P.E
Chapter Twenty-One: Premeditated Enchantment
By Tonzura123
Disclaimer: Imagine if disclaimers didn't exist, and every writer on this site could say otherwise. It'd be chaos. Sheer chaos.
"Oh Lord, save the king! Answer us when we call!" Psalm 20:9
I might have blacked-out.
"Susan? Susan!"
Perhaps more than once, if the anxious quality to my sister's voice was anything to go on.
"Lu?" the sound of her endearment, though softer than even I could hear, felt like someone had stabbed a knife through the base of my throat and was slowly ripping it upwards. My stomach was still turning from earlier- its contents swishing first one way, and then hesitatingly tilting towards the other. I didn't dare move or upset its uneasy balancing act. Instead, I released a breath that had been unconsciously caught in my chest, a small groan riding it out of my mouth. A groan that was, blessedly, alone in its journey up my esophagus.
"Susan..." Lucy let out a loud sigh, the air stirring against my cheek. I could just sense her face hovering above my own, but didn't open my eyes to greet hers, for fear of allowing the bright light glowing through my eyelids to drive its way past my pupils and into my throbbing skull. It felt like a very nasty hang-over, if Peter's past confession was anything to go by.
"Susan?" Lucy asked again, warm hand covering my forehead. I leaned towards it.
"M'wake." It was somewhat true, "Sick..."
"Hamilton thinks the shrimp might have been bad," my sister murmured, and I could feel the frown etching her lips.
Bad shrimp. So I'd gotten food poisoning. I'd read about food poisoning.
Then, "Hamilton?"
"The Physical Education teacher. You need to be more careful about what you eat, Susan," she teased, with that put-on motherly nag coating her words, "You should know better…" A reference to our past life. It was like our current one didn't even count.
I made a sound of agreement, though I would have normally been put-out by my sister's poking fun, but my mind was on other thoughts. Like why my heart was tugging at me in accordance with the snake coiling and writhing within my digestive track. Like why my chest was being pinched through a small needle and being pulled back out again: tight, loose, tight, loose, screaming, sighing, tensing, relaxing...
I knew this feeling.
"But I had the shrimp too," she went on, and her hand had started up a steady rhythm against my hair, smoothing back stray tendrils into the waving sea I'd tied back for dancing, "Maybe only part of the batch was spoiled? It seems very odd that a rich school like this would buy any sort of bad food, though. Can you imagine the trouble we would have had if something like this happened during an International agreement or peace treaty? As if we didn't have enough enemies to begin with…"
I concentrated on my chest, calmed to rational thought by my sister's babbling, her easy and light voice. I focused on that feeling. That nostalgic sense building and waning in my chest.
Where had I felt it before?
"Peter's calling for an ambulance now. In the other room," the hand petting my hair seemed to still, but only for a moment, "They might have a little trouble getting here, what with the storm coming and all. But once they do, they'll be able to help you at the hospital."
Wait. Peter wasn't with us? Wasn't with Edmund? But Edmund had collapsed. I peeled my eyelids open again (they had slid shut during the gentle petting of my head) and tried to crane my neck around my sister's form. My stomach jolted frettingly and I groaned aloud.
Where was Edmund?
"Ed?"
The hand didn't restart as quickly as it had before.
"Mr. Hamilton took him to the medical ward until Peter had you sorted out," I felt her breath mist against my cheek as she leaned closer to me, dropping her voice, "That boy, Thomas Macintosh, carried you in for us."
My eyelids fluttered and I squinted through the lights to see a hazy, black-suited form leaning beside the door. Our only exit.
Lucy, as usual, read my thoughts, "He doesn't seem the bad type," she confided to me, slight warmth now brightening her face, "He's very worried about all of this. And I don't think Peter would let him so much as touch you, if he suspected otherwise."
Peter! My thoughts refocused. Peter and Edmund were separated from each other. From us.
From food poisoning?
A twinge of discomfort flared up in my temples, and I weakly raised a hand to pin them down, setting my lips as I clenched my eyes shut tightly, concentrating on what I knew, that odd feeling urging me on. Lucy said nothing, but rested a hand on my shoulder and gripped it a bit, encouraging me to hold on.
Edmund had collapsed. Yes. Except-
-He hadn't eaten any shrimp. I'd watched him clear his plate. And-
-Ed had collapsed after he'd run Lucy around the ball room. He'd been fine. He'd gone down. Something else-
-Fever? My mind brought up an image of twin reds spots on his cheek bones.
Facts were clicking through my mind, printed out on light tan pages, the black ink typing out in front of my eyes, scrolling across Lucy's face while she peered curiously down at me, the fluorescent lights haloing her auburn hair. I had read about food poisoning, of course, in a few of the medical texts Peter had bought in London. Upon our return from Narnia, the four of us had fallen prey to a few of the diseases rampant in Finchley. Common colds, influenza, stomach bugs and the like. That may have been the first indication of Peter's chosen career path- he had been forced to play doctor more than once to keep us healthy.
'Symptoms four to thirty hours after consumption...'
I had vomited up my dinner not an hour following the meal.
'Severe vomiting, abominable pains, headaches, cold sweats, collapse...'
But no blood. I remember the dark red blots that peppered the ghastly mess on the floor.
'Usually during the summer months...'
It was winter.
'Peculiar taste...'
Nothing had tasted odd- As a Queen I knew better than to eat anything suspicious.
"Lu..."
The feeling in my heart seemed to swell, the pinching feeling cutting off my breath.
-Pinching!
Pulling.
"It's magic!" I gasped, and in my exhilaration of finding the source of my weakness, a small boost of epinephrine flung my hand out where it grasped a firm hold on my little sister, not bothering to lower my voice in urgency, "Lucy, I haven't been poisoned!"
"You've been bewitched," Lucy concluded in a whisper, though not looking anywhere as triumphant as I felt, "Oh, Susan. You've been bewitched!"
My elation popped in one, swift rupture of my realization of exactly what the use of magic to separate the four of us could mean.
"Oh, Aslan," I whispered, as I struggled to sit up, "Edmund."
OoOoOoOoO
Edmund had visited the old blast furnaces in the Narnian mines many times.
It was part of their working contract with the Black Dwarfs that resided there. They were monstrous things, the furnaces. Standing well above many of the surrounding homes and towering over even the mighty pine of the Great Western Wood. In the winter months, the furnaces kept an artificial summer alive for a good part of the woods. In the summer time, they were nearly impossible to approach without fire flaring up on one's person. During the Hundred Year Winter, it was even said that the dwarves that were told to run coal to the Mighty Furnace so often for war production, and that they kept the fires so hot, that workers were burned to a crisp in the opening of the doors. There were few Creatures or Animals that could stand that awful heat.
And a Son of Adam was certainly not one of them.
Fire. Pure and dry and agonizing- a white-hot blade that was splitting his very bones with angry, sparking waves of flames. It was as though someone, some merciless, hate-bred someone, had dipped his body into the Furnace's vat of molten iron, making the solid pain encasing his being as something inescapable. He was trapped within his own form, in his own mind with nothing but that plunge into consuming fire. It was the final straw. More than he could take. There was nothing Edmund had every wanted so badly- the want to give up the fight to this insuperable heat.
Let it end. Let me die. Let it end, Aslan-!
An icy pain brushed stinging burns across his cheek.
"Hush, there, Brunette. No one's gonna die," an animalistic snort, huffing cold wind onto his face, "I doubt your brother'd let you."
Brother. His brother. His Peter.
Peter!
"Yeah. Yeah, Peter. He's comin' for you soon. I'm just getting you set up for the doctor. Don't you-"
Peter. He needed to know. It was starting and he still didn't know-!
If Edmund had been anywhere remotely near his right mind, he would have realized he what he was sharing aloud.
"Go back to sleep, Edmund. You're not making any sense, kid."
A jostle shook Edmund's spine and he cried out, tears soon evaporating in the arid air concomitant to the febrile atmosphere that radiated from his body.
"Sorry, kid. You're getting a little heavy. And really hot, too. We gotta cool you down."
Peter...
"He's coming, Edmund. I swear to you that he's coming."
...I'm so sorry. Peter, I'm so...
Another jostle, but this time there was no pained voice or escaping tear. There was no strength to. Aslan, this feeling. This burning, aching feeling…
It was too much.
Too much. Too fast. Peter, I'm sorry. I thought I could handle it. I thought I could save you.
"None of that, Brunette. You hold on 'til we can fix you up, all right? God, you Pevensies are so-"
The fire was suddenly clearing out from his mind, leaving his bones to ache as charred limbs. Edmund had grown acquainted with Death in his years as the Just King. It would be difficult for him to not recognize that old friend now. He needed more time, if only to confess the truth to Peter. If only to warn them of things to come, because of him. If only to find a way to keep them safe a while longer.
Protect them.
"The only one that needs protection is the idiot that fed you two bad shrimp. Blond's gonna rip them apart, mark my words."
The burning darkness was filling with a gentle light.
Aslan, forgive me.
A wave, cool, refreshing, consuming, enveloped his mind and body. From the Furnace into the beautiful depths of the Eastern Seas. Weightless. Worriless. Witless.
Waned.
"What the Devil is an 'aslan?' Work with me here, Edmund. I can't do much good if you're off on some cloud somewhere. You hear me? Hey!"
But Edmund Randall Pevensie had stilled in the large man's arms.
OoOoOoOoO
Patrick Laney Hamilton, son of a notorious World War I Lieutenant from a long line of war officials, had been immersed in all things battle, tactic, survival, and control. At age five, he knew three ways to kill a man with the bayonet end of a rifle. At age twelve, he knew what to do when a comrade was injured in battle. And for all of his life, his father and grandfather had regaled to him what it felt like to kill, what it felt like to feel the life pour out of your buddy's body while you watched him pass on. He'd seen dead men. He'd seen dead women.
He refused to believe he was seeing his first dead child.
"Pevensie? Pevensie!" Hamilton shook his precious package again, fears strangling his heart when the young boy remained as slack-faced as before, "Edmund!"
Breathing with extra care, and lowering the form of the youngest Pevensie male to the cold, marble floor, Hamilton laid Edmund out flat, and tucked his dress jacket beneath his head, especially minding the old injury of the boy's spine from being bent too much. It was disturbingly easy to move his loose arms and legs around. Nothing at all like the restless movements that Edmund had shown before, when he was still out cold from his rugby pile-up.
He fumbled for the thin, blue-veined wrist that flopped uselessly next to him, feeling slightly better with the idea of seeing what he was looking for-
-But still not finding.
"Okay," Hamilton puffed anxiously, "Okay..." He reached forward and placed his fore and middle fingers into the pale crook of Edmund's neck, digging in slightly as he, with increasing fear, attempted to find his pulsing jugular.
All was still.
"Oh no, you brat. You don't get to duck out like this. Not like this. Come on," sucking deep gulps of air between trembling lips, Hamilton pushed two fingers into the boy's neck determinedly, and laid one ear above Edmund's airway, struggling to contain his heavy breathing in order to listen for something (anything, really) to whisper out of the boy's mouth, "Come on-"
Footsteps clicked down the hallway, fast and barely controlled. They went unheeded. A terrible, lifeless silence had swallowed them whole.
"No!" Hamilton whispered, not believing, rocking back from the prone form on the glistening ground, "No- What..." A terrible thought struck him violently, leaving him gasping for air, "Oh, God, what am I going to tell your brother?"
"Problem, Hamilton?"
The clicking had turned to faint hiss of black fabric robes behind Hamilton's bowed head, and the rugby coach found that he didn't need to turn to envision the look of lofty indifference on Headmaster Collin's face.
"It's Pevensie. He's- Well, he can't be- What do we- Oh, God!" he made as if to turn away from the boy, his glasses catching faint sources of light within the dark hall as he twisted his head around angrily, "Where's that ---- ambulance?!"
"Calm yourself," Collins soothed, his voice was smoother than liquid glass and twice as cold, while patting the bald crown of the shaking man's head, "Your conduct is grossly indecorous. After all, this is exactly the way he wanted it."
Hamilton rested a trembling hand onto Edmund's chilled cheek, turning his head on the jacket so that his closed eyes were facing the two men hovering above him. He looked like he was only sleeping.
"How can you say that?" Hamilton asked, his voice low, "He was so young. He had so many years ahead of him, and he was going to do something with those years and... Now...Oh, God, what is his brother going to do? If I know him… This is going to ruin them!"
"Hmm," hummed Collins, unimpressed, he shuffled about his deep pockets, "Not really so young, it would seem. Surprise, surprise. It appears that young Mr. Pevensie was hiding more than one secret from us…" His head cocked to the side, a grotesque doll's head with doughy cheeks and glazed crystal over his hollow eyes, "And as for his potential-" he nudged one black pant leg with his shoe, "I can't say that I ever really expected him to amount to more than a doormat."
Hamilton stood abruptly, whirling so that he had a considerable fistful of Collin's front robes before the Headmaster could so much as blink. In the next second, he had slammed the other man against the hard stone wall behind them. Outside, the storm had blocked the full moon and was dragging its lumpy weight over delicate stars. Low moaning echoed from the trees while freezing winds whipped mercilessly against them.
"You be careful what you say about him, you two-legged pig! He was a far better man than you could ever be, and I hope to God that before he's been buried like a proper Christian your pompous --- has been booted to a park bench and your grubby little hands are gripping a tin cup!"
"They'll bury you first," Collins said acidically, and brought the dagger up from his pocket to slam it into Hamilton's aching heart.
He didn't stop until the blade was buried to its bloody hilt.
OoOoOoOoO
"Hurry up so I don't have to baby sit all evening, would you, Blond?"
Peter doubted very much that the man knew how quickly the High King could move where his siblings were concerned.
With Susan secured on the small cot in Hamilton's office, and with the Valiant Queen posted as sentry to her safety, a small, razor bladed knife tucked into the inside edge of her jacket cuff, Peter felt slightly less guilty for leaving the room to make the phone call for the ambulance.
Still, he had pulled Thomas aside while Lucy was supporting her sister about the waist, and, desperate for a substitute of Edmund's normal position, asked him to watch over the both of them, and alert him immediately if anything worse transpired.
Thomas had been all too eager to help.
Now, with one hand impatiently tapping the edge of the rotary phone hanging on the wall inside the second of three private offices, and the other crushing the earpiece against his quickly reddening ear, he gave his explanation to hospital for why he, a minor, was asking for medical assistance at nearly ten o'clock in the evening, when there were plenty of able adults to do so.
In polite, but, frankly, terse words, Peter gave the secretary on the other end of the line a brief recap of events, asking her to please hurry and do her job so that his sibling's conditions didn't worsen, or anyone else fall sick.
The hospital secretary had told him the ambulance was dispatched and curtly wished him a good day before she abruptly hung up on him.
'Well, then…'
Chuckling, Peter put the piece on the rung and bent his head so that the crick in his neck would pop back into place, gathered his jacket and tie from the floor beside him, and walked back into the room with his younger sisters-
-Only to attacked upon reentry.
"Peter!" Lucy cried, jumping at him before his second foot could clear the doorway, "Peter, you have to go after Edmund!"
And his heart choked.
"Peter, you have to listen to me," Susan was saying now, dragging herself upright, one hand pressed gingerly against her waist, "It's magic; It's not food poisoning. There's something tugging at me- I can feel it!"
"I don't know what they're talking about, mate," Thomas was muttering, almost nervously, "One minute, they're fine. The next? They're talking nonsense about magic and witches and all other weird hoogadoo."
Small hands gripped his own and tugged sharply downwards, magnetizing his eyes to meet the cerulean gaze of his littlest sister.
"Peter, you have to believe us! We think they're after Edmund! Something's wrong! You have to find him before-"
"Nothing's wrong!" Thomas was trying to be soothing, reaching forward, around Peter, to detach Lucy's hold on him, "I'm sure your brother is just fine. Here, sit down and-"
"I will not sit down, young man!" Lucy barked, wrenching her arm away from the Scotsman in a fiery burst of anger, "Don't you dare tell me what's real and what's not! This danger is very real. My brother may be dying! So you do us all a favour and sit down before you get hurt!"
Thomas sat hard on the pallet beside Susan, his young face working to overcome utter confusion, "Young man?"
It was like being placed in the middle of the white rapids of the Great River. No matter where he turned, he was pummeled by another new, truth that knocked the wind out of his lungs and threatened to completely submerge him. He didn't want to think about what all of this could mean. Because, if he did- Well, he'd just killed his own brother, hadn't he? He'd promised him. He'd sworn. Given his oath to the trusting wonder that was his one and only brother- And now…
A trembling energy was vibrating through his body, leaving his fingertips twitching in unexplainable power. It craved an outlet.
Lucy was focused on her brother once more, "Peter? Peter, you have to go. I'll stay with Susan. You can go. Just make sure- Stay with Edmund until all of this is sorted out, okay? It's just this feeling- I know this feeling…"
He had to find him. He just had to find him.
"Magic," Susan said again, she looked anxious enough to start vomiting again, and the green tinge around her eyes did nothing to discourage the thought, "It's dark magic. Sort of cold and pinching. We have to hurry before-"
"-OUT OF THE WAY!" someone bellowed outside the doors, and Peter found himself unexpectedly moving, years of war time experience influencing him as he fluidly slipped to the door and cracked it just enough (and just in time) to see Cain Jacobs, of all people, barreling across the gym floor. The wheezing boy was pushing straggling guests out of the way while he made a harsh beeline for the phones. Behind Peter, Thomas had poked his head out of the office to see what his best friend was yelling about.
"Cain? What are you-" the Scotsman blanched.
Cain's skin was sprinkled with a fine layer of bloody freckles.
Peter stepped in front of him, hand reaching out automatically to snag him by the upper arm in passing. Cain jerked on the end of Peter's grip as if he'd been clothes-lined, his eyes were wide, blood shot, and absolutely panicked.
"Let me go! I have to call for help! Hamilton-! He's-"
Peter looked at the blood staining Jacob's frantically scrambling hands, "Dead."
Thomas groaned, sounding highly nauseated by the entire ordeal. That one word seemed to lock Cain up on the spot, and he fearfully looked up to meet Peter's stare. Whatever he saw, he swallowed heavily and weakly tried to pull away again.
"Dead? Alive? I dunno. He was just bleeding everywhere and I- I-"
"Panicked," Peter supplied again, roughly releasing the boy from his hold, "Typical."
"What? I- What's wrong with you?" Cain shouted, "I just told you I think someone's dead and you're perfectly okay with that?! What kind of-?"
Peter picked Cain up by his lapels and slammed him against the wall beside the phones.
"Oi!" Thomas yelped, face green, "Is that really necessary?"
"Show me."
"He's outside the gym, you freak!" Cain struggled, feet scraping against the wall in search of ground, "I dragged him all the way over here!"
"Peter!" Lucy's voice joined the fray, and filtered smoothly through his ears, "What on earth are you doing?"
"Lucy," Peter said, without looking to her to meet her frightened eyes, "Call the hospital again and tell them there's an injured teacher. Cain is going to show me exactly where he found him. Aren't you?"
"Why would I-"
Peter pulled him forward until they were practically touching noses.
"Listen to me, you playground ne'er-do-well," Peter murmured softly, "My brother is in this school somewhere, and he needs me. When he needs me, I help him. Now tell me: Do you really want to be the only thing standing in my way when I have to tear this place apart looking for him?"
"Peter," Lucy warned, toned low, "Remember Aslan. You're losing control. We don't know if Edmund is hurt yet. Save your strength; this boy isn't of any use to you if you knock him out first thing."
The High King stilled, more internally than they could see in his body. The difference was astounding; the moment his mind was properly situated, something seemed to click behind the frozen, indifferent gaze of ice that he had been pinning against the other boy. Whatever it was, that manic turmoil barely checked, it seemed to vanish, or at least be pushed down, and the robin's egg blue softened. The stormy grey calmed. He took a deep, slow breath, and released it carefully, loosing his iron grip from Cain's collar before stepping back. He seemed dazed.
"It's still not finished," Peter said, as though even he didn't realize what his words meant. Lucy reached out to him and squeezed his warm palm, wrapping her other arm around his middle, as high as she could reach.
"Just remember Aslan. And take this," from her sleeve, she extracted a gleaming silver blade that made Cain and Thomas stare at the Pevensie pair, dumbfounded.
"How'd that get there?" Thomas wondered, watching as Peter gave a small, grim smile and plucked the knife from her fingers, wrapping it in his fist with an air that was far too practiced.
"Thanks, Lu," Peter kissed the top of her head, "Pray for fast flight."
"And a faster fight," the young Queen replied, kissing the empty palm she still cradled, "Aslan be with you, my King."
"And you, my Queen," he blessed her forehead once more and turned away, "Thomas, you stay here with the girls. Lock yourselves in the office and don't come out for anyone but the paramedics. Come on, you."
Grabbing Cain by the scruff of his neck, and slipping the blade into a free belt loop, Peter made for the gym exit, his footsteps echoing off the high ceiling in perfect sync with the unearthly judder of his heart within his chest.
"Peter, wait!"
Susan stood weakly against the doorframe, lanyard hanging from her limp fingers, "The master keys Hamilton gave us- You may need them," with a mighty effort, she underhanded the jangling set across the minute distance and into her older brother's poised hand. Clenching them as though they were his last tie to earth, he spread out the loop and slipped it over his head.
"Thanks," his throat was tight, "Now rest. I'll bring Edmund back soon."
"I know you will," she smiled bravely, tears glistening while Lucy wrapped a strong arm around her waist and eased her off the entryway, carefully leading her back to the cot to lie down. Thomas gulped, and nodded to Peter, then shot a scrutinizing shot at his best friend, who immediately looked away. Thomas nodded again and backed into the office. Peter didn't start moving again until he heard the tell-tale click of the lock.
'Aslan, watch over my brother. Protect him even when I cannot.'
His only answer was a rumble of thunder from the storm descending on the school campus.
A/N:
In the next chapter, we learn Collin's history. And his true purpose for using Edmund. If you haven't read the books, you may want to brush up on them. This plot is about to pull a corkscrew. ;D
I'm going to work hard to get the next chapter out on a reasonable date. You all are so wonderful about telling me what you thought about the story, and how much so many of you look forward to the next one. Please don't think that I'm giving up on this story- I have the last ten chapters planned out. There will be brotherly love, plot twists, action, magic, and (as always) a lesson. Hope you all have a great week!
As Always,
-Tonzura123
New Vocabulary:
concomitant- accompanying
indecorous- improper
insuperable- unable to be overcome
judder- to shake noisily or violently