A/N: Hey, remember the days of normal chapters? Yeah, those have deserted me again, because I'm back with a 6.1k chapter. We're entirely in Addie's head this time, since she and Opheodra conspired to hog SO MANY WORDS, so please bear with me (or yell at them) because the Cair Paravel trip will officially kick off next week. Know that it pains me greatly that Ch. 69 will almost certainly have no smut... Caslina are determined to enjoy their slowburn era and I intend to indulge them for the moment.
On another note, anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? (Please someone say yes, I need more panic buddies 😭)
Chapter 68 Content Warnings: light depictions of grief, consensual trances/hypnotism-type state of mind
Chapter 68: another guiding light
Addie
"Cair Paravel? You simply must tell me how you like the seashore."
"I will." Addie sips her tea - Galman orange, needs no sugar - and tries to look pleased. Many Narnians frequent the eastern beaches in summer, and anyone with sense would be excited about the trip.
Opheodra arches a thin eyebrow.
"You seem displeased. Is the ocean not to your liking?"
"I haven't been there enough to know if I like it or not," Addie says, taking a sugared biscuit - lemon, like yesterday's tea biscuits. Opheodra said she has to enjoy her citrus treats in the city, as the trade routes into Ettinsmoor are sparse and such luxuries expensive. One small port in a cove surrounded by craggy cliffs is all they have, and waters are treacherous.
"I understand the shore is a relaxing place," says Opheodra. "Sun yourself on the beach, and tell me if that makes the journey worth it."
"I'm sure it will."
Addie regards her pale hands. Her freckles and farmer's tan are fading, and her skin always burns before it does anything else. Still, it might be nice - lying on sun-warmed sand, a salty breeze stirring her hair, the rhythmic crashing of the waves.
Opheodra hums, teacup pressed to her lips. "I hear the king is travelling eastward as well."
Addie's mouth twists, grimacing before she can stop herself.
"Strange, isn't it?" Opheodra continues. "He only returned to the capital last month."
Her thoughts exactly.
Addie pops the entire biscuit into her mouth and crunches. If His Majesty misses the sea so much, he could've gone on his own time instead of hijacking her and Doctor Cornelius' research trip with a tour down the Great River.
She's trying to give him space - stay out of the way, don't remind him of the past, don't intrude, and Caspian had to go and spit on her efforts at courtesy.
Royals!
Addie swallows and exhales. She's being petulant, and Caspian is, after all, the king. He can do whatever he likes.
She just wishes whatever he likes didn't trap her on a boat with him and his new lady lover for five days.
"Maybe he misses the ocean," Addie says to fill the expectant silence.
"A trivial reason for the kingdom's ruler to leave so soon," Opheodra says. "You said your research draws you to the Cair?"
"That's right. The excavations have found archives of the old dynasties."
Opheodra sets aside her cup in favour of a crustless ham and cucumber sandwich, cut into a pristine triangle.
"I suppose academic curiosity about the Old Days is reason enough."
"Cair Paravel will eventually be the new capital," Addie says. "The announcement said he's overseeing important new discoveries."
"Officially, yes." Opheodra reclines into the settee corner, tea cup cradled in her delicate hands. "Rumour has it a proposal may be imminent. It would be poetic if the king proposed at the beach, yes?"
Addie's breath snags in her throat.
How long have they known each other? A few months of courting and already Caspian is ready to propose? It's soon, it's -
It's so soon. It's soon, why would you…
"Why's that?" Addie says.
Opheodra tilts her head. "The king brought the Lady Star from the Eastern Ocean. It seems fitting he would ask her to marry him with the same sea as their witness, don't you think?"
Addie mumbles something she hopes sounds like agreement.
This is not her concern. Who Caspian courts, who he marries and when and why, none of those things are her business. She ran away from the right to care, to have one whit of an opinion about who Caspian loves.
And yet, how cruel he is, if this excursion east is as Opheodra says. Is he trying to rub his new love in her face?
"- lovely a royal wedding would be. Though I can't quite believe the speculations of a summer wedding. Unless a scandal is afoot." Opheodra offers the sandwich tray.
Addie takes a sandwich triangle and nibbles a corner. What does it matter if Caspian's upcoming nuptials are rushed or not? What business is it of hers?
"They're a good match," Addie says. "I wouldn't be surprised."
"You wouldn't?"
When she doesn't answer, Opheodra leans forward.
"I have my doubts," she murmurs.
Addie presses her spine to Opheodra's plush settee and stares into the fire. What's to doubt? Caspian has clearly found a lady worthy of being his queen, he has the sense to see it, and if she'd never touched the stupid ring, never wandered back to the castle like a lost mutt, never reached for a past that isn't hers anymore, she'd never have known.
She would've liked that - never knowing. Already, she knew how to ignore those occasional thorns of hope and longing, how to pluck them out and toss them aside as dreams and fantasy - not real. She could have done it her entire life, whether under London's rolling smog or on the Shaws' farm.
Instead, she's here.
"Nothing to doubt," Addie says, as casually as she can. "They seem happy. No reason to wait if they're happy."
Opheodra rests her elbow on the settee's backrest and her chin in her palm. "Does it not seem a stiff courtship?"
"Isn't that the way of royals?"
Opheodra's lips curl into a lopsided smile.
"True. But have you not seen his eyes wander?"
In contempt, maybe.
"No," Addie says. "I haven't. I don't think it's in his nature."
Caspian is many things, but not disloyal. When they met and loved in secret, even when she betrayed him, Caspian's eyes never wandered.
Opheodra's index finger taps her chin. "Ah, but here's the truth of it: What do we know about the nature of kings?"
Thank you. For your discretion.
She's not supposed to know anything about Caspian's nature.
"Nothing," Addie says. "I guess he doesn't seem the type. I mean, if I was courting a star, I wouldn't even think of looking elsewhere."
"Hmm." Opheodra straightens and sips her tea. "Rumour has it he took… liberties with servant girls as a prince. Men are ravenous, you know, and few are satisfied with only one woman."
Caspian was. With her, he was. Besides, Opheodra's generalising.
"Ravenous doesn't necessarily imply many lovers," Addie says.
"Now there's a possibility," Opheodra says. "Might they be lovers already, the king and his star? An heir on the way would certainly call for quick nuptials."
Why does Opheodra care? Why should anyone care, aside from anticipating royal wedding celebrations or hoping that, to avoid civil war in a few decades, the king has an heir?
Addie finishes her sandwich and wipes her fingers on a napkin. "As long as they're happy, what does it matter?"
Opheodra drums her fingers on her cup, nails tinging the china. "I see you take little interest in court gossip."
Addie forces a shrug. "It's not my business. And rumours are hardly reliable."
"Some are not," Opheodra agrees. "But others must have some veracity."
"Depends on who's saying them. And why," Addie says.
Opheodra offers a biscuit. Addie accepts, but only fidgets with it, covering her fingertips in powdered sugar.
"Curiosity," Opheodra says. "The rumour mill has swirled around the king for years."
"Because he's a royal, I'm sure."
"That, and well-loved by his people. After so many whispers of his broken heart, it's understandable his kingdom wants to see him happily settled down."
Addie bites into her biscuit, but the sweet crumbs taste like ash. Broken heart…
She asks a stupid question.
"How do you know it was broken? That might've been an unfounded rumour, too."
It's not; she knows that, though she wishes she didn't. But as far as Opheodra and most anyone else knows, Addie's only been in the capital for a few weeks. Doctor Cornelius' temporary research assistant shouldn't know (or care) a damn thing about the king's heart.
Opheodra purses her lips, an almost-pout. "You really are no fun, Addie. So sceptical!"
"It's just not my business," Addie says. "Honestly, it's not anyone's business. No one but him knows the state of his heart."
"On the contrary," says Opheodra, retrieving her tea cup and peering over the rim. "I know heartbreak when I see it."
Addie stuffs her mouth with biscuit and takes her time chewing and swallowing.
"How's that?"
Opheodra finishes her tea and sets the cup aside.
"In my youth, I was no stranger to it; men are such delicate beasts. A certain hollow look in the eye, a sag in the shoulders, a haunted slant to the mouth. A needlessly stiff bearing."
Addie stares into the smoking fire and says nothing.
A cool, dry hand covers hers.
"And I, too, have known heartbreak," Opheodra says. "Perhaps you have as well."
She should deny it.
She should.
But where she braced for pity, Addie risks a glance at Opheodra and finds only veiled inquisitiveness, a cool, guarded sort of…
Loneliness?
Is that why Opheodra wanted to gossip?
Addie takes her hand.
"I have," Addie says. "A long time ago."
Opheodra's green eyes shine. "Another thing we have in common."
She exhales, and Addie realises the daylight creeping under the drapes has darkened to deep gold.
"I've overstayed again," Addie says regretfully. "The Lord Chancellor expects me."
Opheodra squeezes her hands and stands, pulling Addie up with her.
"Then I shan't keep you. But know you will never overstay your welcome with me."
Addie swallows, throat tight, and says her goodbyes for the day, complete with a promise to call again tomorrow.
Opheodra might need a friend as badly as she does.
Half an hour before dawn's first light, Addie stuffs her chin-length curls under her cap and marches into the empty kitchen. For now, she's alone; the others won't arrive for another half hour.
It's a little silly, seeking solitude and the whispers of before in the empty kitchen, but making bread and grinding gruel is familiar and she still has years of absence to make up to Perla. The journey to Cair Paravel will only add to her debt.
At least staffing isn't a concern now. Lola said the kitchen - or any position in the castle - never wants for applicants. If not for Perla's insistence, Addie might not have secured a position.
Soon she'll be gone, and another lucky person will take her place.
"Still an early riser?"
Addie spins to find Perla marching into the kitchen early. Before now, she's always been strictly punctual - never early, never late.
"Since when are you?"
Perla grunts and stokes the hearth, poking embers to life. "Since that headmistress shortened our days."
Addie hides her smile as she measures fine white flour into the bloomed ale barm. Instituting shorter workdays at the castle has been popular - rightfully so - but Perla practically lived in the kitchen before, and the habit of constant work doesn't disappear overnight.
She would know.
When the first loaves are in the oven, Addie breaks the companionable silence.
"I'm leaving for Cair Paravel the day after tomorrow for a research project. I already spoke with the headmistress; you'll have coverage."
"Leaving again, eh?" Perla's knife thunks into the board, cutting perfectly uniform apple slices. "If I'd known you're impossible to keep in one place, I'd have…"
Addie waits, but Perla shakes off whatever she thought to say.
"I expect your return within the month, you hear?"
"Perla…" Addie wipes her flour-coated hands on her apron. "I'm not staying forever. At the castle."
"That so?"
"I'm only visiting," Addie says, leaning against the counter and picking dough from under her nails.
Perla tosses an apple core into the slop bucket and starts the next apple.
"Tree's gone, girl. Where you off to this time?"
"Home."
"Hmph."
Chop, chop, chop.
"Well, better than disappearing without warning." Perla glances over her shoulder and scowls. "Don't just stand there, start the pastry crust!"
"On it."
Addie retrieves butter from the pantry, nods hello to Hura (faun, another early riser), and sinks gratefully into the rhythm of baking.
After morning and afternoon in the kitchen and a long evening in Doctor Cornelius' study, Addie goes to Lola's house for dinner. Terse as Lola has been since she mentioned the Cair Paravel trip, Lola's also insisted on dinner together every night one of them isn't working.
Addie never argues, because who knows how many dinners she has left with them?
Better to enjoy Lola's sharp-tongued care, Alfonso's peacemaking, and Cesare's exuberance while she still can.
She arrives minutes before dinner to the contained chaos that defines Lola and Alfonso's home. Cesare leaps at her, all wild curls and toothy grin.
"Auntie Addie, look what Papa made for me!" Cesare bounces, tugging at her skirt as he holds up a whittled sea serpent. "A sea dragon!"
"How terrifying," Addie laughs, kneeling to examine Cesare's new toy. It's handmade, and more detailed than she expected. "Alfonso, I didn't know you could whittle."
Across the small living room, Alfonso shrugs. "New hobby. Cesare heard you're travelling east."
Cesare's grin tilts into a frown. "Papa said I can't go with you."
"Your papa's right," Addie says. "Not this time."
"Why?"
"Because I'll be looking for old books. Very boring, you wouldn't like it."
"Yes I would!"
Addie taps his nose. "I don't know if I'll like it. It'll be dull and dark and dusty."
"Then I'll cheer you up!"
Addie fights a sigh. Cesare's persistence is endearing, but all she can think of is how quickly he got attached to her - and she to him.
"What if I bring you something from the sea? Would you like that?"
Cesare's eyes brighten, and he holds up his new toy. "A sea serpent?"
"Better." Addie leans close and whispers as if sharing a secret. "How about a sea serpent's shell?"
Cesare's mouth hangs open. "Really?"
"Really." Addie wiggles Cesare's sea serpent between them until he giggles. "But you have to behave for your momma and papa, alright?"
"I will."
"Promise?"
"Promise!"
"Good. Now how about you make sure the table's set, hm?"
"Do I have to?"
Addie tickles his neck until he squirms, giggling.
"I would be very happy if you did. And so would your mother."
"Oka-a-a-a-y."
Cesare scampers off in a surprising show of obedience - he's usually contrary for the fun of it.
Addie stands and makes for the kitchen, only for Alfonso to call her back.
"Addie."
After making sure Cesare is occupied placing silverware (though the table is low, he still stands on tiptoe), Alfonso tugs her into the nearest corner.
"She's tense today. Just… be gentle."
Addie grits her teeth. She's tried to be gentle with Lola, and nothing she says or does seems to help.
"Always am."
"More than usual," Alfonso says. "I think she's worried once you leave the city…"
"- I won't come back," Addie finishes.
Alfonso nods, grimacing as a pot lid clangs from the kitchen. "She missed you. She really missed you."
"I know, but I can't stay forever."
"I'm not saying you have to. But… don't leave for good without a proper goodbye."
"Didn't plan on it."
Even with a proper goodbye, even if she could convince Lola that her going home is for the best, would it do any good? Last time, Lola encouraged her to go, and now she's upset anytime Addie brings up England, or Josie, or anything that isn't Narnia.
Addie follows Alfonso's gaze as more clattering sounds from the kitchen.
"I'll go help," Addie says.
It's the least she can do.
After dinner, Alfonso coaxes Cesare upstairs with the promise of a sea serpent story, and Addie sits with Lola at the table. On better nights, she can smell Lola's night tea without remembering the How.
Tonight is not a better night.
"How long will you be gone?"
Addie tucks her feet under her chair. "I'm not sure. A few weeks, a month at most."
Lola frowns into her tea.
"And after that? You're following a lead, right?"
"Depends if we find anything useful," Addie says. "If not, nothing changes."
"But if you do, that's it? You're gone?" Lola slurps her tea, grimacing.
Addie chews her lower lip. Alfonso said to be gentle, but what can she offer but the truth? That yes, if she finds the right information in Cair Paravel's newly discovered archives, she intends to leave Narnia as soon as possible?
"Not immediately," Addie says. "I'll say goodbye first."
Lola finishes her tea and lowers her mug, knuckles pale.
"And what am I supposed to tell Cesare when his aunt disappears?"
Addie flinches. Cesare's young, and won't understand.
He's only four; he might forget her in a few years.
"Tell him I'm travelling," Addie says. "That I had to go home to my family."
"Your other family, you mean. And not even that - your friends, right?"
Addie grips her own hands so hard they creak.
"Josie's as much my family as you are."
Lola looks away, chin wavering.
Addie's posture sags. No matter how she says it, no matter her explanations, Lola's reaction is the same.
It would have been kinder to never return.
"Isn't it enough to have me this little while?" Addie whispers.
"It wasn't supposed to be for a little while!" Lola wipes her eyes, her face cast in the flickering light of the table's single candle. "You being gone was supposed to be for a little while, and you being here was supposed to be normal. You were supposed to find your parents, make peace with whatever happened with them, and then come back for good."
Addie thinks, but she can't recall promising anything like that. She only remembers heartbreak and denial and I think you want them, and You could end this at any moment, and Do as you will, Adelina. Run.
Yet somehow, Lola decided her leaving was temporary while Addie grew up all over again in another world.
"You don't know what it was like after half the country left," Lola says. "Everything was changing so fast - good changes, I know, but still - and Alfonso and I bought the house and I had Cesare and -" An unsteady breath. "My best friend, my sister, was gone, and weeks turned into months, then into years, and… No one ever came back. We didn't think they would, but… you did, and now…"
Addie reaches across the table to offer her hand, minimal comfort though it is. Lola ignores it.
"All my friends were gone, you included. You know how I got through it?" Lola barrels on without waiting for an answer. "I told myself you were returning someday, and I'd never have to miss you again. Then you show up four years later, and you're already rushing out the door. So why? What's better about England?"
"It's not better," Addie blurts - foolish, that, but it flies from her lips before she can stop it. "Just different."
"A good different?"
Not good different, though Addie avoids admitting it.
"Just different," she repeats. Then, helplessly: "I have a life there. People I love."
"So? You have that here."
"Had," Addie corrects.
"You still have those - a life, people who love you." Finally, Lola takes her hand. "I love you."
Addie blinks, willing the stinging in her eyes to abate.
"I love you too."
"But not enough to stay."
Lola's hand retreats.
"Lola…"
"You're not running toward them - whoever you've got in England," Lola says. "You're running away."
The same accusation Lola levelled at her the day she returned, and several times since. Addie should be numb to it by now.
It still stings.
"It can be both," Addie says - an excuse, a truth, a deflection. She doesn't know anymore. "This is my old life. England is my new one. It was the opposite last time."
Lola's dark eyes flash in the candlelight.
"Why can't this be your life again? Because of him?"
She'd give anything to deny that, but lying would be even worse than the bitter truth - that she has regrets, that there are mistakes she can never erase, that just being in Narnia again shoves her every failure in her face.
"Lola -"
"To hell with him!" Lola says, voice watery. "He's not the only person in Narnia."
"He's the king of Narnia," Addie says, bitterer than she should. "He's inescapable."
"So don't live in the capital. There's Beruna, Ettinsmoor, Chippingford, Cair Paravel… pick any of them, anywhere else in Narnia." Lola waves toward the stairs. "Alfonso and I are considering moving closer to his family. You could come with us."
A half-measure though it would be, the idea has its appeal. Stay in Narnia, the place she could never quite forget, and scrape together some happiness. Part of her would always wonder, always wish she could've… that things with Caspian were less… fraught. That there was a gentler ending for them.
She can't give him that, nor herself. No changing the past.
Addie shakes her head. "Aslan called England home. Suppose he showed up again and sent me back?"
"He didn't send you through that tree!" Lola leans onto the table, accusation harsh between them. "You chose to do that; he just said you could."
Addie stops herself from saying that Lola encouraged her to; it was still her decision.
"The others who went -"
"Aslan didn't force anyone," Lola snaps. "It was a choice. And besides, he hasn't been seen since that day. So don't use him as an excuse."
Addie crosses her arms tighter. Aslan didn't outright say she had to go, but the timing…
Still, Aslan could've forced her, could've sent her to England right there in the meadow, and he didn't. If he wanted her out of Narnia, he also wanted it to be her choice, for some reason.
Or she's reading too much into a lion deity's motivations, and there is no one to blame for when and how and why she left but herself.
Lola sniffles, eyes shining in the candlelight, and Addie has nothing for her except the truth.
"Lola, if I stay here, I'll always…" Say it, she has to say it. "I'll always be hoping. Wishing that I could… that I could just talk to him, fix it, apologise, and I can't…" Addie breathes, steadies herself. "I can't hope like that, not even a little. I have to let go, like I should've in England. I can't do that in Narnia. I wish I could, really I do, but I can't."
She has managed these weeks solely by knowing that this wasn't forever - Lola's hurt, Caspian's disdain, the creeping sense that she shouldn't have left at all, however much she can't regret that she got to know her mother. It's all bearable because it is temporary. Because as soon as she's home, she can consign Narnia and everyone in it to a fantasy and be done with it.
"You're not even trying," Lola says. "Just running, like you always do."
Addie presses into her chair, wishing the darkness would swallow her, wishing she could argue otherwise.
She can't.
"I don't know how to do anything else."
Hour by hour, the days until the trip whittle into nothing, and then the next dawn is the day they are to set sail.
Addie reassures Doctor Cornelius she's all packed, tries one last time to find anything useful in the castle archives (she doesn't), and secures the last of her notes in a leather bag. She works lunch and dinner shifts with Lola, walks her home, says a quick goodnight and goodbye to Cesare.
And then the city is dark, and she is wandering the dim streets alone. The occasional guard passes her, and it's some improvement that she doesn't cling to the shadows on instinct.
Those instincts are from before. She doesn't need them in this Narnia.
She should go straight to the castle and to bed. Departing at dawn - with the king's party - will be difficult enough to be silent and pleasant without sleep-deprived crankiness further souring her mood.
Addie's in sight of the bridge when she hears it.
It begins as an itch in her ear, a prick of awareness on her neck. A mosquito, or a night breeze.
Next a trill, a little like birdsong but softer - wistful, subtler than a cricket.
Addie stops and listens.
It's no bird, nor insect. It's some kind of instrument - a Narnian lute?
Addie follows the sound, lets the notes lead her up the street.
She stops before a familiar door, at a house with ivy in its windowsills.
It's late. She should go.
God only knows why she knocks instead. Her hand moves on its own, and then the door is opening and Opheodra is blinking down at her, pale skin and silk nightgown ghostly white in the dark.
"Addie? I'm afraid it's rather late for tea."
It is; what was she thinking?
"Sorry," Addie says. "I was passing by and… never mind."
Opheodra waves off her apology.
"It's no trouble. Please, come inside."
Addie hesitates, one foot on the doorstep. "It's late…"
"Nonsense," says Opheodra. "Sleep has been slow in coming, and I would be glad of the company."
If Cair Paravel's archives hold answers, this could be one of her last conversations with Opheodra.
Addie follows her to the drawing room, where a blazing fire chases away the night's chill. Tonight's humidity makes the air outside feel cooler than it is.
Opheodra sinks into an armchair closest to the fire, and Addie takes her usual place on the settee. It's only then, in the glow of firelight, that she notices Opheodra's reddened eyes.
"Are you alright?"
"Hm? Oh, silly me." Opheodra delicately dabs her eyes. "Forgive me, I sometimes find these late hours to be… well. There are no day's duties or dalliances to keep the mind busy."
How well she knows the sting of nighttime memories.
Addie wills away the temptation of her own.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she offers. "Or about something else?"
Opheodra blinks, then stares into the fire.
"In truth? I do not know."
Addie folds her hands in her lap. Lola would say, "Out with it," Josie would offer a shortbread and use silence to bait the truth, and Mum would gently pry.
She has no idea which approach Opheodra prefers.
"I'd be glad to listen," Addie murmurs. "If you like."
Opheodra sighs and curls up in her armchair, legs folded beneath her and both hands resting on her knees.
"It's been some years since he passed, but some nights… I cannot help but remember my husband." She exhales, not quite a laugh - too sad. "I have found grief to be frustratingly persistent, though I'm told time ought to heal all wounds."
"I know what you mean," Addie says. "I lost my mum not so long ago."
Opheodra tilts her head. "How well you bear it. I never would have guessed."
A compliment, of sorts. Grief is private, and better that no one knows unless she tells them. That way, the grief - and the memories - belong only to her. She is its caretaker.
"Grief is…" Addie shrugs. "It's the only thing I have left of her. So I keep it close. I'm sure you do the same."
"Pain is memory," says Opheodra. "Yes, I agree."
Quiet descends, broken only by the fire's popping.
"I didn't mean to disturb you," Addie says. "I just thought I heard music."
Opheodra smiles, shoulders softening. "You did."
She lifts a stringed instrument - smaller than a guitar, larger than a violin - from the shadows beside her chair.
"I met my dear husband thanks to this, you see. He happened upon me as I was playing to fill the windy moor with cheer. I think I loved him from the moment his silhouette first shadowed me." Opheodra settles the instrument on her lap, stroking its polished neck and wooden belly. "When I miss him most, I play that same song, and the pain is a little lessened for it."
Addie shifts in her seat. This, she can't quite understand. She's studiously avoided any reminders of Caspian since returning to Narnia. But before…
"How do you bear it?" Addie whispers. "Missing him?"
Opheodra plucks a string - a high, plaintive note.
"Some days, I'm not certain I do. When the grief is heaviest, all I can do is play and cherish the memories my song brings."
Another string, another note - slightly lower.
"And you?" says Opheodra. "How do you bear the loss of your mother?"
It's easier in Narnia, a world away from the grief's origin.
"Distance," Addie says. "And… I try to remember her as she was. Before the end."
Opheodra leans over her instrument, green eyes soft in the dim room. "And when the grief is heaviest? What do you do?"
Addie glances into the fire. The sweet smoke isn't strong, but she might be able to credibly blame it for her watery eyes.
"I used to read her diaries. Not all the time, just… just when I couldn't do anything else."
Reading was better than crying; Mrs Shaw noticed if her eyes were red come morning.
"It must give you great comfort," Opheodra says. "To have something of hers."
Those diaries are lost on a train now, a world out of reach.
"It did."
Opheodra's silence stretches.
"I lost them," Addie explains. "On the journey here."
Opheodra's confusion softens at once. "Perhaps a kind soul has -"
"I can promise they haven't," Addie says, pain she's tried to ignore bubbling to the surface. "The diaries are lost."
More silence, and Addie isn't brave enough to meet Opheodra's eyes, in case there is pity. Instead, Addie crosses her arms on the settee's armrest and lowers her chin to her elbows.
"I guess I should be grateful I got to read them at all."
"Little comfort if you cannot read them again, I should think."
Addie flinches, though Opheodra speaks without judgement.
"No use dwelling on it," Addie says. "Won't bring them back, or her."
The fire pops, sending a curl of smoke into the room. Addie watches it ascend and spread until the darkness swallows it.
If only grief was like that - sudden, short-lived, quickly absorbed.
"What if it could?"
Addie frowns. "But it can't. Wallowing fixes nothing."
"Not wallowing," says Opheodra. "Remembering. You must have memorised some pages. You could write what you recall, and more may come as you do."
She's tried, in her own diary. The front pages are for Josie, but in the last pages, she tried to write Mum's words.
Tried, and failed.
"I started to," Addie says. "It kept slipping away. A phrase, maybe a sentence or two, but then I couldn't remember if she said 'the' or 'a' and…" She blinks and swallows frustration. "It didn't sound like her when I read it."
"Hmm." Opheodra taps her instrument, wooden belly echoing, sets it aside, and stands. "Wait here."
Good, time to collect herself. When Opheodra disappears down the hall, Addie wipes her eyes, breathes in fours, and pushes the memories where they belong - buried beneath the surface, unreachable, untouchable by anyone unless she's foolish enough to prod at the wound herself. By the time Opheodra returns, Addie has her composure.
Until Opheodra sets a quill, inkpot, and leather-bound book open to blank pages on the table.
"I -"
Opheodra stops her with a hand. "Humour me. I think I can help."
Addie tucks her fists under her chin as Opheodra returns to her chair and stokes the fire.
"I told you, I already tried."
"Try once more with me." Opheodra settles her instrument on her lap, fingers already on the strings. "If you recall nothing more, I will never mention it again. But for tonight, let me try to help."
It's late; she should go. And yet…
Would it be so terrible to try once more?
She loses nothing if Opheodra's method doesn't work.
Addie takes up the quill.
Opheodra smiles. "Tell me about your mother."
"She was stubborn. Independent, too much. She missed Dad, a lot. Stared out the window when it rained and didn't move for an hour. She was at work more than she was home, but when she was home…" Addie finds a sad smile. "Mum was kind. She loved listening to music, and to Mrs Dale's Diary. Christmas was her favourite season."
"Mrs Dale? Was she a friend of your mother's?"
"No, ah…" Mrs Dale's Diary was a radio show, but no one in Narnia knows what a radio is. "Mrs Dale's Diary was a play," Addie says. "Mum's favourite."
"I see," says Opheodra. "And your mother kept a diary as well?"
Addie nods. "Since the day Dad left. She wrote every day at first, then weekly. Monthly, towards the end."
Opheodra pokes the fire again and throws a handful of powder into it. The flames jump higher before steadying, and Addie blinks against a cloud of smoke. It doesn't smell acrid like the kitchen hearth; it smells almost like… incense.
"Close your eyes," Opheodra says. "Find the paper - yes, that's it. Now, think of the most important entry. The last thing she wrote, perhaps?"
Addie touches the quill to paper as the date flashes in her mind.
"She wrote it like a letter," Addie whispers. "A letter to me. She wrote one to Dad, too, and -"
"Think only of what she wrote to you. What you most want to keep."
Addie's forehead knits together, and she tries, but the page she sees is blurry, and her cheeks are wet and -
"Breathe," says Opheodra. "Just listen."
Strum.
You've been so different, Adelaine.
Addie sucks in a breath.
That was later, towards the letter's end.
Strum.
"Breathe, Addie."
Sweet smoke and sandalwood tickle her nose. Addie inhales again and tastes lavender in her throat, vanilla on the back of her tongue.
Strum. Strum.
Opheodra speaks again, words muddled.
Breathe.
Write.
Remember.
The quill moves.
Addie returns to herself slowly. The settee is soft beneath her, a warm cradle keeping her upright. Her left foot is asleep, pricks racing from her soles to her calf.
Her fingers ache.
The quill falls to the table, nearly silent.
Addie massages a cramp in her right forearm. As she squints, Opheodra's sitting room solidifies around her, aglow in washed-out firelight.
"There you are. How do you feel?"
Addie flexes her hands and straightens, shaking out her left foot. At some point, Opheodra joined her on the settee.
"I'm fine." Addie clears the rasp from her voice and tries again. "Just a little tired. I'm sorry, I must've…"
Her gaze falls to the end table, where scribbled words - her mother's words, written in Addie's messy hand - fill the previously blank pages.
Addie snatches up the book and reads, ignoring her sore hand, and… and it's…
It's here. Mum's last letter to her, every word exactly right, as if she's reading it for the first time in her parents' dusty, empty bedroom.
Looking back, I see you changed when I sent you away. The war changed us all, but you've been so different, Adelaine. So distant, like you're only half here.
Exactly what Mum wrote.
Keep sketching. You must have enjoyed it once; the book is almost full.
If you should find that boy you used to draw, be sure to show him your book. I think he'd be flattered.
The words blur again.
"How?" Addie chokes out. "How did I… how did you…?"
Opheodra folds her hands in her lap. Her left thumb bears callouses from playing, no doubt years of practice.
"Music has a way of bringing memories," Opheodra says. "Or helping us forget. All one needs is the right song."
Addie traces her mother's words, summoned from her own memories she thought lost with the diary itself. She flips forward and finds more - entries she barely recalls, words she skimmed, stories of Mum's daily life she didn't dwell on. Almost a dozen pages, half of Mum's entries in 1953.
"It seems you remember more than you thought," says Opheodra.
"Thank you. I…" Addie checks that all the ink is dry and closes the book, cradling it to her chest. "Thank you."
Opheodra touches her shoulder. "I'm so pleased to have been of help."
Help is too simple a word for what Opheodra has done.
"Truly, I can't thank you enough," Addie says. Then, because these entries mean everything but there are so many more: "Can you… could you do it again?"
"Most certainly. But for now, I'd best not keep you." Opheodra nods to the window drapes, outlined in grey. "It's nearly dawn."
Dawn? Addie jumps up, wincing as pins and needles stab her left foot. The king's party leaves for Cair Paravel within the hour!
"I'm sorry, I -"
Opheodra smiles indulgently. "Go. When you return, I'd be glad to play for you again."
"Thank you."
Addie tucks her mother's new diary into her pocket and rushes for the door.
Even if she's late, it was well worth it.
A/N: How useful Opheodra's music is... I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking of what else Addie could remember with her help 😏
As for Cair Paravel, it's coming next chapter!
Chapter 69 Preview:
"You must have loved her very much."
Caspian stares into the river rushing past and says nothing.
"What happened?"
"She left."