Person of interest: Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey

Zachary Grey is a character in several young adult novels by Madeleine L’Engle. Confusingly, he becomes Zachary Gray in the later books.

Madeleine L’Engle is not one of my favourite authors and her books do not inspire me to produce a series of articles, but some aspects of the behaviour of her character Zachary Grey and the destructive effect it has on people around him are relevant to my ideas about energy vampires and unseen influences.

About Zachary Grey

Zachary Grey, often known as Zach, is a bit of a Bad Boy. He is very rich and throws money around. He is moody and troubled; he is wild, reckless, unpredictable and sometimes self-destructive; he likes to hurt and frighten people; his outlook on life is cynical, amoral, nihilistic, negative and pessimistic: he is always saying, “What’s the point?” and wondering whether there is anything worth living for in this lousy world. He sees nothing but doom and disaster ahead. 

There are times when he hates just about everyone: he drives them away then tries to cajole them into staying.

Zach has a weak heart; he knows that he could die at any time and uses this as a weapon to control people: if they don’t do just as he likes he might have a heart attack. He uses hysterical outbursts to manipulate his parents into giving him what he wants; they are under his thumb.

Zach has a death wish and courts danger; he habitually does things he knows he shouldn’t do. He is always getting kicked out of schools for smoking and cheating and not turning up for classes. He does this for kicks, because he is bored. He intends to study law just to learn how to get away with things and get the better of and outsmart the phonies who run this lousy world.

Zach believes that money is everything; he has nothing but withering scorn for religion: he thinks that all religious people are phonies; he thinks that people care only about number one and that the only way to get on in the world is to step on people. His goal in life is to have what he wants, do what he wants, go where he wants and get what he wants. 

Zachary Grey is a devil’s advocate.

Zachary Grey and Vicky Austin

Zachary Grey is vampiric in appearance: he is tall and very pale and thin; he has black hair and very dark eyes (dark in one book, metallic steel-grey eyes in another!)

He is very good-looking, glamorous and extremely attractive, and he can be polite, charming and persuasive when he wants to. All this, together with the good times and tastes of luxury that he gives her, is why Vicky Austin, a young girl who is 14 to his 19 when they first meet, ignores many warning signals and her family’s low opinion of Zach and continues to see him despite his intermittent bad behaviour and the effect that his negativity has on her: she feels as though she is being drawn down into a dark, deep hole. 

When Vicky wakes up on the morning after one of Zach’s outbursts after a night filled with disturbing dreams, she feels the way people do when they are coming down with flu. She has chills and fever – which mirror the effect that Zach has on her. On an earlier occasion, after getting a note from him she is so overwhelmed with devastating loneliness and his depressing images of the awful things going on in the world that she wants to cry, even though she is with her loving family. They all criticise her for going off to read her note leaving them to do all the work, and she starts to feel a little alienated from them. 

This all looks like symptoms of an attack by an energy vampire to me. 

It may be just a coincidence that, just as Vicky is feeling overwhelmed by bad feelings after reading her note, a skunk walks past and comes very close to her. She is terrified of being sprayed with evil-smelling liquid. A little later, when they are all sitting at a camping table eating their meal, the skunk returns and comes close to their table. Black and white, threatening Vicky then her family, contaminating everything it attacks…this seems symbolic to me.

Vicky thinks that considering the way her family behaved towards her, she might just as well have been sprayed. This is very interesting: I have had similar experiences myself after being in the company of or receiving a letter or phone call from an energy vampire. Bad energy rubs off on and affects the people around the primary victim. For example, I remember some work colleagues being horrible and rude to me shortly after I finished speaking on the phone to someone who made me feel terrible. This was very out of character: usually they were friendly, pleasant people.

Vicky finds Zach exciting, fascinating, doomy and rather scary. She is flattered by his pursuit of her. She becomes slightly addicted to his company; he lurks in the corners of her mind and she dreams about him. She reads a poem he sent her over and over again. 

Her feelings are ambivalent: on one occasion she is glad when he leaves her and can’t wait to get back to her family, a few hours later she is glad to see him when he reappears. On yet another of the occasions when he unexpectedly appears, she is glad to see him but wishes he hadn’t come. She hates it when he drives too fast, but is excited by the speed. 

Vicky starts to count on getting more notes; she is very disappointed when there is no word from Zach. She does not know where she stands with him. When she does not hear from him she is afraid that now he is back among the rich and sophisticated girls of LA, he will forget her.   

When he does appear again, everything turns sour: he is in a very bad mood and they quarrel. Vicky decides that she hates him and doesn’t want to see him ever again. He asks her to not let him drive her away. He speaks to her in such a way that she decides she will stay with him; she will do whatever he wants her to do. She goes to the theatre with him after all, and the play he chooses upsets her terribly. He turns on her, accusing her of being protected, innocent and trusting, as if that were a crime. He says that her life will be hell when she loses her protection.

He tells her he does not want her to see someone, a very pleasant young man she met recently, again. He attempts to undermine her parent’s authority and belittles her family’s religious beliefs.

This may all be explained in terms of a toxic, addictive relationship with a manipulative, controlling person, but I think that there is a lot more to it than that.

Games Zach plays 

It is Groundhog Day with Zachary Grey. He is stuck in a tape loop. His speciality is getting into trouble, into physical danger, thus forcing people to come and rescue him. His saviours often put themselves into danger too while trying to help him.

One example is given in The Moon by Night, where Zach makes his first appearance: he deliberately goes missing during a game of Hide-and-Seek, and ignores people’s calls because he wants to lure Vicky into searching for him. She is very annoyed but also concerned when he fails to appear, so goes to look for him. She finds him unhurt, and is furious because of all the trouble and worry he has caused. She starts off back to the camp, evading Zach’s attempt to forcibly detain her.

Suddenly, there is a minor earthquake. Part of a mountain collapses, and Zachary is trapped under a pile of rocks. Vicky has some bad moments but is not physically hurt; she is frightened and unhappy and is terribly worried about what has happened to the others. She attempts to go for help but is unable to climb over the wall of fallen rocks.

They get rescued after a few hours, and Vicky learns that everyone in and around the camp was safe: the earthquake affected only the area that Zach lured Vicky to. Could this just be chance, or coincidence? Zach couldn’t have known what would happen at that time in that place, could he?

Zach apologies to Vicky for getting her into this mess; he admits that if he hadn’t lured her over the mountain top they would both have been safe at the campsite with their families. 

The earthquake incident happened when they were all camping in the Black Ram area: Zach is certainly a black sheep in the family of man.

He says he wants to live and promises to behave himself in future; he says he really means it. He is not only a classic, textbook case of a Poor Little Rich Boy but also similar to the sort of gambling addict, abusing partner or alcoholic who promises to reform and behaves well for a while – until the next episode. They may be sincere at the time; they may just be saying whatever is necessary to keep their victims dangling, on the hook, and prevent them from leaving: they may say they need their victim, and hold out the possibility of redemption for example.

Zachary Grey goes too far

Vicky does not see or hear from Zachary Grey for over a year; she thinks that he has dropped her and doesn’t expect to see him ever again, but he does come back into her life.

A Ring of Endless Light, the second book that Zach appears in, begins with a funeral. A friend of Vicky’s family has died of a heart attack while rescuing a dumb rich kid who went sailing in complete disregard of storm warnings and nearly drowned when his dinghy capsized.

No guesses who the rescued boy turns out to be. It was no accident: he wanted to destroy himself and resents the dead man’s interference. 

Vicky realises that he is just the same as when they first met, yet she agrees to go out with him. He insists that he needs her, that she is a reason to live. Zach is a private person with a polished façade; what he says and does is calculated, planned for the effect it will have, yet Vicky believes that he is sincere when he repeats his previous promises to behave and take care of himself. She decides that he deserves another chance and believes that he can make a fresh start. Her family are not so sure; she thinks that her believing in him will help him.

Her feelings are still ambivalent: sometimes she feels he is lost and frightened; sometimes he seems fascinating, like a cobra.

Zach takes Vicky out in both a top-of-the range, latest model black station wagon that looks like a hearse and a flashy little red Alfa Romeo. He takes her for an expensive meal at the elegant, luxurious, exclusive country club. He even takes her flying, hiring a plane and a pilot. None of the other young men she is seeing can compete with this.

Zach tells Vicky that he would do a lot to make her happy. She sees him as an enchanted prince from a fairy tale. 

That is as good as it gets. He soon reverts to his old wild, reckless self. He does slow down when Vicky protests about his driving like a madman as though zombies were chasing him, but he soon gets a manic gleam in his eye, accelerates, and pretends he is going to mow down an old woman with a cane who is hobbling slowly across the road, because “she is no use to society.” He gives both Vicky and the old lady a fright before he slams the brakes on. 

They go up in the plane after this incident, and on this occasion Zach is the co-pilot. Vicky is afraid to let him see how frightened she is in case it makes him do something wild. Yet again her feelings go into reverse: she must be a fool if she thought that someone with her lack of experience could possibly be of help to someone like Zachary Grey. 

Then off they go, round the loop yet again: it seems to me that Vicky is being lulled and set up here. Zach behaves well during the flight and drives slowly afterwards. The rest of the day is unexpectedly lovely: they have a delicious meal in beautiful surroundings; Zach does not attempt to persuade Vicky to drink alcohol on this occasion, and he talks about Shakespeare instead of wanting to take their relationship further. She feels comfortable with him again.

They go flying once more and have a very enjoyable time, especially when Zach has a long conversation about flying, something that genuinely interests him, over an evening meal with the pilot. He seems more real than Vicky has ever seen him before.

Then come the incidents in which he goes too far, the incidents that push Vicky over the edge. This is common with energy vampires: they pass some invisible boundary or play their games once too often and their victims decide that they just can’t take any more.

Zach is back in one of his crazy and cynical moods; they see the old woman again and he says that this time he is going to get her. He is full of high spirits and talkative. He suddenly decides to pretend to be British: he drives on the wrong side of the road. Vicky gets terrified again and protests; Zach seems sincere when he apologises for frightening her. 

They go up in the plane, with Zach as the primary controller – under instruction from the usual pilot. Zach gets the gleam in the eye again, and Vicky thinks she is going to die from terror when he ‘buzzes’ a huge passenger jet. The pilot intervenes and guides their plane to safety. He is furious, and tells Zach that he could have got not only them but all of the people on the jet killed. Zach says he was just having a bit of fun and giving Vicky a little thrill.

When they land, Vicky is so shaky she is unable to get off the plane unaided. Once again, Zach apologises very sincerely. Vicky does not want to go with him, but she has no other way to get home. They go for a meal and Zach is on his best behaviour. Then Vicky learns that her grandfather has had a medical emergency and been taken to hospital. It is very worrying for her, and she is still weak and exhausted from the earlier terror. By coincidence, her resources and reserves have been depleted just when she needs extra to draw on. 

She does not know this yet, but she is going to have to help take care of a dying child too. Zach could not have known what would happen, could he? This is what makes him a person of interest to me. He is a saboteur, or is guided or controlled by one. I have experienced similar sabotage myself, for example on the first day of a new job that I had not told the saboteur about.

Zach drives Vicky to the hospital, but he runs out on her just when she most needs some support. He just can’t take the atmosphere there. He eventually strolls back in, but by that time everything is over and it is too late for him to do anything: someone else has come to take Vicky home.

After all this, Vicky commits herself to one of the other young men she has been seeing and Zach permanently disappears from her life.

Further adventures of Zachary Grey

I have not read all of Madeleine L’Engle’s books. Plot summaries can be found online, together with character descriptions and analyses. This is how I discovered what Zachary did next. It is the same old same old.

In A House Like a Lotus, he spends a lot of time with Polly O’Keefe, having serious conversations and giving her some welcome attention, possibly seeking emotional rescue once again. He decides to return to college and adopt a less selfish and ruthless approach to life. 

Then he rents a canoe and takes Polly beyond the designated safe area into dangerous waters, where he accidentally overturns it. Why are we not surprised! She has to keep him from drowning until help arrives.

In An Acceptable Time, he helps some people to abduct Polly in the hope that in return they will repair his failing heart, this even though there is a strong chance that they will sacrifice her. After the crisis is over, Polly helps the healers to restore Zach’s heart. 

Once again Zachary promises to make a new start and change his selfish, self-destructive ways. It is Groundhog Day yet again.

If I can get these two books at a good price, I will buy them; if I find any more interesting and useful information about energy vampires and unseen influences in books featuring Zachary Grey, I will produce another article.