. And the Mother, the earth. What we have, you see, is a mixture of Native American and Celtic tradition. They overlap in many ways. Go on."

  After a while Mr. Murry interrupted, "You say that Karralys and this other person--"

  "Tav."

  "--have been here, in the New World, only three years?"

  "I think so, Granddad. That's what Anaral and Karralys both said."

  The bishop nodded. "Yes. That's what they told me. I've paid less attention to time than to the trip. Karralys and Tav came in a boat. Of course that would not be possible now with the lake long gone, along with the rest of the melt from the glaciers. But three thousand years ago it is quite possible that one could have come first across the ocean, and then by the rivers--and probably what are merely brooks and streams now would have been sizable rivers then--and so get to the lake and to this place. What do you think, Alex?"

  "Possibly," Mr. Murry agreed. "Once they'd landed on this continent, they could probably have made their way inland in some kind of small boat."

  "It's the ocean crossing that's hard to understand," Dr. Louise said.

  "People did cross oceans, remember," her brother said. "Navigating by the stars. And the druids were astronomers."

  The bishop helped himself to more oatmeal. "Go on, Polly."

  When she had finished, the bishop's bowl was again empty. "All right. So you were part of the Samhain remembrance of the People of the Wind."

  "And Karralys and Tav were assimilated by the native people--the People of the Wind?" Mr. Murry asked.

  "Karralys became their new leader," the bishop said. "He and Tav were blown across the lake by a hurricane, which in itself would have seemed an omen." He took a handful of raisins. "Karralys and Tav were each sent from Britain for opposite heresies--Karralys for the refusal to shed blood, and Tav not so much for shedding it as for performing the sacrifice that should have been done by a druid. Tav believed that human sacrifice was demanded, that the earth cried out for blood, and he acted accordingly."

  "Polly. Blood." Mr. Murry's voice was heavy. "He's thinking of Polly."

  Until her grandfather put it thus baldly, Polly had not quite absorbed the import of Tav's words the night before.

  Mrs. Murry asked, "Was blood sacrifice part of the druidic ritual?"

  "It's not been proven," the bishop said. "There is a theory that it was believed the Earth Mother demanded blood and that each year, perhaps at Samhain, there was a human sacrifice. If possible it was a prisoner. If not, then someone, usually the weakest in the tribe, would be laid on the altar and blood given to the ground."

  Polly shivered.

  "What about the skulls?" Dr. Louise asked.

  "That, I understand, was common practice among some of the tribes. The skulls of the enemies were placed on high poles in a circle around the altar or the standing stones. Remember, these were Stone Age people and their thinking was very different from ours."

  "Bloodthirsty," Dr. Louise stated.

  The bishop asked mildly, "Any more bloodthirsty than incinerating people with napalm? Or hydrogen bombs? We appear to be bloodthirsty creatures, we so-called human beings, and peacemakers like Karralys are in the minority, I fear."

  "Meanwhile," Mr. Murry demanded, "what about Polly?"

  "Samhain is over," the bishop said. "Karralys was able to send Polly safely home."

  "You think the danger is over?"

  The bishop nodded. "It should be. The time has passed."

  The dog rose from the blanket and came over to Polly, sitting beside her and laying his head on her knee. She put her hand on his neck, which felt strong and warm. His hair, while not long, was soft.

  The bishop nodded again. "Karralys and Annie will protect Polly. Karralys has sent his dog."

  Mr. Murry spoke sharply. "It is not necessarily the same dog. I don't want Polly to see them again, not any of them. And as soon as your time gate is closed, I want Polly away from here."

  "But, Granddad, if the time gate is closed, then there isn't any problem, and we don't have to worry about the tesseract one way or the other."

  The bishop agreed, then said, "Samhain is over. This is All Souls' Day, when we remember those who have gone before. It is a quiet day when we can let our grief turn to peace."

  "Nason." Mr. Murry's voice grated. "What do we do now? Can you guarantee that the danger to Polly is over?"

  The bishop gazed at a last raisin in his bowl as though searching for an answer. "I don't know. If it weren't for that young man, Zachary."

  "What about him?"

  "His part in all this, whatever it is, has not been played out."

  Mrs. Murry asked quietly, "Is Polly still in the tesseract?"

  Again the bishop stared at the raisin. "There are too many questions still unresolved."

  "Is that an answer?"

  "I don't know." The bishop looked at Mr. Murry. "I don't understand your tesseract. Polly has been through the time gate, and if I am the one who opened it--forgive me."

  "Bishop," Polly interrupted, "Tav. What about Tav?"

  "Tav has reason for concern. There are neighboring tribes which are not as peaceable as the People of the Wind. There have been several summers of drought, far more severe across the lake, where there is no underground river to be tapped for irrigation. Raids have already begun. This land is eminently desirable. Tav is ready to fight to protect it."

  "Is Karralys?" Mr. Murry asked.

  "I'm not sure." The bishop rubbed his forehead. "He seeks peace, but peace is not easy to maintain single-handed."

  Mr. Murry went to the dresser. "I wish you'd never found the Ogam stones, or opened the time gate."

&nb
sp; "It was--it was inadvertent. It was nothing I planned."

  "No? You opened the time gate thoroughly when you brought Annie to Louise." Mr. Murry's voice was level, but it was an accusation nevertheless.

  Dr. Louise said quickly, "She would have lost the use of her forefinger. Infection would probably have set in if I had not used antibiotics. What might seem like a simple slip of the knife could well have proved fatal."

  Mrs. Murry smiled slightly. "Brother and sister do stick together when push comes to shove," she murmured to Polly. "Anyhow, Alex, you and I were fascinated, disbelieving but fascinated, until Polly was involved."

  Mr. Murry asked, "Is it safe for us to send Polly home to Benne Seed Island?"

  "No--" Polly started, but the bishop interrupted, raising his hand authoritatively.

  "I think not yet. Things have to be played out. But meanwhile we will keep her safe here. One of us must be with her at all times to prevent a recurrence of last night."

  "Not you, please, Nase," Mrs. Murry said. "Sorry, but it's you who opened the gate."

  "You're probably right," the bishop conceded, "but you, my dear. And Alex. Just be with her."

  "What would happen," Mr. Murry suggested, "if you sealed up the root cellar?"

  "Nothing, I fear. It was simply the closest root cellar to the star-watching rock, and the place of your pool. These are the holy places."

  "Holy?" Dr. Louise asked.

  "Sacred. We have lost a sense of the sacredness of space as we have settled for the literal and provable. We remember a few of the sacred spaces, such as Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, or Glastonbury Abbey. Mount Moriah was holy before ever Abraham took Isaac there. So was Bethel, the house of God, before Jacob had his dream, or before the Ark of the Covenant was briefly located there, according to Judges."

  "Nase," his sister said softly, "you're getting in the pulpit again."

  But he went on, "One theory is that such sacred spaces were connected by ley lines."

  She interrupted, "Nase, what on earth are ley lines?"

  "They are lines of electromagnetic power, well documented in England, leading from one holy place to another, lines of energy. I suspect that there is a ley line between the root cellar and the star-watching rock, between the star-watching rock and the pool."

  "What faddish rubbish," his sister said.

  But Polly remembered Karralys talking about lines between the stars, lines between places, between people. It did not seem like rubbish.

  "It can become a fad," the bishop told his sister, "but that doesn't make the original holiness any less holy."

  "I don't want you falling for fads in your old age," Dr. Louise warned.

  "Louise, I didn't ask for any of this. I wasn't looking for Ogam stones. But they can hardly be classified as rubbish. I had no idea that your root cellar was in fact not a root cellar at all. I didn't expect three thousand years to be bridged by Annie. But Annie is a lovely, innocent creature, and I feel a certain--a distinct--responsibility toward her."

  "How can you be responsible for someone who has been dead for approximately three thousand years?" Dr. Louise demanded. "Her story is already told. Kaput. Finished."

  "Is it?" the bishop whispered. "Is it?"

  Dr. Louise went to the door. "I have to get along to the hospital. But I think it might be a good idea for all of you to come over to our house for lunch and perhaps the rest of the day. The greatest risk to Polly seems to come from right around here, and I think there's a certain safety for her from being with us pragmatists, who may well keep Nase's time gate closed because basically we still don't give it our willing suspension of disbelief."

  This plan was readily agreed to, although there was considerable argument about whether or not Polly should be allowed to ride in the pickup truck with the bishop.

  "There are no time gates on the highway," the bishop said. "We'll go directly to your house, Louise, and Kate and Alex can come right behind us."

  "Why can't Polly go with Kate and Alex?"

  "I feel responsible."

  "Nase, you're the last person she should be with."

  But the bishop was persistent and finally it was agreed that Polly could ride with him as long as he stayed within the speed limit and the grandparents followed directly behind him.

  "I'll be home for lunch," Dr. Louise said. "I'll pick up some cold cuts on the way."

  Polly climbed into the truck after the bishop. The dog whined and barked, not wanting to be left behind.

  "Go," Mr. Murry ordered the dog. "Go to wherever you came from."

  The bishop started the ignition. "Polly, I'm sorry."

  She sighed. "Don't be. It wasn't anything you planned, and, Bishop, it may be scary, but it's also exciting."

  "I wish I had something to give you for protection, a talisman of some kind."

  She had put on the red anorak. Now she felt in the pocket and pulled out Zachary's icon. "Zachary gave me this yesterday afternoon."

  The bishop took it, keeping one hand lightly on the steering wheel. "A guardian-angel icon! It's delightful, utterly delightful!"

  Behind them the Murrys honked, and the bishop lightened his foot on the accelerator and gave the icon back to Polly. "It's a reminder that there are powers of love in the universe, and as long as you respond with love, they'll help you."

  She put the icon back in her pocket. "Once my uncle Sandy gave me an icon of St. George and the dragon."

  "And it didn't stop bad things from happening?" the bishop suggested. "An icon is not meant to be an idol. Just a reminder that love is greater than hate."

  "Do you really and truly believe that?"

  The bishop nodded calmly. Then he said, "You know a good bit of physics, don't you?"

  "Is that a sequitur?"

  "Indeed. Do you know what physicists call the very different interactions between the electromagnetic, the gravitational, and the strong and weak forces?"

  "Nope."

  "The hierarchy of interactions. Hierarchy was the word used by Dionysius the Aeropagite to refer to the arrangement of angels into three divisions, each consisting of three orders. Today the physicist arranges the fundamental interactions of matter into hierarchies instead. But it does go to show you that at least they've heard of angels."

  "Why does it show that?"

  "Your grandfather pointed it out to me."

  "Does that mean he believes in angels?"

  "Perhaps. I do, though not that they look like that beautiful angel in your icon. What is the first thing that angels in Scripture say when they appear before somebody?"

  "What?"

  "Fear not! That gives you an idea of what they must have looked like."

  Once again the Murrys honked. Again the bishop slowed down, then turned up the hill to Dr. Louise's house in a burst of speed, stopped, and turned off the ignition. The Murrys drew up beside him.

  They sat around Dr. Louise's kitchen table. "It's by far the warmest place in the house," the bishop said.

  Polly felt a wave of unreality wash over her. In a way, she was as much out of the world staying with her grandparents, or here in Dr. Louise's kitchen, as when she moved into Anaral's time. Her grandparents were isolated in their own, special, scientific worlds. Their house was outside the village. She could go for days without seeing anyone else if she did not go to the post office or the store.

  At home, although the O'Keefes' house on Benne Seed Island was as isolated as her grandparents' house, school and her siblings kept her in touch with the real world. How real was it? Drugs were a problem at Cowpertown High. So were unwed mothers. So was lack of motivation, a lazy conviction that the world owed the students a living.

  She suddenly realized that although there was a television set in her grandfather's study, they had not turned it on. The radio was set to a classical music station. Her grandparents read the papers, and she assumed that if anything world-shattering was happening they would tell her. But she had, as it were, dropped out since she had come to
them.

  She looked at her grandparents and the bishop. Zachary's coming tomorrow. What are we going to do about Zachary?"

  "I want Louise to see him," Mrs. Murry said.

  "She's not a cardiologist," Mr. Murry warned.

  "She's been a general practitioner for so long in a place where there are few specialists that she has considerable knowledge based on years and years of experience."

  "All right, I grant you that, but I suspect that Zachary would like us to treat him as normally as possible. His seeing Annie may have been an aberration. Or it may not have been Annie he saw at all."

  "Who else could it be?" Polly asked.

  They all looked up as they heard an urgent barking outside. The bishop went to the door, opened it, and in came the dog, tail wagging, romping first to Mr. Murry and Polly, then the others.

  The bishop put his hand on the dog's head. "We can't escape the past, even here."

  "He's a perfectly ordinary dog." Mr. Murry was determined. "I'm still not certain he's anything but a stray."

  "He's protection," the bishop said. "Don't take that lightly."

  The dog pranced to Mrs. Murry and leaned his head against her knees. Absently she fondled the animal's ears. "We don't seem to have much choice about keeping this creature."

  "You have been chosen." The bishop smiled. As though in response, the dog's ropy tail thudded against the floor. "Now you should name him."

  Mr. Murry said, "If we name him, we're making a commitment to him."

  "But we are, aren't we?" Polly asked.

  Her grandmother sighed lightly. "So it would seem."

  Polly added, "And Dr. Louise said you needed another dog."

  The bishop suggested, "Would you like to name him, Polly?"

  She looked at the dog, who, while he did not seem to belong to any known breed, was handsome in his own way. His tan coat was sleek and shiny, and the black tracing around his ears gave him a distinguished look. His rope of a tail was unusually long, tipped with black. "He ought to have a Celtic name, I suppose. That is, if he has anything to do with Karralys."

  "He may be just a stray." Mr. Murry was not going to give in.

  "Ogam. How about calling him Ogam?"

  "Why not?" Polly's grandmother asked. "Naming a dog is a normal, ordinary thing to do, and we need normal, ordinary things right now."

  The dog settled at Polly's feet, snoring lightly and contentedly.

  "Okay, Polly," her grandfather said. "Let's have some normal, ordinary lesson time. What is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?"