Chapter 1 ~ Not Forsaken
The Western Woods in the year 1015 ~ Autumn 1940
You have not forsaken those who seek You.

It was on the tip of Edmund's tongue to tell them to stop. A stag would be long gone with the way they were crashing through the trees. But something kept him quiet, some strange tug in his soul pulling him further on. Aslan, be with us, he prayed silently. The call to this new adventure now felt more ominous. The trees were very closed in here, and the pine needles pricked against his face. No, it felt more like the brush of fur, like burying his nose in Akela's thick scruff. Fur? Everyone was talking over each other in confusion, Peter's deep voice urging them to calm themselves. He stumbled against Susan and she yanked her skirts out from under his feet. What is happening? The suddenly empty air and the sensation of falling, made him catch his breath, and then they had landed in a jumble of legs and elbows and bumped heads. Edmund lay there a moment, trying to work out what had happened.

"By the Lion's Mane!" Lucy gasped out. "It…it's the other place — Spare Oom. No, that's not right, is it?"

"England," whispered Susan. "We are once more at the beginning. This is the wardrobe at Professor Kirke's house."

Edmund felt his heart leap. Or was it sinking? With that word England a host of memories and emotions crowded into his mind. Mum. Dad. Cricket. Chocolate. Gas Masks. Bombs. Things he hadn't thought about in years. Years? Could he simply have forgotten his parents for years? What had they done?

Peter leapt to his feet, lunging back towards the wardrobe, yanking coats down from their hangers and pounding on the thick wooden back. "No, No!" he hissed frantically. "I want to go back!"

"Peter," began Edmund, and then stopped, surprised by the pitch of his own voice. Back to prepubescence, he thought ruefully, rubbing the knee that had hit the ground hard when they'd tumbled into the room. It was knobby, he noted, the joint connecting wiry leg bones. No more strong, well-toned muscles, honed by years of training with knights. No more enviable baritone vocal range, commanding the attention of politicians. How old had he been when they first came to Narnia? Eleven? Ten? They'd come to Professor Kirke's because of the war, just after that birthday where Eustace had thrown up after eating too much cake. He'd been ten. Or was ten again. Was still ten? He wasn't sure how to think about it.

A shiver passed through him, wondering briefly if he was once again that Edmund, the horrid one that had betrayed his family for empty promises. Maybe he'd hit his head that first time he'd tried to follow Lucy and everything thereafter had been a dream. He was only now becoming conscious again, and at any moment Peter would start to berate him for causing trouble. But that couldn't be. Not if the frenzied pounding on the wardrobe and his sisters' dazed expressions were anything to go by. They'd entered a different world through that wardrobe. Saved a kingdom. Reigned as kings and queens. Grown up. Moved on.

And now they were back.

Back to childhood and war and being refugees in someone else's home away from Mum and Dad.

Back to…oh…Edmund's train of thought abruptly swung back to his brother and he moved to stop Peter before he broke his hand or the wardrobe.

"Brother, I do not think—" he said softly, hesitating before he reached for his brother's arm. As adults they were evenly matched in a fight, but not now. Now Peter could lay him flat with one good punch.

Peter threw him an agonized glance, even as he shrugged off Edmund's hand. "I must return. I must," he whispered, even as his fists slowed their assault on the ancient wood. "My whole life is in Narnia."

Edmund was vaguely aware of Lucy beginning to cry, and Susan's murmurs of comfort. "Peter we must trust Aslan," he said finally, the voice sounding foreign to his own ears. "The Great Lion is not so capricious as to bring us once more through the wardrobe without reason."

Peter turned away, running scraped fingers once more over the planks of wood. "I would never have gone after the white stag had I known. I would never have chosen to leave."

"Tea," Susan pronounced loudly. "We have had a shock, and tea is very bracing. I shall ring for tea." Her brow furrowed for a moment as she thought through her words. "I mean…" Susan hesitated and Edmund knew she was sifting back past fifteen years of court life to remember how things worked here. "The housekeeper," she said with a decisive voice. "We shall find the housekeeper and ask if it wouldn't be too much trouble to have some tea. What was she called? Mac…something…McClary?"

Edmund once more put his hand on Peter's shoulder and drew him away from the wardrobe. "Come along, Peter. I am sure we will think of something."

Instead of shrugging off his hand again, Peter turned and gripped Edmund fiercely by the shoulders, as he had often done before they rode off into battle, a last moment to encourage or exhort in case the worst should ever happen. "Swear to me," he said fiercely. "Swear by Aslan Himself that you will help me find a way to return to my kingdom."

"I swear," Edmund replied solemnly. Peter was the High King, and he could do no less, though the adolescent cracking of his brother's voice made him wonder if that was a promise wholly out of his control.

But they did try. Over and over again. Hours spent running their hands over the seams of the wardrobe, hours spent in prayer, pleading for Aslan to speak just once more. During those first few days the memories of England that they had somehow forgotten during their time in Narnia came flooding back, bringing with it for Edmund shame that he had forgotten his parents and life here so easily. He wasn't sure about the others, but his overriding emotion wasn't even really an emotion. He just felt numb with shock. If the shock had been attributed to something that had happened in this world — if they had lost Mum in the Blitz, if they had received word that Dad had been killed in battle, then the grownups who were in charge might have responded differently.

But as far as this world went, nothing had happened to them at all. So there was no one to say, "Come have a cup of tea and tell me about it." No one to make allowances for the utter weariness that would engulf them without warning as they relearned habits and patterns of speech that had once been second nature. No one to realize the frustration of having a more adult mind trapped in a child's body. No one to understand why Lucy would occasionally burst into tears, why Susan fluttered about helplessly trying to find something to keep them all occupied and receiving little gratitude for her efforts, why Peter was sullen and angry and spent hours each day trying to get back through the wardrobe or working himself into exhaustion helping the housekeeper, Mrs. Macready with her Victory Garden. And rather than lean on each other, they each withdrew into themselves.

Edmund managed to keep himself busy during the day. Over the past fifteen years he'd discovered he enjoyed and had a bit of a talent for drawing. In Narnia he'd sketched out maps and battle plans and illustrated the chronicles of their kingdom as the scribes recorded council meetings and kept a visual record of all the events and activities of the young royals. So back in England he determined to do the same, found paper and pencil and began to record memories, creating a visual record of their life here at Professor Kirke's home.

But nighttime was another matter, when memories rose and swirled close to the surface of the life they'd lost. Sleep became elusive and grief overwhelming. He found himself more than once in the hours before dawn deep in the wardrobe, hoping to feel the fabric of coats changing to the pricking needles of fir trees. And Edmund was fairly certain the others were doing the same thing. He'd passed Lucy a few times in the hallway, each pretending the other was coming back from the loo. But the watershed moment was late one night almost two weeks after they'd returned. He'd ventured to the spare room sometime after midnight only to find Peter there, collapsed in a heap and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Pete?" Edmund called softly, stepping over to him and laying a hand on his shoulder.

Peter jerked away and glared up at him. "You swore to help me find a way back," he snarled. "Do you even care?! Or are you going to hide your head in the sand like Susan and pretend the only thing that matters is here and now? Return to the spoiled, selfish boy you used to be?"

Part of him knew it was only grief seeking an outlet, that deep down Peter didn't really think those things. But his own grief, uncertainty, and weariness made for a volatile cocktail, and Edmund unthinkingly snapped back, "What is it you think I can do, exactly? I'm here almost every night hoping the damned thing will open again! Do you think I don't hurt just as much as you do?!"

Many years later he would look back on this night and understand it is impossible to compare grief. In his mind he had lost everything, the same way Peter had lost everything. But Peter couldn't see it that way. To a man who had lost his wife, there was no comparison. His brother was almost instantly on his feet, and Edmund wasn't prepared to brace himself as Peter grabbed his shoulders and shoved him backwards, hard. He fell to the floor with a thump, forehead striking the corner of the wardrobe.

He brushed tentative fingers against the bump that had begun to ooze a little blood as Peter stood over him, glowering. "Don't you ever tell me you hurt as much as I do," he said in a low voice, for a moment sounding as adult and kingly as he had in Narnia. "What can you possibly know about loving anyone as much as I loved her?" He turned and left the room, the door swinging shut and extinguishing his small candle, leaving Edmund in darkness. And for the first time since their return, the first time in many years, he wept.

The next day Peter had mumbled an apology without really looking at him, and then kept to himself the rest of the morning. Edmund moped around silently, at a complete loss as to what he should do. He'd sworn to help his brother find a way back, back to his wife and his kingdom, but he didn't know how to keep that promise. If only Peter believed how much he truly wanted to help him. He knew his brother was grieving, they all were. Peter hadn't even been able to say his wife's name.

After lunch Edmund found himself pacing the long central hallway of the Professor's house, and thinking dismally that this felt like how things had been before. Before they found the wardrobe and met Aslan and he was at odds with Peter all the time. Maybe it's harder for Peter because he wasn't brought back from the brink like I was, he wondered suddenly, grabbing the stair post and swinging slowly around as he started another turn down the hallway. On sunny days the worn and polished wood gleamed as light filtered through the thick, leaded glass windows. But not today. Today was as grey and depressing as his mood, muting all the colors in the house and the garden. Maybe he doesn't realize that at the coronation, when I swore loyalty to him as the High King, those weren't just words. I was promising to do anything, everything in my power, to love and support him. Anything to show him I wasn't the same anymore.

He sighed and chewed glumly on the edge of his thumbnail. Rain was now falling in sheets outside, just like the day they had played hide and seek, like the day they'd all gone through the wardrobe. I mean, I suppose I was younger then, sort of. They always said I hadn't really known what I was doing. But I think part of me did. I was so angry all the time, but it was really fear and grief. And I wanted them to feel that too. And after it was all over they took me back, no scoldings, no recriminations. I'm sure Peter only brought up the old Edmund last night because he's so hurt. And I do understand what that feels like. Oh not having a wife, of course. I probably should have said it differently. He couldn't even say her name aloud. But I do understand being angry because deep down you're scared. Why can't Peter see that?

He kicked at the threadbare carpet as he wandered aimlessly down the hall again, his heart sending up one more feeble request for help. Surely Aslan didn't mean for them to all go through this?

"I can't think what has happened, but every one of those children has been at sixes and sevens the past two weeks!"

Edmund paused as he passed the Professor's study door. They surely hadn't meant to be overheard, but the tiny crack was enough for Mrs. Macready's sharp Scottish accent to carry clearly into the hall. He heard the lower murmur of the Professor's voice, but couldn't make out his reply.

"I know they haven't had any bad news from London," she continued, "so what on earth would make a cheerful girl like that little Lucy so unhappy? And you can call me an Englishman if the younger boy got that bruise stumbling into a door frame in the night as he claimed. His brother won't even look at him."

He leaned in as close to the door as he dared, trying to make out the Professor's words. There was a long sigh and then the quiet voice said, "Mrs. Macready, I shall speak to the boy and try to find out what happened. I suspect that life in the country hasn't turned out to be quite what they expected."

Mrs. Macready hummed skeptically. "You'd think they'd be happy enough to get away from those terrible bombings in London. I'll send him along when I see him, Professor. And I'll be back in a thrice with your tea."

Edmund ducked back along the hall and pretended to be coming up the stairs as Macready exited the room. "Ah, Edmund," she said, looking faintly surprised. "The Professor would like to see you. I'll be bringing him a cup of tea. Would you like one?"

"Yes, thank you," he nodded. "I'll go straight in."

The woman stared at him a moment, glancing from his forehead to his eyes, pursed her lips thoughtfully, and continued down the stairs.

He took a deep breath, pushed open the study door, and almost sighed aloud. It was a perfect room. Dark paneled shelves held rows and rows of books. The Professor's desk was massive, plenty of room to spread out papers or maps or reference books. And tucked away at one end was a fireplace with two ancient armchairs pulled close. The rainy weather made the room dark and cozy, a few lamps adding a soft orange glow. Edmund was instantly homesick for his own study at Cair Paravel. Visually, his room was very different. A thick tapestry hung on one of the large stone walls, depicting Aslan at the creation of Narnia. The other walls were lined with bookshelves apart from a large framed map of the whole of their kingdom. He didn't have a desk with drawers, but a large oak table, where piles of parchment were always stacked or scattered, pencils and chalk rolling about. He wasn't exactly tidy. But it was all his, space for reading or thinking or drawing. This room felt just the same. It was clearly the Professor's inner sanctum. And the dark head, liberally streaked with grey, was bent over a large leather book, a fountain pen scratching away on the paper. Edmund cleared his throat and pulled a chair up closer to the desk. "Mrs. Macready said you wished to see me, sir?" He felt almost swallowed up by the large chair, and he tried to sit a little straighter, to channel the King into the skinny frame he once again inhabited.

Professor Kirke raised his head and stared at Edmund for a moment, his eyes darting up to the bruise on his forehead as Mrs. Macready had done. "You and your siblings have developed quite an interest in the wardrobe in my spare room," he stated calmly. "And yet that seems only to have created division among you. Would you like to explain to me why that is?"

Edmund lifted his chin a bit as he studied the professor in much the same way the professor had studied him. He wasn't sure it would work now, but it had disarmed many a politician when he was grown up, the long silent stare before he chose to speak. He was sure the Professor had called him in because he and Macready thought things were mostly Edmund's fault. Not that he blamed them. The boy they were familiar with had been a bully and a liar.

"Sir," he finally said, "you told my older brother and sister once that if Lucy were the more truthful child then they should assume she was telling the truth instead of me. You also said," Edmund continued, "That one should not assume time operated the same way in different worlds as it does here. Are those statements correct?" He hadn't really meant to speak out the last question, that was just the habit of several years of mediating court decisions.

"I did," Professor Kirke said with a nod. He set down the pen still in his hand and reached for a pipe and can of tobacco on the far corner of the desk. He took great care in slowly cleaning out the bowl of the pipe and adding a pinch of tobacco before striking a match and drawing on it. When he was able to puff away easily he settled back in the overstuffed chair and added a trifle archly, "I also recommended that everyone mind their own business, advice which you can clearly see I am not now heeding."

A grin flashed across Edmund's face, and he leaned forward in the chair. "Then it might not come as such a shock to you to know that we all discovered Lucy was, in fact, telling the truth about your wardrobe and the land she found there."

The hint of a smile twitched one side of the Professor's face. "It changed you didn't it?" he nodded sagely, pointing at him with the end of the pipe.

Edmund nodded back at him, took a deep breath, and poured out the entire story — his betrayal and forgiveness, Aslan's resurrection and defeat of the White Witch, fifteen years of learning to run a kingdom and growing up, and finally the tracking of the white stag that had led them once more through the wardrobe and back into England.

"So now you find yourselves starting over," the Professor remarked. "Tricky. Very tricky indeed."

"Oh, and I'm sorry we lost some of your coats," Edmund added.

A short bark of a laugh escaped around the pipe stem. "Well, they didn't even leave the wardrobe, now did they? But the issue at hand," Professor Kirke continued, suddenly sober, "is that you won't get back into Narnia through the wardrobe. Things never happen the same way twice." He must have read the disappointment on Edmund's face, because he all at once became very busy tapping out the used tobacco from this pipe and refilling it, averting his eyes.

But the disappointment faded as Edmund thought over his words, because if things never happened the same way twice, that didn't mean that they couldn't happen, just that there was another way. And if the Professor was so certain the wardrobe was closed, then he must have more experience with these things than he'd let on, and that meant… "Sir, do you think we will someday go back?" Edmund asked in a hushed voice.

The Professor looked up from the pipe at Edmund's earnest face. "Yes, I expect so. Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But it will happen when you're not looking for it."

The import of those words flash through his brain like a streak of lightning. He hadn't used that phrase in his entire retelling of the events. The only way the Professor would have heard Once a king in Narnia… "You've been there," Edmund breathed out, his eyes wide. He absently touched his chest, where his heart had begun hammering wildly. "I…I never said anything about once a king always a king. That was the phrase He used, the Great Lion, Aslan. And you…you know it will take a different route to get us there…when were you there? Did you go through the wardrobe too? What was the other route? How did—" His words tumbled out of his mouth almost as fast as he could think them.

"I cannot tell you," Professor Kirke interrupted, shaking his head. "The ways I knew are also closed. Aslan and His kingdom are not like a genie in a lamp to be summoned at will."

"No, of course not. Even in Narnia He comes and goes as He pleases," agreed Edmund quietly, feeling a pang of disappointment. He had hoped for a moment that this was it, the answers he'd been looking for. "But…oh, don't you see?" he asked earnestly, "Peter has to go back! He's so unhappy, so hurt and angry about leaving. We grew up there. He lost his wife! Have you ever…I mean, were you…" His voice trailed off as he realized the impertinence of the question.

"Yes, to the first question, no to the second," said the Professor, tapping the pipe on the ashtray. "I have lost someone, but I wasn't married. We're appointed various trials in our lives," he added vaguely.

"So how did you move on, sir?" he asked, trying not to feel hopeless. "In this world?"

Thick eyebrows arched up and the twitching smile returned. "You must find the Great Lion in this world, my boy."

"He's here?" Edmund blinked in surprise, leaning back. "I thought…I don't know what I thought," he said, frowning in frustration and running an abstracted hand through his hair.

"Yes, He's here." The Professor bent to rummage in his desk drawer and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book, much worn. "Different name of course, but you'll see Him in these words well enough."

He pushed the book towards Edmund, and he picked it up gingerly. "A Bible?" he asked in surprise, his fingers tracing over the title etched into the cover. His mind ran quickly over the few stories he remembered from Sunday mornings at St. Mary's, their local parish church that had been partially destroyed in a bombing raid the year before.

"You do your lessons well, boy?" the Professor asked suddenly. "Can you study this book on your own without some teacher threatening you with a ruler?"

Edmund looked up in surprise and then caught the twinkle in his eye. "Yes, sir," nodded Edmund emphatically, "I wrote laws and issued judgements for a kingdom. I can certainly do this. I'll read it carefully. I promise."

"Then you'll find Him for yourself. And I expect you'll find something in there to help your brother as well. It isn't wrong to grieve for what we lose. But you do have to remember what you know to be true about Aslan in the midst of the grief."

"He isn't a tame Lion," said Edmund solemnly, "but He's good."

The Professor nodded, puffing silently on his pipe.