Here's the prologue for the sequel to Salt Water, and the full description. And thanks my loyal readers for such a positive response to the Salt Water and the ending, which I thought gave the story a bit more sequel factor.
As Clara returns home, the chaos surrounding her mental state comes into question, but soon enough Narnia calls her back into the world she once called her home. But how can she become friends with a prince, and juggle and awkward relationship with an hormonal teenage boy, deal with Miraz and a new foe?
"Insanity – a perfectly rational adjustment on an insane world."
- R.D. Lang
It was a month after the Lancastria; nothing had been said to the press or anything. My father grew tired of this, and begun to actually think he could tip them off. But it wasn't a normal person who tipped off the papers;
It was the Americans.
My mother had found a very small snippet of the Lancastria in the Daily Mirror. She grew excited, hoping that the articles would get bigger. And they did. A man in our parliament stuttered a reply as to why he had hid the sinking 'under the carpet', as people had said. Duft Cooper was his name, and to be honest, I wanted his guts. He said it wasn't as important because it was a civilian ship, not a war ship, and if we had heard anything about a sunken ship, morale on the Home Front would be low.
My father almost spat out his tea when he read that.
In those months after the sinking, I kept myself to myself. I didn't honestly know what happened to me, Narnia felt so real, and yet I was unsure of what happened. I stayed in my room for three months, mostly. I sat on my bed and reread my book 'The Woods' about a lion named Aslan who looked after the landscape. It was for children, but right then, I felt like one. In digested the information every day, I never went anywhere, this was until my mother and father came upstairs one day to find me, I had heard them walk so I quickly hid the book under my pillow and lent back, watching my ceiling. I heard the door creak open and my parents come into my room.
I didn't flinch, I didn't even look over.
"Clara, we are truly worried about you."
My mother looked puffy eyed like she had been crying. My greying father with his arm around her like he was still young. He paused for a while before beginning to talk again, "So, your mother and I have decided to take you to see a psychologist."
I didn't flinch. And soon enough they left, and I got my book from underneath my pillow.
If only they knew.