Chapter 1

It had started with the painting in her bedroom.

It was a fairly boring painting from a distance, easily lost in her grandparents' vast art collection but up close the trees seemed to rustle slightly, the flowers seemed to nod their heads and if you looked at it too long it felt like something, or someone, was watching you.

But it was more than that – this painting seemed to call to her.

Lydia knew that this was probably something she should keep to herself. She'd been sent to her grandparents by her mother for a chance to rest and heal; claiming that paintings were talking to her would probably not help her case in getting home.

But there was no denying that the "Forest painting" as she'd taken to calling it, was whispering to her. One noise, over and over again – Aslan.

She'd taken to wandering the halls of her grandparents' house during the day, trying to escape the whispers. She was only there for the summer before she started university back in London but as an only child and with her mother too weak to travel, she was incredibly lonely. If she told her grandparents about whispers that felt like needles in her brain, they would think she was mad. It was 1960 and the world was changing – she'd already been offered help for her recent trauma but she doubted she'd be taken seriously for hearing voices.

Having heard the word be repeated over and over again for three consecutive nights, Lydia was fairly confident that the word was Aslan. But she'd never heard of it, couldn't even begin to think what it could mean.

She'd paid a visit to her grandparents' extensive library to try and find a definition for this mysterious "Aslan" but fifteen languages later, Lydia was beginning to run out of ideas. The best she'd found was "lion" in Turkish but she dismissed that immediately since there weren't any lions in these landscapes and although she wasn't an expert, she was pretty sure lions lived in the savannah, not deserts and mountains. Besides, her knowledge of other languages was limited to O level French and therefore she had no idea on the pronunciation.

"Already studying for September?"

Her grandmother stood at the door of the library.

Lydia slammed the dictionary shut. "Just researching some of your paintings."

Her grandmother laughed softly and ran a hand through curls that were still defiantly auburn despite her age, "That's definitely a project to keep you going all summer."

Then her laughter faded, "They don't bother you do they?"

Lydia blinked. "No why would they?" she said scraping back her chair to return the book to its shelf.

Her grandmother waited until Lydia had slotted the book back into place, careful grey eyes watching her granddaughters every move.

"I'm not sure." She said slowly, "I've considered getting rid of them over the years but could just never bring myself to do it. There's something about them that keeps them here."

When Lydia shrugged, her grandmother smiled again, "Enough about paintings, its late. Can I get you a cup of tea?"

Lydia shook her head. "No I'm alright thank you, I think I'll just go straight to bed." She made to dart past her grandmother who was still stood in the doorway but Jennifer Euling was incredibly lively for her age and put a firm hand on Lydia's shoulder.

"It's good to see you finding your own interests again Lydia," she said warmly, "after your mother, I was worried…"

"I'm fine." Lydia said then realising how harsh she sounded, attempted a smile. "Honestly Grandma, it's nice to be here."

"Alright then." Her grandmother nodded. "I'll wish you goodnight then." Lydia could her feel her grandmother's eyes on her as she navigated the endless hallways of this country house back to her bedroom.

She flopped onto her bed. Apart from the painting the room was bare except for a wardrobe full of disgusting old fur coats that Lydia refused to even look at, never mind touch.

She closed her eyes and instantly the whispers started up again. Louder this time, more insistent.

"Just one night off," she muttered to herself, grabbing a pillow and putting it over her head, "Please."

The whispers got louder.

Lydia swore under her breath and got up off the bed. She walked over to the painting, steadfastly ignoring the way the trees definitely seemed to swaying in a non- existent breeze.

She went to take the wretched painting off the wall but as soon she placed her hands on it, her bedroom gave an almighty lurch and Lydia was thrown off her feet into the painting -

But she didn't hit the wall. Instead she found herself falling….falling; she could hear the wind roaring around her, the whispers were even more prominent now, Lydia closed her eyes and waited for the impact against the wall…

And all of a sudden she was blinking in dazzling sunlight.

Well shit.

#

Lydia stood and stared at her surroundings. She seemed to be in the middle of a forest, very similar to the forest in the painting. The trees were exactly the same shade of green, the sky was the same misty grey; even the flowers looked the same as the painting that Lydia had been trying to take off the wall of her bedroom in her grandparent's mansion, only a few moments ago.

Yet now she could feel the grass underneath her bare feet, hear the birds chirping and more significantly she could still hear the trees whispering which confirmed her suspicions that this was indeed the forest of the painting. Yes, there they were: the annoying repeat of "Aslan" that had got Lydia into this mess in the first place.

It seemed mad to just accept that she'd just somehow fallen into a painting but looking round, it all seemed so real. She didn't dare move, almost expecting everything to just disappear and for her bedroom to reappear in front of her once more. So she just stood there, taking it all in trying to come to terms with the fact that wherever she was, it definitely wasn't England. It was actually quite peaceful here, just listening to the simple noises of nature.

"I cannot go any further. Let's set up camp here." A deep voice pierced through the silence.

Lydia flinched.

She didn't know how long she'd been stood there for but for some reason, she suddenly felt out of place. If there were humans living in this strange world, then she definitely could not identify with them. How would they react? No, it wouldn't do for her to be seen, not until she'd worked out how she could leave this forest/painting and go home.

The owner of the voice Lydia had heard was getting closer, she could hear the crunching of leaves under their feet. She looked round desperately for someplace to hide and ended up diving behind a nearby bush ignoring the tweaks of pain she got as sharp thorns scratched her skin and stones dug into her feet.

A moment later, three men and one dejected looking pack mule emerged from the undergrowth and stopped in the very same spot that Lydia had just vacated. To her relief, Lydia saw that the men were definitely human; none of them had four eyes or two heads or any of the other things she'd seen in the sci-fi films. But they were still like no other men she'd ever seen before. Each of them had glowing skin and long black beards that reached down to their belts. The almost comical aspect of their appearances, however, were their clothes. Each of them wore bright orange turbans with deep red flowing robes which almost hid their wooden pointy shoes from Lydia's view. The absurdity of the situation would have made her laugh if it wasn't for the curved swords which hung from the men's belts, glinting in the sunlight.

The tallest of the three stopped and flopped onto the ground.

"Let us stop here and give our weary bones a rest. I say we rest now then continue moving when night falls." he said with a heavy accent and Lydia raised her eyebrows. Nobody spoke in such an old fashioned way anymore. The other two men murmured their agreement and took their packs off the mule and then proceeded to tie him up to the nearest tree. Once that was done they joined the man already on the floor and brought out long pipes that looked similar to the ones Lydia's grandfather used for smoking.

Now that she'd seen these men, revealing herself to them seemed out of the question. There was no way to know how they would react to her and Lydia was not about to risk it, not with those swords hanging from their belts. Instead she hunkered down in the bush and settled for listening to the men's conversation in the hope she could pick up some information about what the hell was happening to her.

"Ah I will be glad when this mission is over and we can return back to Calormen" one of men was saying. "I miss the heat of home, it is too cold here."

He was met with laughs from the other two. "Just this morning, you were saying you preferred the climate here. Have you changed your mind so soon Rashdu?"

Rashdu scowled. "This is a fool's errand Karo. We will never get close enough to find anything of use; we are wasting our time."

"We'll have none of that sort of talk here" Karo said pointing a finger at Rashdu. "Prince Rabadash needs this mission to be accomplished to the best of our ability and we will not disappoint him."

Rashdu nodded sulkily and the three men fell into silence.

Meanwhile, Lydia's mind was racing with all this new information. Such strange names, yet from what she'd heard, they too were foreigners here.

The men had now produced bread, cheese and a flagon of wine and the forest was filled with the sounds of their chewing.

"I expect the food will be much better than this at Cair Pavarel." The smallest of the three finally broke the silence, idly picking at a roll of bread.

"Not that we'll be finding out anytime soon." Karo said taking a swig from his flagon.

The smaller one laughed. "Why so pessimistic Karo? We will be heroes, the one who led Prince Rabadash to his bethrothed.

Karo smiled wanly "Yes, well I doubt the barbarians will be grateful for your heroics."

Rashdu snorted. "Don't be ridiculous, the Narnian queen belongs to Prince Rabadash."

Lydia shifted uncomfortably. Her head was spinning, how could there be an entire population here, inside a painting. She had to get out of this nightmare but the only way to do that was to risk asking these strange people for help and hope that they would at least be civil to her.

As she debated what to do, she moved ever so slightly to the left and a large snap of a branch echoed through the forest. Lydia gasped at the sound and the three men looked up sharply in her direction.

"What was that?" the smaller one jumped to his feet and drew his sword. "Who's there?"

Lydia put a hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds of her breathing. Only a minute ago she had been considering asking these men for help, but now her feet seemed frozen to the spot.

No one moved for a moment, all watching each other. With any luck, the men hadn't realised where Lydia and wouldn't spot her. And she would just have to be a bit more careful.

Eventually Karo broke the silence. "There's no one there. Sit down."

"I'm sure I heard a gasp from over there." The small man muttered, pointing to where Lydia was crouched but with a look from his fellow companions, he sheathed his sword and sat back down.

Now that the threat had passed, Lydia allowed herself to relax again. The men had grown silent now and she knew that they would have to sleep eventually allowing her to make her escape; those swords had thoroughly put her off asking them for help. Peering through the bush she could see that they were lying down but she couldn't actually tell if they were properly asleep. If one of them was awake, it would be catastrophic.

Still, she couldn't stay here forever; she just needed to take a quick look. Heart hammering she poked her head up above the bush and stood watching the men. They didn't stir.

For a moment Lydia stood there, summing up the courage to move. All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other; nothing she hadn't done before. She picked up a nearby rock and the weight of it gave her confidence. After taking a deep breath she took a step, wincing at how the leaves crunched under her feet.

Nothing.

Slowly she took another step. Then another, until she was stood in clear view of the sleeping men.

Still nothing.

Then the sound of a hunting horn ripped through the air and all three men were on their feet in an instant, their swords out.

"Look there!" The smaller man yelled, sword pointing at Lydia. "A spy! I bet she was going to kill us in our sleep." He spat at her and Lydia felt her heart drop through her stomach.

"N- no I wasn't" she stammered stumbling backwards away from the three men who were angrily advancing towards her. She heard the horn sound again in the distance and a flock of birds burst out of the trees.

Rashdu growled in frustration. "The girl has sent for aid. We must silence her; the Narnians cannot know our whereabouts." He looked to the other two who nodded and began to move towards Lydia their swords raised.

Lydia stood watching the men run towards her. The rock in her hand felt heavy and she fingered its smooth round exterior. It was a split second decision. She lifted her arm, aimed at her closest attacker, brought her hand forward and let the rock fly-

A sickening crunch told her the rock had found its target.

Encouraged and slightly disgusted by her success, Lydia turned round to pick up another rock but she couldn't see one of a decent size, she could hear the men thundering towards her. Frantically she looked round, grabbed the biggest looking rock she could find and was just about to turn when she felt a hand roughly grab her arm.

Lydia screamed and whipped round, rock at the ready but came face to face with a young man who was decidedly not one of the men she'd been watching. For a start he was much younger than the foreign men and had blond hair and bright blue eyes. What made Lydia gape thought was how normal he looked to say they were in a painting; she could go as far to say if it wasn't for the medieval dress he wouldn't have looked out of place in the post office down the street at home.

"Put the rock down. I'm not going to hurt you." He said, not unkindly and Lydia complied immediately, mostly out of shock.

There was a commotion going on in front of her and when the man moved behind her, his hand still on her arm she could see that there was a fierce fight going on behind there. A girl about Lydia's age was holding a small dagger to the throat of one of the men whilst another young woman with long brown hair tied his wrists together with rope. Lydia's other attacker, the one called Karo, was locked in combat with another young man roughly Lydia's age with ebony hair. They danced round each other, sword clashing against sword, each man ducking and weaving. Lydia gasped when suddenly, the young man drove the butt of his sword against Karo's head and the foreigner crumpled onto the ground, unmoving.

As soon as the threat was gone, the man holding Lydia's arm released it and walked over towards her three rescuers. She watched, in shock as instead of going and seeing if the unconscious men were alright, he went and clapped the man who'd knocked him out on the back.

"I thought you nearly lost it then Ed." He said grinning.

The dark haired boy scowled "Well, it's been a while since I've fought properly. Besides," he said looking down at the unconscious man "I think it would have been a bit of an over reaction on my part to kill him."

Something about the younger boy made Lydia snap to her sense, "I'm sorry," she said finding her tongue at last. "But can someone tell me what the hell is going on? Those people just attacked me!"

"That's why we came to help of course." One of the girls, the younger one by Lydia's guess, said with a strained smile on her face as she struggled with the bound man who was hissing and spitting at her. Sighing she reached down and tore a strip cloth from the man's shirt and promptly tied it round his mouth, effectively silencing him.

Lydia watched this scene unfold and looked down at the man she'd knocked out with a rock and her face paled in shock as she saw the blood dripping down from the wound, a wound that she'd made

"Shit, is he going to be okay?" she cried rushing over to look at him but before she could get to him, Peter quickly blocked her way.

"He'll live." He said sounding slightly bemused. Lydia shrugged off his grip.

"Where am I anyway?" she demanded "And who are you?"

"I'm High King Peter Pevensie and these are my siblings Queen Susan, King Edmund and Queen Lucy."

Lydia blinked. There wasn't really a way to respond to such a claim. "I'm Lydia, Lydia Euling." She said, after a pause. "Are you stuck here too then?"

The siblings smiled at each other and the youngest girl, Susan or Lucy: Lydia wasn't entirely sure, laughed and said "It's a long story but we're definitely not 'stuck here' as you put it. This is our home."

The sincere expression on the girl's face had Lydia struggling not to laugh "You're telling me you want to live inside a painting?" she said looking round at the forest.

"That's interesting." Peter said now looking at the others. "There must be more than one way to get into Narnia from Earth. Assuming you are human." he frowned at her and Lydia couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.

"Of course I am," she began to say but paused when she realised what that meant "Why? What else is here?" she asked looking round as if a hoard of little green men were suddenly going to pop out from behind the trees. One of the horses, a brown stallion, huffed at that remark and stamped his foot and if an animal could glare, then this one was definitely glaring at Lydia.

Edmund laughed and walked over to stroke the aggrieved horse, "Come on Philip, I was just as clueless as her when I first arrived." The horse rolled its eyes and Edmund laughed again before turning round. "Put her out of her misery Peter, I think it's pretty obvious she's not a spy."

"We can never be too careful, she could just be a very good liar." Peter said obtusely but this time it was the older girl who laughed.

"Now you're being ridiculous Peter, look at her!" she said waving an impatient hand at Lydia. She ignored Peter's sigh and walked over to Lydia with a motherly smile on her face.

"This must all be a bit of a shock for you, we can talk more once we get you safely inside." She went to take her by the arm but Lydia shrugged her off.

"But what am I doing here? I need to go back!" She said glaring at the four people who were just stood there, knowing she was helpless yet offering no sort of help.

"You need to send me back" she said looking round frantically. "This is madness."

Susan watched her for a moment before delicately putting an arm round her.

"This isn't madness Lydia." she said, her voice quiet. "This is Narnia and if you have been brought here, whatever that reason is, we must accept it and so must you."

Lydia, seeing there would be no swaying these people, nodded and then asked "Why did you save me? They had weapons-"

"So have we" the younger girl, Lucy presumably, called out.

"Yes but that doesn't mean you needed to use them." Lydia said, "Not for me." She looked down at the two unconscious men and felt the shame wash over her.

"It's our duty." Edmund said fiddling with his sword handle, as though itching to get it back out again.

Peter cleared his throat. "We're the Kings and Queens of Narnia."

Lydia chuckled weakly, "All four of you?"

"It's simple really. As the eldest, Peter's the High King but me, Edmund and Lucy are still equal in status to him so we're also Kings and Queens." Susan said and a muffled cry from the prisoner clicked something in Lydia's brain.

She figured if she wasn't going to leave in the next few minutes, she might as well pretend to play along.

"Those three men spoke about you," she said pointing at three men now prisoners. "They mentioned a Prince Rabadash marrying the Queen of Narnia?"

The siblings exchanged glances and turned to look at the bound man who began struggling desperately against Lucy's hold. She held her knife to his throat and said "Is this true?" she said, her eyes flaring.

Lydia in watched as this girl who couldn't have been any older than she was, ripped the gag out of the man's mouth and repeated the question, keeping a firm grip on his shoulder, her knife still at his throat.

"I said no such thing." the Calorman spat glaring round and Lydia rolled her eyes.

"Yes you did. You were definitely the one talking about a Queen of Narnia, you said they were getting married." she said and the others turned to look at her.

"You need to tell us everything you remember." Peter demanded but Susan went and laid a hand on her brother's arm.

"Have patience Peter, there's no need to be so rash. No one is going to burst out the trees and kidnap me or Lucy. We can pursue this matter further at Cair Pavarel."

Peter seemed to deflate a bit at his sister's words and his head nodded slightly in acceptance. "You will of course be joining us Lady Euling." he said in a dignified manner, possibly in an attempt to redeem his pride after his sister's admonishment.

Lydia looked round at her surroundings and then nodded. If these people were the royalty of this odd land, then they were probably her best hope of getting back home.

"Good" Susan said satisfaction. "You can ride with me and the others can each take a prisoner." She walked over to one of the four horses, a grey arab filly, which nodded its head in acknowledgement. Susan turned back round to the others:

"Come along you four, there's a lot to be done."

"We're not children." Edmund muttered under his breath as he and Peter tied the unconscious men to their horses but fortunately for him, either Susan didn't hear him or chose to ignore the comment.

Lydia eyes the grey filly with trepidation as Susan vaulted on with ease. She was still wearing a night dress, for a start and even then she wasn't entirely sure how one went about getting on a horse. The others made it look so easy.

"Oh have you never ridden before dear?" Susan asked kindly and when Lydia shook her head she smiled sympathetically.

"It's easy, just put your foot in the stirrup and I'll pull you up."

Lydia did as Susan said, grabbed onto her hand and found herself being yanked up onto the horses back.

"Wow, its higher up that I thought." she said, squeezing tightly with her feet only to nearly be hit by a long tail.

"Do you mind not digging in as hard as that? Most unnecessary." A rich female voice said angrily and it took Lydia a moment to realise it came from the horse she was sat on.

"You have a talking horse." she said blankly and Susan just laughed.

"I'm afraid that's only the beginning."