Edmund
The forest always made me feel jittery. Even for the purpose of war or for the purpose of running away from something, it was always able to send streams of excited energy from my skin, as if my soul could linger out of my pores to feel the natural beauty of the earth. It could take a grasp at vines twisting around the trunks of trees, extending from the bark and leaving the ground undistinguished.
Eleanor was running quietly beside me. Overgrown grass and low-lying branches swayed themselves into our path. Dragonflies flew up from the riverbank we ran along, buzzing past our laughs when suddenly, I'm looking at her, seeing her finally. Her wings extended outward from her back, white and serenely placed as if painted from her. Suddenly I can't see her face as she has run ahead, and I am left in the midst of seeing white overtaking this landscape of green.
I stopped. Eleanor continued to run ahead, leaving the shade of the forest and entering out towards a cliff; towards the sun. At the precipice of earth, she sat at the edge and looked back at me.
She began mouthing words I couldn't catch sound of, but as I moved slowly from the forest her voice entered my ears, soft and sad and quavering.
"I'm just going to miss them," she admitted sadly. "Will it hurt?"
Baffled in confusion, the smile fell from me as I looked around for someone else she could have been addressing, but no one was there; just Eleanor and I and the sun rising ahead.
"I'm just going to miss them," she repeated, turning to me when all in one movement her wings were gone, standing before the land dropped off sharply.
I tried to go to her but felt my body caught at the edge of the forest between the Narnian world and the world she could bring me to. My voice, caught in my throat, made me restless.
There were tears streaming down her face as she shrugged her shoulders in defeat.
"Will it hurt?"
My eyes widened as she stretched her body out, standing on her tip-toes. I expected that she would float from the cliff and into the open air, though as she began to catch the sun's rays in between her fingers, her body collapsed on the ground.
A chest full of suppressed air had me lurched forward as my eyes caught sight of Lucy's room. Still dark out, my sister's form illuminated only slightly beside me. My voice threw itself out before me without thought.
"Not in the end," I said suddenly. Perhaps I was finishing a conversation from my dream, though all I could remember was the sight of Eleanor at the edge of that cliff.
Immediately I got up with intentions of going to that place, recognizing it like I would have recognized the back of my hand, but Lucy stirred beside me.
I halted, standing over the bed as she glanced up at me from her pillow.
"Where are you going?" she wondered, her voice silvery and eyes glowing.
My voice caught in my throat, suddenly feeling unable to answer.
"I saw a cliff," I began, glancing at the door behind me. "I think it's where Eleanor went."
I had to pause as she stood from the bed, my fingers suddenly beginning to tingle in nervousness.
"It's not a good feeling, but I want to know."
"I'm going with you," she said without hesitation. "If you're to argue, let me just say that you shouldn't go out in the middle of the night alone, considering all that's going on-"
"I'm not going to argue," I spoke calmly, grabbing my cloak and walking towards the door. "C'mon, then."
"Edmund! Don't run so far ahead!" Lucy called from behind me. We had just ascended the back steps of the castle into the open darkness. I stopped, watching her reach the grass before resuming into a slow jog.
"There's nothing ahead of us. Not yet," I spoke to her, hearing her footsteps patter behind me. The outline of the forest was still far ahead, though no sooner I found I could hear the rustling of leaves from the field. No sooner I reached the first tree.
Lucy leaned against it as we both looked back at the castle, illuminated only by a single lamp post at the back door. A fear rose within me, wondering if anyone had seen us.
Lucy's voice interrupted my thought. "What do you think we'll find of Eleanor?" she asked quietly, cheek against the tree's bark.
My younger sister's disposition was calm, often filled with a repose I could never latch onto entirely, though now her eyes were wide as she scanned the grounds of the castle.
"I don't know," I answered, though I wasn't quite sure whether or not that was the truth. An image flashed before me; Eleanor's body lying at the edge of the cliff, lifeless.
An unsettling sourness filled my throat.
"Let's go," I breathed, turning to the darkened forest. I could sense that Lucy, not far behind me, had also grown uneasy.
"Ed, you don't think she's dead, do you?" she asked painfully. I didn't stop walking, holding branches from our path as I remembered that the forest made me feel jittery. Even in Narnia, there was a supernatural element to it I could not explain. Now it held me from something that felt so final; so inevitable and unstoppable. Still, it hurt to realize this, as the forest began to feel unfamiliar. I couldn't see the life it was full of, merely pushing it out of my way to get to the other side. Vibrant greens were blackened in the dark. If I had not known of this place in the daylight, how could I have ever been able to know what it held now?
I realized that I never answered my sister's question, so hurriedly I responded, "I'm expecting the worse, Lu. That's all I know."
Her breaths began to shake as there was a trample behind me. Turning, I saw her getting up from the ground, wiping her cheeks.
"I'm not ready, Ed!" she wailed. It seemed all in one moment she went from being fine to being reduced to tears. As I reached to hold her arm, she pulled back from me, shaking her head.
"I can't go!" she cried, leaning her forehead against the bark of a nearby tree. I didn't know how to assuage her cries, unable to grasp how unreal this moment felt.
I watched as her breaths softened until all that was left of her cries was a light glisten on her cheeks.
"The funny thing is…" she breathed, still titled against the tree, "is that I'm not even afraid of losing her."
Her eyes glanced up at me, defeated and dejected.
"I'm afraid of forgetting how important she was to me. I know that one day will come where I'll see her again. But until then, what do I know? How can you stand there, Ed, knowing what may or may not lie ahead? What will become of us in a year from now? What about ten years from now? I'm just going to miss her, so much..."
"Lu, stop-" I interrupted softly, grabbing a hold of both her arms. "You have to have faith. Have courage that things will turn out all right. You've always told me that. What's suddenly got you so upset?"
"My best friend is dead," she snapped, teeth gritted. "And you're in denial. I know that and I can't blame you. It's just how you're dealing and I have to understand it, even though I don't."
The sourness in my throat dripped down into my abdomen, making me feel small in the dark forest.
"It's a shame," my sister breathed. "We have no solution to get rid of the White Witch. Eleanor feared there was too much to be risked by keeping her alive. I never wanted it to come to that, but it has."
"We don't know what lies on the other side," I reasoned, before Lucy interjected.
"Yes. You do," she spoke, her voice shallow and barely above a whisper. I found myself unable to do anything but stare at her, both of us just specs of dust in the midst of an entire universe. Lucy could sense my loss of grip on what had been going on when I, too, leaned against the bark of the tree.
We were close to reaching the end of the forest. Not far behind us, overgrown grass and protruding branches partially blocked the sky from my view.
"It's going to hurt," I said suddenly, eyeing the minimal sky I could see and unable to tell what the grass hid from my sight of the ground. "But I'm not going to remember this, not really. I'm going to remember the time Eleanor and I traveled to Anvard together. And though I hadn't officially declared I liked her, I still knew I cared a lot for who she was. I'm going to remember all the times she's made me laugh, all the times she's driven me crazy."
"How can you just forget this?" my sister asked.
"It's not about forgetting," I argued, and then turned to face away from her, about to continue on my path. "It's about realizing that the good outweighs the bad. Bad things happen to good people, Lu. That doesn't change who we are. We got to know her for a little while, didn't we? A year ago, I didn't know who she was…"
My words faded from me as I approached the edge of the grass, imagining my dream and trying to prepare myself for this moment.
Nothing can prepare you for grief. Because as my eyes laid on her lifeless form at the precipice like I had seen in my dream, I realized that there was still some residual hope within me that I wouldn't see her there. I wouldn't see her unruly, dark hair matted slightly over her face. I would see her standing at the edge, prepared to run at me in joy so I could hold her for another moment. Even as inevitable as this was, it still hurt. Nothing can prepare you for that.
My knees buckled before Eleanor as I moved the hair from her face, sensing Lucy had just come from the trees behind me. I heard her crying softly as she dropped next to me on the ground, shoulders shaking.
"El… El… El… " I spoke, my forehead dropping to Eleanor's as my eyes squeezed shut. I was terrified.
"I'm sorry," I breathed, my brain wracking itself for something I could say to her. "You didn't deserve this…"
I whispered these things to her, as if she could hear me, before I rose slightly. Lucy's arms had worked themselves around my torso as she rested her head on my back. I felt us rocking back and forth until I found my head dug in my sister's shoulder. Only briefly a while later did I catch sight of the sun beginning to rise over Eleanor, when Lucy and I separated.
Previously overtaken by sorrow, a newfound warmth radiated within me as my eyes set on the sun. The sun, which felt to have been hiding for so long, still sent its rays of orange and pale pink onto Narnia, making it lighten again.
"Aslan…" Lucy breathed suddenly, as I felt her warmth leave me. Turning, I saw my sister approach Him, wrapping her arms around His torso and dig her face in His mane.
I stood but didn't step any farther from Eleanor, eyeing the lion and my sister.
"I'm sorry it must be this way," Aslan spoke smoothly. I felt unable to attain His words as Lucy remained beside Him. I could sense that He didn't let Eleanor go without seeing her, without talking to her.
"Her purpose is served. There's no other reason," He said, and then assured, "Eleanor was selfless in her final hours. She ended the possibility of the White Witch returning, and she ended the suffering of the winged creature. This world… it isn't cut out for someone like Eleanor Astley."
"What's going to happen now?" Lucy asked, returning to my side. "How are we supposed to bring her back to the castle and tell her family this?" she paused, shaking her head. "I can't even bear the weight to think about it…"
"Lucy, you cannot forget that you are strong," the lion spoke softly, eyes landing placidly on Eleanor. "You will soon learn what your future holds."
My sister seemed distracted by His gaze, but still she refused to look at Eleanor for longer than a second. "What happened to her, Aslan, before she died?"
He walked to this edge of the cliff, mane rustling in the oncoming wind.
"Eleanor struggled in her last days. Her life before the war and her life after were too different for her to see herself as the same," He said. "Irreconcilable, it seemed. She was altered because of the change, but I assure you, she knows she is more than pieces strung together by adversity."
He turned from us. I knew He was preparing to depart.
"Things will soon change for you all. Time will reverse itself. For a long while, you may not remember-"
"Not remember?" Lucy repeated in doubt.
"Yes," was all He said, and then slowly He began to separate from us.
"Just look out at it…" He spoke calmly, indulging in the Narnian horizon. "That's how the end will feel. You'll see."
When He was gone, I turned back to Eleanor's form. Her skin appeared golden as she lay in the sun, even though she was long gone from this place.
The series of events that followed were hard to distinguish from one another, though I could recall reaching for Eleanor, pulling her into my arms, walking back through the forest and having to face the grassy field before the castle. Lucy stood beside me, silent, as we were left without cover.
There was still a hope within me that Eleanor would wake in my arms and I wouldn't have to bear another second without her, but I was left with vast emptiness. The emptiness deepened when the guards had caught sight of us approaching the castle. They lined the halls we entered, Ordires holding the back door open for me and my sister as eyes laid on the form in my arms. Her arm, though limp, never extended out towards the floor.
At our entrance, the heads of the guards bowed as we made our way down the hallway. Past them, there were the sounds of murmurs and cries. My sister and I were ushered into a side room, where I laid Eleanor on a couch as we waited in anticipation.
I was told that those close to Eleanor would be sent for, but I couldn't comprehend even the simplest words as I leaned against the wall beside the door. The situation was beginning to settle into me as reality. Eleanor's skin was losing its color.
Lucy stood beside me the entire time as people came and went. The first to come was Evangeline. She flung the door open as I remembered that she had an unusually keen clairvoyance on sensing bad news. By the time I registered her entrance, she had dropped to the floor. Cries rattled from her as she kissed Eleanor's cheek.
Peter, Susan, and Caspian entered together. When Susan went to Eleanor's side in shock, Peter went to Lucy and me and embraced us in his arms.
"I'm sorry," our brother whispered to us. It didn't bring me comfort. I felt I had been punched in the gut, because now it had been confirmed how painful this was supposed to be.
The first of Eleanor's family to enter was Sophia. The rest of us were on the sidelines. When she entered, she looked upon Eleanor for but a moment. After that, she scanned the room as if she believed herself to be deluded.
That was the worst part.
To see Eleanor's brothers and father join Sophia, I knew I couldn't bear that weight. I've been taught to bear the weight of wars and nations on my very shoulders, but that could never be accounted the same as this.
I found peace and solace at the windows of the room. To keep my mind from buzzing about the days events, I would observe the sun's journey upwards from what once seemed to be nothing. I feared sleep. I feared seeing what my mind would play before me in unconsciousness.
Hours after my return, there was a knock on the door.
"King Edmund?"
Out of all the voices I expected, probably one of the last would have been Eleanor's oldest brother.
Glancing away from the window, I watched as he shut the door behind him and approached me. I remained still. His eyes were red, though his voice sounded as though he had been unscathed.
"My condolences for your sister, James," I murmured. His eyes fell to the floor.
"I've heard from your brother that you plan a trip out into the country."
"Yes," I said shortly. I could see pieces of Eleanor scattered across James' face. "It feels strange to be at the Cair. We want to give your family time to grieve. My siblings and I are taking a trip."
He nodded, looking at his intertwined hands as I caught sight of a piece of paper in between them.
"Can I ask what that is?"
He answered me by unfolding the paper in his hand, gesturing it outwards in the open air.
"Evangeline had been holding on to it, though she never read it until now. Eleanor left it in the library a long time ago. Evangeline said she always forgot to give it back to her," he explained as I took the paper from him. I recognized writing, but still my curiosity got the better of me before I read it.
"Whose is it?"
"Eleanor's."
My eyes scanned briefly over her words.
"What's this from?" I wondered.
James stepped by my side, pointing to the top right corner of the letter. "Look at the date. It reads August the fifteenth."
My brows furrowed. "Eleanor's birthday..."
I sensed him nod in my peripheral vision, my fingers gripping the sides of the paper as I read the words before me.
15th August
Today I turn seventeen. I didn't expect things to get this good. I've forgotten what's its like to have a friend.
For reasons I can't explain very well, I've run into a new world: Narnia. That's what everyone's been calling it. It's inhabited by talking animals and magical creatures and though I've been told this is normal and conventional, some days I still feel like I'm in a dream.
Sophia is still in England. Though sometimes I feel in despair because of that truth, an unfamiliar sense of security wavers within me. I struggle with faith, but sometimes late in the night I'm given visions of her, as if foretelling what the futures holds.
I don't live alone anymore. I live in a castle with royals who all treat me better than I deserve. Lucy, who's become one of my closest (and only) friends tried to teach me how to use a bow. It's was quiet amusing, actually. Often Lucy and I will go with a very kind-hearted dryad, Evangeline, to the library and play games. It's the simplest things that make me feel the happiest here, I've realized.
And then there's Edmund. I don't know how to explain the certainty I feel around him. He's grown to become my best friend, and there's really no reason for it. We just get along so well.
I've fallen asleep against him in the library and he's taken me to jump off cliffs, but still none of that can surpass the way he looks at me. I wish I could capture its warmth in the palm of my hand.
I think I love him. He drives me mad. I used to hate the feeling of not having control of myself, but now I've indulged in it. With all the doubt I've faced in my life towards others, I know I can trust him.
If one year from now I'm still with him when I write again, then surely he'd be the best thing I've ever done. Surely I could count on that.
Yours,
Eleanor Jane Astley
"Why did she write this?" I asked.
James brought his attention to me, previously looking out the window as I had read the letter.
"Turns out it was sort of a tradition for her to write one each year after our family had been separated. That's what she told Evangeline when she had been writing it. Even as peripheral as she thought birthdays to be, she used them to mark a chapter in her life. I don't know who she did it for. All I know is we do have this one, and I wanted you to read it before you were to go."
"Thank you," I said, handing it back to him. "I'm glad you did."
He took the letter, refolding it in his hands carefully.
"She loved you so much, Edmund," he said, smiling. "I suppose I should thank you. I didn't know I'd see her again when we were apart. You took good care of her."
Biting the inside of my cheek, I nodded weakly. As his bid farewell and turned, I suddenly realized that his hand was reaching for the doorknob.
"Eleanor, she didn't forget you all!" I called, diverting his attention.
"She would talk of you often. Though it pained her to feel uncertain about when she'd see you again, I'll never forget how much her face had brightened up when she would talk about you; the music, the dancing, your dog..." I paused, "You meant a lot to her."
James nodded, a sigh of relief leaving him.
"Thank you," he murmured, departing from the room.
The next day my siblings and I were gone from the Cair. Though I wasn't aware of it, Aslan was working His magic. I wouldn't return to Narnia for another year from the day of Caspian's coronation. Time reversed and soon I would forget. I never wanted to, but what Eleanor has done was more than I could have believed her to have the capacity for. It has hurt. Maybe that's why it's been worth it.
Author's Note: This was a hard chapter to write, I'll admit. I suppose I've been in denial like Edmund was. I apologize for this update coming a few days late. I hope you all enjoyed the reading.
Thank you for reviewing and following: remarkables, annalavega, writtingmagic, SweetSunnyRose, VanillaSnowdrops, and Panda241.
Don't forget to review! Only two chapters left! :(
See you soon!
-JK
