All Meg’s faults were uppermost in her now, and they were no longer helping her.

Mr. Murry tessered them away, but the process very nearly kills Meg, and she remains conscious, but paralyzed, for most of the chapter.

Calvin’s voice again. “Anyhow you got her away from IT. You got both of us away and we couldn’t have gone on holding out. IT’s so much more powerful and strong than – How did we stay out, sir? How did we manage as long as we did?”

Her father: “Because IT’s completely unused to being refused. That’s the only reason I could keep from being absorbed, too. No mind has tried to hold out against IT for so many thousands of centuries that certain centers of have become soft and atrophied through lack of use. If you hadn’t come to me when you did I’m not sure how much longer I would’ve lasted. I was on the point of giving in.”

Calvin: “Oh, no, sir -“

Her father: “Yes. Nothing seemed important anymore but rest, and of course IT offered me complete rest. I had almost come to the conclusion that I was wrong to fight, that IT was right after all, and everything I believed in most passionately was nothing but a madman’s dream. But then you and Meg came in to me, broke through my prison, and hope and faith returned.”

So they arrived just in the nick of time to rescue him, even if it went somewhat disastrously with Charles Wallace.

But Mr. Murry explains that he was only trying to tesser to Mars, and that Charles was overcome so quickly because he was overconfident in his own abilities, believing he would have the will to come back again.

Her father: “We can’t leave her. And we must stay together. We must not be afraid to take time.”

Calvin: “You mean we were? We rushed into things on Camazotz too fast, and Charles Wallace rushed in too fast, and that’s why he got caught?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t know enough yet. Time is different on Camazotz, anyhow. Our time, inadequate though it is, at least is straightforward. It may not even be fully one-dimensional, because it can’t move back and forth on its line, only ahead; but at least it’s consistent in its direction. Time on Camazotz seems to be inverted, turned in on itself. So I have no idea whether I was imprisoned in that column for centuries or only for minutes.”

On earth, he was evident gone almost a year, but that didn’t appear to be relevant on Camazotz. One member of his team attempted to tesser before, but he after a year without hearing back from him, they considered him lost and moved on to Mr. Murry (since it doesn’t appear possible to tesser anything without going with it, so the scientists had to be the guinea pigs).

“Then it was my turn. I went. And here I am. A wiser and a humbler man. I’m sure I haven’t been gone two years. Now that you’ve come I have some hope that I may be able to return in time. One thing I have to tell the others is that we know nothing.”

Then Meg begins to move again…a little. At least enough to talk.

“Why am I so cold?” she asked. “Where’s Charles Wallace?” They did not answer. “Father, where are we?”

Mr. Murry looked at her soberly. “I don’t know, Meg. I don’t tesser very well. I must have overshot, somehow. We’re not on Camazotz. I don’t know where we are. I think you’re so cold because we went through the Black Thing, and I thought for a moment it was going to tear you away from me.”

“Is this a dark planet?” Slowly her tongue was beginning to thaw; her words were less blurred.

“I don’t think so,” Mr. Murry said, “but I know so little about anything that I can’t be sure.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to tesser, then.” She had never spoken to her father in this way before. The words hardly seemed hers.

Of course, she’s most upset about leaving Charles behind, and even when Calvin explains that it would have been too risky to try to physically pull him away from the planet while he was still under IT’s control, but she refuses to be reasoned with.

All Meg’s faults were uppermost in her now, and they were no longer helping her. […] “You’d better take me back to Camazotz and Charles Wallace quickly. You’re supposed to be able to help!” Disappointment was as dark and corrosive in her as the Black Thing. The ugly words tumbled from her cold lips even as she herself could not believe that it was her father, her beloved, longed-for father, that she was talking to in this way. If her tears had not still been frozen they would have gushed from her eyes.

She had found her father and he had not made everything all right. Everything kept getting worse and worse. If the long search for her father was ended, and he wasn’t able to overcome all their difficulties, there was nothing to guarantee that it would all come out right in the end. There was nothing left to hope for. She was frozen, and Charles Wallace was being devoured by IT, and her omnipotent father was doing nothing. She teetered on the seesaw of love and hate, and the Black Thing pushed her down into hate. “You don’t even know where we are!” she cried out at her father. “We’ll never see Mother or the twins again! We don’t know where earth is! Or even where Camazotz is! We’re lost out in space! What are you going to do!” She did not realize that she was as much in the power of the Black Thing as Charles Wallace.

I think this is partly because she’s disappointed in her father for not being as all-powerful as children often believe, and partly because she’s disappointed in herself. Despite how Charles often looked after her, she still took pride in protecting him when he was insulted, and the fact that she’s totally powerless to help him now makes her lash out at the only other person to put blame on.

Mr. Murry bent over her, massaging her cold fingers. She could not see his face. “My daughter, I am not a Mrs Whatsit, a Mrs Who, or a Mrs Which. Yes, Calvin has told me everything he could. I am a human being, and a very fallible one. But I agree with Calvin. We were sent here for something. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”

“The Black Thing! Meg cried out at him. “Why did you let it almost get me?”

“You’ve never tessered as well as the rest of us,” Calvin reminded her. “It never bothered Charles and me as much as it did you.”

“He shouldn’t have taken me, then,” Meg said, “until he learned to do it better.”

Neither her father nor Calvin spoke. Her father continued his gentle massage. Her fingers came back to life with tingling pain. “You’re hurting me!”

“Then you’re feeling again,” her father said quietly. “I’m afraid it’s going to hurt, Meg.”

The “all things work together for good” line is a paraphrase of a Bible verse. But then they’re interrupted by some very alien-looking natives.

The Things stood over them. They appeared to be looking down at them, except that they had no eyes with which to see. Mr. Murry continued to kneel by Meg, massaging her.

He’s killed us, bringing us here, Meg thought. I’ll never see Charles Wallace again, or Mother, or the twins…

Calvin rose to his feet. He bowed to the beasts as though they could see him. He said, “How do you do, sir- ma’am-?”

“Who are you?” the tallest of the beasts said. His voice was neither hostile nor welcoming, and it came not from the mouthlike indentation in the furry face but from the waving tentacles.

-They’ll eat us, Meg thought wildly -They’re making me hurt. My toes- my fingers- I hurt….

Calvin answered the beast’s question. “We’re- we’re from earth. I’m not sure how we got here. We’ve had an accident. Meg- this girl- is- is- is paralyzed. She can’t move. She’s terribly cold. We think that’s why she can’t move.”

Calvin doing the talking again! And it’s lucky all these aliens know English…

One of them came up to Meg and squatted down on its huge haunches beside her, and she felt utter loathing and revulsion as it reached out a tentacle to touch her face.

But with the tentacle came the same delicate fragrance that moved across her with the breeze, and she felt a soft, tingling warmth go all through her that momentarily assuaged her pain. She felt suddenly sleepy.

I must look as strange to it as it looks to me, she thought drowsily, and then realized with a shock that of course the beast couldn’t see her at all. Nevertheless a reassuring sense of safety flowed through her with the warmth which continued to seep deep into her as the beast touched her. Then it picked her up, cradling her in two of its four arms.

Notably, this is the first time in the whole chapter that Meg attempts to see things from a different perspective (and of course it’s after a relief from pain).

Mr. Murry stood up quickly. “What are you doing?”

“Taking the child.”

Until next time…