How do the Beasts help Meg?

When Meg,
her father and Calvin escape from Camazotz, they land on a planet where Meg discovers she is
both paralyzed and in pain. Here, the three humans encounter what they call the
"beasts," tall, furry creatures with tentacles. The beasts at first frighten the
humans, but these aliens are, in fact, loving, kind creatures. They realize that Meg is in need
of healing from her encounter with the "coldness" of the Black Thing (evil). The Black
Thing has made Meg dangerously ill.

One of the beasts says, "The Black
Thing burns unless it is counteracted properly."

The beasts counteract
the Dark Thing by enveloping Meg in an all-encompassing love that gives her a sense of warmth
and security. They care for her physically and emotionally, treating her as an infant, which
allows her to relax, rest, and heal from her encounter with evil. She loses her paralysis. She
also realizes that it is the beasts who have saved her life, not her father, and so begins a
journey of maturation: she learns to recognize and accept that her father is not all-powerful,
but, all the same, a human being worthy of love.