A Swiftly Tilting Planet Read Online Free PDF Page B

said.
    “She’s a large dog, and it’s her name,” Charles Wallace responded.
    When Ananda had finished eating, licking Fortinbras’s old bowl till it was clean, she went over to Meg, tail wagging, and held up one paw. Meg took it; the pads felt roughly leathery and cool. “You’re beautiful, Ananda.”
    “She’s hardly that,” Mr. Murry said, smiling, “but she certainly knows how to make herself at home.”
    The kettle began to sing. “I’m making tea against the cold.” Mrs. Murry turned off the burner and filled the waiting pot. “Then we’d better go to bed. It’s very late.”
    “Mother,” Meg asked, “do you know what Mrs. O’Keefe’s first name is? Is it Branwen?”
    “I think so, though I doubt if I’ll ever feel free to call her that.” She placed a steaming cup in front of Meg.
    “You remember the sheets she gave us?”
    “Yes, superb old linen sheets.”
    “With initials. A large M in the middle, with a smaller b and z on either side. Do you know what the Z stands for?”
    “Zoe or Zillah or something unusual like that. Why?”
    Meg answered with another question. “Does the name Branwen mean anything? It’s sort of odd.”
    “It’s a common enough Irish name. I think the first Branwen was a queen in Ireland, though she came from England. Perhaps she was a Pict, I’m not sure.”
    “When?” Charles Wallace asked.
    “I don’t know exactly. Long ago.”
    “More than two thousand years?”
    “Maybe three thousand. Why?”
    Charles Wallace poured milk into his tea and studied the cloudy liquid. “It just might be important. After all, it’s Mom O’Keefe’s name.”
    “She was born right here in the village, wasn’t she?” Meg asked.
    Her father replied, “There’ve been Maddoxes here as far back as anybody remembers. She’s the last of the name, but they were an important family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They’ve known hard times since then.”
    “What happened?” Charles Wallace pursued.
    Mr. Murry shook his head. “I keep thinking that one of these years your mother or I’ll have time to do research into the early years of the village. Our roots are here, too, buried somewhere in the past. I inherited this house from a great-aunt I hardly knew, just at the time we were making up our minds to leave the pressures of the city and continue our research in peace and quiet—and getting the house swung the balance.”
    “As for time for other interests”—Mrs. Murry sounded rueful—“we don’t have any more time than we did in the city. But at least here the pressure to work is our own, and not imposed on us.”
    “This Branwen—” Charles Wallace persisted, “was she an important queen?”
    Mrs. Murry raised her fine brows. “Why this sudden and intense interest?”
    “Branwen Maddox O’Keefe was extraordinarily interesting this evening.”
    Mrs. Murry sipped her tea. “I haven’t thought about the mythologies of the British Isles since you all grew too old for reading aloud at bedtime. I suspect Branwen must have been important or I wouldn’t remember her at all. Sorry not to be able to tell you more. I’ve been thinking more about cellular biology than mythology these last few years.”
    Charles Wallace finished his tea and put the cup in the sink. “All right if I go for a walk?”
    “I’d rather not,” his father said. “It’s late.”
    “Please, Father, I need to listen.” He sounded and looked very young.
    “Can’t you listen here?”
    “Too many distractions, too many people’s thoughts in the way …”
    “Can’t it wait?”
    Charles Wallace looked at his father without answering.
    Mr. Murry sighed. “None of us takes Mrs. O’Keefe and all that happened this evening lightly, but you’ve always tended to take too much on yourself.”
    The boy’s voice strained. “This time I’m not taking it on myself. Mrs. O’Keefe put it on me.”
    His father looked at him gravely, then nodded. “Where are you