The Lost Queen

by the Lady of the Mists

Chapter Two: The Magical Land

As luck would have it, rain was pouring down the next day, making any attempts at having any fun outside impossible. They were left to play inside and as Mrs. McCready had warned them yesterday, they were not to touch any of the historical relics that were in the house or disturb the Professor, so their options were limited. Unfortunately, this led to Susan suggesting a dictionary game, making them even more bored than they already were.

Anna was practically relieved when Lucy suggested playing hide-and-seek. Besides, in this big a house, it was bound to be more fun than it had been in their backyard. As Peter counted to a hundred, she hurried through the house to find an ideal hiding place, finally securing a place for herself inside a closet in one of the empty bedrooms. She took a seat on the floor and listened carefully for any noise outside of the room. Peter was still counting, she found out as she listened. He was close to a hundred now . . .

Just as he finished counting, Anna heard Lucy suddenly shout, "I'm all right! It's all right, I'm back!"

Bewildered as to what she was talking about, Anna climbed out of the closet and followed the commotion to one of the upstairs hallways, where Peter, Edmund, and Lucy were talking. Susan was walking up behind Peter as she arrived.

"What's going on?" Anna asked.

"I don't think Lucy wants to play anymore," Peter answered as Anna noticed the bewildered look on Lucy's face. Wondering what had happened and why Lucy seemed so confused as to why everyone was looking at her like she was crazy, Anna crouched down to her level.

"Lucy, what's going on?" she asked kindly.

"I've—I've been gone for hours," Lucy explained, looking towards her siblings and launching into a story about a frozen wood in the wardrobe she'd found and a faun called Mr. Tumnus and a queen who'd placed the world called Narnia into an eternal winter.

"Where's this wardrobe?" Anna asked her and they followed Lucy into one of the rooms, where a large and impressive wardrobe sat alone in the room. Susan boldly knocked on the inside of the wardrobe while Edmund knocked on the outside, but there was nothing inside. Even Anna, who had always believed in the existence in other worlds, had to admit that there was nothing in the wardrobe, but nor did she disbelieve Lucy. The girl was only eight, but she was no liar.

Finally, Susan turned to her sister. "Lucy, the only wood in here is the back of the wardrobe," she told her.

"One game at a time, Lu," Peter said, trying to put light on the situation. "We don't all have your imagination."

"But I wasn't imagining!" Lucy protested as they walked towards the door, excluding Anna.

Susan turned around to face the younger girl, her dark hair swinging into her face. "That's enough, Lucy."

"I wouldn't lie about this!"

Edmund had his joking face on as he spoke. "Well, I believe you," he commented. Lucy's face lit up before Edmund grinned towards Anna and the two eldest Pevensies. "Didn't I tell you about the football field that I found in the bathroom cupboard?"

"Ed, enough," Anna told him, seeing Lucy's crestfallen expression. Did the boy have to make everything a big joke?

"Oh, will you just stop?" Peter snapped at his brother, practically reading Anna's thoughts. "You just have to make everything worse, don't you? When are you going to grow up?"

Bad choice of words, Anna thought as she watched as the fight erupted between the siblings.

"Shut up!" Edmund yelled into Peter's face. "You think that you're Dad, but you're not!"

He stormed from the room, leaving Susan to turn to Peter in aggravation. "Well, that was nicely handed," she told him as she went after Edmund. Now only Anna and the eldest and youngest Pevensies were left in the room.

Lucy was the first one to speak. "But . . . it really was there," she insisted, looking from her brother to his best friend desperately. Anna glanced at Peter, who regarded her warily.

"Susan's right, Lucy," he finally said before leaving the room. "That's enough."

Anna sighed, running her hands through her auburn hair as she walked over to Lucy, wrapping an arm around her as she led her away from the wardrobe, casting a glance at it over her shoulder. "I believe you."

Looking up at her in delight, Lucy asked, "You do?"

"Yeah, I do," she answered with a smile down at her. "There's something mysterious about this place, I've known that since I first laid eyes on it. Besides, you're no liar. Don't see any reason why that should change now. Don't worry about the others," she told her. "They'll come around. If you found the way in once, you should be able to do it again."

"Why could we find the way in this time?" Lucy asked her as they rounded the corner.

"I don't know, Lu, maybe it only works when you're not looking for it or maybe it calls to you in its desperate need," Anna said, frowning. "I think we'll all find the way in one day, Lucy. Just be patient."

--

Needless to say, the rest of the day was a joy to be around. Anna had found her way to the library and was going through the Professor's assortment of books when Peter found her, going through one of the many classics as he leaned against the shelves. She knew, without even looking up, that he was there.

"You're going to turn them against you, Peter Pevensie," she told him as she closed the book and replaced it onto the shelf, turning to look at her best friend in annoyance. "Edmund may not be right about a lot of stuff, but he is right when he said that you're not your father. You're their brother and that's never going to change. Maybe it's time you started acting like it."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that your family is being torn apart right in front of your eyes, but you four are too busy bickering to even realise it. The war isn't just happening out there, Peter—there's one raging inside of this house, in between you and your siblings. You have got to stop acting like you're in charge of everything, because you're not. Like it or not, you're just . . . you're only thirteen," she said, thinking it better not to say he was a child, because none of them were really children anymore. Not yet adults, but they had grown out of the childhood that Lucy was still in. "Peter, you're my best friend and that's never going to change. But things have got to start changing around here if you want to make things better with your family."

Peter stared at her for a long moment before he looked down, deep shame evident in his eyes. "It's hard," he admitted as he sat down. "I don't know what I'm doing, it just . . . it comes out and then it's too late to take it back. Dad always knew what to do."

"Nobody is asking you to be your father," Anna pointed out as she sat down next to him, placing her hand on his arm. "Personally, I like you the way that you are. You're Peter Pevensie and you have one of the biggest, best hearts of anyone that I've ever met. Maybe it's time you started using that to decide what's best for your family, because things are going to get steadily worse before they get better around here."

Peter glance up at her with a small smile. "How come you always know exactly what to say?"

"It's a gift," Anna laughed. "Now come on, let's go find the others. I'm sure that Mrs. McCready is going to be calling us down for supper any moment, anyway."

--

Anna stood in the middle of a field of lilies, the fragrance lifting up onto her as she looked around at her surroundings.

And then she heard it . . . a voice drifting in and out of hearing rang before it came back to hear, trying to reach her. "Anna . . ." it was whispering over and over again. Her heart rose at the sound of it. "Anna . . . my little lily flower . . . Anna . . ."

"Dad!" Anna yelled, trying to find the source of her father's voice. "Daddy, I'm here! Daddy!" She looked all around her, but there was no sign of where the voice was coming from, nor where he was. "Daddy, where are you?"

"I'm with you," her father's voice whispered in her ear and she turned around, but he wasn't there. "I'll always be with you, my lily flower, even when you can't see me. . . ."

"No, wait, Dad!" Anna tried in vain to find him, but there was no sign of where he was. "Daddy, please . . . I want to go with you!"

"No, my daughter, it's not time for you yet. Your destiny lies upon a different path than mine." Anna frowned at his meaning, but there was no sign of where her father was. "Find that small bit of happiness for yourself, Anna . . . and never let it go. You never know when you're going to lose it."

"Dad!"

"Peter! Peter, wake up!" Anna was ripped from her dreams when she heard voices in the bedroom next to the one she shared with Lucy and Susan, who was also woken by the noise. The voice, she realised, was Lucy's. "It's there! It's really there!"

Grabbing her robe, Anna followed Susan into the boys' bedroom, where Lucy was looking excited. Peter had just woken up, so he was still half-asleep, but Edmund, she noticed, was wide-awake and nervous.

"Lucy, what are you talking about?" Peter mumbled.

"Narnia!" Lucy exclaimed, practically bouncing up and down on the bed due to her excitement. Her brown eyes were glowing with delight at her return to the magical land that she had encountered. "It's all in the wardrobe, like I told you!"

Susan sighed as she walked over to her sister. "You've just been dreaming, Lucy."

"But I haven't!" Lucy insisted triumphantly. "I saw Mr. Tumnus again! And this time, Edmund went too!" Anna's blue eyes travelled over to where Edmund was standing, rooted on the spot by Lucy's declaration. His two older siblings had turned their attention to him.

"You . . . you saw the faun?" Peter asked him, trying to clarify what Lucy was saying. He seemed to have woken up a bit.

Edmund shook his head and for once, it seemed like he was telling the truth as Lucy stood up. "Well . . . he didn't actually go in there with me. He . . ." She paused, turning to look at her brother curiously. "What were you doing, Edmund?"

"I was just playing along," Edmund said smoothly. He looked apologetically at his brother. "I'm sorry, Peter. I know you said not to encourage her, but you know how little children are these days. They just don't know when to stop pretending," he said to Lucy's dejected face.

"Lucy!" Anna called as the youngest Pevensie burst into tears and fled from the room.

Giving Peter a look, Anna hurried after Lucy, Peter and Susan right behind her, but stopped when she saw the old man that had appeared in the hallway, whom Lucy had her arms around and was sobbing into his chest.

Mrs. McCready had arrived by that time and the Professor sent Lucy with her to get some hot chocolate before taking them into the office for a chat. "You seem to upset the delicate internal imbalance of my housekeeper," he commented as he lit his pipe.

"We're very sorry, sir," Peter said apologetically. "It won't happen again." He tried to drag the two girls away, but Susan held her ground, turning towards the Professor.
"It's our sister, sir, Lucy."

"The weeping girl."

"She's very upset."

"Hence the weeping."

"It's nothing that we can't handle," Peter insisted as he tried, once again, to drag Susan away.

"She thinks she's found a magical land," Susan said, pulling her arm away from her brother. "In the upstairs wardrobe." This immediately got the Professor's attention and they told him about the land that Lucy had found. Anna was supremely interested when she discovered that the Professor seemed to believe Lucy's story.

"You're saying that we should just . . . believe her?" Peter finally asked, looking at the Professor.
"She's your sister, isn't she? You're her family. You might want to start acting like one."

Peter glanced at Anna, who looked back at him. That had been exactly what she had been trying to point out earlier. Lucy was no liar and she wasn't crazy either. But her friends were so badly broken apart that Anna wondered if they could ever be fully mended.