Disclaimer: I honestly own nothing.

Chapter 2: The Threshold

It was with reluctance that Caitlin felt herself being summoned into the waking world. She was wonderfully cozy and nestled deep into the down blankets of her bed, but the sun was still shining brightly through her bedroom windows and refused to allow her to go back to sleep. Twisting in the blankets, she felt her pajama pants constrict around her legs uncomfortably, and a small suspicion began to form in her mind.

She absently brought a hand to her hair to tame the inevitable bed-head, but stopped when she realized it was damp to the touch. In fact, she could tell that her pajamas were a bit soggy too from the way they clung to her skin. Apparently, she'd showered late last night… (Had she even showered before she'd gone to bed?)

Now utterly confused, Caitlin opened her eyes despite the dry contacts that clouded her vision and tried to squint and read the clock.

As it turned out, there was no clock. There was no nightstand. There were no lavender-painted walls, no white-paneled windows, no queen-sized oak sleigh-bed, no ceiling fan, no bookshelves, no lava lamp, no dirty clothes, and no rough carpeting. She wasn't even wearing pajamas.

What Caitlin actually saw were her jeans and grey wife-beater, which were itchy from their dampness. She saw earthen walls, a small hole in one wall that sunlight was shooting through, a massive blanket that had dozens of different-colored patches on it, numerous pillows scattered about, and some sort of dog's bed with even more pillows and blankets heaped inside. And suddenly, every event of the previous evening was racing to reenter her mind, so that they became a monstrous and confusing blur of headlights and rushing water. Caitlin's heartbeat was deafening to her own ears, and her breathing began to quicken as it does when one were about to cry.

She could be lost somewhere between Cyn's house and her own, even though she'd been positive she'd been headed the right way. Her car was probably totaled somewhere in the snowy wilderness, or underwater in the tumultuous river, with her friends worried sick and her parents worried and gearing up to be angry as hell. And God knows whose little hovel she'd woken up in, or what they planned to do with her now that she was cold and wet and at their mercy. She'd freeze to death if she tried to escape into the frozen December dawn unless she found her clothes. Another thought crossed her mind: how could someone have found her underwater in a snowstorm?



As soon as she'd pondered this, she heard the shuffling footsteps of someone approaching from one of the other rooms. If her heartbeat was irregular before, then there was no accurate world in the English language to describe the speed at which it hummed in that moment as her whole body tensed to react with either fight or flight.

A voice reached her ear that was both loud and kind, exclaiming, "Are you awake yet, dear? I've some breakfast ready if you are." And in through the doorway walked an otter.

A huge, talking, smiling, apron-wearing otter…that was carrying a plate of something that smelled several notches above delicious.

Caitlin stared as the otter obliviously continued talking, waiting for her brain to catch up with her eyes and deduce what sort of drug she'd accidentally taken or exactly how hard she'd hit her head. It was taking longer than expected.

The otter, however, was merrily pulling back red curtains from window-holes that Caitlin hadn't noticed, chattering on like everything was absotively-posolutely A-Okay. "I'm surprised that the young ones didn't wake you when they saw you this morning! Oh, to see the looks on their little faces when they saw you lying right in the middle of our bed!" She chuckled quietly to herself. "But either way, you're up and about now, which is good after the jolt you gave your head last night."

Caitlin hadn't moved yet beyond an occasional confused and disbelieving blink.

At long last, the otter turned and frowned at the young lady. "By Aslan, you are looking positively ghastly! Pale as a frog's underbelly and eyes wider than a surprised owl's, goodness knows what happened to you before Mr. Otter scooped you up! I shudder at the mere thought!" The otter looked sidelong at Caitlin, eyes attempting to prompt a word or two from her.

With a raspy voice, Caitlin managed to respond without focusing on the fact that she was talking to a river otter. "Um…did you take me clothes?"

Mrs. Otter nodded as she spooned some of the sweet-smelling food onto a plate. "Yes, of course. We couldn't have you catching a chill with all those wet things on! Such strange garments, though. Are you foreign, love?"

Caitlin shook her head. "No, I live right off Stallings Road. I was trying to get home when my car went off road and I ended up in what I suppose was the river you said something about. Did you see it? Is it really banged up?"

The otter looked at her funnily. "See what, dear?"

"It's a green Honda. It might be in a ditch or something closer to where I fell in." Caitlin's eyes fell and started to feel watery again. "Either way, my parents are going to murder me after getting me to pay for the damage. It was stupid to try and drive in a snowstorm; I don't know why I even tried."



Mrs. Otter stared at the young girl with an expression close to bewilderment. "My dear, you are beginning to sound twisted in the mind." She held out a plate of what smelled like fish and potatoes for Caitlin to take. "But it's nothing a hearty meal won't clear up!"

Caitlin tried to push the food away, though her stomach was screaming at her to accept it. "Please ma'am, can I just use your phone to call my parents to come get me?"

Looking more befuddled still, Mrs. Otter set the plate down and put her hands (sorry, paws) on her hips. "Truly, love, you are starting to worry me with your spouting gibberish about banging green carts and snowstorms! I'm worried that you may be more injured than we previously guessed!"

The girl shook her head. "No, no, no, not a green cart, a green car. You know… the kind you drive with a steering wheel and the brakes and everything? And it's December; why's it so outlandish to suggest that it's snowing? That's sort of what winter does."

Well now, the otter just looked concerned, which frankly made Caitlin angry. "Why are you looking at me like I've grown another head?"

Shaking her head slowly, the otter answered. "You are not making any sense at all, dearie. I think t'would be best if you were to lie down and have another rest. It's no use trying to do anything when you're not in your right mind…"

Okay, the otter had crossed a line. "Excuse me, ma'am, but I am damn well in my right mind and, frankly, your insinuating that I am outside of my wits is very irritating. It's you that doesn't seem to know what time of year it is, or even what a freaking car is." With that, Caitlin stood up to her full height and dropped the blanket to the earthen floor. "So, thank you for rescuing me and letting me stay here, but I do believe that I have overstayed my welcome."

Despite the nagging pain in her entire body and the fact that her foot got caught in the quilt, Caitlin hurried from the little room and into what resembled a kitchen, but miniature-sized. She grabbed her winter coat from where it was on a makeshift clothesline and made a beeline for what looked like the front door.

She heard the otter-lady behind her, yelling frantically, "No, no, no, you are not well!" But she paid no heed as she lifted the wooden latch and opened the door into the blinding light of morning.

Her eyes shut at first as they adjusted to the light, and in that single moment, Caitlin realized that she had a much bigger problem than a totaled car. The first sensation was warm grass between her bare toes, followed quickly by the ground rushing up to meet her as her eyes opened.

Everything around her was green, from the grass she'd collapsed on to the tree leaves that rustled in a springtime breeze. Small white blossoms were dangling from trees back behind the little otter's house, and brown cattails sprang up from the swift, clear river that was less than a yard in front of her. Birds sang. Dragonflies flew lazily near her face. The sweet fragrance of honeysuckle and growing things filled her nose.



Mrs. Otter reached the doorway just as the young woman collapsed in front of it. The girl's shoulders were trembling as she sat in the dirt, with one arm still bare to the sun and the other wrapped in the itchy jacket that Mrs. Otter had so painstakingly hung to dry. With soft, webbed steps, the otter made her way to the girl's side.

"Th-this is all w-wrong. W-where's the snow? Where's my car?" the girl whispered fiercely, then abruptly glared at the otter and yelled, "Where the hell am I?! What did you do to me?"

The otter stood there flabbergasted, fiddling with one corner of her yellow apron. This was a severely troubled Daughter of Eve that she had been saddled with. "I have not done a thing to you, my dear, except to make sure you were dry and warm after Mr. Otter brought you home last night."

"But…" Caitlin started, suddenly looking very young, "where is this? It was snowing last night, and now I'm…it's…wrong, all wrong." She took a shuddering breath and covered her mouth, as if to keep herself from sobbing.

Shaking her head slowly, Mrs. Otter looked at her with soft eyes. "It has not been winter in Narnia for nearly three months, young one. And last night was as warm an evening as we have had in days."

The girl's hands snapped over her ears suddenly. "Stop, just stop! Animals do not talk! It's not right!"

Extremely offended, Mrs. Otter stood right in the girl's line of sight. "Talking Beasts have been in Narnia since its very beginning! Had you not learned of our reappearance, or at least read stories of the Golden Age of Narnia?"

Caitlin looked up at the otter, eyes squinting as her brain caught up to her ears. "There's not a Narnia in North Carolina, is there? Because I live in Harrisburg, and I know there's not a Narnia near us."

Mrs. Otter began to form a theory as she listened to the young girl's words, and knelt down to her to better see her face. "Do you know who rules over Narnia?"

The girl frowned, thinking. "George W. Bush."

"Erm…no. Does King Caspian X sound familiar?"

Caitlin scoffed under her breath and looked at the otter with more annoyance than before. "No, ma'am, especially since there haven't been any kings in the United States since the 1700's."

The otter frowned even though the comment was only helping support her theory. "Do you know who Aslan is?" she asked warily.

"Nope."

At this, Mrs. Otter blinked rapidly several times. "He is…the very creator of our world, of all of Narnia and Archenland and Ettinsmoor and the Eastern Seas! How can you not know him?"



The girl considered for a short moment before her eyes widened in speculation. "Is he anything like the God of Christianity?"

Mrs. Otter blinked a few more times. "Well, I don't know where Christianity is, and I've never heard of such a place. But I do know that Aslan is incomparable to anything else in existence; he is far too great and remarkable to be put side by side with any other creature in this world. Do you at least know your name?"

The girl nodded. "Caitlin."

Nodding slowly, Mrs. Otter stood. "Caitlin, I have a guess as to what may have happened to you, but I believe that you will hear it better with a full stomach. I promise that I bear you no ill will."

Caitlin stood up slowly and followed Mrs. Otter into the little den once more.

Before she closed the door behind her, she looked back at the blossoming landscape as confused as she had been upon waking up.

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Review, please! Love, Fausta