An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L'Engle

The bishop, not even noticing the snake, scrambled across the wall and started to run toward the house.
     
    Polly’s grandparents were in the kitchen. Everything was reassuringly normal. Her grandfather was reading the paper. Her grandmother was making pancakes. Breakfast was usually catch-as-catch-can. Mrs. Murry often took coffee and a muffin to the lab. Mr. Murry hurried outdoors, working about the yard while the weather held.
    “Good morning, Polly, Nason.” Mrs. Murry sounded unsurprised as they panted in, Polly scratched and disheveled from her plunge down the precipice. “Alex requested pancakes, and since he’s a very undemanding person, I was happy to oblige. Join us. I’ve made more than enough batter.”
    “I hope I’m not intruding.” The bishop seated himself.
    Polly tried to keep her voice normal. “Here’s another Ogam stone. Where shall I put it?”
    “If there’s room, put it beside the one Nase brought in last night,” her grandmother said. “How many pancakes can you eat, Nase?”
    “I don’t know. I’m not sure I can eat anything. I don’t think I’m hungry.”
    “Nason! What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?”
    “I’m fine.” He looked at Polly. “Oh, dear. What have I done?”
    “What have you done?” Mr. Murry asked.
    Polly said, “You didn’t do anything, Bishop. It just happened.”
    Mrs. Murry put a stack of pancakes in front of him, and absently he lavished butter, poured a river of syrup, ate a large bite, put down his fork. “I may have done something terrible.”
    “Nason, what’s going on?” Mr. Murry asked.
    The bishop took another large bite. Shook his head. “I didn’t think it would happen. I didn’t think it could.”
    “What?” Mr. Murry demanded.
    “I thought the time gate was open only to me. I didn’t think—” He broke off.
    “Polly,” her grandfather asked, “do you know what all this is about?”
    Polly poured herself a mug of coffee and sat down. “The man by the oak, the one both Zachary and I saw, lived at the time of the Ogam stones.” She did her best to keep her voice level. “This morning when I went off for a walk, I—well, I don’t know what it’s all about, but somehow or other I went through the bishop’s time gate.”
    “Nase!”
    The bishop bent his head. “I know. It’s my fault. It must be my fault. Mea culpa .”
    Mrs. Murry asked, “Polly, what makes you think you went through a time gate?”
    “Everything was different, Grand. The trees were enormous, sort of like Hiawatha— this is the forest primeval . And the mountains were high and jagged and snow-capped. Young mountains, not ancient hills like ours. And where the valley is, there was a large lake.”
    “This is absurd.” Mrs. Murry put a plate of pancakes in front of her husband, then fixed a plate for Polly.
    “Nason!” Mr. Murry expostulated.
    The bishop looked unhappy. “Whenever I’ve tried to talk about it, you’ve been disbelieving and, well—disapproving, and I don’t blame you for that, so I’ve kept quiet. I wouldn’t have believed it, either, if it hadn’t kept happening. But I thought it was just me—part of being old and nearly ready to move on to—But Polly. That Polly should have—well! of course!”
    “Of course what?” Mr. Murry sounded more angry with each question.
    “Polly saw Annie first at the pool.” The bishop used the diminutive of Anaral tenderly.
    “Annie who?”
    “Anaral,” Polly said. “She’s the girl who came to the pool last night.”
    “When you were digging for the pool,” the bishop asked, “what happened?”
    “We hit water,” Mr. Murry said. “We’re evidently over an aquifer—an underground river.”
    “But this is the highest point in the state,” Polly protested. “Would there be an underground river this high up?
    “It would seem so.”
    The bishop put down his fork. Somehow the stack of pancakes had disappeared. “You do remember that most holy places—such as the sites of