The Weaver of Narnia
Chapter 1: The Old House and New Surprises
Disclaimer: Well you probably know the rigmarole (story), but I'll say it anyway. most of the places, people, or things in this story come from The Chronicles of Narnia. They are C.S. Lewis' and not mine.
Summary: Penelope moves into the old house and while she is exploring finds a box. When she goes to clean the dust and touches it instead, she finds herself in a whole new world, or rather, a world between worlds.
Background: This takes place after the Last Battle in the present day and age, in England at the old house of the Diggory's, or the professor's. Since all of them have gone, the house was sold and has been sold from family to family as time goes by. This is just the latest in a long line of owners. The last owner never used it and it has been sitting for 30 some years, waiting, for what no one knows. Perhaps it is for the one who can bring Narnia back?
Note: I may have gotten some facts wrong, and if I did, and you notice, please tell me and I will try to change it asap.
UPDATED NOTE: Due to the movie and DEFINITE re-awakened interest in Narnia, I am going to try and finish this story up, we'll see if I actually do it... I'm currently also working on details for another story I want to write and have wanted to write for a LONG time about the Golden Age. So we'll see if I get that up and going even, much less written out. I will at least re-go over what I have posted and fix some mistakes I saw and fix the speaking parts.
THANKS NOTE: Thanks to Techy El Nerd for the house tip – my story is based heavily on the house... so I'm afraid I'm going to split from cannon on this matter – thanks for pointing that out though! And thanks to SilverFoam for the speaking tip – I wrote this so long ago and my writing style wasn't the best..
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Penelope Weaver stood in the doorway and stared at the old house. She stood in a dusty and cob-web filled hallway. Several doorways and halls lead from it and a staircase lead down into it too. The floor was covered in layers of dust and the front door area was a puddle from the rain dripping off her and her parents who had come in before her. The old mansion was old, drafty, and definitely dirty.
"Well, come one! Move!" Her brother, Nathan, shoved his 16-year-old sister into the old, dusty house, but he too ended up standing dumbfounded in the doorway before turning and saying to Penelope, "Well Pen, glad I'm going to college in a week!" Pen just glared back at her older brother.
She stomped back outside into the rain to get her backpack form the car. She slung it over her shoulder ignoring how wet her clothes were getting. She liked the rain; normally it calmed her, but the rain couldn't pacify her now. She fumed about the change of location in her mind, 'How could they! Dad gets some old mansion in England and BOOM! We have to leave America to go to this country! It's not fair that Genny, Raph, Les, and now Nate get to go and not have to come here! They're all older and get to live some where else! I hate being the youngest!'
She stormed back inside the house and stared at the floor. Their wet feet left footprints in the layers of dust on the floor. Dust swirled up in the breeze the storm from outside blew in and Pen sneezed. Suddenly her mother came in from a side passage. She was beaming as she said more than asked, "Isn't this great!"
"Yeah, great." Pen mumbled, not wanting to hurt her mother's feelings.
"Here's you bag and pillow, I brought them in," her mother pointed to her mummy sleeping bag and glow-in-the-dark pillow. "Until we clean up some of these rooms, we'll be using these. It's been a long day so we're all just picking a room for today and using the sleeping bags."
Wordlessly, Pen picked up her stuff and headed up the stairs. From the looks in the dust her dad was already up there and her mom had gone up and down several times. She went up and headed down the hall to the left following some footprints in the dust. She passed an open room and looked in. Her dad was laying out his and her mom's sleeping bags on the dusty floor. He turned and grinned at her, "Good-night Penny, and don't forget to say your prayers!"
She nodded, and wishing her dad good-night, left. She was a Catholic Christian and had been raised as one. Her dad always said to her now, "Don't forget to say your prayers!" Her thoughts bouncing erratically she wandered aimlessly and passed a library, she made a mental note of where it was, she wanted to look at the books, she loved to read. She then realized she was lost.
She turned around and around, and suddenly just gave up. She opened a door on her right and walked in. "Wow, surprise! There's no dust in here at all!" her sarcastic voice echoed around the room. It was filled with dust and had a few spider webs. She didn't care, as long as the spiders weren't poisoness and going to bite her, which she doubted, she was fine.
She saw a wardrobe on one side of the room and opened it. A cloud of dust came out and she was temporarily coughing like crazy. When the dust settled she saw fur coats, moth-eaten and very holey, but still there. She pushed side four hangers to see if there were rows behind the coats, but only saw the back of the wardrobe between the worn coats. She then closed the doors and laid out her bag and pillow using her flashlight. The room was dark between it being nighttime and the storm and she didn't want to search and see if the house even had electricity or where the light switch was. Plus she was not sure if it was a good idea to use it during a storm this bad in a house this old.
She then dug in her back pack and changed into her pajamas and pulled out a drawing book and colored pencils. She sat up for hours drawing. Some were of people, some of animals, some of landscapes. Near midnight she just let her mind take over and did not think about what she was drawing. When she really looked at it she discovered a lion looking her in the face. She gasped; the lion's stare seemed to burn through her. She slammed the sketchbook shut and crawled into the bag.
Just before she dozed off she said, "God, I'm sorry I was such a pain today." She then drifted off to sleep. She realized this place was going to take some getting used to.
- - - - -
A week later.
- - - - -
Pen watched as her brother and father drove off. Her dad was going to drop him off at the airport so he could fly to college. She sighed, and turning from the window, tied her short, brown hair back with a bandana. Then she began to clean again. She was in the attic today. They had already cleaned up some rooms for them to sleep in and had cleaned the kitchen, dining room, and hall. She had come up into the attic to explore and had automatically started to clean.
The place was filled with shelves, trunks, odd packages, and other random things. There were pictures lined up against the wall and mirrors covered with dust. Hats were draped over coat racks. Dressers peaked out from behind dust cloths that had long gone to pieces. Furniture was piled with boxes and more boxes lay scattered over the floor. Over everything was a film of dust and dirt and grease. The windows were also coated with dirt. She cleaned one so she could see her brother leave, but all the others only let thin bits of light through.
She went to one shelf of a nearby bookshelf and looked at it. There were some books and boxes on it. She cleaned off the few books and discovered they were about magic. She raised her eyebrow about them but continued on. At the bottom of one box was a small package carefully wrapped in oilcloth. Amazingly, it had not disintegrated like the rest of the cloths left out. She unwrapped the package and saw a wooden box.
She picked up the wooden box. It was old and well worn. The surface was carved with leaves and flowers. Peaking from beneath and behind the petals and leaves of the exotic plants were animals. Most of the plants and creatures on the box she had never seen before. She took her rag, and using the water, cleaned off the surface of the carved box as best she could.
She stared, transfixed at the box and then opened it, her imagination going crazy at the thought of what might lie hidden in such a box. Treasure, secrets, notes, keys to unknown doors, a locket that couldn't be opened?
She opened it and her hoped dropped as she saw, surprise, more dust. She sighed regretfully and started to wipe up the dust. But before she could even get the rag in the box she suddenly dropped it when she heard a loud CLANG! She rushed to the ladder opening and yelled down, "Are you ok!" Her mom yelled up that she was, she had just dropped a pot.
'Must have been a cauldron to make such a loud noise!' Pen thought. She walked back to the window and stared out at the bright day. She opened the window a crack and a breeze blew in. The breeze ruffled her short plain hair and as she squinted as dust started to blow about. She looked down and saw dust start to stir in the box. She slammed her right hand down on the opening of the rectangular box so more dust wouldn't be blowing around. The dust swirled about and she felt her palm tingling a bit. The breeze died and she lifted her hand.
She looked curiously at the box and then at her tingling hand. Her hand was speckled with bits of gold, almost like bits of gold dust! She carefully lowered one finger of her slightly glowing hand into the ordinary looking dust and as soon as she touched it the world started to spin.
The world about her seemed to drift away and she wondered if she was hallucinating. The world of England was replaced with many different views, some overlapped, others disappeared only to be replaced by others, but she seemed to fly through them all. There were worlds of darkness, light colors, dark colors, water, land, air, fire, and others. She saw many colors that she had never seen before and could never quite explain what they looked like.
The only way she could explain it was, "If you added more colors to the primary colors, colors you had never seen before and the mix of all those colors together formed so many new colors, you could never try and trace them all back to the new primary colors." The worlds continued to shift, faster, faster, and faster still. She felt herself lost in the spin and kaleidoscope of colors, sounds, and feelings. She whirled through the ages of many worlds, lost and all alone.
She felt worlds that seemed young, middle aged, and old. She saw people, creatures, and plants in a variety of life activities. Landscapes that would make a painter weep and places that would make a traveler yearn passed by.
Suddenly something bright and shining sped through the whirl. It was brighter than anything she had ever seen. It was like a liquid gold mixed with all the brightest and best golden colors you could find and then ten times brighter. The cudgel of light knocked aside the intervening worlds and shot towards her. She tried to back away from the speeding light but she was floating in this whirl and could not move.
The spear of light stopped at her chest and she saw the end open into a paw! She stared at the paw and then looked up; into a lion's face. The face was alarmingly familiar, then it hit her, it was the face she had drawn a week ago! The face was like the arm and paw; gold, shining, and beautiful. It sent waves of fear and delight coursing through her. "Take my paw child, or you will be lost forever." The lion said in it's deep rumbling voice.
Hesitatingly, she took the paw and felt at once that he knew everything about her. This talking, bright animal knew her secrets; both her dark and good ones. It knew of her past and where she had gone and what she had done. She felt that she was laid bare before his gaze. And it was not the most pleasant of places to be.
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Well, that's all for now! What do you think? Should I detail more or is it good? Please tell me what you think! I have some ideas for this but not many, so any ideas would be great to! Any critiques on my writing would be great. I wanted to get to the bow part so I sort of skimmed through the beginning, if you think there should be more detail then tell me please!
Kit ;)
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