Chapter 8:
Sean was surprised to find himself sitting in snow. He turned his head to look at his surroundings and gasped at what he saw. He nudged Ginny who was lying next to him and jerked his head in the direction of where he was looking. Her eyes widened when she took in the sight. Trees, as far as the eye could see, all covered in snow.
"There shouldn't be any snow, it's summer." Ginny said quietly. By now everyone was looking at the woods. Peter and Susan got up and pushed a branch aside to get a better view of where they had arrived.
"Impossible." Whispered Susan in awe, it all seemed so absurd, one moment they were in the wardrobe and then they were here.
"Don't worry, I'm sure it's just your imagination." Came the slightly teasing voice of Lucy as she moved to stand next to them. The rest of the Pevensies looked at her startled, only then realising that their little sister had actually been telling the truth all along.
"I suppose, saying we're sorry would quite cover it?" Peter said hesitantly as he took a few steps towards his sister while Susan looked at their surroundings once again.
"No it wouldn't." Lucy said with only a small hint of mischief in her voice, then she threw a large snowball at Peter that hit him in the face. "But that might!" she finished.
Peter laughed and grabbed some snow, made a ball out of it and threw it at his sister. Sean took some snow and threw at Ginny who threw a ball back at him, only she missed and it hit Louisa. Soon all the Pevensie children were having a big snowball fight, all except one, Edmund was staring in the distance not paying any attention to his siblings. When a stray snowball hit him in the arm he covered the place where it had hit him as if to protect himself.
"Hey, watch it!" he cried to no one in particular. This stopped the fight and all eyes turned towards him.
"You little liar!" Peter rounded on him, fury evident in his eyes. Edmund unconsciously took a step back.
"You didn't believe her either!" he tried to defend himself. However, his brother wouldn't be fooled by this and stepped even closer to Edmund.
"Apologise to Lucy." He growled. As Edmund didn't make any move to do so, Peter practically shouted at him. "Say you're sorry!"
"All right! I'm sorry." He said with a quick glance in Lucy's direction but still keeping his eyes fixed on Peter.
"That's all right." She said "Some little children just don't know when to stop pretending." She finished. It didn't escape anyone she had just used his own words against him.
"Very funny." He said, then turning back to Peter he asked in defiance, "What about Robin?"
"What about him?" Peter asked with a puzzled look.
"He was here too!" It came back to Peter then, Lucy had exclaimed excitedly that Edmund and Robin had been here too, yet Robin had never spoken about it. He turned to Robin who clearly gulped when all eyes turned to him.
"He's right Robin, why didn't you defend Lucy if you had come here before?"
"Well it wasn't as if you were going to believe me. Besides Edmund said he was just playing along, I didn't know what to do then. You would've thought me mad, just like you thought Lucy was!" he was babbling and he knew it. This was probably the lamest explanation he had ever given.
"Actually, we told him not to say anything." All eyes turned towards Amelia at this, things were getting even more confused by now.
"You see we have been here as well," said William
"Yes, right after Lucy told us for the first time,"
"Amelia had this theory about why Susan couldn't enter when she tried and,"
"we decided to test the theory"
" and we ended up here." The two of them finished together.
"But then, why didn't you say anything?" Brigitta asked of them.
"We thought you wouldn't believe us." Amelia said, a small tinge of regret in her voice.
" I told Robin not to say anything because I knew it would bring problems. I'm sorry, I know it wasn't the best thing to do." William finished lamely. His sister put a comforting hand on his arm while the others looked up in astonishment.
"Well, what's done is done, we can't change anything. What do you propose we do now?" Ben asked looking at Peter. He really hoped they would stay. Instead it was Susan who answered.
"I think we should go back. The professor will be looking for us."
" Can't we at least have a look around?" Louisa asked.
"Yeah, now that we're here I want to see what it's like!" Ginny added.
Peter looked at everyone for a while then turned his attention to Lucy.
"Well, I think Lucy should decide." He said with a smile, Lucy's face lit up with joy when she heard this.
"I want you all to meet Mr Tumnus!" she said with a huge smile on her face. Peter couldn't help himself but to laugh as well.
"Well to Mr Tumnus it is then!"
" But we can't go hiking in the snow, dressed like this!" Susan protested, wrapping her arms around her body to prove her point.
Sean had already foreseen this and moved towards the wardrobe, he took twelve coats and returned to his siblings.
"No, but like this we can. Put these on." He said while giving the coats to his siblings who took them eagerly. "I'm sure the professor won't mind, in fact, if you look at it logically we're not even taking them out of the wardrobe." He finished them with a flourish. The others snickered, the twins and Robin had told them what been said in the professor's study and it was clear Sean had quoted Susan just to unnerve her. She glared at him and practically ripped the coat out of his hand.
Sean passed one to Edmund, who didn't have one yet.
"That's a girl's coat!" Edmund exclaimed backing away as if the coat was poisoned.
"I know." Sean shrugged and thrust the coat in Edmund's hands.
The twelve siblings set out to Mr Tumnus' house led by Lucy. She was chattering happily all the way explaining how she had first met Mr Tumnus and then the tea she had drank with him. All the while the other Pevensies were looking around them in wonder.
Suddenly Lucy stopped in mid-sentence, and looked in shock at something her siblings couldn't see. They gathered around her and it was then that they could discern a door in the cliff, it was hanging of its' hinges, clearly demolished by force. Lucy gasped as if shaken out of her stupor and ran for the house, quickly followed by the others.
She entered the house and saw everything was demolished, the painting of Mr Tumnus' father was lying on the floor, the glass protecting it was broken. The little kitchen where he had brewed her tea was one big mess, the tables and chairs in the main room were overturned, some even destroyed. Lucy could barely suppress a sob.
"Who would do something like that?" she asked in a whisper. Someone put a comforting hand on her shoulder but she couldn't see who it was, nor did she care, her mind was in too much turmoil to notice.
Peter stepped up to the wall, he noticed there was a piece of paper hanging there. Upon closer inspection he could see the paper was in fact a piece of parchment. He pulled it off the wall and scanned it quickly. His eyes widened when he read its' contents and he turned slightly towards Sean who had come to stand beside him.
"The faun Tumnus, is hereby charged with high treason against her Imperial Majesty, Jadis, Queen of Narnia. The reason for this charge is fraternizing with humans. Signed: Maugrim, Captain of the Secret Police. Long live the Queen." Peter read to his siblings, when he had finished Louisa snatched the parchment from his hands and read it again, as if to be sure Peter had been saying the truth.
"All right, now we really should go back!" Susan said looking at Peter trying to make him agree with her eyes.
"But what about Mr Tumnus?" Lucy shouted, she wouldn't be able to live with herself if Mr Tumnus was in danger because of her.
"If he was arrested for being with a human I don't think there is much we can do." Susan tried to convince her youngest sister.
"You don't understand, do you?" Her sister began in a soft voice, " I'm the human! She must have found out he helped me!"
"Maybe we should call the police." Louisa offered.
"These are the police!" Susan said while waving the parchment to make her point clear.
"Don't worry Lu, we'll think of something." William quickly reassured his sister, earning himself a death glare from Susan.
"Why?" came Edmund's voice, everyone looked up startled and turned to face him. "I mean, he's a criminal." He finished.
"Oh, so you think being with Lucy is a crime? Well, that obviously makes you a criminal as well, doesn't it? Maybe you should just turn yourself in to the police." Ginny practically spat at him. She started to advance towards him ready to continue the argument but was stopped when Robin put a restraining hand on her shoulder. She sighed but didn't argue any further.
They were distracted by a bird that had landed on a tree branch just outside the front door, and that was making a lot of noise.
"Did that bird just 'pssst' us?" Susan asked in a hesitant tone.
"I think it did." Ben answered.
Sean moved out of the house, followed by the others, they advanced towards the bird but it flew away as if nothing had happened. Still not trusting it the children moved very silently, not daring to speak as if that might cause something bad to happen. Suddenly they heard a branch cracking and unconsciously they moved closer together. Peter in the lead he kept advancing though with much smaller steps, Susan had her hand on his shoulder and he grasped it slightly to give her comfort. Sounds seemed to be coming from everywhere at once and Lucy had a small flashback to the first time she had met Mr Tumnus.
Suddenly a beaver appeared from behind a rock. It sniffed the air for awhile before coming closer in their direction. They visibly relaxed and they stood a bit more apart from each other.
"It… It's a beaver." Lucy said unnecessarily surprise and wonder clearly audible in her voice, she had never seen a beaver before and to see one here was quite surprising. She thought beavers lived near rivers and she hadn't seen any river here. The beaver kept sniffing the air and advancing towards them in almost a straight line.
"That's quite an odd behaviour for a beaver. I thought they were wary of humans." Brigitta whispered to Ginny, who nodded. Peter stepped away from the group an advanced towards the beaver with his hand outstretched.
"Here boy,… here boy." He said, making soft clicking noises with his tongue. He was now so close to the beaver that if he moved his hand just a bit more he would be able to touch it. The beaver in the meantime had moved to his back paws and was looking at Peter's hand as if wondering what to do with it. Finally he looked Peter square in the face.
"I ain't gonna smell it, if that's what you want!" the beaver said. Peter moved his hand away as if he had been burned, several gasps were heard from the other children and Susan's eyes had widened to the size of saucers. Lucy and Brigitta giggled a little after they had recovered from their initial shock.
"Umm, sorry." Peter murmured, quickly stepping back towards the rest of the family.
"Lucy Pevensie?" the beaver asked. Lucy stopped giggling immediately and looked at the beaver in surprise. She wondered how he knew her name.
"Yes?" she asked hesitantly while she slowly advanced towards the beaver. Seemingly out of nowhere he pulled a white handkerchief and held it in front of him. Lucy's gaze was drawn towards it and she recognised it immediately. She took it gently out of the beaver's grasp and held it up for closer inspection. She felt rather than heard her siblings gather around her.
"Hey, that's the hankie I gave to Mr…"
"Tumnus." The beaver finished for her. "He got it to me right before they took him."
"Is he all right?" Lucy couldn't help but ask.
The beaver just motioned for them to follow him and left in a hurry. Peter and Lucy immediately fell into step behind him when they were stopped by Susan.
"What are you doing?" she asked
"She's right." Edmund backed her up "how do we know we can trust him." Edmund asked. Robin slowly shook his head, his brother was beginning to confuse him more and more.
Peter shrugged slightly, to be honest he didn't really know but he felt they could trust him.
"He said he knows the faun." He offered. Susan gave him an exasperated look.
"He's a beaver. He shouldn't be saying anything!" she said.
"Everything all right?" the beaver asked from a rock where he had climbed on to check on them.
"Yes, we were just talking." Peter said quickly so as not to raise ay suspicions.
" That's better left for safer cause." The beaver said in nearly a whisper.
The Pevensies looked at each other, puzzled until Lucy explained to them.
"He means the trees." She said looking up at the trees around them.
"Oh, that explains everything then." Sean said with sarcasm in his voice. Peter just sighed, shrugged once more and made to follow the beaver. After only a few moments of hesitation the rest followed as well.
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