I wake disorientated.
For a moment I forget everything. Where I am, what I'm doing, and even who I am to an extent.
Everything comes back slowly. If last night was an explosion, this morning was the immediate aftermath – air so thick with dust and smoke that you can barely see two feet ahead of you and all you know is the ringing in your ears. Slowly, it dissipates, and I'm left having to confront a new reality.
Because that's what this is now. New. Different. Irreversible. He knows the truth, and I know by that by having spoken it there's no way to force it back into the deep recesses of my mind. If you let a bear out of its cage, it would be a tall order to make him go back inside without a tranquilliser. The only suppressant I could use is in the bowels of the Dawn Treader, managed by men instructed to give me none after my… enthusiasm… during Coriakin's feast. Though the help would only be temporary, useful for poking a stick at the beast for a while, before it began another rampage. The cage is as good as gone.
I didn't even have to tell him everything for it to raid my mind like a tornado. He knows I'm alone with a family who care nothing for me out in the world, but I'm not sure I could mention the rest. The five year search for them. The places I travelled to. The things I gave up to find them.
And the fact that I only gave up 3 months before I arrived here.
I open my eyes and pause. I'm still curled against Caspian's side, his one arm around my shoulder and the other laying on top of my own in the centre of his chest. Thankfully, he's still asleep.
I inch myself away, careful not to wake him, until I can sit up properly and stretch.
The sun stands above the horizon and blesses the morning with a stroke of pink that ascends into a clear, perfect blue, undisturbed except for one thing.
The blue star.
Gael reacts quicker than I do, nudging Lucy and calling out to the others while I sit there, shocked at the sight because for us it wasn't just a star – it was hope.
Everyone wakes and clears the shore in record time, sparing glances every few moments to check that the star hasn't blinked out of existence and before we can process how important this is, we're on the Dawn Treader and sailing in the correct direction.
The wind is mild as if in apology for its two week long tantrum and the journey is slow, giving Eustace the time to fly over the island and gift us with a wild goat for breakfast, along with three for himself. We settle ourselves across the deck with our stews and peaches and watch as a handful of crew members perform a botched rendition of an old Narnian tale with renewed spirit.
I can't help but avoid Caspian.
I spend my morning lingering around Lucy and Gael, acting as if I'm an active participant in their antics when really I can't find the strength to focus my eyes, so instead I stare out across the landscape with blurred vision, the sea and the sky melding into one infinite expanse of blue.
Last night's conversation replays on my mind, unrelenting in its determination to break me apart.
I don't want to go back there anymore.
I had been avoiding thoughts of London for so long; everything was going to smoothly. Now it's a thorn in my foot, burrowing deeper with every moment I spend believing that I belong here, in Narnia, like it's punishing me for thinking that I deserve that.
If you could stay here, go to Narnia and start a life away from the war… Would you?
I couldn't say yes. My life in England and my affection for it is splinted glass, and that single syllable would shatter it beyond repair. I would never be satisfied. We could win the war and I wouldn't feel anything except a gaping emptiness, a longing incapable of being fulfilled even if they gave me the Queen's riches. I only want this. I've grown so used it all – the clean air and the weight of a sword against my hip, conversing with minotaurs and thinking of Narnia and Aslan each day, and the company of people I can be myself around and who I know I would do anything for, for the right reasons.
I sigh and Lucy nudges my shoulder lightly. "Are you alright? You've been distant since this morning." She asks. It startles me from my thoughts, and I turn to see if Gael is listening, only to see her dancing to what appears to be a nursery rhyme with Ebele, a faun.
I decide to be honest for once. "I told Caspian about the war." Her face falls, emotions kept at bay bubbling to the surface and it's my fault. My heart clenches.
"We try to forget about it when we're here." She says weakly. It hurts to see the invisible scars of war across her face. I know they're on mine too.
"It's nice to feel free for once, isn't it?" She nods enthusiastically.
We sit in silence for a while, resting against the same crates as the day before, caught up in memories.
"Where in London do you live?" She asks after a while.
"Dulwich, near the gallery." I wonder if anyone else has discovered the painting of the Dawn Treader yet. "Do you know it?"
"I do, I always wanted to visit but there was never time." She sighs and looks out across the sea. "Maybe when it's rebuilt."
"Rebuilt?"
"Apparently they have a storage facility that didn't get damaged, so they're going to fill the new building with the art from there."
"But the gallery was never destroyed?" It feels like my stomach is solidifying. Dulwich had never been hit. I would know. Even when I wasn't actively visiting it, I passed by it on my way to work each day.
Lucy tilts her head and looks at me as if I'm crazy, the kind that you treat with extreme caution. "Amber, it was hit by one of the raids last December." She says softly.
I choke out a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the thought. "I went there every week, I would know if it had been hit." There would be a plaque, or some area they hadn't been able to repair, something, anything, that marked it as a bomb site. But there wasn't, because it. Had. Not. Been. Hit.
She's quiet for a while, contemplating with knit eyebrows and her mouth drawn in a tight line. She must have confused it with another gallery. Must have.
"Do you…" She starts hesitantly. "Do you remember what day it was when you ended up here?"
"Not specifically, no. It was a Wednesday I know that much." She looks disappointed. "I think it may have been late November or early December, in 1942." I add, hoping that helps.
She leaps away from me as if burned, scrambling to the other side of the deck and dragging Edmund away from a confused Marco. She's stricken, and I feel that same panic infect me as she returns.
She points to me and speaks to Edmund. "She's from the past." Her voice is shaking.
"What?" Edmund and I respond simultaneously.
"I know time works differently between Earth and Narnia, but you left London six months before we did."
"Is that a problem?" Edmund draws the question out like he's hoping to see Lucy startle and say 'Actually, no, it isn't! You can leave now, Edmund!'
"Surely if we tell you what happens, that's immensely dangerous?" She directs the question to me and I flounder, the consequences of this too large to process in such a short amount of time.
"Then we don't tell her what happens. Lucy, I don't think we need to worry over this."
"She already did tell me." He falls silent. "She told me about a gallery that gets destroyed in a raid that hasn't happened yet. I go there every week." Edmund gulps and shuffles his feet, avoiding both our gazes.
"If there's a problem, Aslan will help. Just… don't keep talking about it." He finally replies, the discomfort of having to confront the life that's waiting for him in England painfully evident. I don't blame him for not wanting to talk about it. He returns to the opposite side of the deck swiftly, smiling at Marco as if nothing is amiss.
"Do you think he will?" I ask Lucy. She tilts her head, confused. "Aslan, do you think he'll help?" I elaborate.
She nods slowly, eyes distant, and wrings her hands together. "Yes, of course. He always does." She answers, still nodding as if the act will jolt her head into the correct, unworried state.
Would this really affect me in the end? Would I have even wanted to return to Dulwich when I returned, knowing I would see everything I had lost within the confines of a picture frame? Or am I just thinking that now I know I could die there? It doesn't even feel real.
"You should speak to Caspian." Lucy says. "Not about…" She waves a flippant hand, gesturing to the last 10 minutes. "He keeps looking over here, but I don't think he can find an excuse to talk to you."
"How do you know he doesn't want to talk to you?" She flicks me on the forehead playfully, attempting to look serious but with the beginnings of a grin twitching the corners of her mouth. Her eyes remain tense.
"I shouldn't have to answer that! We already know the answer. Why are you avoiding him?"
"I'm not avoiding him." I lie, pathetically, I might add.
Talos calls out to say that lunch is ready, those on deck letting out sparse cheers and descending to the berthing deck, the scent of salmon and lemon intertwining with the salty air. Lucy and I push away from our perch and follow, but when I receive my rations and notice Caspian in conversation with Drinian, I convince Marco that we should go back onto the deck and play hangman while we eat so I can – in short – continue to avoid him.
We ascend to the forecastle and dip into the cool shade by the dragon-shaped bowsprit, picking at our food between matches and existing purely in this bubble of peace, worries left on the opposite side, peering through as if it were glass.
"Are you purposefully doing a theme?" I ask him eventually, flicking through the games in which he chose the words.
Knight. Broadsword. Drawbridge.
"No…" He looks through the words. "Alright, maybe." He closes the sketchbook and fiddles with the strings that seal it. "I think I want to be a knight."
He's never spoken about his future before. Though I knew he was here to escape his overbearing blacksmith father, determined to recruit him into the family business, Caspian was the one who told me. Marco acted as if he had no family to speak of. Until now.
"I'm not ready yet and I know the training is intense, but I really think it's where I belong." It's as if he's practising a speech to relay to his father.
I reach over and take his hand. "If that's what you want, then go for it. Caspian would be lucky to have you in his army."
"A knight is an honourable decision, my friend!" We startle, looking up to where Reepicheep rests above us. He jumps down, removes the feathered circlet from his ear and dips into a bow. "It would be a pleasure to have you serve alongside me." I stifle a laugh as he rights himself with a flourish. Marco nods in thanks, shoulders slumped in relief. That was probably the first time he's ever admitted that.
"Why did you agree to this journey, Reep?" I ask. Over time, I've learnt why many people on board decided to join the Dawn Treader's crew. Caspian for his search of the Lords, Marco to evade his father, Kiers to right his past wrongdoings, Tavros as a debt to Caspian when he was saved from giants, Lucy, Eustace and Edmund because they had no choice. Reepicheep's was not among those I knew.
"I hope to reach the end of the world." He says simply.
"But the world has no end?"
"Of course it does, everything has an end."
"My world doesn't." Marco and Reepicheep regard me strangely.
"How do you mean?" I all but jump out of my skin, whipping my head around to where Caspian leans against the edge of the ship, listening in. How long has he been there for?
"Well, it's circular." I say, searching his expression for some kind of change, as if by looking hard enough into his eyes I would see myself under the stars or the words he spoke last night etched across his lips.
"You live on a round world?" He steps over to join us in the shade.
"Yes…" I look between their stunned expressions. "Is Narnia not the same?"
"Certainly not." Says Reepicheep.
"Lucy and Edmund, they live on the same?" Caspian asks and I nod. He huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. "All this time and I never knew."
Beside me, Reepicheep clears his throat and gestures to Caspian's amazement. "For us, a round world is that of fairytales."
"They were my favourites. Do you remember The Swan's Wife?" Caspian asks the others. They agree gleefully, smiles of childlike wonder beaming wide.
Part of me wants to ask what it was, but I can't help being distracted with Caspian's presence. Is he thinking about last night? Can he tell I'm avoiding him? He seems the same, the casual but poised posture and small smile I'm inclined to believe is permanent, though not by any royal requirement. It's just who he is.
"Your Majesty!" Drinian calls from the wheel. Caspian leaves us with three respectable nods, and I can't tell if the way his gaze lingered on me was a figment of my imagination or not. The moment passes in an instant and I watch on as they cross the deck and retreat inside, presumably to the office. I'm torn between the relief of having my mind steady once more and the urge to call him back.
"Might I ask why you're avoiding him?" Reepicheep asks.
"I'm not avoiding him." I lie, again.
After a few more games of hangman, newly joined by Reepicheep who favoured enthusiasm and wild guesses over strategy, we disperse along the ship as one does with time. While Reepicheep rested atop Eustace's head to speak freely and Marco returned to Edmund, the boys having grown closer with time, I scaled the ratlines and convinced the lookout to let me rest on the crow's nest beside him.
We talk little and soon descend into a mildly uncomfortable silence but taking out my sketchbook eases the air for me. Since having received it, I've gradually fallen back into my old ways that render me untouchable by the outside world. It's as if with every stroke of graphite, the world shrinks until it can be contained in the paper and leather laid against crossed legs.
Though it's not as simple as it once was. When I was young and desperate to breathe air not shared with at least three other children who were determined to push me to the ground and keep me there, I would hole up in whatever free closet or dusty, forgotten cupboard I could find with a flashlight and draw. The world was far easier to forget then when there was a physical barrier in the way, but on the crow's nest the wind dances across my face and the mast creaks with each ebb and flow over the waves. So when the lookout descends the ratlines, my world isn't quite small enough for it to go unnoticed. Assuming his shift is over, I wait for the next lookout to arrive so I can explain why I'm here, hoping that it will be somebody I'm not familiar with so there's no unspoken requirements to keep a steady flow of conversation.
After a few moments of seclusion, Caspian hoists himself onto the crow's nest beside me.
He doesn't need to say anything for me to know that he knows, but he does anyway.
"Did I do something wrong?" He says with a light, but notably strained tone. My shoulders slump and I accept that I can't run for a third time. I told myself to open up more, didn't I?
"No, of course not. That was just the first time in a while that I've thought about it all. It was a lot to handle." I try to say it casually, as if memories weren't still pressing against my skull. He catches my eye.
"If you decide you don't want to go back, I'll see what I can do."
"You don't have to–"
"Please." He really doesn't mind it, does he?
"Thank you." I whisper, swallowing a lump in my throat. He doesn't push the subject or try to wheedle more information from me like I feared, though reason dictates that it never should have been a worry; that's not in his nature, but the consequences of coaxing everything to the surface have yet to finish.
"Can I see?" He points to the sketchbook, and I hand it to him with a nod.
I wish this, the change of subject, was something I could thank him for openly, but for now I must settle with hoping he can merely sense my gratitude.
He smiles when he sees my in-progress attempt at drawing Eustace as his new scaly self.
"If we knew how to change him back, I probably would have dived into that treasure myself." I say. For the past few hours I had been watching him glide and dive in the air around the ship, testing his new capabilities, and with each skim of his claws against the water or accidental sneeze of fire, I felt jealous. I can't even begin to imagine how that power must feel.
"You would want to be a dragon?" He says sceptically.
"Would I want to fly and breathe fire? Yes." He raises his eyebrows. "Wouldn't you?"
"I quite like being human, being able to speak to others."
"Conversation has never been a strong suit of mine." I reply, looking down across the deck.
"I have to disagree, I love talking with you. You're unlike anyone I've ever met."
"Aren't I difficult to be around?" I turn to face him. He hesitates.
"Well, sometimes, I suppose." He finally says after I nudge his shoulder. "But since becoming King, a difficult person is hard to come by. I appreciate it." He rushes to add.
The words are familiar.
I like that you don't respect me. It helps me forget.
I see in his expression that he's there, thinking about last night like I am. His limbs are just a little bit looser, eyes flicking to the sky like he's expecting stars amongst a twilight sea. They soften when they meet mine, and I scramble to change the subject. All my mind takes in is where that conversation led; I'm not ready to let that back in yet.
"What's The Swan's Wife?" I blurt.
Immediately his posture shifts, straightening as he repositions himself and clears his throat. I'm smiling before he's even begun. He accepts the abrupt shift with open arms and begins, his voice like a gentle hand smoothing out tangled thoughts.
"There were once two swans named Amala and Freya. They lived amongst hundreds of others in the village of Par and met in their tenth year, watching their elders fly and explore the land beyond. They had only ever known Par and grew jealous of those who got to feel the wind between their feathers, while they were unfairly destined to a life on ground, never knowing what lay past their lakes and their grain.
Over time, they grew closer. Through sparing what minutes they could and sharing their dream of exploring the world, they soon fell in love. One night, Amala came to Freya and proposed they fled. Freya agreed immediately, and they spent twelve years travelling across the globe, discovering rivers that flowed lavender and mountains so blue and bright they mistook them for pieces of fallen sky.
Fifteen years after they first fell in love, Freya grew ill. They had found a heart shaped island in the middle of the sea and called it home, enjoying how the sea reflected the sky at night and made them feel like nothing existed but them. When Freya died in her sleep, Amala was overcome with too much grief to be contained within such a small body. So she grew and grew and grew until her wings could wrap around the world twice, but still she mourned. She missed her wife dearly and swallowed the world to keep the essence of her inside until she too passed on." He concludes. With the way he spoke so smoothly and confidently, I imagine he's had it memorised since childhood.
"Hold on. She swallowed the world?" I say incredulously once he's finished.
"She knew traces of Freya lay everywhere. In Par and their home and everywhere they travelled, and she wanted them with her to feel closer to her. It's beautiful." He smiles to himself.
"It's certainly unlike anything I've heard before."
"Can I hear one of yours?" He asks. I let out a breath and think – are there any I can recall with the same grace he recited? Jack and the Beanstalk, maybe. Before I can start, there's a call from below.
We note the issue before we reach the deck for Drinian to tell us himself.
The air has stilled.
The Dawn Treader sits lost among the sea, bobbing in the centre like one would nervously shuffle their feet if called upon, stuck without its friend in the wind to encourage it forward. On deck the men are quiet, standing alert beside their Captain for orders though he offers none. He looks as concerned as the rest of us.
Moving the ship using the rowers alone is already an impossible feat, and our newly replenished food and drink stock makes the weight no better. Seeing our dilemma, Eustace dives low beside the ship to hear the discussion but is soon forced away when the forceful beat of his wings tips the boat sideways. The blue star twinkles mockingly in the sky above.
A few moments later, everything jerks forward. The floor is swept underneath us and startled cries of men forced to the floor fill the air, crashing into the railings and the walls, with Fiedan rolling unfortunately into the open pantry hatch with a bang.
"Eustace, that's brilliant!" Edmund yells, clinging to the railing as he stares open mouthed at the bowsprit.
Wrapped around the armoured dragon's snout is Eustace's tail, his wings flapping furiously as we sail with a newfound speed. Caspian offers a hand to help me stand. "Are you alright?" He asks when I rub my head, having hit it against the mast when I fell.
"Who are you again?" I tilt my head and feign confusion.
He smiles and rolls his eyes. "No injury sustained, then."
A few hours after Eustace begins pulling the ship, the wind returns with fervour and the hulk of Ramandu's island peeks at us from the horizon.
Drinian estimates our arrival to the middle of the night, and orders everyone not rowing or assisting on deck to their hammocks the second we finish dinner, though no one expects an easy night. The tension in the air is thick and speculation about what we will find echoes in each creaking floorboard.
When my body finally lets me rest, I dream of my parents.
An anguished cry rattles my mind and the source is unsatisfied. It's not enough – the volume, the encapsulation of their pain in a singular, echoing note, and way it scrapes their throat raw. Not enough. Never enough. There was never a way to capture that pain in any expression, be it words or violence or any other method I would throw myself at. Always, without fail, I ended my rampages needing more.
I stand in darkness and it smells of dust and despair. The air taunts me, pulling my hair and jabbing my arms like the other children would do, before They emerge.
They're just shadows, though they embodied more than an absence of light. They weren't lacking anything, it was more as if they contained everything, churning all that ever was into an impenetrable void. The air carries their words to me.
Not enough. Worthless. Unlovable. Pathetic. Not enough.
Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Not eno –
I wake abruptly, my hammock swaying with the sudden movement. From two rows over, I hear Marco snore loudly and relax a fraction. While the darkness down here remains unsettling, and I half expect their midnight forms to creep out from behind a wall, the sounds are a comfort.
I let out a rattling breath and drag a weary hand across my head, trying to smooth out my thoughts like you would wrinkles in cloth. I twist myself to look underneath my hammock, towards Caspian's, but it's empty bar from a blanket bunched at the end as if he kicked it off. Curious. I jump down and tread lightly, despite knowing these men could sleep through anything, wrapping my blanket around my shoulders as I head upstairs towards the deck.
I'm grateful for the wind that hits my face when I surface, the brutal salty air grounds me as an anchor would secure a ship, and it whips away the lingering stiffness in my limbs.
I've never seen the deck so empty before. Two men sit by the wheel with playing cards in hand, their quiet murmurings balancing with the hush of waves and the creak of the mast. A lookout rests with his legs dangling between the bars of the crow's nest, staring out towards the ever-expanding island in front of us. Eustace continues to fly straight, occasionally dipping low and catching himself before he hits the water. And there, at the back of the ship out of sight of all four, is Caspian.
He leans against the dragon's tail, head tilted up the stars and hands in his pockets. He doesn't hear me approach.
I lay a hand on his arm and he jumps, his palm instinctively coming to rest against my own as he blinks away whatever fog cloaked his mind.
"Are you alright?" I ask, my voice quiet as to not attract the attention of others.
"Just lost in my head." He replies with a soft smile.
I shrug the blanket from my shoulders and move to wrap it around his own. "Here."
"Keep it." He wraps cold fingers around mine and lowers my arms. I shake from his grip and raise my eyebrows.
"I don't need it, I've been inside. How long have you been out here for?"
"An hour or two." He admits. While he spares a glance to the view beyond, I drape it across his shoulders and secure the ends in a knot near his collar.
"There. It's like a cape." I grin and turn towards the sky, letting out a soft gasp at the sight. "I've never seen stars like this before."
With the air in England polluted beyond belief, and most nights from the past three years being spent in windowless shelters, I rarely saw stars, but that didn't mean I never dreamt of them. I longed for skies of the darkest midnight with speckles of dazzling light sprayed across the surface like freckles on sun kissed cheeks. But this… This is beyond the realms of my imagination.
While the sky is flecked with countless blinking stars, that simple beauty is split in two by a bolt of sapphire that seems to contain more shades of blue than I ever believed to exist, patterned in swirls and curls like ink dipped in water in the seconds before it dissipates.
"They're unlike any of the constellations in Narnia. I imagine only a handful of people, beside those on this ship, have ever seen them." Caspian says, eyes fixated on them too.
"So they don't have names?"
"They don't. It seems a shame." He sighs.
"Why don't we name them?" He considers me for a moment, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly before nodding with a smile, untying the blanket around his neck and laying it across the stern deck.
We lie down beside each other on the thin cover, huddling close to avoid the cold from the floor seeping into our bones. I'm heavily aware of how securely the length of his arm presses against my own, and how much I want to push further in consequence.
Seconds stretch by lazily, allowing for the quiet collaboration of noise to fade into a comfortable background hum as we lay in silence tracing the band of sapphire and its stars with leisurely gazes. There's no pressure to speak, just an understanding that this is enough. Whatever this is.
It's not until half an hour of searching later that I find something. "Look – it's a swan!"
"Where?"
I point to the sky peeking out from behind the crow's nest, roaming my eyes over the dozen stars that shape the bird in flight until they seem to shine brighter than the rest. When I turn to Caspian, he's still twisting his head different directions to try and find it.
I take his hand in mine and lean close enough that his eyelashes brush my cheek, directing his hand to the centre of the swan. "There. Do you see it?" I turn my head to face him and the stars fade into the back of my mind, yet they've never seemed closer.
His eyes, impossibly close to my own, look as if they contain the entire galaxy. His mouth is parted slightly and I feel his breath, both of us suddenly short on supply, mingle with my own.
His eyes dart down for a second.
I note mine do the same.
It would only take a nudge, the slightest downward tip of my chin. That's all.
He swallows, eyes darting between my own.
A loose curl of hair tumbles across my forehead and the moment is blinked away. I jolt back to stare at the stars, back firmly planted against the floor. If I press any further, I might just fall through. My stomach churns and my heart pauses to recollect itself, my surroundings trickling back into my head like a leak.
One of the men by the wheel laughs. I freeze. Did they see? Did the lookout see? I shouldn't be here. Was that a birthmark he had under his eye? How had I not noticed that before? No – I should go. This was a bad idea.
Before I find the courage to leave, there's a brush as light as a feather against the back of my hand. The feeling curves over my wrist and his fingertips graze my palm. It's a question.
I lay my palm flat against his in response and feel his fingers slot between mine and squeeze. Now it's a message.
Stay.
And I do.
Silence descends upon us once again, thicker this time. It's no easy beast to break, but he does so regardless.
"What should we name it?" His words are low and more drawn out than usual.
"What?"
"The constellation."
I think for a minute, eyes once again finding the shape.
"Amala, after the widow from The Swan's Wife."
"Amala it is."
We let the quiet embrace us.