Author's Note: thanks for the reviews!
Disclaimer: Jack Lewis owns all of Narnia. This storyline is mine. Thanks!
Chapter 11
"Sometimes I get tired of trying to convince him that I love him and shall love him for ever. He pounces on my words like a barrister and twists them.'
- Sarah (The end of the Affair}"
I pulled away from the crowds in the ballroom, stepping out into the balcony. The London skyline wasn't exactly the sea-crashing waves of the Golden Coast. Instead of warmth, the chilly gust of evening November blew at me. I gripped the railing, anger welling inside myself.
The evening was turning into a disaster. I had had enough of Derek's jealous rampages, him assuming that any lad or gentleman that spoke to me or I looked at had the intentions to steal me away. I wanted to scrape Derek out of my life for good. I knew his rants and anger episodes were disruptive and destructive.
One time he had broken a writing desk because he threw a chair against it when he thought his best friend was giving me the eye.
He was also one of the reasons my family and I always fought. They wanted me to leave him, find another suitor.
"You have plenty to choose from, Susan," Mother had said one night, looking tired and worried. "You don't have to put up with that brute."
"He's not a brute," I argued back, the living room filled only with me, Mother, and Father. Father had looked equally as disturbed, edgy with anger.
"You will break your connections with that man," Father had warned. "Look how bothered your mother is," he came and sat next to Mother, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"I'm sorry if he upsets you," I apologized, "but I'm not leaving Derek."
"You dare defy me, young lady?" Father's voice had grown quiet. I could see his jaw muscles work at trying to contain his anger.
"I'm old enough to decide who to court me or not."
"You're a child!" boomed Father, standing up.
"I'm 20 years old!"
I let out a sigh, that memory fading into the dark corners of my mind. I didn't like Derek that much. Of course he was among the most eligible bachelors in London society, from a good family where money and businesses were concerned, and was handsome.
I stayed with him because he had allowed me to be "grown up." I met him right after I had returned from America. While everyone in my family still doted and talked to me as if I were a 12-year old, he looked at me as a young woman. He was my "guide" in the London society.
But that guide came with a price: his temper. Many girls had warned me of his angry outbursts, the reason a girl didn't last long with him. I knew I had to hold on to him. He was my ticket into the right social circles.
He was also vastly different from the king I had chosen to forget. In a way, Derek was a welcome distraction.
But distraction had turned into destruction. Even the reasons I had given myself to stay with him was waning in comparison to my reasons for leaving him. I couldn't take his attitude anymore. Not only was the relationship already stifling, the bruises along my upper arms were already an ugly array of blues, purples, and yellow-greens.
"Susan…Susan?" came a sing-song voice. I recognized Derek's voice. I looked in the other direction, looking for another way out of the balcony. "Where are you?" he taunted.
"Oh God," I whispered, quickly making my way to the other balcony doors leading to a different part of the house, away from the ballroom. I slipped out of my heels, reducing the likelihood he would hear which way I went. Picking up my skirts, I stealthily made my way through the house. Luckily I've been to many parties, so many of the house designs in London were similar. I soon found myself in the master library.
The smell of leather, cigar, and the tinge of wine permeated the air. The fireplace was lit, but no one was in the couch in front of the fireplace. I had expected smoke curling up from a lit cigar, that cigar held by some balding individual. But the room was empty.
I sat before the fire, warming myself. My skirts rustled around me. I looked at the grandfather clock in the corner.
9 PM.
I wanted to go home already. But leaving the ball without Derek, without an escort, was unheard of, something that was frowned upon. I'd have to wait out the party till 11 PM.
I lied down on the Persian rug, staring up at the dark unseen ceiling.
I had thought that if I immersed myself in this world, I'd forget about the pain the other world had caused me. In trying to rid myself of the pain from Narnia, I had pushed even Peter, Edmund, and Lucy away from me. Just seeing them reminded me of Narnia. Of him.
How I wanted so badly to forget it all!
Now I see that was folly. I had blindly run into this world's pain. From pain to pain. In the end, it still hurt.
I don't want to hurt anymore. I'm too tired. I could hardly breathe from the confusion I willingly buried myself in. How do I get out of this?
The doors of the library started to open. I sat up quickly, pulling my skirt away from my feet as I made to hide behind a Japanese divider. I crouched low, praying that whoever it was wouldn't look behind the divider.
"…history of our family, quite the bedtime story, really," a voice theatrically said, and then other voices spilled into the room. I heard their footsteps lightly plodding into the room, skirts swishing and evening shoes slapping against the warm wooden floors.
"Oh, do tell us, Cline," encouraged a female. "We do love stories." A chorus of agreement sounded.
"Well," began Cline, leading the group toward the farther end of the room. I could tell because their footsteps were growing faint, but Cline's voice was very much audible. "My father's ancestors weren't originally English. No, they were a dappled people from different coastlines, different waters."
"Mixed?" asked a male.
"Don't make us sound like the street dogs, but in a way, yes," said Cline. "Sea-faring brigands."
"Pirates!" gasped a female.
"But we were the rich kind," laughed Cline. "Just comes to say that piracy is not merely plundering and pillaging, but a skill, technique to be learned and mastered."
"You make it sound professional," said the same female.
"Oh it is, my lady. Also knowing how the seas move as if she were your woman, that's an art all in itself."
"How romantic!"
"So," a new voice came, "how was it that your ancestors settled in England? By chance? Choice?"
"Both, you can say," said Cline. "When the captain and his trusted council circle went missing when exploring an island just off the coast of Spain, the remaining crew thought to sail away, saying the island was cursed. The next time they saw land it was England, and they've stayed ever since."
"This captain, does he have a family here in England, too?" asked the same voice.
"No, his council and his women and their women were the ones who disappeared. Fearing the same would happen to the crew and their women, they sailed away. But from what the tales told of him, he was a great navigator of the seas, the seas very much his woman as his woman was his wife."
"I would have been a very jealous wife if I had been her," giggled another female. "What was his name?"
"The Pirate Cordoval Caspian II. Come now, the rest of the party will begin to wonder where the host is," Cline laughed. And so the Duke Aldo and his entourage left the library.
I remained motionless, remembering to breathe only when my chest started to ache with lack of air.
I slowly stood up and made my way toward the far wall where the group had stood in front of. It was a painting of a ship at bay. What made me gasp in surprise was the eight-edged compass-star, the centerpiece of the coat of arms of the Aldo clan. I reached up a hand and ran my finger along the canvass.
I had seen this before.
On Caspian's shield.
Pulling my hand away, I wanted to cry with frustration. I knew it was useless. His memory would haunt me wherever I went. There was no escape.
Orieus had set me free, allowing me to love anyone I chose to. He wasn't angry at me. He truly was a friend. Perhaps the only fond being I treasured from Narnia.
But Caspian? He represented the side of me which I could never become again. I could never love any man the way I had loved Caspian. So it seemed Orieus had been right: Orieus could never love me in the way a human husband could.
"I hate it when you're right," I whispered. I could almost hear Orieus' chuckle, something I thought I had forgotten an eon ago. I stared up at the coat of arms again, a strange pull, a magnetic force propelling me forward. I stood just a few centimeters away from the painting, the enormity of it taking up an entire wall.
I looked up, rubbed my eyes and shook my head. This couldn't be! The painting…it was moving!
The ship was gentling rolling back and forth on the waters of the bay. The full moon's glow was a bright beam of white light, bathing the ship and its crew in milky radiance. The sails were sleepily swaying in the breeze. I could even hear the slap of the waters against the hull of the ship.
But what made my eyes widen in fear were the stars. They were dancing, and showing a scene. The stars might as well been a group of lighthouses flaring all at once. This was clearly a dance of danger, distress, of torment. Ramandu's Daughter was not among the stars.
What was happening?
You will be left behind.
Left behind? From what? I wanted to ask the stars what they meant, but then I realized the cold truth: they couldn't read my thoughts, they couldn't hear me. These Narnian stars were in the Narnian sky. I was in London. They can't even see me! But then, how was it that they could communicate this message to me?
Everyone that you love will leave you. But the one you left behind will be the one to take you.
Those stars! Their messages could mean anything!
"Perhaps you should stop trying to interpret what they say but rather listen to what they say."
I squeaked in fear as I spun to face the voice. It was an old man, the old man I had been imagining who would have been sitting in front of the fireplace when I entered. Oh boy, my imagination has run away, and now it had a voice!
"I am not your imagination, and of course I have a voice," the old man chuckled. I stepped back and felt wall hit the back of my heel.
Ow! I cursed under my breath. The old man stepped closer to the painting and sighed deeply.
"Beautiful night," he mused, regarding the painting.
I kept silent. Who was this? Then his words sent a shock through me.
"What did you mean about the stars?" I blurted. He turned and smiled at me.
"With the sort of training you received to read stars, I would think you wouldn't doubt your intuition," he said calmly.
"Training?" I felt my lips go dry. I could feel my knees shaking, as if they knew the next words would send me to the floor.
"I think your husband would be most disappointed if he found out that you've been neglecting your training," his grandfatherly face showing concern. "But then again you do have a justification: the stars in this world don't dance."
"Oh my –" I sank to the floor, my back pressed hard against the wall. I stared in horror at the old man as if he had pierced a sword through my chest. "Who are you?" I shook.
"My child," he crouched down to my level, his smile of kindness and concern never wavering. "It's time you came home."
"Home?" I mouthed, my voice not working. I hugged my knees.
"Yes, to my country."
"What do you mean?" my voice croaked. Fear was gripping my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
"To the land beyond the Great Eastern Sea, beyond the Silver Sea, beyond the Eastern Edge of the World. But," he stood up and looked at the painting again. "Before you can join the rest, a task before you, you must carry out."
"Task?" I scoffed. "Isn't what this entire existence on earth is? A never-ending painful task," some of my fear was replaced with anger. Who was this old man to talk me so?
"Let not your anger take hold of you, dear one," he said. He was the image of a sage, a wise man with his circular bifocals balanced on the bridge of his nose, his balding head reflecting the shimmery light of the fireplace and unearthly flare of the stars from the painting. "Find him."
"Excuse me?" I edged away.
"He has entered your world. But now he must return before the doors in which he can enter my country are closed off to him forever. Find him, Susan, to save him, and to save yourself."
"First of all, sir," I shook my head. "Who is he? And what country are you talking about?"
"Listen to the stars, Susan," he took hold of my shoulders. The way he said my name sounded so familiar it was scaring me. I turned to the stars.
The Navigator King has left this world. His descendents rule Narnia. The Navigator entered the world of the kings and queens of old, allowed by the Great Lion.
"Caspian's here?" the words clogged my throat. How could that be? That was impossible!
The Great Lion has placed the queen on the task to find the Navigator.
The Great Lion has placed –
"Oh dear God!" I backed away from the painting, my eyes searching the library, searching for the old man. But it was empty. "Aslan."
