This is another request via review. It falls somewhere between 'Eustace in Finchley' and 'Why Susan Went to America.' Susan hasn't entirely fallen away yet. Admittedly this ended up light on plot, and heavier on character, but mostly it's an exploration of a new viewpoint of life on this side of the wardrobe, I suppose. Any other requests? I'll try not to take months and months to write them!
A blonde girl and dark-haired boy kicked dust up into the July sunlight as they walked along a country lane. They'd left the little train station ten minutes prior, and were now climbing a low hill, heading toward a rambling redbrick building that was settled in the near distance.
The boy had consulted a pocket-notebook several times as they walked along the dirt paths that spiraled out from the station; evidently he had written directions. At the last check, he lifted his chin and squared his shoulders as he confidently led them up a road.
His confidence was perhaps a bit overstated, as this was the only actual road hereabouts. Insects zinged away from their encroaching feet, but everything else was drowsy in the sun. Even the birds offered only an occasional warble.
The girl seemed to be thinking hard as they walked. Her hands fidgeted nervously at a bit of ribbon tied round her waist. The boy had put away the notebook and appeared to be studying the dirt-packed road, hands shoved deep into pockets. The girl was the first to break the quiet.
"I'm so glad we could meet up first, Scrubb," Jill said. "On the train, I mean."
At her tone, Eustace looked over at her in surprise. When he saw her face, he stopped walking entirely, disregarding that they were standing in the middle of the lane.
"Why, Pole, you can't be nervous! It's only my cousins and old Professor Kirke. They say he's tops."
"Only your cousins, the monarchs," Jill returned. "Of course I'm nervous!"
"'Monarchs'—that doesn't matter," Eustace assured her, tugging her along. Reluctantly she started walking again as he continued, "They're terrifically good people. They aren't all about the pomp, really. And of course they're not monarchs here, anyway."
"But I'd like to make a good impression," she insisted, as they walked. "Not duff things up like I did with Aslan. That was awful. His expression—!"
"You didn't duff things up with Him," Eustace assured her. "At least, not much."
"But meeting five strangers—"
"Bah. This can't be more frightening than going after Them with just a riding crop, can it? It's just tea."
"Well, no." Jill admitted. "Not frightening, exactly. Not in the same way."
Eustace pressed, "And weren't you the first to volunteer to stick your head out of the Land Beneath, although neither you nor I, nor Puddleglum, nor Prince Rilian, knew what was on the other side?"
"Ye-e-e-s," she agreed, tugging on one of her curls. But she sounded less uncertain.
"Pole, you've got courage! Remember, it was you really saved us when it came to escaping the Harfangs! It's thanks to you we got out before being baked into pies."
At that reminder, she straightened a little and perked up. "I did, didn't I?"
"And you so new to adventuring then," he said, nodding. "So pluck up your courage again, would you? We're here."
"We're—what?" She gasped, looking up at the doorway in front of them, as though the old rambling cottage had sneaked up to settle itself in front of them. "Oh, but really, I'm not—"
Eustace finished bringing the heavy knocker down on the door, and the resulting muffled boom of its voice rolled through the building hollowly.
"—not… ready." Jill faltered, and went a little pale.
Eustace frowned in concern. "Come now, Pole, you look ill."
"I feel ill," she muttered back, but stopped speaking as the door creaked open before them, exposing a dim front hall to their eyes.
The hall yawned wide end empty around the light spilling in the doorway. There was no one there to have opened the door.
Eustace found himself swallowing involuntarily. With a glance at Jill, whose eyes were a little wider than usual, he stepped forward. To her credit, Jill stepped up with him, though it was clear her already unsettled nerves were not eased by doors opening of themselves. But she firmed up her jaw and moved forward.
"Erm… hello?" Eustace called, poking his head through. "Anyone here? Cousin Edmund? Cousin Lucy?"
They moved a few paces inward and paused, still seeing no one. Frowning, Edmund turned to examine the door, and laughed a little to himself when he saw the inside of it.
"Pole, come look." He said, in a far steadier tone. "Someone's rigged up some sort of pulley, or something, to open the door."
"How strange!" Jill exclaimed, bending to look at the mess of pulleys, levers, and wires that encased the door handle. One wire ran up the wall, along the edge of the ceiling, and disappeared into another room. That was about all she could determine for certain; the rest was a jumble. "I wonder—"
"Ah, our last guests have arrived!" An older (but not weak) voice came from behind them, making them both jump and turn.
A man in his late middle age, whose hair was quite white and rather wild, stood beaming at them from a doorway across the length of the front hall. He had a cane, but didn't seem to really need it as he crossed to them with good speed. His glasses, however, he certainly seemed to require, as he bent to peer at each of them closely. "Ah, young Master Eustace and Miss Jill! Wonderful. Wonderful. Delighted to have you. Do you like my door-opening mechanism?"
"Uh—hullo, Sir," Eustace stuttered, extending one hand. "Would you be Professor Kirke?"
The out thrust hand shook slightly, and for the first time, Jill realized that Eustace was nervous, too. Oddly, this made her feel much calmer. She was able to look at the Professor—for who else could it be?—and when she got past the alarming hair, swaying stoop, crabbed hands, and thick glasses, she noticed a few other things.
She realized that his eyes were clear, and twinkling, and kind; his hands were ink-stained but moved with grace; and his shoulders, though stooped, no doubt, from bending over books for many long hours, had strength running the length of them, nevertheless. And his smile was like a boy's—full of good cheer and bonhomie and welcome.
"Yes, yes; I am he," Professor Kirke said, to Eustace's question. "Welcome to my humble home, Master Eustace." He turned to Jill. "And it's Miss Jill… Pole, yes?" She nodded, and he chuckled unexpectedly.
"You are most welcome as well. You know, my dear girl, my friend who came today—another Friend of Narnia, and the oldest companion I have in this world—she is Miss Plummer. Polly Plummer. But when we were children I called her Pol. So it'll be Pol and Pole! Together with the Pevensies. And you and I, Eustace." He laughed outright at this, evidently delighted.
"Now, if you'll follow along, we're all out on the back terrace. A shame to miss such a perfect day sitting indoors! Not to mention, we wouldn't all fit in the kitchen." He turned to lead them through a series of smallish rooms, still talking. "And your lovely cousins have been cooking…"
He continued talking as they made their way through the cottage, but Eustace and Jill weren't really listening. Instead, they found themselves nudging one another and surreptitiously pointing or nodding at this and that as they passed tables and cabinets and shelves that had the oddest array of… things.
It was a professor's house, so of course there were books. But they had titles in strange characters, or were decorated with symbols, or were so old they had nothing left on their spines at all.
There were sea-shells, and stones, and sticks. A halberd leaned in a corner with a helm set atop a nearby desk. Beautifully carved wooden boxes warred for space among tilted picture frames and glass inkwells and squat stone jars.
Jill and Eustace quickly forgot all their nerves in looking about them with delight. It seemed that though the old professor had lost the famous old house in which the Pevensies had stayed during the War, the older gentleman had done his best to keep as many of his precious objects with him as possible.
Every now and again, they'd come across a clockworky item, like that they'd seen on the front door. One seemed to be there to dust under the bottom ledge of a cabinet; another was a pulley system attached to a sturdy shelf.
The professor, catching them looking closely at one of them, laughed. "Do you like my mechanicals? They're only a little bit of nonsense, but they save these old knees from kneeling to the floor to clean, or my back from reaching up too far."
"But what about the front door, sir?" Jill asked.
"That's so I can open the door even if I'm across the cottage," Professor Kirke answered, with some pride showing. "I just made it last week. I'm delighted it works so well."
"Were you a professor of sciences, then?" Eustace asked, looking around with befuddlement.
"Oh, no, I taught grammar and logic and philosophy," was the answer. "I suppose I get the puttering-about trait from my uncle, who was a foolish man. Gifted, but foolish." He sighed, shook his head, and continued leading them further back in the cottage. "Perhaps I shall tell that story today," he mused aloud, "but never mind that now. Come, and join our little fellowship of the Friends of Narnia." He pushed a solid looking wooden door open, and afternoon light streamed in.
They stepped out into a beautiful little garden, gone half wild and fragrant with flowers and herbs and loam. As they stepped out, they heard a happy cry and turned to see a girl a little older than Eustace hurrying toward them, a paring knife in one hand.
As she neared, Jill noticed her flowing chestnut hair, shot through with summer hints of red and gold; her bright, warm eyes; and her welcoming smile. She was a lovely girl, and had her smile been less friendly Jill would have felt quite aware of her dusty shoes and straggling curls, but as it was, she felt far more easy about this meeting, seeing that cheerful mein.
The girl went to greet Eustace with a hug, but he ducked her outstretched arm swiftly and backed away; the girl's brows hiked up in surprise and confusion.
"I'm happy to see you, too, Lucy," Eustace said. "but could you put the knife away before you hug me? I've seen you use knives before, you know."
Jill eyed Eustace a little skeptically at that, but she ought to have known better. The girl—Lucy—shrugged and laughed, and casually flipped the knife at a bowl of apples nearby. It was a decent shot. The blade pinged off of the bowl's edge and landed among the fruit.
Knife safely at a distance, Eustace then accepted her hug, but tutted in mock dismay. "You barely hit the bowl. You're losing your aim. I think you need to—"
"And are you going to introduce us to your friend?" Lucy interrupted him, with a laughing look. She didn't wait for Eustace but stepped around him, hands outstretched. "You must be Jill. Eustace has written us about you. We're so glad you've come!"
"Not least," a new voice came, "because we womenfolk have been outnumbered, here. You'll even us up." The speaker was an older woman who looked about the Professor's age. From her casual, teasing tone, Jill knew an equal number of men and women wasn't truly a concern for her. This woman was glad to know anyone who'd met Aslan and seen Narnia. "When I heard about this one joining our ranks," she nodded at Eustace, "I thought we'd be overrun with talk of cricket and hunting."
"Oh! You must be Polly," Jill blurted, remembering the Professor's pun. "Miss Plummer, I mean. I'm Pole, Jill Pole. It's very nice to meet you." Then she blushed, looking down at the girl's hands, which still grasped her own in greeting. "Oh, erm, and It's lovely to meet you, too, Queen Lucy."
Lucy laughed, squeezed her hands, and let go. "No, no, just plain Lucy, please. Eustace has told us about you. I'm sure we'll be good friends. Come, the others are finishing setting up our luncheon." She drew Jill further into the garden, while Polly commandeered Eustace's arm as a prop. The professor trailed along behind them.
The group came around a bend into a nice little paved area where there was an outdoor brick oven set up, with a long rectangular table nearby. The scent of roasting meat permeated the area. A boy a few years older than Jill and Eustace was frowning over a book of loosely-bound foolscap, which seemed to be trying to take off in the light breeze. The loveliest young woman Jill had ever seen was bending over the table decorations, and a handsome young man was poking at something in the oven.
"Say, Su," he was saying, turning toward the long-haired girl. "Did Lu ever get back with those—ah! They're here!"
Jill was struck by their very different reactions to their seeing her and Eustace.
The younger of the boys glanced up and smiled absently in their direction, evidently absorbed in his work. The older boy grinned broadly as he caught sight of them and began moving in their direction, a welcoming look on his face. The girl, though, took one look at Jill and the rest, uttered a squeak of dismay, and took a step back. Her hands flew to her hair as though it might be mussed, though Jill certainly couldn't see anything to mar its silky perfection.
Jill glanced down at herself, and seeing nothing amiss to cause such a reaction, cast an uncertain look at Lucy, whose happy countenance shifted into a slight rolling of the eyes. Lucy smiled again and let go of Jill, saying in a soothing voice, "Oh Susan, don't be a ninny. It's just Cousin Eustace and his school-friend, Jill. Even if the table decorations aren't quite as perfect as you'd like, I'm sure they shan't notice at all."
"Everything does look lovely," Jill ventured, plucking up her courage to speak. For surely these two could only be—
"Pole, let me introduce you to my cousins, Peter the High King of Narnia, and the Queen Susan." Eustace gestured broadly at them and grinned at her expression. "And that's King Edmund over there. Come on, they don't bite."
"Right!" Peter was nearer them now. He pulled out a chair invitingly. "And it's Peter and Susan and Edmund, if you don't mind. Come, sit down, Pole, and tell us the real story of your adventures in Narnia with our cousin, here. For I am sure we did not get the entire story out of him."
"Oi!" Eustace exclaimed, mock-indignantly, pulling out a chair of his own as Jill seated herself. "Are you saying I was making up tales?"
"No," the professor chuckled. "But from my many years of hearing stories, I can assure you, Eustace, that ten different people will tell you ten different things they remember about the same event. For example, I'd wager that Miss Pole, here, would hardly recognize herself in the heroic lady you describe when telling the tale of the lost Prince Rilian."
"What? Heroic?" Jill blurted, startled.
"You see?" the professor laughed.
Miss Plummer helped herself to a seat and interjected, "Oh, leave off fussing with those fripperies, Susan, and come sit and join us. Peter, don't you forget your roast. Lucy, you left your apples by the house. Edmund, bring that book here and be ready to take notes. And your penmanship had better have improved from the last time!"
Pevensies moved purposefully at her words; Susan took a seat; Peter returned to poking at things in the oven and Lucy brought her apples over, where she continued peeling and slicing them.
Jill looked at Polly, impressed. Eustace leaned over and muttered "Former schoolteacher," in Jill's ear.
She didn't have a chance to reply before the formidable women turned her gaze on her. "Now, let us hear your story, my dear."
"But where should I start?" Jill asked, bewildered. She had been hoping to sit off to the side at this get-together, but here she was in the center of things! And she was not often called on to tell stories.
"At the beginning, of course," Lucy said brightly.
This did not help Jill in the least, who looked around a little desperately.
"What was the very first thing that started you on your adventure?" prompted Susan, seeing her still hesitate. "There's always some odd thing Here before you get There."
Jill flashed her a grateful smile, took a breath, and began, unsteadily, "I suppose it started when Scrubb said to call on—but no. It began earlier than that. It really started when Dina Tibbins tripped me into the wall on the way to the dining hall. She was trying to suck up to Them, I suppose. She'd been friendly with me last term, but that morning she was just awful. And she said just the nastiest things to me to try to make me cry in front of Them. Apparently I'd been cheek to one at some point, and this was my punishment. So I ran away behind the gym, and…"
Jill found the story easier going as she went, forgetting her nervousness in her reliving of those weeks out in the Wild Northlands of Narnia. She admitted her bratty behavior at the cliff-edge right off, but the others nodded in understanding of a human failing. Eustace volunteered that he didn't think she'd been as awful as all that, but had to admit he'd missed all of Jill's interaction with Aslan.
Susan looked green at hearing how high the cliff in Aslan's Country had been. Edmund looked sorrowful at hearing of Caspian's advanced age, and the years of loss the king had suffered. Peter laughed out loud at the Owls' Parliament, but looked outraged when she told of the Harfangs' plan to cook them for their feast. Lucy looked appropriately sympathetic at hearing of their trials during the long days hiking and camping, but seemed positively ill when Jill told of their accidentally eating some of the Talking Stag.
When it came to the Lady of the Green Kirtle, the professor could be heard muttering to Miss Plummer, "Another lady like those in Charn, eh?" while Miss Plummer gave a tiny gasp at hearing about Father Time slumbering beneath the Northern Wilds.
Jill described the little people living underground (Susan shuddered in horror), and soon got to the part where she described their rescue of Prince Rilian. Miss Plummer nodded sorrowfully at how dreadfully drowsy and mesmerized the Lady had made them all.
"Good Marshwiggle, that!" was Peter's reaction when Puddleglum saved them (though Edmund wrinkled his nose in sympathy at the stink of burnt Marshwiggle). And then Jill told of the Prince's struggles in the grip of the silver chair, and his desperate cries for aid in Aslan's name.
"And then, even after we had failed at nearly every one of the Signs and failed at nearly every task Aslan had sent us, we succeeded in freeing Prince Rilian anyway," Jill said. "To be honest, it was mostly Puddleglum—and Scrubb."
"Bosh!" Eustace said to this. "It was all of us. But do go on, there's more."
"Although," Peter broke in. "If you're at a good place to pause, Jill, we can take a break to eat."
This suggestion was cheered all around, as the roast and bread and other good things had been filling the air with dizzying good scents for some time. They tucked in to the little feast hungrily.
Peter had overseen the roast, while Edmund had supplied root vegetables to soften in water. Lucy had done minor wonders with sweet summer fruits, and Susan had done a sun-tea as well as all the table decorations, which included bits of ribbon and tree fronds and pinecones and candles.
Professor Kirke had surprised them all with freshly baked bread, and it transpired that Miss Plummer—by now a fond 'Aunt Polly' to them all—had brought bottles of birch beer and fizzy lemonade. "Just like I used to have in my smugglers' cave above the rafters," she said.
"Is everything else Narnian, too?" Jill asked, interested.
"Hmmm, Narnia-inspired, perhaps," Peter said.
"The meat and veg and fruits are the sort of meal we three would cook up when out on campaign," Ed revealed. "That is, when we managed to leave all the Royal Cooks behind!"
"Remember, after Filibrick came out with us for just two days?" Lucy laughed. "He couldn't imagine how we survived, so far from the civilization of the Cair."
"And he never wanted to come again," Edmund added. "Su, your decorations—aren't they very like those you used to put together for the High Summer Feasts?"
Susan flushed in pleased acknowledgement that he'd remembered. "Oh, yes. Eustace, Jill, I'm sorry you never got to attend one of those. Centaurs read the stars, and the trees came out and spoke. Fauns danced and played til sunrise. It was all very lovely."
"Susan always made everyone feel comfortable. When she saw how much the wild folk liked the woodsiness of the Summer Feast, she started bringing in bits of the outdoors inside for our own gatherings at the Cair." Lucy said.
"You always had a fair hand at making everyone feel at home, Su" Peter agreed, smiling. "But Jill, do go on with your story. You and Eustace had just freed Prince Rilian."
"We did!" Jill said. "But in a second, the Lady was back with us, trying to ensorcell us again. She began to change into a giant snake! Prince Rilian didn't hesitate. He took his sword and lopped off her head, right there." Susan and Aunt Polly gasped, and Lucy's eyes widened at that.
"He did avenge his mother, as he promised, you see." Eustace said.
"But then, we had to run for it." Jill said. "With the Lady's death, all the spells that kept the underground people enslaved—"
"—not to mention, kept the caves stable—" Eustace interjected.
"—they all stopped working. So we had to run for upper ground as soon as we could. It was terrifying."
"I'd bet it was!" Lucy exclaimed.
So then Jill told of their harrowing journey through the flickering lamplight and enveloping darkness; the strange nihilistic joy of the people of Bism, leaping into a bottomless chasm; and of finally running into that last high-ceilinged cave with its apparent dead end.
"It was quite something," she said. "That very last cave… We'd been stumbling in the darkness for so long, with no real idea of whether we were going in the right direction or not. We knew we were going away from bad things, but didn't really know if we were heading to good things. If that makes sense?"
"It does; I know what you mean," Susan said softly. "Go on."
"We were there feeling like we'd just gone to all this effort, and run into darker and darker places, and finally had nowhere to turn to. And finally, all the lights went out."
"It was terrible," Eustace said, grimacing at the memory.
"But that's what saved us." Jill added.
"How's that?" Peter asked, leaning forward.
"Well, when there were the lanterns that the Lady had set up, we travelled by their light. When they went out, there was darkness. But if we hadn't had the darkness—if there had been the least bit of light in the cave—we never would have seen it, it was so faint."
"What?" two or three voices asked at once.
"There, high above our heads, just the littlest bit of pale blue light, coming in through a hole in the wall. It was so dark, that little bit of light shone out like a beacon. And so we decided I should sit on Puddleglum's shoulders (he was the tallest, and I the lightest) to see if the light was coming from anywhere useful.
"Sitting on his shoulders was still too low, so I stood on them and then—pow! I got hit in the face with a load of snow, of all things!"
"Snow!"
"Underground?"
"I shouted, for of course I realized: there's no snow underground. At least not usually, and anyhow someone had to have thrown it. Only they didn't hear me at first. When they did, they moved fast, for they thought I'd been in danger."
"But who were they?" Aunt Polly asked.
"Oh! Narnians. Dwarves, and Fauns, and Talking Animals of all sorts, and I don't know what all." Jill said. "They pulled me right out of the cave—"
"And a turn that gave the rest of us, you know!"
"—and eventually," Jill continued, ignoring Eustace, "they understood all I told them, and they dug out nearly the whole hill so everyone else (and the horses) could get out, too. They all cheered when they realized it was their lost Prince with them, and they all started making plans to get him back home as soon as possible."
"We slept, and ate, and went to Cair Paravel, and the same ship that we'd seen leave was coming in. But it was so sad." Jill said, and described Caspian's death.
The Pevensies reacted much more strongly to this part of the story than Jill expected, and belatedly she remembered Eustace mentioning their meeting a Caspian on their second trip.
"I'm sorry to have told you such news," she ventured, feeling badly for delivering such upsetting intelligence.
"Oh," Susan said, on a long wavering sniffle. "To think of that lovely young man, elderly and dying!"
Peter was a bit more stoical, though Jill could tell the news had upset him. "Come now, Su, don't carry on. This happens every time someone gets back, or nearly. Everyone has to go to Aslan's Country sometime."
"And he did!" Jill hastened to assure them. "That's what happened next…" and she related the end of their tale, which brought them back to England and Experiment House.
"So that's what really happened!" Edmund exclaimed. At Jill's odd look, he explained, "Father's in academia, and all the hubbub surrounding Experiment House caused such a stir that even the universities noticed."
"The newspapers noticed, too," Eustace said. "They had reporters all over trying to find out why the police had been called out to the grounds."
"When they called the school to assembly to ask if any students knew anything, I couldn't look at Scrubb—I'm sure I should have laughed," Jill said. "But there's a few parts of the whole thing that just doesn't make sense."
"What are those, my dear?" The Professor asked, though Jill had the oddest feeling he already knew her question.
"Well—why did I get pulled away to rescue Prince Rillian? I'm no one special. Not like all of you—kings and queens and professors, and all." She looked around at them, truly bewildered.
Aunt Polly laughed out loud at that. "My dear, we were none of us anything out of the ordinary before we encountered Aslan. Special and unique, yes, as is everyone; but still quite ordinary. I was a dreamy schoolgirl with too much time and too few friends."
"I was a sad country boy, miserable in a city." The Professor supplied.
"We were just four kids, separated from our parents and home by war," Peter put in.
"And I—well you know, Pole. I was a right prig," admitted Edmund.
"I think," Lucy said carefully, "that Aslan needs things done, and he brings forth the best people to do those things. And even if you don't realize you really are the best person to do it when you begin, somehow we all do manage. And then you realize how much more you are, following Aslan, than you could ever be on your own."
"Hmm." Jill turned that over in her head for a moment, and found it was an answer that would do, for now. "I suppose that makes sense. There's another thing that doesn't make any sense at all, though."
"What's that?"
"Time! It's so strange to think that while you were back here for—what? A year?—fifty or sixty years went by in Narnia."
"Well," the Professor's voice intruded, "It's not so strange when you consider that the whole Narnian world was sung into being in less than an afternoon. Time does work differently there. And when we'd come back, hardly a few minutes had passed."
"What?" Jill exclaimed, turning to look at him. "Narnia made in an afternoon?"
"An afternoon of Narnian time," Aunt Polly confirmed, smiling at the memory. "We all landed in the Darkness that was Before—"
"We?" Eustace asked. Evidently he hadn't heard this story before.
"Oh, Diggory—the Professor—and I, and Diggory's dreadful Uncle and the even more dreadful Jadis, and the cabby and his dear horse Strawberry…"
And then launched another round of storytelling, this time from the Professor and Aunt Polly, who clearly had told the story to the Pevensies many times, but no one seemed to be tired of hearing it again. And that naturally led into the story of the Pevensies' entering the magical world.
By the end of the day, the eight of them were as fast friends as any, despite the wide range of their ages. The meetings of all of the Friends of Narnia had finally begun.
OK, so there's Jill meeting the Pevensies, et al. Not a lot of plot, mostly character, but I think it works OK. Gosh, Jill was hard to write, though! As always, reviews are muchly APPRECIATED!
