ABSTRACT
This chapter moves readers along the human-nonhuman kinship continuum to the human-animal relationship in A Ring of Endless Light (1980), fourth in L’Engle’s Austin family series. This novel illustrates how Vicky Austin develops a strong relationship with dolphins through shared experiences and learns to communicate with them telepathically. She is thus able to overcome severe existential anxiety in the form of a fear of death, illustrating the ecotherapeutic potential of human connections with animals. This novel is unique because it is the only specifically fantasy novel in the Austin family series, although the other four novels in this series contain hints and connections with the two fantasy series. As a result, readers are able to see how the fantasy/reality spectrum has been crossed entirely in one direction in a series which readers have come to anticipate as realistic. This movement into a novel which practices fantasy but is embedded in the realistic series brings attention to the relationship of the fantastic and the realistic in L’Engle’s three series, powerfully illustrating the connections L’Engle sees between fantasy and reality in her novels and further highlighting the relationship of these three series to one another.
