Chapter One: A Very Real Dream
Aria Elena Hart awoke that fateful morning as she did every other day.
Her alarm rang at six o'clock on the dot, and she slapped the snooze button. It rang again at six o-five, and she slapped at it again. At six-ten she opened one eye and glared at it before flipping the switch to turn it off completely, and snuggling down to sleep more. At six-thirty, however, there was a knock at her door.
"Aria, are you awake yet?" Called a sleepy voice. When Aria did not respond, the door opened slightly, letting a schism of light shine into the dark room. "Come on, sleepyhead." The voice said. "You're about to miss the bus."
Aria groaned and sat up slowly, keeping her blanket wrapped around her. "It's too cold." She said, her tired mouth barely forming the words.
"Well, that's what you get for going to bed with wet hair." Her mother said. "If you'll get up and get moving then you'll warm up some." Then she left, leaving the door cracked as her daughter yawned and stretched as much as she could while keeping her limbs covered. She then sighed as she reached for the lamp on her nightstand, wincing slightly as her fingers left the warmth of the blanket, then wincing again as the light blinded her for a moment.
She yawned again before opening her eyes. They landed on the clothes that she had set out last night and she watched them carefully, judging how fast she could get into them after shedding her blanket. She then took a deep breath and threw off the blanket, taking her pajamas off hurriedly and grabbing the new clothes. She pulled them on and then slipped on her shoes before stepping into the bathroom, rubbing her arms to get some friction going.
She washed her face and brushed her teeth quickly, and then it was time for makeup. A little coral-colored lipstick, eyeliner so that it would look as if she actually had eyelids, and a tiny bit of light pink blush, and then she was done. She pulled her hair out of its bun and shook it out, flipping it over and then back so that it would part to one side instead of just in the middle. It was still a little wet in the middle, but that only made it look like it was curly so she didn't bother with a blow-dryer. She sighed, thinking that this was as good as it was going to get, and then left her room, shouldering her messenger bag as she went.
Downstairs, she grabbed the piece of toast that her mother handed to her and kissed her cheek before grabbing her coat and leaving the house. Once outside, she cursed under breath, as she shrugged into her coat, holding the warm bread between her teeth.
It should be a crime to have the temperature below zero and have no snow to show for it, but that was the South, she supposed. She munched on her toast as she walked towards the bus stop. The other high school kids that lived around her were already there, all yawning and shivering.
"You were almost late, again." Said one of them, a boy named Justin something-or-other. "We heard the bus stop once already."
Aria shrugged. "Just means she has two more to go before she gets to us." Finishing her toast, she zipped her coat up to her chin, wishing that it was still Christmas break so that she could sleep through the cold extra-early-morning hours. Really, it was a crime that the high schools started at seven-fifteen in the mornings.
It was scientifically proven, years ago she might ad, that teenager's brains weren't ready to learn anything until the afternoon. It was no wonder they had so many drop-outs and failing students. She sighed, thinking glumly that she had three and a half more years of this.
She had been so excited about going to high school last year. Of course, no one had told her that it was going to be exactly the same as middle school, just a heck of a lot earlier. Same people, same cliques, same everything. If you were a loner in elementary school, you were a loner in middle school, and then you were expected to still be a loner in high school.
She sighed again, and then laughed silently, shaking her head. Only a Freshman, and she already wanted high school to be over and done with. Then she heard the bus, now two stops away, thinking that she could have had another ten minutes of good sleep.
-- -- -- -- --
"Peter winds up, goes for the bowl, and it's another wicket!" The red cricket ball smacked into Edmund Pevensie's thigh as he looked off towards the mansion.
"Ow!" He cried, rubbing the offending appendage as his eldest sister, Susan, retrieved the ball.
Peter Pevensie, the eldest of the four siblings, laughed as he said, "Wake up, Dolly Daydream!" And caught the ball as Susan threw it back to him.
The Pevensie children, refugees of the London bombings, were trying, not very well, to get the youngest, Lucy's, mind off of her 'wardrobe forest'. At present, the little girl was several yards away from her siblings, reading a book and trying to pretend that the other three weren't there.
Edmund sighed. "Can't we play hide and seek again?" "I thought you said that it was a kid's game." Peter accused slightly, walking back to his pitching position and not even glancing at his younger brother. Edmund just glared at him.
"Besides," Susan started, trying to diffuse the brewing argument. "We can all use the fresh air."
But Edmund simply scoffed at her. "It's not like there isn't air inside." Susan simply looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly, and then dismissing him.
Peter picked at the thread on the ball. "Are you ready?" He asked, already having had enough of Edmund's attitude for one day.
"Are you?" Edmund retorted, banging the cricket bat on the ground. Peter, his eyes narrowing, wound up and pitched the big red ball, hard. Then watched as Edmund whacked it, sending it sailing through the air and strait through a stained-glass window. Then he heard a large crash and winced slightly before glaring at his brother.
The four children then hurried into the house and up to the room where the damage had been done. They stared down at the collapsed suit of armor, then at the hole in the window.
Peter rounded on his brother. "Well done, Ed." He said.
Ed stepped back. "You bowled it!" He accused.
Then the children all froze as the heard Mrs. Macready yelling. "The Macready!" Susan cried and the four were forced into action. None of them wanted to get caught by the housekeeper at the scene of the crime.
"Come on!" Peter cried and the siblings ran from the room. But everywhere they ran, it always sounded as if the Macready's footsteps were just around a corner, or just behind a door, finally, they came to the last hallway, and Peter tried one door, then another, but they were both locked. Then Edmund found the only open one and the four ran inside, Peter closing it behind them as Edmund ran towards the large, ornate wardrobe at the back of the room.
"You have got to be joking." Susan said, as Lucy started for it, too. Edmund threw open the door and he and Lucy climbed inside, then Susan went in, and finally Peter, who drew the door slightly closed, peering out to make sure that the Macready didn't come in, but he heard the footsteps stopping right outside the door, and so he whispered harshly for the others to get back.
There was immediate confusion as the wardrobe door closed, leaving the siblings in semi darkness, and somehow, Peter and Susan ended up at the back of the wardrobe, where they both tripped and fell into the snow. Wait. Snow?
The two eldest siblings turned around and saw, to their ultimate disbelief, that they were, indeed, in a forest in the middle of winter. They got up and Susan said the one thing that came to both of their minds. "Impossible."
-- -- -- -- --
Aria stepped off the bus once it came to a stop, yawning tiredly, and tried to get out of the way quickly as the students behind her began to do the same. But she was not so lucky this morning and the larger sophomore girl who had been in the seat behind her collided with her, and then shoved at her shoulder, sending the younger girl completely off-balance.
Aria tried to regain her footing, but her old shoes, whose tread was worn down severely, could find no grip on the edge of the curb, and she fell, first striking her knee, and then her palm as she flung a hand out to stop her fall. But her hand did not meet unforgiving concrete, as she had expected, but cold, wet snow.
She looked up immediately, still expecting to see the school in front of her, or, at the very least, the school bus and the sophomore girl, but all she saw around her were leafless, snow-covered tress. What in the world…
She stood up shakily, her knee smarting. She looked down and saw a tear in her new jeans where she had hit the curb. She looked around herself again, wondering what had happened. "I hit my head." She said to no one. Then she nodded. "Yes, that must be it. I hit my head, and not I'm dreaming." But she did not pinch herself to make sure. Her skinned knee was already stinging, and so a part of her knew that she couldn't be dreaming, but that didn't mean that she wanted to make it real.
