I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I only play with them like toys of my imagination.
Lucy could not say the storm struck at any one point. It was more gradual than that – an hour or so before sunset, the waves became a little more insistent, the rocking of the ship became a little more drastic, and the crew became more grim-faced and serious than she had seen them before. There was a certain crackling tension in the air that warned of the weather to come. Eventually, Lucy resigned to her cabin for fear of getting in the way of the sailors who had been checking knots and measurements all afternoon, and was soon joined by Susan, who looked decidedly green.
The two didn't speak, but instead sat in silence upon their hammocks as the room tipped back and forth. The window was now sinking below the water quite regularly, and the light was changing every few seconds. Every so often Lucy would raise her eyes and meet Susan's, and they would share a quiet moment of worry. But after about twenty minutes in which the air only got more stale and the pitching worse, Susan stood up with a look of pained resolution on her face.
"Oh, I can't stand it any longer. Let's go outside, it's better than being locked up in this sardine tin of a cabin," she said.
Lucy nodded and stood also, then followed her sister out into the hallway. They strode past the door to the sailor's quarters on one side, the captain's and their brothers' on the other, and made their way up through the staircase onto the deck. The clouds were nearly directly overhead now, swollen with moisture and promising worse than merely rain. With a shiver of apprehension, Lucy hurried forward to the prow and Edmund, who stood there. He was watching the froth-tipped waves with an expression much akin to the one he had worn whenever the air-raids were being carried out by the German pilots back in England.
"Hello, Lu," he said as she approached.
"Hello."
They stood shoulder to shoulder and waited for the storm to break. The wind was strengthening, gaining speed and curling around the numerous figures that dotted the ship's surface. It made the sails flap irritably, the red banner flying from the crow's nest ripple frenziedly and the skirts of the two Pevensie sisters billow about their ankles. The ocean now made little leaps and the vessel was rocking violently. Lucy gripped the railing for support and looked backwards. Susan stood by the staircase looking uneasy. She couldn't see Peter anywhere.
Tip. Tap.
Raindrops.
Then the clouds broke open and the rain poured down in great, pounding sheets, slamming into the deck and soaking everyone immediately. All at once, the ship gave a great lurch and Lucy felt her feet slipping on the wood, so she grabbed hold of Edmund's arm and they both went tumbling to the floor. The boat tilted dangerously to one side and they slid across it to crash into the railing on the other side of the deck in a tangle of limbs and confused shouts. A blinding flash of lightning shot through the dark sky. Thunder, deep and forceful, echoed off the now-raging ocean and added to the sudden cacophony of hammerering rain, bellowed instructions and frantic reports of the sailors as they attempted to keep the sails from tearing in the harsh wind.
"Lucy!" Edmund shouted over the noise, holding out his hand to her urgently. He had managed to stand. "Come on, we need to get below!"
She reached out to take his hand, but a towering wave crashed over the side of the ship, knocking him over and washing them further apart. She cried out his name fearfully, scrambling to stand on the slick deck. He was struggling to find something – anything – dry enough to grab hold of but there seemed nothing now that wouldn't slide from his grasp. Another wave rolled over, brutally shoving him into the railing on the prow and Edmund let out a yell of pain as he smashed up against it.
The vessel bucked in the frothing waters, the prow rising more than a meter above the surface and again, Lucy and Edmund found themselves skidding down uncontrollably. Lucy grabbed desperately at the edge of the staircase as she shot past it but it was beyond her reach. Flashes of dark sky and wet wood whizzed by her until another burst of lightning lit the scene and she felt a calloused hand close over her arm, pulling her to her feet. She looked up to see Thomas, who roughly pushed her towards the hole in the deck that was the staircase.
"Go!" he commanded. Lucy didn't need to be told. Scrambling to it, she practically threw herself down the stairs, heart hammering. But Edmund! Clinging tightly to the slightly drier underside of the staircase, she stuck her head up and looked frantically around for her older brother. She spotted him lying dazed about two meters away, probably after having slid painfully into the divide between the two decks.
"Ed!" she hollered. He looked up, eyes unfocused, and attempted to crawl towards her. Another swell bore the ship up again and he was sent flying towards his younger sister, who managed to get a fistful of his tunic and pulled him forcefully into the stairwell using his own momentum. They both hurtled into the hallway and lay there for a moment, gasping for air.
"Lu," Edmund finally managed. "Susan and Peter."
"I'm here," Susan's voice suddenly said. She was standing in the doorway of her cabin, looking dreadfully ill and shaken. Like them, she was soaked from head to foot.
"Peter?" Lucy asked, dragging herself into a sitting position. Susan shook her head hopelessly.
"He was up in the rigging, trying to help. He's on his own now. There's nothing we can do but pray."
Lucy felt her stomach quickly tie itself in a knot. What had possessed him? Her hand instinctively closed over the crystal bottle at her waist, her precious gift, the cordial that could heal any injury. But it couldn't heal death, and if Peter fell from the mast, he would die no matter where he landed. Another rumble of thunder shook the vessel harshly.
"There's nothing we can do," Susan repeated bleakly as Edmund glanced up at the stairwell, where rain still poured in and soaked the steps.
The three sat there in the dry hallway for what seemed like hours, listening to the pouring rain and the screams and shouts while the ship groaned and tossed, completely at the mercy of the elements. Worry nipped inside all of them as they avoided one another's eyes and silently pleaded for the safety of their comrades. Finally, Lucy curled up there on the wooden floor and fell into a fitful sleep. She would not awake until the storm had abated.
