Finding Narnia
A Chronicles of Narnia Fanfiction by Darkened-Storm
Disclaimer: I, Darkened-Storm, own only my plot, ideas and characters. C.S Lewis owns The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Any characters you do not recognise from his series, including Stephanie and Rebecca Pevensie, are my creations.
Chapter Four: Into the Wardrobe
Things improved over the next few days for Lucy. Peter saw to it that Edmund stopped jeering at her and they all made sure not to bring up any talk of the wardrobe so that Lucy eventually stopped talking about it herself. During the days, they walked outside, tried their hand at fishing (they never caught anything) and even played a game or two of cricket.
Peter made good on his promise to teach Steph how to play. She found it quite fun to hit the ball as hard as she could, but she couldn't hit it as far as Edmund, and nowhere near as far as Peter could. Becky and Susan both proved to be quite poor at either of those things, so they took turns as the wicket keeper. Becky was the only one to get Peter out by throwing the ball at the wicket when he was out of the crease.
Lucy began to get more involved as the days went on and her mood seemed to cheer up. Edmund's mood, on the other hand got worse.
"Why can't we play Hide and Seek again?" he asked, looking sour. He hadn't been paying attention when Peter had last bowled and had been hit by the ball himself. Steph knew from catching the ball time and time again that cricket balls were very, very hard and hurt when they hit you.
Peter tossed the ball from his left hand to his right. "I thought you said it was a kids game," he jeered and Edmund pulled a face.
"We could use the fresh air," Susan said pointedly.
"It's not like there isn't any air inside," Edmund grumbled, but no one paid any attention to him.
"Are you ready?" Peter called to his brother. Edmund tapped his bat against the ground and shouted back; "are you?"
Peter bowled again, with perfect form and this time, Edmund swung. A resounding clunk sounded as the ball connected with the bat and both Steph and Becky readied for the catch. The ball flew off in Becky's direction and she jumped for it, but that ball soared far over her head and towards the house.
A moment later there was a smash and the glass window broke, and then a crash and a bang as the furniture inside the house fell. Edmund dropped the bat almost at once. The children looked at each other, knowing they were all in very big trouble.
"Come on," Susan said. "We better go look." They left the cricket bat and the stumps on the grass and went back inside.
"It was the third window on the east side of the house," Steph pointed out and Peter led the way up the stairs. He counted the rooms with windows until they came to the long room with the suit of armour. The armour itself was no longer standing, but was sprawled out on the rug and its helm had rolled across the room. Steph stared in dismay at the suit, wondering if it could be put back together again.
"Well done Ed," Peter told his brother, not at all impressed.
"You bowled it!" Edmund exclaimed, as if that made Peter partly to blame.
"Listen," Becky said, holding up a finger for them to all be quiet. They listened, heard footsteps coming up the stairs and a shrill voice say; "what on earth is going on up there?"
Susan's eyes grew wide in alarm. "The Macready!" she exclaimed.
Forgetting his annoyance at Edmund, Peter grabbed his youngest sister by the arm and beckoned them to follow him. "Come on!"
They raced from the opposite door of the room and down the long hallway and down another flight of stairs before Peter tried a door on their left. As he turned the handle they heard footsteps from the other side of the door and realised that Mrs Macready must have taken the back stairs instead of the front stairs they had expected.
"Run!" Becky exclaimed, and ran up the stairs on the other side. Edmund hastened after her and the rest followed as she led them into the library, though the many shelves and out into a passageway. They thought they may just be in the clear when they heard the footsteps once again from the other side of the door.
They ran through the house, Peter leading once again, ducking through passageways and corridors until he stopped outside the door to the dining room. He hushed all of them and pressed his ear to the door. Sure enough, they heard the pat-pat-pat of footsteps once again.
Impossible, was Steph's only thought. They must have run halfway across the house and she was fairly certain the Macready couldn't run as fast as they could. Someone, or something else must be following them – or some sort of magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into Narnia.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Peter grinned and said. "She's faster than she looks."
"In here," Steph suggested, and Peter tried the door, the same door Lucy had tried when they had played hide-and-seek. It was still locked, so Edmund rushed to the next door and pushed it open and they all followed him inside before they realised which room it was.
The Wardrobe Room.
"You've got to be joking," said Susan, but Edmund was already pulling the wardrobe door open and beckoning them inside.
"Come on," he said.
No one moved. Steph contemplated running for another room, but the Macready's footsteps could already be heard down the hall. They were sure to be caught if they tried to leave now. Peter seemed to have come to the same decision because he pushed the girls forward and tugged Lucy behind him.
Edmund was already in the wardrobe and Susan helped Lucy into it and Becky went after them. Steph hesitated, wondering if they could all fit inside, but Peter ushered her in then climbed in after her and pulled the door closed behind them - he didn't shut it, because he knew how foolish it was to lock his family inside a wardrobe in a spare room.
It was unsurprisingly squishy inside the wardrobe and Steph tried to move back as far as she could and accidently trod on someone's foot. Becky gave a yelp of alarm and Peter said "shush!" and there was a lot more trodding on toes as Peter ushered them back until they were all pressed up against the back of the wardrobe. Lucy had to sit in Becky's lap so they could all fit. "Do you think she's gone?" she whispered.
"I don't know," said Steph. She was crammed between Peter and Edmund, her back pressed up against Peter's shoulder and Edmund's bony elbow jabbed against her side. She wriggled her arm free and accidently knocked Peter in the chin and he yelped quietly. "Sorry," she muttered.
"It smells horrible in here," Edmund muttered. "Camphor is terrible stuff."
"I expect the pockets of these coats are full of it to keep the moths away," Susan said sullenly from behind them. "And isn't it rather cold in here?"
"Now that you mention it, it is cold," Peter mumbled in agreement, "and hang it all, it's wet too. What's the matter with this place?"
"I'm sitting on something wet!" Becky moaned. "It's getting wetter every minute and it's making me wet! It's disgusting!"
"Come on," Susan said, "let's get out. Surely the Macready's gone by now." They all got to their feet and shuffled forward, trodding on each other as they tried to find their way back to the door.
"Bother, I can't even see the door through all these coats," Steph muttered. It wasn't until then that she noticed her voice had a curious sound – it wasn't muffled by the wardrobe, but rather sounded like it did when she was outdoors.
"Over there," Becky pointed towards the light behind them and they shuffled towards it, except that Steph had the feeling they were going further into the wardrobe than out.
"Edmund!" Susan exclaimed. "That's my foot!"
"I'm not on your toe!" Edmund argued.
Steph received a very hard jab in the back and whirled around to snap at her sister. "Becky, don't poke!"
"Would you stop shoving!" Peter snapped at everyone. He stumbled, lost his balance and brought Susan and Steph down with him.
"Ooff!" Steph muttered as her bottom landed on something that was fortunately soft, but alarmingly cold. And wet. She looked down to find not the wood of the wardrobe, or shoes or coats that one might expect to find in a wardrobe, but something white. "Snow?" she exclaimed.
She looked around and instead of seeing the back of the wardrobe, she saw Lucy's world. A magnificent white forest stretched before them as far their eyes could see. Steph spun around and felt the coats still hanging in the wardrobe behind them – the same wardrobe that had been just a wardrobe when she'd looked inside it the other day.
"Impossible," Susan whispered as she and Peter pushed their way through the trees to get a better look.
Lucy stood a little ways ahead of them, a delightful smile on her face. "Don't worry," she said, "I'm sure it's just your imagination."
Peter, his eyes wide with astonishment, turned to her and said; "I don't suppose saying "We're sorry" would quite cover it?"
"No it wouldn't," Lucy said and she threw a handful of snow that hit her brother in the face, "but that might!"
Peter gasped in shock, his hair and face both wet, then he scooped a handful of snow himself and threw it back at his sister. Then he threw another handful that hit Steph square in the face.
"Whoops!" he said, and very sensibly ducked when Becky threw a handful at him, and Susan joined in. Snow flew this way and that and they all laughed hysterically until one of Susan's snowballs hit Edmund on the shoulder.
"Ow!" he exclaimed. "Stop it!" He didn't look very happy to be inside the wardrobe at all, but nor did he seem as surprised to be in a snow covered forest as they did.
It's almost as if he knew all along that Lucy was telling the truth, Steph thought to herself, and she suddenly understood why Edmund had been so ghastly to Lucy the past few days. He hadn't liked to admit that his younger sister was right and he was wrong.
Peter rounded on him. "You little liar," he said fiercely. "Apologise to Lucy." Edmund hesitated, but Peter pressed him. "Say you're sorry!"
"All right!" Edmund exclaimed, "I'm sorry."
Lucy didn't seem quite so upset anymore, now that they could all see her world for themselves. "That's all right," she said, but then added cheekily; "some little children don't know when to stop pretending," earning a smile from Peter.
Susan shivered in the cold and looked longingly back into the wardrobe. Steph guessed that a world inside a wardrobe was a little too surreal for Susan and the younger girl looked like she'd much rather go back to the house and forget all about it. "Maybe we should go back," she suggested.
"Shouldn't we at least take a look around?" Edmund countered.
Despite the cold, Edmund's option was the more appealing one. The only other option was as Susan said, to go back, and Steph was in no hurry to go back and face the Macready – not when they were all wet from the snow, which would undoubtedly raise more questions than any of them wanted to answer.
Steph looked at her sister. Becky's eyes were bright with excitement and she clearly wanted to explore. In fact, she looked more excited and happier than she'd been since they day their father had left, and Steph had no desire to dampen her sister's spirits – or Lucy's.
"Don't you think Lucy should decide?" Steph suggested to Peter. "This is her world after all? And I think we all owe her a treat for not believing her."
"Agreed," said Peter. "What shall it be, Lu?"
Lucy's face lit up. "I'd like you all to meet Mr Tumnus," she exclaimed.
"Then Mr Tumnus it is," Peter declared, and stepped past Susan, who quickly pointed out that they couldn't go hiking in the snow dressed the way they were.
"No," Peter agreed, fussing with something in the wardrobe, "but I'm sure the Professor won't mind us borrowing these." He returned with six coats, three smaller ones for Edmund, Lucy and Becky and three longer ones for Steph, Susan and himself.
Lucy and Becky pulled theirs' on at once, but Susan was hesitant. "If you think about it logically," Peter insisted, "we're not even taking them out of the wardrobe."
No one argued after that (except Edmund, who protested to wearing a girl's coat, but Peter made him put it on anyway). Lucy led the way to Tumnus' house, all the while chatting excitedly, talking about sardines and tea that the faun would make them.
I suppose, Steph thought, that if there really could be a world inside a wardrobe, then it wouldn't be all that much more extraordinary to find a faun in there.
It was a long way to the faun's house through the cold icy snow, and neither Susan or Edmund seemed to enjoy it, but spurred on by Lucy's chatter, and looking forward to tea and cakes themselves (Steph wasn't really looking forward to the sardines), they followed her without complaint.
About ten minutes into their trip, Lucy came to a stop beneath a lamp post. "What's this doing here?" Becky wondered, tapping her fingers against the lamp post and causing tiny flecks of snow to fall from it. The post itself was three times her height and made of solid iron. A tiny flame burned within the lantern.
"Why – it looks exactly like one of the lamp posts in London," Susan declared, drawing closer.
"Do you know – I think it is from London," Steph said. "Only, we have electric lamp posts now. I wonder how it got here." She put her hand on the post and when she did she had got the feeling that it seemed to be very much alive.
"Come on," Lucy said, drawing their attention from the lamp-post. She was growing more excited by the minute and eager to get on. "We're not far now, it's just over those hills."
The wood thinned out just passed the lamppost and as they neared the edge of the forest Steph the hills Lucy had told them about. The ground ahead sloped downwards towards a small valley where she assumed the faun's cave would be.
"Watch you don't fall down," Peter told them sensibly, as he led the way with Lucy. Becky followed happily behind, then Susan and Steph with Edmund grudgingly bringing up the rear.
"Trying to sound like Father again, he is," he mumbled under his breath. "I said from the beginning this was a horrible idea, but none of you listened."
"Oh, do stop grumbling Ed," Steph said, letting the others get a few paces ahead before she went on.
"You can't blame Peter for your behaviour," she told him fairly. "You were the one who lied to us about the Wardrobe, why should we listen to you now?"
"No I don't expect you would - you're all just as bad as each other," Edmund grumbled.
Steph sighed in frustration. "Peter's trying to do the best by all of us, Ed," she told him pointedly. "You'll have a much better time of it if you stopped being so hard on him."
She was pretty sure her words fell on deaf ears – or even if Edmund did listen, he would twist her words around in his head so that she and Peter were once again doing wrong by him. Leaving Edmund to be murky by himself, she struggled through the snow and caught a hold of her sister's hand. On they walked, with the path getting rougher in some places and where there was no snow the ground beneath was cold and slippery and, despite his words, Peter was the first to fall down.
"What was that you said about not falling down, Peter," Becky teased. He tossed a handful of snow at her and she ducked out of the way, giggling.
When Susan fell down only a few minutes later, Steph half expected her to have a fit and demand they all go back home. Instead, Susan laughed and waved her arms in the snow.
"Look, an angel," she declared, pointing at the snow.
"Looks like a fuzzy Christmas tree to me," Peter teased. Susan scowled at her brother and lobbed a handful of snow at him before they continued on, with Lucy still in the lead. She grew more and more excited as they went on, chattering constantly.
"It's just around the corner now," she said. "Mr Tumnas will make us some lovely tea and we'll have lots and lots of…"
She stopped short and gasped. Peter, Susan and Steph both came to a sudden stop behind her. Becky, who hadn't been paying attention walked straight into Peter.
"Ow," she muttered. "Why've we stopped."
"Shh," Steph hissed, bringing a finger to her lips and with the other, pointed at the house in the cave.
The door had been wrenched off its hinges and broken to bits. The entrance was covered in snow that was days old and inside the cave was dark and lifeless and Steph knew at once what had happened. The faun's house had been invaded.
Thank you to all my loyal reviewers. Chapter four breaks the 10,000 word mark (hooray!) I am changing my writing schedule to updates fortnightly instead of weekly in order to have some time to write a second Narnia fanfic. As always, thanks for reading this chapter and please leave a nice review.
