AN: This is a sequel to my other City of Ember/Narnia fanfic, "Lights out: Travels without the sun". This chapter focuses on their arrival into the village of Sparks; the next one will go back and explain how the rest of the Ember-people got up out into the open, including Edmund, Lina, Doon, Poppy, Polly, and Digory-who, if you recall, were hiding in the wardrobe at the end of the last story when Peter, Susan, and Lucy's note, tied to a rock, came crashing through the window; said note was then found by Edmund, which is where that story ended. Just as that story was Peter/Susan and Doon/Lina, so is this story. There may be some Ed/Lu in this, too, but because (just like in the last one) they're really young here, it will mostly be childhood-sweetheart sort of fluff when it comes to that. Also, on another note, as I think will become rather appearant, I've taken (and plan on taking) more liberties with the plot of "The people of Sparks" than I did with "the city of ember". The first major one being that I've made it so the Pevensies and the other people of the now lost and dead City of Ember arrive at Sparks in the wintertime instead of summer/spring. How did I manage that? Well, just assume, since I don't think I ever directly said otherwise in my last ember/narnia story, that it was (unknownst to them) late fall when they left Ember. During their days of walking, trying to find a settlement, winter has set in. There you go. LOL. And, yes, I did change Mary, Wilmer, and Ben's names. Why? I just felt like it and I liked the names I picked better than the ones in the book, I guess.
Hope you enjoy the story.
Eustace Clarence Scrubb was breaking the thin layer of ice over the donkey's water-trough, a chore he utterly detested-though, to be honest, there were precious few he didn't-when he saw little Gael running up the somewhat slippery, slush-and-dusty-snow covered path as fast as her short legs would carry her, her red-and-green woolen winter cape streaming out unevenly over her pale lavender dress, butter-yellow stockings, and small second-hand black, flat-soled boots. She stopped only when she absolutely had to, to catch her breath, then she would reassume sprinting.
All the while she was crying out, "Mummy! Mummy!"
Quite suddenly she bumped directly into him.
"Ow," Eustace barked at her ill-temperedly. "Watch it, puny!" Being a rather smallish-sized person himself, Gael was actually one of the few people small enough for him to say such a thing to, and he never missed a chance to do so.
"But I've got to tell Mummy," Gael said, panting harder now.
"Tell her what?" he snapped superiorly, likely thinking she was playing some sort of a childish trick on him.
"About the people."
"People?" Eustace cocked an eyebrow upwards, genuinely curious in spite of himself. "What people?"
"There's people coming over the hill, towards the village." Gael's eyes sparkled with excitement, though she might have thought to be a little afraid, too, if she'd been just a few years older. "A whole lot of them."
Eustace wasn't sure if he ought to believe her. On the one hand, Gael got excited over every little thing that happened day in and day out-and no 'lot' of people ever came into their village. One or two persons, roamers with goods sell, popped up occasionally; but Gael's story sounded as silly as if she had claimed to find magic beans in the vegetable beds. On the other, if it were true, it wasn't at all likely that he would be made to do any more chores for that day, since everyone would be so busy figuring out who this strange crowd was and what they wanted.
Jill Pole, a fair-haired girl who was around Eustace's age (a year or so older than Gael), came walking by with half-a-carrot in her out-stretched fingerless-gloved hands; she liked visiting the donkey even though he wasn't hers.
"Hallo, Puzzle," Jill said cheerfully, about to let him have the carrot piece when Gael tugged at her sleeve and blurted out her story about 'the people'.
Stunned, she dropped the carrot at once and it fell onto the floor of the pen. Puzzle went after it, sniffing his nose at the cold ground, but the children took no notice. They all, even Eustace, were beginning to feel the thrill of shivers running up and down their spines.
Gael kept on going to find her mother; Eustace didn't care a fig about telling anyone, he just wanted to see the people for himself; and Jill went to look for the town officials as her parents, back when they had been alive, had always told her she ought to do in case of an emergency. This, it seemed, certainly was as big of an emergency as their little village was ever likely to get.
When Eustace, standing at the very edge of the village borders, saw the people he felt first a wave of amusement at their funny appearances, followed almost instantly by disappointment. They were not an impressive looking group, that was for sure.
Despite the fact that there were perhaps maybe three or four hundred people all together, there was nothing war-like or even particularly strong about them. They were weak-looking and frail and overtly pale-faced. Gael had a pale complexion that burned red if she got too much sun, unlike Jill and Eustace both of whom browned up nicely each summer, but even she was not so white and stunted as nearly every single person in the crowd now facing him was. They looked like little sprouts that had tried to grow up under a heavy board or a big rock. What was more, their clothes were all tattered and had been patched up more times than all of Jill Pole's hand-me-down smocks put together.
Eustace opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a strangled-sounding laugh.
The boy closest to the front, a tallish, blonde young man of about fourteen carrying something that shivered and coughed in his arms, looked understandably cross at this. On his left, a pretty-faced, dark-haired girl maybe a year his junior put her head down wearily on his shoulder; she looked exhausted as if his arm was the only thing holding her up at the moment.
Another girl, perhaps a dozen years old, was carrying a two-year-old infant in her arms, anxiously looking over her shoulder back at a boy her own age and his tired father.
Thankfully, the town officials, Marianne Waters, Wilhelm Gent, and Benjamin Barlow showed up before Eustace could stop laughing and out-right say something offensive.
"Who are you?" Marianne asked in a very loud voice, not because she was necessarily shouting but because she was trying to be heard over the raspy gasps and moans of the newly-arrived crowd. "Where did you come from?"
"Peter, you tell them." The girl with dark hair lifted her head off of his shoulder; her voice sounded frail, but there was a sort of almost royal air about it all the same.
Peter shifted his gaze from Eustace to the dark-haired girl; then he stared down for a moment at whatever he was carrying in his arms. When his eyes finally met Marianne's, she saw that they were glassy and blood-shot.
"My good lady," he said, his voice cracking a little, "we are refugees from the now-dead city of Ember."
"Where's that?" Wilhelm muttered to Benjamin, who, in turn, shrugged his shoulders.
"We have never heard of it," Marianne told Peter, after an uncertain pause. "Where is it?"
"Seven day's walk from here," the dark-haired girl said.
"There is no city only a week's march from here, that is quite impossible." Benjamin's eyes narrowed. "We'd have heard of it before now if such were true."
"But, no," piped the girl with the two-year-old child in her arms; "you wouldn't have heard of it at all-it was underground."
"Nonsense," said Benjamin, though secretly he thought they did look rather grubby, all else put aside, sort of like they really could have climbed up from a hole some place. "Where is your leader?"
"We…don't really have one anymore," the dark-haired girl told them. "Aside from Peter, he's as in charge as anyone."
"Our mayor's dead," a red-haired, snippy-looking girl chimed in. "Drowned."
"Hush, Lizzie." Someone gripped the girl from behind and pulled her towards the back.
"Excuse me, Madam Mayor." The girl carrying the two year old spoke up again, looking pleadingly at Marianne. "My name is Lina Mayfleet."
"Madam Mayor?" Eustace mouthed to Jill as she came and stood next to him. "No one calls her that." It was true, actually, no one had ever referred to any of the town officials in such a formal manner; they just called them by their first names.
"Susan's little sister is very sick," the girl went on. She motioned over at Peter, and he opened his arms a little bit so that they could now see what he carried.
It was a little girl of no more than seven or so; he'd been keeping the folds of his tattered coat over her in an attempt to keep her warm. Her eyes were half-closed with dark circles around them, and her whole face appeared listless-borderline lifeless, even.
"Others are ill, too." Lina swallowed hard. "And some are hurt or worn-out and won't make it through another day of walking; Mrs. Polly Kirke can barely stand up." She motioned over at an elderly woman next to an old man-her husband, Digory Kirke-who was trying to help her stay on her feet, but didn't appear to be in the best shape himself.
"Will you help us?" asked the dark-haired girl, Susan.
Benjamin's mouth opened, then closed. What could he say? There were so many people…
Wilhelm winced; there were definitely too many of the strangers.
Marianne kept looking at the sick child in Peter's arms. Clearly she wanted to help the little girl-only a person with a heart of stone wouldn't have-but didn't see how she could do so without helping the others as well. And there were so many…
"Mummy, Mummy, there they are! I told you there were people! Look, Mummy, look!" Gael came running forward dragging her mother, the village doctor, by the hand.
"Marianne," said Gael's mother, a little taken aback. "Who are they?"
"We're the people of Ember," Susan said.
"They say they came from underground," Wilhelm whispered.
"I don't still don't think I believe it," muttered Benjamin under his breath.
"I don't know what to do for them, Doctor Hester," Marianne said in a low, somber tone. "There's too many, clearly. But they've got old and sick ones with them-ill children, too."
Doctor Hester looked at them again, took in their weak visible breaths in the cold air and felt a wave of pity. The poor things! The pity only deepened when she noticed the little girl in Peter's arms, she appeared to be in pretty bad shape, the poor dear.
"What's gonna happen to the girl, Mummy?" Gael asked, standing on tip-toes and noticing what her mother was half-gaping at. "What's her name?"
"Her name is Lucy," Peter answered, since Doctor Hester wouldn't have known and Gael didn't seem inclined to quiet down without a reply. "She's my stepsister."
"There must be something we can do," mulled Marianne, looking over at Lina and the two year old again.
Wilhelm seemed unable to tear his eyes away from Digory and Polly and the five or six people that stood to their right, who were even older than they were; there was one woman, Nammy Proggs, she had to be at least eighty-five, if not older. Her ashen skin was practically see-through.
"At the very least, Marianne," said Doctor Hester, gripping onto Gael's shoulders so that the little girl couldn't run, as she seemed prone to, in and out of the midst of the tired, strange crowd, "I could take the very sickest ones home with me, they won't be able to stand the cold any longer. At least, not safely." She said 'they', but everyone knew she meant Lucy.
"Go on, Peter." Susan nudged him. "You take Lucy and go with the doctor, then."
He shook his head. "No, Su, I'll stay here with the others, you go." Ever so carefully, he placed an unmoving, half-unconscious Lucy into her sister's arms. "See if the doctor will take Ed, too. I'm worried about that cough of his-it keeps sounding worse and worse every five minutes."
"Which one is 'Ed'?" Doctor Hester asked, over-hearing this.
"My little brother," Peter told her. "Edmund." He pointed to a boy of about nine they hadn't noticed before; he had dark hair, a brave, bold face, and serious, clearly uneasy brown eyes which were even more blood-shot than his brother's were.
"He hasn't said much," Susan apologized when, instead of even attempting to introduce himself, Edmund just coughed into his hand and withdrew closer to his elder stepsister's side. "He more or less stopped talking when Lucy got sick."
Eustace gave Edmund a rather condescending look, to which, the grave boy offered a surprisingly, completely unexpected, fierce-almost stately-expression, that, though he would have never admitted that was what he'd done, Eustace sort of half-hid behind Jill Pole.
"Come along, Dear." Doctor Hester reached out and patted Susan's quivering arms gingerly. "I'll see what I can do for your sister and stepbrother."
"Thank you," Susan managed weakly, peering over her shoulder back at Peter before picking up the pace and following the doctor at a good, solid speed.
"The rest of you," said Benjamin, clearly with a great deal of reluctance. "Come with me to the town hall. We'll see what we're going to do for you. Goodness knows how we'll get you all to fit…"
"Excuse me, Sir," said Peter as he and the crowd started following the town leaders; "what is this place called?"
"Sparks," he answered. "The village-or town, whichever you prefer-of Sparks."
"I don't know where these cave people think they're all going to sleep," Eustace muttered to Jill. "Not in my room, that's for sure."
AN: Please review and let me know what you think so far.