Chapter 1 - Beyond the Garden Wall and Through the Old Tree

It was late summer, the sky was beginning to tinge a dusky orange colour as the sun set steadily over the horizon and a celebration was taking place in the home of a well-known, well-off Richards family. Mr Charles Richards was a businessman, a rich businessman from a rich family. His wife, Gertrude Richards (formerly Dickinson) was also from a rich family, her father had also been a business man, and his death had added a great amount to the Richards family bank account, heance the slight over-exertion on the celebrations.

In the well-tended garden of the Richards family, crowds of people chattered and laughed, indulging in the drinks and nibbles on offer while a band, each member dressed in a blue-blazer, smart black trousers, white shirts and black bow-ties played soft easy-listening Jazz in the background. Each guest was dressed equally suited to the occasion, for it was the engagement celebration for the eldest Richards daughter to her sweet-heart for three years.

There were seven Richards daughters in total: Sarah (for whom the celebration was for), a bubbly girl who was - to say the least - popular with the boys and had a stunning singing voice, the second oldest was Rosemary, the smartest, who always had her nose in a book of facts of some sort, Gemma, a promicing tennis player and sports-woman, but far from boisterous, just the way her parents liked, Heather, an enchanting pianist even at her young age of twelve, Katie, an aspiring ballerina, and the youngest was Sophie, simply the baby of the family, cute and loved all-round. All these six of the seven sisters were entertaining and mingling, or -in the case of Sophie- hiding behind their mother's legs and earning swoons and sweets from guests. But the least interested in the festivities, the most socially averse, was the middle child, born between Gemma and Katie, the 'Plain-Jane' of the family, Elizabeth. Unlike the rest of her sisters, she was not notably outstandingly beautiful nor exceedingly intelligent, nor particularly talented in any particualar area. She played sports reasonably well, had been playing flute to an acceptable grade five standard and wasn't as clumsy as she seemed, and, just like Rosemary, was often found with her nose in a book, though not the kind of book her parents approved of at her age. Fairy stories, fiction, anything but books of fact and information. And if not reading, she was writing the same type of thing, another thing her parents didn't approve of.

Unnoticed, Elizabeth had long since disappeared from the party and into the woods beyond the brick wall at the end of the garden that could be reached by simply manouvering round the back of the garden shed and opening the door consealed behind it. The outer side of the wall was thick with ivy grown thicker with the past spring and as Elizabeth passes through the trees, the music is dimmed and muffled by the canopy of leaves. She travels further into the trees until only bird song could be heard and she picked a particularly comfortable looking tree and sat - wait... bird song? This late in the day? Stunned, she glanced round for the source of the bird song, as it sounded quite close.

There, at the base of a tree, among the roots, was a small blue bird twittering and looking in her direction. But it wasn't just the bird that caught her attention, it was the tree. It was older than any of the others in this forest and it certainly didn't look like any of the others in the forest, it was knarled, so big she doubted to grown adults could get their arms to meet round it and looked almost... alive -in the respect of how it moved, not the fact that it was a tree- as it's branches swayed in the wind. No, wait... there was no wind, so why was it swaying? This twigged her interest and she got up again, and the instant she was on her feet the blue bird flew up quickly and round to the other side of the tree, and the tree seemed to expand then contract slightly. Cautiously now, she approched the tree, lifting her cloth satchel back over her head and onto her shoulder. When she reached the tree, she lay a hand on it. The tree was oddly warm -for a tree- and it seemed to almost move under her touch, the branches swaying again. The trunk was twisted up and round and the branches seemed to follow this pattern, though it seemed as if they were twisting and untwisting themselves - but that had to be a figure of her imagination. Another thing that must of been her imagination was the feel of the tree beneath her fingers. There was a soft rising and falling of the bark, like it was breathing.

Unseen to her, a branch crept down from the canopy and lightly picked up a strand of her hair, it jumped back when Elizabeth ran her hand over the back of her hair, too hypnotised by the tree to bother turning. The branch twisted itself into her hair again, enjoying the soft feel of it on it's bark, then jumped instantly back up to the canopy when Elizabeth turned, wondering if she was imagining the touch, before turning back to the trunk and running her hands over it's bark, making it shiver again. Bravely, another branch crept down and tapped her left shoulder, shooting to her other side when she turned, it repeated the action and the tree seemed to shake with laughter when she huffed in annoyence, before three branches pushed her lightly towards the other side of the tree.

Elizabeth stumbled but caught herself on the trunk of the tree, which was expanding, although another branch had caught her round her waist, although this didn't worry her as she regained her balance. A large verticle hole had opened up in the trunk of the tree, it was jet-black inside and she could feel a warm wind coming from it. Curious, Elizabeth leaned in slightly and glanced round the inside the tree, when she was suddenly pulled (or pushed she couldn't quite tell) forward and she was plunged into darkness.

~Narnia~

Balor whipped his rapier from his belt, instantly alert when he heard the short scream and the thud not far off from him, it came from the Old Tree. He quickly leapt his way towards the tree. When he reached the tree, he was met with the most peculiar sight. A girl, wearing a blue and white checked skirt with a white short-sleeved shirt, was lying at the foot of the Old Tree, and she was unconsious.

~L~

"Well, she's not a Telmarine" said Balor, his long tail flicking agitatedly

"If it wasn't obvious enough already" Aideen, a female centaur, half-snapped "Her hair's ginger-blond and her eyes are dark green, so there was never any chance of her being a Telmarine."

"But she's not Narnian either" Balor half-snapped back, his tabbey fur bristling

"Not that we can judge people by who they are. Take bears for example, they are thought to be violent as they previously faught with the white witch, but Braeden is the kindest, gentlest soul I know" pointed out a dark-haired man, his name was Devlin "And cats -like yourself Balor- are depicted as fickle, lazy and cunning creatures, but you are not." the centaur and the cat murmered in agreement, surprisingly, Devlin was more often than not the voice of reason.

~S~

Novan and Braeden leaned over the girl as she began to wake, her eyelids fluttering slightly. Her brow furrowed and her eyes pushed themselves open. "Are you alright miss?" asked Novan cautiously, andshe looked up at him, slightly baffled, and nodded, before her eyes widened in shock.

"Um... there's a bear... behind you..." she stammered as she sat up, brushing her long fringe out of her eyes.

Laughing lightly, Novan assumed that she didn't know that Narnians really did exist "It's alright miss," he assured "That's Braeden, he's the one who helped you back to our camp after you'd had a little fall and banged your head. And I am Novan, and I" he gestured to his goat-like legs "am a fawn"

"Hello" Braeden greeted, in his deep, slow voice "Nice to meet you"

The girl seemed speachless for a moment or two, staring between Novan's legs and Braeden as if trying to decide weather she was dreaming or not "Nice to meet you too" she eventually said, sounding slightly shaken and looking equally so.

"And your name miss? What shall we call you?" asked Novan

"Elizabeth Richards"

"A pleasure to meet you Elizabeth Richards, and if you are feeling up to it, would you like to meet the rest of us? And have something to eat maybe? It smells like Aideen's finished cooking dinner"

"There's more of you?" she asked, shocked, though she wasn't sure what exactly she had been expecting.

Novan chuckled as he rose, making his way over to the curtain that Braeden held open for them "Of course there is! This way please!" he gestured her over to him and Elizabeth got up from the blankets she'd been lying on and following Novan out the tent.

"Hey Nove!" called man from outside the tent as he saw his friend "How's the girl do-" he trailed off "Oh! All better I see! That's our Novan for you, best healer from here to the lone islands!" the man announced loudly. Elizabeth looked round to see a centaur with chesnut hair, a cat wearing leather boots, and a belt- Elizabeth was reminded distinctly of Puss-in-Boots when she saw the long thin sword seathed under his belt- and then (finally) a normal human, he was tall, well-built, with chin-length dark hair, dark eyes and a short beard, he looked to her to be around his thirties. He jumped up off his makeshift seat (which looked like a blanket folded up and put over a log on it's side "Delvin" he said, offering his seat to her "And you are?"

"Elizabeth Richards" she said, tucking her skirt beneath her as she sat down, nodding at him slightly in thanks as he quite happily ploped himself down on the uncomfortable-looking ground, proping up one knee and resting his arm on it.

"Ah, what a beautiful name Mi'lady" flourished the cat, stepping forwards in a sweeping bow "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Balor, I was the one who found you when you fell from the tree"

Very slightly, Elizabeth nodded again before looking at the beautiful female centaur "Aideen" she said as she handed Elizabeth a bowl of what she could only assume was a stew of some kind. "And may I ask how you came to be here?" she asked as Elizabeth began to eat cautiously, who stopped and looked at the centaur in confusion "What I mean to say is... your clothes, are not like anything I have seen before and you are clearly neither Narnian nor Telmarine."

"Um... what or what?" Elizabeth asked, beining to think she was being had

Novan looked at his friends "She doesn't know" he murmured, before turning to her "Why don't you start by telling us what you know and where you're from... how you got here?" he added as an after-thought.

Elizabeth lay the bowl down in her lap and thought for a moment, even she wasn't sure quite how she got here, but then again, that had only been the first of the crazy things she'd seen that day, she may as well give it a go. So she started explaining that she was from England, instantly recieveing odd glances and the explination that they'd never heard of such a place, but she continued, starting with how she was in the forest and that bird had appeared. Suprisingly, as this was the part she had been expecting laughter at, they simply looked surprised when she explained about the tree, but said nothing until she finished.

"You say the tree moved?" asked Novan breathlessly, though his eyes seemed to be glowing excitedly

"Yes... I know it sounds far-fetched and you probably think I'm crazy but-"

"Crazy?" interjected Balor alarmed "No, no, no. Far from it in fact. We have been waiting for a sign that He had returned"

"He?" asked Elizabeth "Who's He?"

"You can't tell me you've not even heard of Aslan, the great Lion?" gawked Novan, stunned. Elizabeth shook her head, feeling uncomfortable under the combined gazes of the group. After a few seconds stunned silence, Delvin spoke up.

"Aslan -as Novan has just said- is the Great Lion, King of the Forest and King of Beasts. Every now and again, mostly in times of need or trouble, he'll appear, but he's not a tame lion -definitely not a tame lion- and if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without trembling with fear, they're either braver than most or just plain daft." he said, leaning towards her, as if what he was saying was almost a secret "And what you've told us, about that tree -the Tree of Old it's called- it can only mean that he's back."

For a moment Elizabeth thought about what she'd just been told, trying to make sense of it - not that she didn't believe them, she'd read and told so many far-fetched stories that this simply seemed plausable to her - it was the tree that confused her "I'm not sure I've understood you correctly" she said, her manners coming out more than she'd intended them to "How does the appearence of 'Aslan' cause the trees to move?"

Quite patiently, Aideen answered her "In this land, and assumingly not your own, the trees were once living in the sense that they could move of their own accord, however this was many, many years ago."

"Why did they stop moving?" asked Elizabeth, still veering between believeing them or not. Trees that moved? Not Possible, but then again she'd seen it herself...

"It was not long after Narnia was overrun by an army, the Telmarines, and they treated us Narnians like dumb, dirty animals, causing more than some of us to retreat so deep within ourselves that we became exactly that, and the trees-"

"Became just trees" finished Elizabeth, now only the tiny part of her brain which sounded astoundingly like her sister Rosemary was screaming in protest that none of this made any logical sense, these were mythical beasts sitting in front of her, and a certain two words should be blindingly obvious in the situation 'Mythical' and 'Beasts', not only that, but there was also a talking cat and bear, both of whom stood near-constantly on their hind legs. But before she could say anything else, Braeden spoke.

"Excuse me, I believe there is a prophecy apropriate to the circumstaces in which Miss Elizabeth arrived." he said, his soft, deep voice sounding strange in the chilling silence.

Novan's eyes lit up "There is! It was mentioned in The Tale of the Tree of Old, a folklaw from before even the time of the Kings and Queens of old. It says that The Tree of Old shall bring us source of the salvation of the forests and it's creatures."

They turned to look at Elizabeth who had abruptly began to think this was all a bizzare dream she was having "N-no, that can't mean me! There's no way..." she trailed off, as much as she now thought she was asleep and dreaming, she knew she was awake and this was really happening. "I should probably just get home, my parents have probably worried themselves silly by now."

"But Mi'lady! The trees shall never dance again if you leave now! They need you!" burst Balor, jumping up, almost angry at how should could leave just like that. He looked round at his friends "We all need you..." he said, shoulders slumping in defeat

Weak under the eyes watching her, the desperate, begging eyes of creatures who had known the cruelest of repression, Elizabeth sighed in surrender "I'm not sure how long I can stay for, but I guess I can do what I can to help."