When the wall was mended

"Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight..." Was the situation at Experiment House all that was put right at the end of The Silver Chair? And what did Caspian see when he went back into his own country?

~:~:~

A/N: Welcome again, all Narnians! It's nice to be home :) This is a sort of extra sequel for anyone who still felt sad after "A Dieu" and "Sola Fide."

~:~:~

It was a grey, late autumn day and Jill Pole was standing on the path behind the gym. Matters were different at Experiment House now, even though The Investigation, as everyone called it, was not yet over. The Head had gone: for the moment, it was rumoured, to a health spa to recover from her "nervous breakdown"; but after that to be an inspector or supervisor or something, somewhere very, very far from Experiment House. And They had gone too, every one of them, along with the half dozen of their worst hangers-on.

Without the Head and Them, Experiment House really wasn't so bad, but the path behind the gym was still a good place in which to be private. "And you want privacy," Eustace observed, "when you want to talk about Narnia. If people overhear you, they tend to think you're barmy." Then he blushed, as if there was some sort of embarrassing connection with the word, and Jill hastened to change the subject.

"Caspian didn't say goodbye to us," she said quickly. She didn't mean it as a complaint, really. Just that sometimes, it seemed a shame to have met one of the greatest kings of Narnia, as Eustace had explained Caspian was, alive and well and in Aslan's country, and not to have actually spoken one word with him. He had had time for Scrubb … and then Jill would hear herself in her head, and behind it all the petty squabbles and niggles and let-downs of their adventure, and remember the Lion's eyes, and the resentment would flee away. It was, also, her own fault that she hadn't had the chance to meet Caspian in Narnia.

So she didn't mean it as a complaint. Eustace didn't take it as one either.

"Of course not! Didn't you see?"

Jill stared at him. "See what?"

"Before the wall was mended?"

Now she stared at him in utter horror, memories of Sunday School lessons about people looking back and being turned into pillars of salt rushing to mind. "No! I – I was looking at the Head, and everybody rushing out, and the – what did you look back for, anyway?"

"I wanted to know what to do with my sword," Eustace explained matter-of-factly. "You can use your riding crop for horses, if you want to. Or at least explain it. I could hardly explain a broadsword to Mother and Father."

"Though they'd stop thinking you were tiresome and commonplace," Jill giggled.

"They'd think I was a dangerous lunatic, just like the Head," Eustace agreed. "But I don't want them to have to go off to a health spa to recover. So I buried it, in the end. With the other stuff, you know."

Jill nodded. To her, it seemed a shame, but if the Scrubbs didn't do fancy dress balls at Christmas, there wouldn't be much other use for fine robes and velvets. "Never mind your sword," she urged. "What about the wall mending?"

"Well, it just mended."

"Yes...?"

"Well, Caspian turned back before then. I suppose his ten minutes was up."

"And...?!" Jill butted in, desperate at this maddening pace.

"Well..." Eustace kicked at the gravel path with the toe of his shoe. "Caspian turned, and then his face lit up and he ran. You know like he ran to see Aslan? Well, he ran. 'Cause there were two figures coming down that hillside towards us. I couldn't see them very well, only sort of in silhouette, but they looked – no, they were-" Eustace paused and looked up at Jill. "One of them was Reepicheep. The other one was Ramandu's daughter."