London, England 1949
Eleanor
My eyes took in the landscape out the train's window. After passing the river that broke through knolls of grass, I knew London was approaching. I've been on this exact train route at least six times since James' started going to university in London last fall. What was new about this trip was that James had written to me last month about getting a job at a bank. He had assured me, however, that he wasn't planning to stay, though I saw it as a perfect excuse to take another weekend trip out to see my brother.
Spring was dimming over the peaks of the hills, waving its faint ray that glazed over the grass as if trying to say "Goodbye!" to all those who were looking out the train's windows.
It wasn't like London would lose the warmth that the countryside held in its mere appearance. There was a buzz in the people who lived in the city. They were always trying to get from one place to the next, never stopping. Their energy made up for the clouds of gray that so often hovered above.
I rested my head against the glass of the window, surprisingly cooler than I thought it to be, as I drifted off to sleep for the remainder of the train's journey.
The city was loud. Each time I stepped out of the train station's walls on my trips to visit James, I always remembered that it was so easy to forget how different this place sounded as oppose to the country, where my father, younger sister, and I still resided. I said still, because it was uncertain for me to know exactly how much longer I'd been staying there. For my time was coming too, to decide on where to school. If not that, then a steady job at least.
I readjusted my duffle bag on my shoulder as ran my head back and forth down the busy street, waiting for an opportunity to dash across the road. When it came, residual puddles of rain splashed up against the sides of my shoes. I stopped before a large building, recognizable as James had described it in writing. It was a dull shade of green, with water constantly dripping from the edge of its roof even when it wasn't raining. I hurriedly ascended its step to leave the busy street behind me.
Ironically, as I walked hurriedly to leave the crowds of the street, I was met by the crowds of the workplace. At the center of the office was a desk that wrapped entirely around a single woman, writing on something that was out of my eyesight. I used the crowds of people here to my advantage, seeing my brother's name stick out on the door in the opposite corner of the room. Hastily, I moved around the crowd and was seemingly unnoticed as I sneaked into the door of this office and closed it behind me.
"El…"
"You never told me you had an actual room, James!" I laughed, as he stood from his desk in disbelief and walked towards me. I dropped my duffle to the floor as he wound his arms around me.
Releasing me, he shrugged. "It's a small room, and I'm not serious about it anyway-"
"It's still exciting, though, to have a proper job," I interrupted him. He couldn't deny that.
He made his way back to the seat behind the desk as I sat at the edge of it, looking down at the papers that covered most of its wooden top.
"It seems so strange," I murmured, swinging my legs slightly. "I feel like you're too young to be working-"
"I'm older than you," he said with a laugh.
"I know that," I drawled, meeting his gaze. "Just whenever I think about our family, I always picture us like young kids. I miss that stuff, don't you?"
"Of course I do," he said without a moment's thought. Silence fell over the room as I tuned into the bustling of noises just outside the door. A clock on the wall, ticking back and forth, sounded that it was two o'clock.
"Do you want to go to lunch?" he asked me. "My break's just started. We can drop you stuff off at my apartment and then grab a bite somewhere."
"I never pegged you as an office type…" I breathed, eyeing the door of the small cafe we had found, a bell sounding whenever someone entered.
"I've told you a thousand times, El, it's not permanent," he chided jokingly, sipping a bit of his water.
The booth we were sitting in was a deep red, squished in the corner of the cafe right next to a great big window. The sounds of the busy street were diminished from the inside, though it still felt I was out with the light drizzle, honking cars, and rushed footsteps.
"It's good though, too, because I get the weekends off. Down at the park, under the gazebo they have a band play when the weather's nice. I'll take you there next time you visit."
He raised his eyebrows at the clouds outside. "If the rain decided whether or not it wanted to come down, I could have taken you this weekend. It's so hard to get the weather to be nice for a while. I heard it snowed a lot this year where you are, near Dover…"
"Yeah, it was strange how fast the winter hit us," I said. I couldn't believe I was talking to him about the weather. "One morning, it had snowed so much that huge snowbanks were around each and every corner, right? And then the next, when I was helping dad clear the walkway, water was dripping from the gutters."
He smiled down at his drink, crinkles forming at his eyes. I missed those little pieces of him.
"Do you have any idea what your plans are for next year?" he asked. My eyes widened in exasperation as I released a heavy sigh.
"I only ask out of curiosity," he told me quickly. "Honestly, El, you could become a clown and I'd still be proud of you."
"Yeah okay," I said jokingly. I was making sure he knew I was skeptical of his words. "I was hoping to go to school here soon."
"Do you know what you want to do for a job?"
"No…" I drawled, "and it bothers me that you're finally taking your life seriously. Now it's expected I live up to the bar you've set."
He smirked. "I'm sorry my mediocre-leveled success upsets you-"
"Oh, no. You're fine. It's not that…" I admitted, tucking my hair behind my ear. "I just wish I could travel or something. But that requires money, and that requires a job. I thought of being a musician, but there's so many good people out there I don't see why I would make it."
"If there's so many good people out there, why couldn't you be one of them?" he asked, poking my shoulder.
I rubbed the spot he touched lightly while sticking out my bottom lip, pretending I had been wounded. Really, I used the sarcasm and the over exaggerated expressions to dash around the kinds of questions he was asking me right now, or at least to expand the time between when he asked them and how long I could think to come up with an answer, even if my mind was blank.
"I could be a teacher," I said suddenly. "I've always liked the idea of it."
"Then try it, you can always do music on the side, like I'll try to."
I nodded. "Yeah. I don't think the music for you and me is for big crowds. We just like playing, don't we?"
"We probably got that kind of mindset from mum," he said, when suddenly I felt at unease. We never talked about mum. Not because we didn't love her; it just always felt strange to try to talk about someone I couldn't remember well at all. I was barely ten when she died, and over the years it's gotten harder and harder to recall distinct facts of her. We had pictures, sure, but those could only show the capacity of one single scene in her life. Dad mourned her often. I just wish I the memory to understand.
"How's Soph and dad?"
I halted my response, thanking the waitress who brought us our sandwiches, and began to twirl the straw of my drink around my finger.
"All the same. Soph's doing really well in school. She's up for some writing contest award."
"She writes?" James asked curiously, biting into his sandwich.
"Yeah, right? It surprised me, too," I said. "I asked her about it and she said she wrote stories, though she wouldn't let me see any of them. She said they were silly. She'll let me read the one she entered if it wins."
"Better hope it does then," my brother said easily, wiping the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb. "And dad?"
"He's doing well, too. Taking pictures and whatnot." James laughed. "I don't know what else to say of him! He's dad. You've lived with him. Nothing's changed."
"I'm glad it's still the same."
We continued to eat in silence. I didn't want to think of the future. I wish I could just float from one moment to the next, not obsessively worried about what I needed to do or who I needed to become. I just wish I could focus on the me, right then, eating sandwiches silently with my brother in dark and drippy London.
The rest of the weekend was nothing greater than monumental. We spent a lot of time playing music in his apartment, which ultimately led to his neighbors next door introducing themselves, knowing it couldn't have been James alone who was making such "pleasantly-sounding racket", as they had called it. That night, the day before I was to leave him again, we went to a jazz club where I got to pool a newfound sense of buzzing energy within me. Even cheap drinks tasted like the best champagne in the world when you were listening to music as good as the stuff I heard.
The next morning, as weary from lack of sleep as I was, I trudged down his apartment steps and made my way across the busy London street, back to the train station. Of course the day I was leaving was the one day where rays of sunshine spilled upon the residual puddles of rain, not a single cloud marking the vibrant blue sky above.
Edmund
"C'mon, Lu," I said, grabbing her arm and pulling her across the street. A still puddle of rain splashed against my shoe as we ran. My sister flailed her free arm out as we made our way to the train station, a surprisingly pleasant warmth radiating on my back from the sun above.
"When's the next train leave?" I asked Peter on my other side.
Looking up at the clock on top of the station, he squinted. "Ten minutes."
"We still have to wait for the Professor and Polly," Lucy reminded us. I nodded as we entered the bustling underground, weaving our way through the crowds of people. The lights lining the curved ceiling above often flickered. When we reached our platform, we sat on a bench before the empty tracks.
"I'm out of breath for nothing. The train's not even here yet!" Lucy mumbled, flopping down next to me on the bench with her arms crossed. Even feigned anger was amusing on Lucy.
Peter squeezed onto the bench from her other side, sitting in silence.
I was about to say that I felt like we had been here before, but then I realized we had. All those years ago, when we had gone and returned from Narnia to help Caspian. That felt like a different life I had held.
"Do you think Susan will ever remember Narnia again?" Lucy wondered slowly, eyes set aimlessly on the empty tracks.
I glanced over at Peter, unable to produce anything more than a defeated frown.
"Maybe one day, Lu," he said, putting his arm around her. "We shouldn't have to force her, though. Don't take it personally or anything. She'll come around one day."
"I just feel bad that she has to miss out of this stuff," our sister said despondently, shrugging out of my brother's arm as she stood from the bench.
She paced back and forth along the tracks until the train arrived. When it did, masses of people filled onto the platform, all making it that much harder for us to get on the train. Lucy, Peter, and I stood at the door as people flowed in, keeping an eye out for the Professor and Polly.
"I'm going to try to make sure we get seats," Peter said, disappearing inside. I squinted my eyes slowly as he left, just as I saw someone's hand raise above the crowd of people still waiting to get on the train.
I waved back.
"Do you see them?" Lucy asked. Nodding absently, I caught sight of the Professor and Polly enter the train a few cars down.
"We're good," I said, turning to my sister.
It didn't take long to find Peter, who had managed to get three seats for us in the middle of the car. We sat silently next to one another, waiting to begin our journey.
"Did you find the Professor and Polly?" Peter asked.
"They entered another car," I said, preparing to relax in the silence of the train as he nodded.
I felt my eyes closing as the wheels beneath us began to turn, glancing around languidly.
Suddenly my eyes popped open, the idea of sleep leaving me, as the train began to move and I noticed a girl leaning against one side of the threshold of the car, a duffle bag between her feet and a book in her hand.
She was pretty, and not the kind of pretty that was trying to make a big deal out of itself. She just looked so… natural. Her hazel eyes scanned the pages of her book as I felt as if she had always been there and now, it had been expected I would notice her for a long time.
Lucy, eyes closed on one side of me, didn't seem to notice where my attention had drawn. Peter, however I could see had smirked in my peripheral vision.
"Ed…" he drawled playfully in a whisper, looking between the girl and me. "Watch your eyes."
I glared at him. "As if you haven't done this before…"
"Yeah, but I talk to the girls I look at like that! Are you going to talk to her?"
He phrased his last question as if it was rhetorical. He expected me to say no. It must have been to his surprise, then, when I stood and began walking over to the the threshold, telling him to save my seat.
The girl didn't take notice of me as I leaned against the opposite wall from her. Glancing between her fingers, I noticed the words Romeo and Juliet pop from the front of the book.
"Bit of light reading?" I asked. She turned the page without answering, which lead me to believe either: a) she had ignored me, not interested, or b) she didn't hear me, which was still just as bad because I probably looked like a fool to anyone who had noticed me standing so awkwardly.
But then she sighed, lips parting. "I don't think I'd go out of my way to read this, but sure," she answered with a growing smile, eyes unfaltering on the page.
"Why are you reading it, then?" I wondered.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Wanted to see what all the hype's about. Without the poetic language, it's kind of pathetic, isn't it?"
"How so?"
"In order for a group of people to learn from their mistakes, two young kids have to die. And even then, we're never told whether or not the fighting stops."
"Wait, so you're basically done, aren't you? If you know the ending-"
"Why don't you think I've looked up, yet?" she asked in exasperation, though a smile still formed at her lips. "I'm on the second to last page!"
"All right. I'll leave you be for a moment. Tell me how the ending is," I told her. Her eyes continued to scan as I awaited for her to finish.
In that time, I turned back to where I had come from. Peter was sitting down, sending me an over exaggerated thumbs-up from across the train.
"Yep, you don't even find out if the fighting stops…" the girl murmured beside me. I heard her close the book.
"So it's not up to the hype..." I smiled, looking at the ground.
"I mean… I probably should have said it differently. The writing's great, but you want to strangle the characters sometimes, you know? And I feel like people like it because of the love story, but really that's not what you're supposed to be focusing on. You know what I mean?"
"I get what you mean," I assured her, the train coming to a sharp halt.
The car was silent for a moment as I continued to lean against the wall, wondering why we'd stopped.
Outside on the platform, a man and his daughter were waving frantically to the people on the train. I followed their line of vision, eyes landing on the girl opposite me.
"Do you know those people?" I asked her. She rebutted my gaze as her eyes immediately fell on the train's window, squinting at it in befuddlement.
"Yeah. That's my dad and my sister..." she murmured, reaching for her bag slowly. "I guess... I'm getting off here?"
"Don't sound so sure," I joked, watching her swing the duffle bag over her shoulder. Her mouth formed a small smile as she moved past me and out of the train's door, our eyes meeting for the most insignificantly seeming moment.
"It's been a lovely walk, King Edmund," she said, once back at the castle doors. "But I'm afraid now that if I don't head back soon, Evangeline will get worried."
"I understand," I responded, giving her one last smile. "It has been a pleasure. I'm sure I'll see you soon."
"I'm sure," she agreed while walking back into the castle, and then quickly before I realized, out of my sight.
Soon after when I began walking down another corridor myself, going nowhere in particular, I found Lucy walking into the dining hall.
"Hey! Where'd you go?" I called, running up to her and causing her to stop in the doorway.
"Just around."
"Yeah, but you just left us there."
"I didn't even notice," she said sheepishly. "I suppose only the sunset held me at that point."
"Guess so," I said pointedly, causing her to laugh.
"Oh Ed, was she really that boring?"
"Wait!" I yelled, receiving strange glances from the others on the train. I turned around and nearly leaped onto the platform, ignoring Peter's call out from behind me. The girl, already decently far from the door, was approaching her family when I began to run. I stopped abruptly when I sensed she heard my call and turned, her hazel eyes crashing with my brown. I felt the entire world had frozen.
"What's your name?" I asked, my breaths uneven, though I could feel the word crawling up to my mouth. I could sense by her wavering eyes that what I had just registered, she was only on the brink of grasping.
I surfaced from the water, looking up as she bit her lip tensely at the edge.
"I'll be right here," I said, her arms falling to her sides. She shook them out and then peered over the edge again, looking down at me.
"Should I just jump?" she said, taking a step back.
"Or fall. Sometimes it's good just to fall," I called up to her.
"Eleanor…" she breathed.
My body stiffened as more images flashed before me; a cliff, a balcony, a cave, a black lake, a solar, a beach, and then a library. In all of these moments, she was a constant.
Eleanor.
The smile that was only slight on her face before was now completely gone, realization having struck her. I wanted to go to her, but I was deluded by these images, these memories, holding the space between us on the platform.
She'd always been there.
"I basically just ran into this world and caused a burden for all of you."
"You're not a burden."
How could I have forgotten what's transpired?
"You know what would make them really mad?"
"What, Edmund?"
"If they saw me dancing with you."
"Ha-ha."
"I'm not joking! They would get so mad. Me dancing with a beautiful girl like yourself..."
"Beautiful?"
"Beautiful. You're one of my closest friends, which is weird to say because I have barely known you a month, and you look lovely tonight. What other definition of the word is there?"
She meant so much to me.
"Goose."
"Cricket. Now we have our nicknames."
"Everyone would think we went mad."
"Everyone doesn't have to know."
I always knew there had been a part of me left alone here, even if I couldn't admit it to myself.
"What do you think's going to happen?"
"I don't know. You don't belong here, I don't belong here, but I decided to stay with my family all those years ago…"
"Let's not think about it now. Let's get through the war first."
"But what if we don't?"
"I'll take care of you."
She drove me mad.
"I still don't understand how you are coping."
"I don't either."
"Well, if you don't forgive them, you'll only destroy what little time you have left."
I saw her reach an end, too. She was looking for death but instead found me.
"El?"
"No..."
"El, don't...You have to come back. It doesn't matter if you didn't find Aslan. You're fine… just- just come with us."
"I…"
I loved her.
"You're cute."
"I'd say the same to you, but it's pretty dark."
"As if you've never seen me before."
"That's true. Then I'd have to say you're not."
I love her.
"Do you think we're the same Cricket and Goose we once were?"
"I don't think we're completely different from what we once were. And even if we've changed, we're here now, aren't we?"
Even when we're torn apart.
"Until we meet again, King Edmund."
"Eleanor…" I breathed, finally able to focus on her. Her. She was right in front of me, those hazel eyes glassing over in tears, bag dropping to the ground.
I wanted to run to her. I wanted to embrace her, but my body jolted forward as the most agonizingly loud screech entered my ears and all the memories I had just rediscovered fled my mind. It didn't take long for me to realize I had fallen on the ground, though I never did let go of her eyes. Even when the world went dark, I saw hazel.
Author's Note: Trip down memory lane during that last part, right? Sorry this came a few days late. I'm just glad I made the update for this week. Fun fact: every piece of dialogue italicized in that last section is the exact dialogue from previous chapters. You may have remembered some, you may have not. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't... some of it was so long ago!
There is one chapter left. I can't believe this.
Thanks goes to: ClaireMars, remarkables, writtingmagic, Genius892050, Lesmizmaniac, Raining Silver, lunanionelerondiel, phantomshadow99, and illowKP.
Review and let me know what you thought. There's 192 reviews right now, I'd really like to reach 200 before this story is finished! :)
See you soon!
-Jadeyn Kate
