Read Online An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle - Free Book Online Page A

Matterhorn because it was there. We went to the moon because it was there. We’re going to explore the farther planets in our own solar system and then in our own galaxy and look toward the galaxies beyond because they’re there. I didn’t come to live with Louise with any idea of finding Ogam stones, but when I found one—well, I was interested because they were there.”
    “Here,” Mr. Murry corrected.
    “Here. I may have been foolish. But neither did I expect what has happened to Polly. Child, can you lie low till the weekend? Yes, go off somewhere on Thursday with your young man. Not that I think there’s any real danger. But don’t go to the star-watching rock—can you wait until Sunday?”
    “I don’t know.” Polly looked troubled. “I don’t know if that would do any good, because the first time I saw Anaral it was right here, last night while I was swimming.”
    The bishop held up his long, thin hands in a gesture of disclaimer, shook his head. Sunlight flashed off the topaz in his ring. “I’m sorry.” Then he looked at Polly. “Or am I? We may be on to something—”
    “Nason!” Mr. Murry warned.
    Mrs. Murry hit the palm of her hand softly against the table. “This is Polly’s study time. I think a little return to normalcy would be a good thing. There are some books up in her room she needs to look at.”
    “Good,” Mr. Murry said. “Perhaps this morning was just an aberration. By all means let’s try to return to normal.”
    Polly rose, went to the bishop. “This Ogam writing. You said it’s an alphabet. Do you have it written down? I mean, so that I could make sense of it?”
    “Yes. At home.”
    “Could I see it, please?”
    “Of course. I have what may be no more than my own version of Ogam in a notebook, but it’s helped me translate the Ogam stones. I’ll bring it over this afternoon.”
    Mrs. Murry started to intervene, then closed her mouth.
    “Thanks, Bishop,” Polly said, and turned to go upstairs.
     
    Up in her room Polly simply sat for a few minutes in the rocking chair, not reaching for the books. What she would have liked to do was go out to the star-watching rock. She was no longer afraid of being trapped in past time. Somehow the threshold was open to her, as it was to Anaral. But her grandparents would be upset and angry. Would it truly help if she stayed around the house until after Thursday?
    Polly turned toward her night table and reached for the books. Studying for her grandparents was a tangible reality, a relief after the almost dream world of the lake and village of three thousand years ago. Yes, she wanted to learn Ogam. If Anaral could learn English from the bishop, Polly could learn Ogam.
    Meanwhile, she would study. The Murrys were more demanding than her teachers at Cowpertown High had been, and she was delighted at their challenge.
    She turned to the first book in the pile. All the books had been marked with slips of paper. The first was by John Locke, a seventeenth-century philosopher—she knew that much, thanks to Max, who had frequently augmented whatever Polly was given at Cowpertown High. These were Locke’s impressions of America, idyllic and, she thought, a little naïve. But Locke was writing from the far past (though only centuries ago, not millennia) when the new continent was fresh and still uncorrupted by the accumulated evils of the Old World. The naked Amerindians seemed to Locke to live a life as innocent as Adam and Eve in the Garden. They lived without external laws, did not buy or sell or pile up wealth. They were, Locke implied, without shame, not burdened by the guilts of the past.
    The book on her lap, Polly rocked, thought. There was no evidence that there had ever been Celts or druids on these shores when the early settlers landed. Had they been assimilated into the local tribes, as Karralys and Tav seemed to have been taken into Anaral’s people? Gone back to Britain? If there really were druids in New England three