Disclaimer: I do not own The Chronicles of Narnia, nor am I in any way affiliated with Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy, Will (Even though she's my own character) or anyone else who may slip unnoticed into the pages of my stories.

A/N The first couple of paragraphs may be a little confusing, but at least they're short-lived. Please review! Tell me what you like and what I should change and what you think should happen!

Chapter Two: The Lodge and its Keeper

Hands clasped tightly, the Pevensies and Will fell though the blackness of space and time, Will still screaming in what Peter assumed was pain, although he could not imagine why.

With a sudden burst of mid-day light, a whoosh of air and a gasp of delight from Lucy, the five of them fell rapidly towards a sunny lawn below them, their hands slipping as the wind rushed up to slap against their faces and chests. They stopped, caught by a pocked of cushioned air, just a foot above the ground, before it released them and they fell unceremoniously onto the grass.

Peter rolled over and sat up, blinking against the harsh sunlight to see Will next to him.

He gave a yell of mortified surprise. She was laying on her side, her knees pulled almost to her chest, her light skin sheet-white. Sweat polled in her hair and down her neck, gleaming in the sunlight. Her side, chest, hip and left arm were covered in dark red blood. It gushed freely from a wound in her side, where the deep red stains were darkest, and her shirt had a horizontal tear reaching from her navel to above her hip.

"Wh-what happened?" Lucy cried in a scared voice, her hands quivering and her face pale. Susan had dropped to her knees beside Will and was pushing her onto her back. Will seemed not to notice or care; her dark eyes were rolling backward and she seemed like she was hovering somewhere between consciousness and passing out.

"Peter, do something!" Susan snapped.

"What?"

"Give me your sweater!" Peter ripped his school jacket off and threw it to Susan, who wrapped it around Will's waist like a large woolen bandage. Within moments it was soaked in blood.

"I'm going to get help!" Lucy said desperately in the same scared voice, and ran off behind Peter. He had not realized that they had landed on the grounds of what appeared to be a large wooden lodge, its windows dark, its gardens overgrown and vines covering its walls. It was not visible from above because of the lush, leafy trees standing right next to it, which explained why he had only just noticed it.

"Edmund, go look for help over there," Susan instructed, jerking her head in the direction opposite of where Lucy had gone. "And Peter, do something besides just standing there!"

"What?" Peter repeated, feeling hopelessly lost. "There's nothing we can do! Will's going to–"

He was cut off by Will as she started screaming again. From beneath her half-closed eyelids tears of pain began streaming out, mingling with sweat and a few drops of rain left from Finchley.

A door slammed behind them and Lucy ran back, fresh tears springing into her clear blue eyes. "It's abandoned!" She sank to the ground and began to sob uncontrollably. "Everybody's gone!"

"Not quite," Said a new voice from the shadows. From behind the lodge came a sleek-coated Beaver. "There's still a few of us left."

"Mr. Beaver!" Lucy shrieked, standing up and mopping her eyes on the sleeve of her school uniform.

The Beaver, looking perplexed, waddled into the sunlight and held a furry paw out to Lucy. "It's Grilmaud, actually. Pleased to meet– oh, no," He had caught sight of Will and bent closer to look at her. "This is awful! Mickswald!" He yelled suddenly, looking towards the back of the lodge. A round pair of beetle-black eyes set in the dark, furry face of a mole appeared peering cautiously around the corner. "Mick! Go get the Keeper! Tell him there's a girl here who's badly injured!"

"Girl 'urt, get Keeper," The mole repeated in a thick, gruff voice, and he hurried away.

"What happened?" Grilmaud asked, looking around at Peter, Susan, and Lucy.

"Dunno. We'd like to know that, too," Edmund replied, walking towards them and panting slightly.

"Well it– look! Here's Mick and the Keeper!"

The mole was hurrying toward them, followed by a middle-age stallion centaur. His short, light brown hair was streaked with grey, as was his stubbly beard. He was wearing a loose white shirt, which fell to his waist, where he became a light dapple-grey stallion.

"'Ere, sir," Mick grunted, pointing to Will. "Said she's 'urt bad."

The centaur walked carefully through the group of kids, steping lightly and keeping his dark grey eyes on Will. Susan backed away, watching with bated breath as he leaned down and picked her up. "This would is bad and will be fatal if we do not treat it," He said in a low, serious voice. "Mickswald, go get Captain and Sybryth. Bring them to the hospital room." Still holding Will easily in his arms, he walked into the front room of the lodge. Even half-dark in the shadows of the trees, it looked welcoming and comfortable, despite the thick layer of dust over everything. Several large, cozy-looking armchairs were circled around a threadbare hearth rug and large stone fireplace made from smooth grey rocks. They walked quickly out of the front room and into a short hallway with a dark wooden floor; Peter could see across the corridor small scuff marks in the dust, obviously from Lucy as she had run through the lodge minutes before. At the end of the hall there was a wide wooden staircase leading to the top level of the lodge.

"In here," Grilmaud said, holding open the last door in front of the stairs. The group entered into a wide, brightly lit and extremely clean room. The walls were painted gold and several large windows faced out from the back, showing a thick, green forest and a clear, bubbling creek that ran into the distance. Lanterns hung from the walls, lit with flickering orange flames. Three people were already in the room; A young, tall woman with dark skin and black hair, a slim silver otter and Mick.

"Allenstone!" The woman exclaimed, upon seeing the centaur. She stood from where she was sitting on the edge of a white hospital bed and ran over to them, looking at Will with a frightened expression. "Put her down here, and go get me my potions!" She motioned towards the first in a series of five or six white beds.

"Sybryth, be careful," Allenstone warned, setting Will down and turning back towards the door. "We do not know what wounded her." He left and they heard him gallop back down the hall.

The woman Sybryth turned Will over and removed Peter's ruined jacket. "Captain!" She barked at the otter, who apparently had been having a conversation with Mick. "Go get me bandages. And you," She jerked a random finger behind her, which landed on Edmund. "Go help her."

He followed Captain to the back of the room, where a row of wooden cabinets sat beneath a long marble counter. The otter opened one of them and began piling rolls of bandages, three large jars of dark green paste and a wooden bowl and rag into Edmund's arms.

Allenstone cantered back in, holding several oddly shaped glass bottles full of brightly colored liquids, and began setting them down on the table at the foot of Will's bed. They all watched curiously as Sybryth took a bottle hardly bigger than her thumb and poured three drops of clear liquid into Will's half-open mouth. A moment later, a puff of what appeared to be red and purple smoke came from her mouth and hung in a hazy orb for a moment several inches above her face, before the purple seemed from it and the red slowly faded to black.

"Yes, I thought so. Interesting, anyway," The woman muttered. In a louder voice she added, still not taking her eyes off the black smoke, "You can go now."

"Will's going to be okay, right?" Susan demanded anxiously, for at least the third time in the fifteen minutes they had been sitting outside.

"I don't know," Grilmaud replied wearily. They were sitting in the shady southern side of the lawn, sub-consciously picking at the grass, biting their nails or else staring around aimlessly. "Sybryth is the best healer we have, but what she needs is a miracle potion or an all-healing cordial–"

"Lucy!" Edmund said, so suddenly that they all jumped and stared at him, annoyed. He did not seem to mind and continued, "Your juice of the fire-flowers that Father Christmas gave you!"

Lucy's face, which had lit up with hope as Edmund had said this, fell. "It's at Cair Paravel, Ed. And I don't know if we're even in Narnia."

Grilmaud, seeming unsure wether to scoff or look affronted, gave a rather undignified snort and said, "Of course you're in Narnia, dear girl. This is the Lodge of the West Woods Travelers and Needy Passerby. The LWWTNP, for short."

"Short?" Edmund scoffed. "It's–"

He was interrupted by Susan, who leaned anxiously to Grilmaud and said, "The West Woods? That's days away from Cair Paravel! There's no way we can get that fire-flower juice before Will dies!"

Captain, the sleek she-otter who had been napping in the shade a few paces away, perked up at this. "Cair Paravel, did you say?" She asked in a light, cheery voice. "Good ladies and boys– you aren't– are you . . . The Kings and Queens of Narnia?"

Before they could answer, or even nod, Grilmaud said, looking awestruck, "Why . . . of course you are! I can't believe I never made the connection! Nobody has ever fallen from the sky before– except, of course, Mick when he fell off the roof, but that doesn't– I just don't believe it! Wait 'till I tell the wife!" And he scurried away, calling over his shoulder, "I bet my tail she won't believe it!"

"He reminds me so much of Mr. Beaver," Lucy said affectionately, watching him waddle behind the house. She turned to Captain. "I've never met an otter before, though. Where're you from?"

"Well," Captain began eagerly, also looking at the Pevensies with awe in her deep brown eyes. "There aren't many big rivers or lakes in Narnia, so we otters tend to stick to the East, by the sea," She explained. "And I'm assuming you're talking about the Beavers who helped you the first time you came here? Well, seeing as we're as North as you can get in the West Woods, their dam isn't far, only a few miles to the South-East. So yeah, I'd say Grilmaud's probably related to them. All the Beavers here-about are."

"If you are the four Kings and Queens," Said the slow, serious voice of Allenstone behind them. "Then who is the injured girl? Who is the fifth?"

A/N Yup, I know, not exactly a cliff-hanger. In the next chapter, you get to find out if Will lives or dies-- in the meantime, please review!