Chapter 5: Lucy Looks Into a Wardrobe

The next day was the opposite of great. When the morning came there was a steady rain falling. It was so thick that when the Pevensie's looked out the window they could see neither the mountains or woods. Even the stream in the garden was concealed from view. "Of course it would be raining!" Edmund grumbled as he and Peter awoke that morning. Peter just rolled his eyes, which was quickly becoming a common practice. After they had breakfast with the Professor they were all gathered in a small parlor room. Lucy was particularly disappointed about the rain as she had been most looking forward to playing outside. She sat at a window watching the droplets roll down the glass. In her mind she had them race. Edmund was lying on the floor, trying to find interesting patterns in the ceiling material. And Susan had a big book on her lap, trying to coerce Peter into guessing the roots of big words.

"Gastrovascular," she said with a smirk. She was sure this would stump him. "Come on, Peter. Gastrovascular." Peter gave a great sigh.

"Is it Latin?" he finally said. He was getting rather bored with this.

"Yes," said Susan stiffly.

"Is it Latin for 'worst game ever invented'?" snickered Edmund. Peter even gave a chuckle along with his brother. Susan gave a huff and closed the book, standing up and stomping to put it back on the bookshelf.

"We could play 'hide-and-seek'," suggested Lucy, coming over from her window seat. Peter leaned his head back to look at her.

"But we're already having sooo much fun," he said sarcastically, teasing her.

"Come on, Peter, please!" she begged, grabbing Peter's arm and bouncing in place. Then she made her face look like a kicked puppy and batted her eyes. "Pretty please?" Peter broke out into a wide smile. He couldn't tease her so.

"One, two, three…" Peter began to count.

"What?!" Edmund protested. Susan as well rolled her eyes, thinking herself too old for this. But nonetheless both she and Edmund arose from their places and left the room with Lucy. Peter went to the wall and shielded his eyes as he began to count to one hundred. The three remaining Pevensie siblings all looked around for different places to hide throughout the enormous mansion. Susan found an empty trunk that was at the top of a staircase and climbed in. Lucy found a small alcove that had a large heavy curtain in front of it, big enough to conceal her. But right as she was about to step behind it, Edmund came up out of nowhere and shoved her to the side, taking her sought space.

"I was here first!" he declared. Lucy gave an annoyed huff and continued down the hallway. She tried almost every door but they were all locked. All except one. She opened the door and entered the room, which was empty except for one big wardrobe covered by a white sheet. There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead bluebottle on the windowsill. The room would have been enough for her to hide in but instead she thought it would be worthwhile trying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure that it would be locked. Lucy closed the door to the spare room and walked towards the wardrobe. She grabbed the white sheet and with a great swoop it fell off, leaving her to gaze upon the intricately carved wood. She took hold of the handle and to her surprise it opened quite easily and seemed big enough for her to climb inside. Looking into it, she saw several long fur coats hanging up. This would be perfect, she thought. She could conceal herself among all of the fur.

She stepped inside and closed the door, remembering to leave it open just a crack for she knew it was very foolish to shut oneself in a wardrobe. She stepped back further in and found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one. It was quite dark in there and she kept her hands stretched out behind her so as to not bump into the back wall. She continued to walk backwards, always expecting to feel wood against the tips of her fingers. But she did not.

"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" Lucy whispered to herself, going still further and pushing the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. Suddenly, her hand touched something very cold. When she withdrew it she found that it was slightly wet. Lucy slowly turned around and was awestruck at the sight that befell her eyes. There before her was a mystical wood of evergreen trees covered in snow and ice. She felt a little frightened at first, but soon that gave way to curiosity and excitement. She looked back over her shoulder and there between the tree trunks she could still see the fur coats and the open doorway of the wardrobe. She knew that she could always get back if anything went wrong. A few cautious steps forward, the snow crunching underneath her feet. Feeling braver and more comfortable, she began to walk further in the wood, trying to catch stray snowflakes that were falling around her. The more she walked the more her eyes could make out a soft, glowing light that was coming from somewhere around her. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamppost made of wrought black iron.

"How strange!" Lucy thought. Indeed it was quite strange for her to come across such a thing in the middle of such a place. She placed her hand on the pole and looked up to the top of the lamp post, where glowing orange embers burned dutifully inside it. So transfixed she was that she gave quite a jump at the sound of a snapping twig behind her. She was not alone in this wood. She could hear footsteps pattering through the snow and looked all around to try and find the source of the noise. Once she turned around however, she saw a very strange creature stepping out from among the trees into the light that the lamppost gave. Lucy gave a shriek and tried to hide herself behind the pole of the lamppost. The creature screamed in turn and as a result dropped the parcels that he was carrying, then hid behind one of the trees. Lucy came to the realization that who or whatever this creature was, he was certainly more frightened of her than she was of him. After all, she had stepped foot into his world.

Lucy slowly crept out from behind the lamppost and walked cautiously towards the creature. She stooped and picked up one of his brown paper wrapped parcels. As she did, the creature emerged from behind the tree and pointed his umbrella at her, stuttering as if to protest. Now Lucy could finally get a good look at what he looked like. from the waist up words he was like a man, but his legs were that of a goat with glossy black hair. He had a tail and a red scarf around his neck. his skin was red, possibly from being out in the cold for so long. He had a strange but pleasant face with a short pointed beard, curly hair, two horns on each side of his forehead and strange looking ears. "Were you hiding from me?" Lucy asked quietly.

"N-no," stuttered the creature. He began to move around Lucy, picking up the other parcels that he had dropped. His eyes never left her, as if he were afraid she would attack him if he turned his back. He stuttered on, trying to find his voice. "I-I-I just didn't want to scare you." Lucy gave him a gentle smile.

"If you don't mind my asking…" she started, for she was most curious. "What are you?"

The creature gave a little scoff, but then replied "Well I'm a faun." He said it in a way that made Lucy feel as if she should have known all along. "And what about you?" he asked in reply. "Are you some kind of beardless dwarf?"

"I'm not a dwarf!" Lucy giggled. "I'm a girl!" Lucy didn't see the slight shock that passed the faun's eyes, for she was bent down again to retrieve the last parcel. "And actually I'm the tallest in my class." she bragged, handing it to him. He took it, though his eyes never left hers.

"You mean to say that you're a Daughter of Eve?" he asked slowly.

"Well, my mum's name is Hele-"

"Yes, yes," interrupted the faun. "But what I meant was you are, in fact, human?"

"Well, yes, of course," Lucy replied, thinking it an odd question. The faun looked around from side to side.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper. "Forgive me but I've just never met a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve before. Where did you come from?"

"Well," Lucy began, delighted to finally explain. "I was hiding in the wardrobe in the spare room, and-" she didn't get to finish her sentence.

"Spare Oom?" interrupted the faun again. "Is that in Narnia? Forgive my asking. I wish I paid more attention in geography lessons when I was a little faun, or else I might be familiar with all those strange countries."

"Narnia?" Lucy replied, only focusing on that strange name. "What's that?"

" Well dear girl, you're in it!" said the faun, gesturing towards the forest before them. "Everything from the lamppost all the way to castle Cair Paravel on the Eastern ocean. Every stick and stone you see, every icicle, is Narnia." He pointed with his umbrella. Lucy looked and could just faintly make out the outlines of mountains beyond the trees.

"This is an awfully big wardrobe." she whispered in astonishment.

"Oh!" exclaimed the faun suddenly. " I never properly introduced myself. My name is Tumnus." He gave a little bow in introduction.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tumnus!" Lucy replied in delight. "I'm Lucy Pevensie." She stuck out her hand but Mr. Tumnus made no move in reciprocation. He had confusion written all over his face. "Oh, you shake it," Lucy explained.

"Why?" Mr. Tumnus was now quite puzzled.

"I-" Lucy began. But then she paused. "I don't know!" she eventually said, now puzzled herself. No one had ever asked that before. "People do it when we meet each other." That was the best explanation she could come up with. Mr. Tumnus slowly took her hand in his, but instead of shaking it like anyone normally would he instead shook it rapidly from side to side, then swung it around. Lucy laughed.

"Well Lucy Pevensie from the shining city of War Drobe in the wondrous land of Spare Oom, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?" He propped his umbrella back over his head and swung his tail neatly in the crook of his arm.

"Well thank you very much!" said Lucy appreciatively, touched by the offer. Something stopped her from accepting right away. Her face scrunched into a frown. "But I should probably be getting back."

"Oh no, it's just around the corner!" explained Mr. Tumnus. "And I can promise a roaring fire with toast and tea and cakes. And perhaps…we can even break into the sardines." He wiggled his eyebrows at the mention of the sardines, as if that was the part he was looking forward to the most.

"I don't know…" Lucy said with uncertainty.

"Oh come on," begged Mr. Tumnus. "It's not every day that I get to make a new friend." He said this in a way of such excitement that Lucy couldn't say no to him.

"Well in that case I suppose I could come for a little while." She moved to his side and linked her arm with his that was holding the umbrella. "If you have…sardines."

"By the bucket load!" chuckled Mr. Tumnus. And off they went through the snow.

After they had walked a little while, Lucy asked him how much further. She was becoming quite cold. "Oh, it's just around this corner." Mr. Tumnus replied. Indeed when they had rounded the corner, Lucy saw in a rock wall what looked like metal. Indeed it was metal, embedded within the rock. It made a little archway and underneath the archway there was a door. Lucy stopped for a moment to have a good look. "Here we are!" sighed Mr. Tumnus. "Come along!" Lucy picked up her pace and followed him inside, taking one of his parcels so he could open the door. As soon as she stepped inside she found herself blinking in the light of a wood fire. Mr. Tumnus stomped his feet so as to clear the snow off of them then put away his umbrella and took off his scarf. Lucy took a moment to look around the cave. She thought she had never been in a nicer place. It was a little, dry, clean cave of red stone with a carpet on the floor and two little chairs. There was also a table, a dresser, and a mantelpiece over the fire and above that a picture of an old faun with a gray beard. Lucy picked it up and examined it.

"Ah, now that is my father," explained Mr. Tumnus.

"He has a nice face," mused Lucy. "He looks a lot like you." At this, Mr. Tumnus paused, though Lucy didn't notice.

"No. No I'm not much like him at all really." he said.

"My father is fighting in the war…" Lucy said sadly, remembering Christopher. He seemed even further away from her now.

"My father went away to war, too," said Mr. Tumnus in kind. "But that was a long time ago. Before this dreadful winter!" At this Mr. Tumnus began to set out the tea things and Lucy began to examine a shelf full of books. They had titles like: The Life and Letters of Silenus, Nymphs and Their Ways, Men, Monks and Gamekeepers; A Study in Popular Legend and Adam and Eve's Descendants: Myth?

"Winter isn't all bad." Lucy eventually said. "There's ice skating, snowball fights… and Christmas!"

"Not here," said Mr. Tumnus gloomily. "No, we haven't had a Christmas in a hundred years."

"What?!" Lucy exclaimed, her ears not wanting to believe such a thing. "No presents for a hundred years?"

"It's always winter here," Mr. Tumnus explained. "Never Christmas. It's been a long winter". Lucy was about to ask why but found herself distracted for Mr. Tumnus had set out the tea. It really was wonderful. There was a lightly boiled egg for each of them. Then sardines on toast (which Mr. Tumnus was the most excited about. Lucy preferred her toast buttered or with honey and indeed she had both. Finally, they both shared a sugar-topped cake. When she had had her fill Mr. Tumnus began to talk. He had wonderful tales to tell of life in the forest and about Narnia in summer. He told about the midnight dances and how nymphs who lived in the wells and the dryads who lived in the trees came out to dance with the fauns; about long hunting parties after the milk white stag who could give you wishes if you caught him; about feasting and treasure seeking with the wild Red Dwarves in deep mines and caverns far beneath the forest floor, looking for jewels that were said to contain Magic; and then about when old Silenus on his fat donkey would come to visit them and sometimes Bacchus himself. Then the streams would run with wine instead of water and the whole forest would give itself up to jubilation for weeks on end.

"I wish I could experience it for myself," said Lucy wistfully.

"As do I," agreed Mr. Tumnus. "But what I can do is play for you some of our music." He stood up and then took out from its case on the dresser a strange little flute that looked as if it were made of the smoothest polished wood. "Now are you familiar with any Narnian lullabies?" Lucy was slightly disappointed to confess that she didn't. "Well, that's good!" smiled Mr. Tumnus. "Because this probably won't sound anything like one."

He then cleared his throat, raised his flute to his lips and began to play. It sounded like a rather haunting tune, and perhaps it was because she was so full of tea and toast, but Lucy found herself staring absentmindedly into the orange and gold licks of the fire. Suddenly, for a moment it seemed the flames took the shape of another faun. Lucy gasped and stared at Mr. Tumnus, but he paid her no mind as he was focused on his playing. Therefore, Lucy stared back into the fire. Several more fauns began to take shape inside of it and the little flame figures appeared to be doing a dance. Lucy, for one moment before she surrendered to sleep, only then realized how tired she really was. As her eyes closed and her head slumped she dropped her teacup on the floor and it shattered. Mr. Tumnus now looked into the fire himself and as he did, instead of the fauns Lucy saw, the fire suddenly rose and took the shape of a lion's head. It gave a single roar and as quick as it had appeared it, and the fire as a whole, were gone. The cave was plunged into darkness, the only sound being Mr. Tumnus's thundering heart.

Several hours had passed before Lucy awoke. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and the first thing they saw was the sliver of the moon shining through the window. Mr. Tumnus was not in his chair. Perhaps he had gone to bed as well. "Oh, I should go! The others will be wondering what's happened to me!" she whispered aloud to herself.

"I'm afraid there's no time for that now," came another voice. Lucy whirled around to see it was Mr. Tumnus. He was sitting on the small steps that lead to his kitchen. And to Lucy's shock, he was crying. "I'm such a terrible faun," he whimpered.

"Oh, no," Lucy soothed, walking over to him. "You're the nicest faun I've ever met!"

"Then I'm afraid you've had a very poor sampling." Mr. Tumnus sobbed and blew his nose in his tail. Lucy took out her handkerchief and dried his tears with it.

"You couldn't have done anything that bad!" she said gently.

"It's not something I have done, Lucy Pevensie." Mr. Tumnus took the hanky from her and dotted his own eyes with it choking on another sob. "It's something I'm doing."

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, trying to maintain her gentle tone but letting slip some confusion. Mr. Tumnus forced himself to look into her eyes.

" I'm kidnapping you." he whispered. Lucy's eyes widened in fright and shock. She began to back away, now feeling very afraid. "I'm kidnapping you for the White Witch."

"The White Witch?" Lucy dared to ask. "Who is she?"

"Why it is she who has all of Narnia under her thumb! She's the one who makes it always winter, always cold."

"But what does that have to do with kidnapping me?" Lucy said, not understanding.

"She gave orders that if any of us were to find a Son of Adam or a Daughter of Eve wandering in the forest we're to turn them over to her. She pays us in return instead of killing or stoning us like she does nearly everyone else."

"But Mr. Tumnus you wouldn't!" Lucy cried. "You won't, will you? Please, you mustn't!" She looked into Mr. Tumnus's eyes, shining with moonlight and tears, and began to cry herself. "I thought you were my friend…" Mr. Tumnus gave a long pause.

"Of course I am," he finally said after a long while. "I see that now. I hadn't known what Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve were like before I met you. The humans in Narnia haven't lived in this part of the forest since I was a young faun. Before she killed…them." Lucy didn't know if 'them' referred to the Narnian humans or another people entirely. "Of course I can't give you up to the Witch, not now that I know you. But we must be off at once!" Quickly, he arose from the floor and grabbed Lucy's hand. He still somehow remembered to throw his red scarf around his neck and as soon as he did this he whisked him and Lucy out of the cave home and back out into the snow. The journey back was not at all like the journey to his cave; they stole along as quickly as they could, and Mr. Tumnus kept to the darkest places.

"Now she may already know you're here!" Mr. Tumnus dared to whisper. "The whole world is full of her spies. Even some of the trees are on her side!" Lucy was relieved to finally reach the lamppost again. "Can you find your way back from here?" Lucy looked very hard between the trees and could just see in the distance a patch of light that looked like day.

"Yes," she said. " I can see the wardrobe door." She turned back to look at Mr. Tumnus. "Will you be alright?" she asked. At this, Mr. Tumnus began to cry again in fear, not knowing what was going to happen to him. Lucy patted his shoulder to comfort him.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly through his tears. "I'm so sorry. Can you ever forgive me for what I meant to do?"

"Why, of course I can!" Lucy smiled. Mr. Tumnus smiled back, knowing he didn't deserve her forgiveness, but that made him all the more grateful for it.

"Here," he mumbled, placing Lucy's now soaked hanky back into her hand.

"Keep it, rather," she said, closing his hands around it. "You need it more than I do." She gave him a quick smile, but swiftly erased it as she remembered now was not the time for jokes. Mr. Tumnus chuckled anyway, but then grabbed her shoulders and looked fiercely into her eyes.

"No matter what happens, Lucy Pevensie, I am glad to have met you," he said in admiration. "You've made me feel warmer than I've felt in a hundred years." The two friends shared a quick smile, genuine this time. "Now be off home as quick as you can!" Mr. Tumnus said, giving Lucy a slight nudge away from him. "Go!" Lucy then ran towards the far off patch of daylight as quickly as her legs would carry her. And soon enough, instead of rough branches brushing past her she felt the fur coats, and instead of the soft snow under her feet she felt the hard wooden boards of the wardrobe floor. In fact, she was going so fast that she slipped on a mothball and tumbled out of the door of the Wardrobe into the same empty room from which the whole adventure had started. It was still raining and she could hear the voice of Peter still counting from the other room. She scarcely had time to register that no time had passed here, even though several hours had gone in Narnia.

"It's alright!" Lucy shouted with glee. "I'm here! I'm back! And I'm alright!"