Author's Note: Please note that this is a gender switched version of "The Magician's Nephew" which is the wonderful creation of C.S. Lewis and belongs to his estate. If you don't like the idea of gender switched classics, then this probably isn't for you.
Chapter One – The Wrong Door
This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandmother was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Nernya first began.
In those long-ago days Miss Shirley Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a girl you had to wear a woo pinafore and scratchy stockings every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and sweets were much cheaper and larger than now. And in those days there lived in London a boy called Paul Plummer.
He lived in one of a long row of houses which were all joined together. One morning he was out in the back garden when a girl scrambled up from the garden next door and put her face over the wall. Paul was very surprised because up till now there had never been any children in that house, but only Miss Ketterley and Master Ketterley, a sister and brother, old maid and old spinner, living together. So he looked up, full of curiosity. The face of the strange girl was very grubby.
It could hardly have been grubbier if she had first rubbed her hands in the earth, and then had a good cry, and then dried her face with her hands. As a matter of fact, this was very nearly what she had been doing.
"Hullo," said Paul.
"Hullo," said the girl. "What's your name?"
"Paul," said Paul. "What's yours?"
"Digma," said the girl.
"I say, what a funny name!" said Paul.
"It isn't half so funny as Paul," said Digma.
"Yes it is," said Paul.
"No, it isn't," said Digma.
"At any rate I do wash my face," said Paul, "Which is what you need to do; especially after -" and then he stopped. He had been going to say, "After you've been blubbing," but he thought that wouldn't be polite.
"Alright, I have then," said Digma in a much louder voice, like a girl who was so miserable that she didn't care who knew she had been crying. "And so would you," she went on, "if you'd lived all your life in the country and had a pony, and a river and a boat, at the bottom of the garden, and then been brought to live in a beastly hole like this."
"London isn't a hole," said Paul indignantly. But the girl was too wound up to take any notice of him, and she went on "And if your mother was far away in India - and you had to come and live with an uncle and an aunt who's mad (who would like that?) - and if the reason was that they were looking after your father - and if your father was ill and was going to - going to - die." Then her face went the wrong sort of shape as it does if you're trying to keep back your tears.
"I didn't know. I'm sorry," said Paul humbly. And then, because he hardly knew what to say, and also to turn Digma's mind to more cheerful subjects, he asked, "Is Miss Ketterley really mad?"
"Well either she's mad," said Digma, "or there's some other mystery. She has a study on the top floor and Uncle Len says I must never go up there and disturb her. Well, that looks fishy to begin with. And then there's another thing. Whenever she tries to say anything to me at meal times - she never even tries to talk to him - he always shuts her up. He says, "Don't worry the girl, Andrea" or "I'm sure Digma doesn't want to hear about that" or else, "Now, Digma, run along and play in the garden."
"What sort of things does she try to say?"
"I don't know. She never gets far enough. But there's more than that. One night - it was last night in fact - as I was going past the foot of the attic-stairs on my way to bed (and I don't much care for going past them either) I'm sure I heard someone yell."
"Perhaps she keeps a mad husband shut up there like Mrs. Rochester in John Eyre."
"Yes, I've thought of that," said Digma. "Or she might have been a pirate, like the woman at the beginning of Treasure Island, and be always hiding from her old shipmates."
"How exciting!" said Paul, "I never knew your house was so interesting."
"You may think it interesting," said Digma. "But you wouldn't like it if you had to sleep there. How would you like to lie awake listening for Uncle Andrea's step to come creeping along the passage to your room? And she has such awful eyes and horrible fingers."
That was how Paul and Digma got to know one another: and as it was just the beginning of the summer holidays and neither of them was going to the seaside that year, they met nearly every day.
Their adventures began chiefly because it was one of the wettest and coldest summers there had been for years. That drove them to do indoor things such as indoor exploration. They found out how much exploring can be done with a stump of candle in a big house, or in a row of houses. Paul had discovered long ago that if you opened a certain little door in the box-room attic of his house you would find the cistern and a dark place behind it which you could get into by a little careful climbing. The dark place was like a long tunnel with brick wall on one side and sloping roof on the other. In the roof there were little chunks of light between the slates.
There was no floor in this tunnel: you had to step from rafter to rafter, and between them there was only plaster. If someone were to step on this she would find herself falling through the ceiling of the room below. Paul had used the bit of the tunnel just beside the cistern as a smugglers' cave.
He had brought up bits of old packing cases and the seats of broken kitchen chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here, he kept a red tin cash-box containing various treasures, and the manuscript of a story he was writing and usually a few apples. He had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the empty green bottles made it look more like a smugglers' cave. Digma quite liked the cave (he wouldn't let her see the story) but she was more interested in exploring.
"Look here," she said. "How long does this tunnel go on for? I mean, does it stop where your house ends?"
"No," said Paul. "The walls don't go out to the roof. It goes on. I don't know how far."
"Then we could get the length of the whole row of houses."
"So we could," said Paul, "And oh, I say!"
"What?"
"We could get into the other houses."
"Yes and get mistaken for burglars! No thanks."
"Don't be so jolly clever. I was thinking of the house beyond yours," said Paul.
"What about it?"
"Why, it's the empty one. Mummy says it's always been empty since we came here."
"I suppose we ought to have a look at it then," said Digma. She was a good deal more excited than you'd have thought from the way she spoke. For of course, she was thinking of all the reasons why the house might have been empty so long. So was Paul. Neither of them said the word "haunted". And both felt that once the thing had been suggested, it would be feeble not to do it.
"Shall we go and try it now?" said Digma.
"Alright," said Paul.
"Don't if you'd rather not," said Digma.
"I'm game if you are," said he.
"How are we to know we're in the next house but one?"
They decided they would have to go out into the box room and walk across it taking steps as long as the steps from one rafter to the next. That would give them an idea of how many rafters went to a room. Then they would allow about four more for the passage between the two attics in Paul's house, and then the same number for the manservant's bedroom as for the box-room. That would give them the length of the house. When they had done that distance twice they would be at the end of Digma's house; any door they came to after that would let them into an attic of the empty house.
"But I don't expect it's really empty at all," said Digma.
"What do you expect?"
"I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get a reward. It's all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery."
"Mummy thought it must be the drains or dry rot," said Paul.
"Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations," said Digma. Now that they were talking by daylight in the attic instead of by candlelight in the 'Smugglers' Cave', it seemed much less likely that the empty house would be haunted.
When they had measured the attic they had to get a pencil and do a sum. They both got different answers to it at first, and even when they agreed I am not sure they got it right. They were in a hurry to start on the exploration.
"We mustn't make a sound," said Paul as they climbed in again behind the cistern. Because it was such an important occasion they took a candle each (Paul had a good store of them in his cave).
It was very dark and dusty and draughty and they stepped from rafter to rafter without a word except when they whispered to one another, "We're opposite your attic now," or "this must be halfway through our house". And neither of them stumbled and the candles didn't go out, and at last they came where they could see a little door in the brick wall on their right. There was no bolt or handle on this side of it, of course, for the door had been made for getting in, not for getting out; but there was a catch (as there often is on the inside of a cupboard door) which they felt sure they would be able to turn.
"Shall I?" said Digma.
"I'm game if you are," said Paul, just as he had said before. Both felt that it was becoming very serious, but neither would draw back. Digma pushed round the catch with some difficulty.
The door swung open and the sudden daylight made them blink. Then, with a great shock, they saw that they were looking, not into a deserted attic, but into a furnished room. But it seemed empty. It was dead silent. Paul's curiosity got the better of him. He blew out his candle and stepped out into the strange room, making no more noise than a mouse.
It was shaped, of course, like an attic, but furnished as a sitting-room. Every bit of the walls was lined with shelves and every bit of the shelves was full of books. A fire was burning brightly in the grate and in front of the fire-place with its back towards them was a high-backed leather armchair. Between the chair and Paul, and filling most of the middle of the room, was a big table piled with all sorts of things; printed books, notebooks, ink bottles, pens, pencils, erasers, and stoppered bottles containing different coloured liquids – red, green and blue, and sealing-wax and a microscope.
But what he noticed first on the table was a black lacquered tray with any number of rings on it. They were in pairs - a yellow one and a green one together, then a little space, and then another yellow one and another green one. They were no bigger than ordinary rings, and no one could help noticing them because they were so bright. They were the most beautiful shiny little things you can imagine. If Paul had been a very little younger he would have wanted to put one in his mouth.
The room was so quiet that he noticed the ticking of the clock at once. And then he heard another noise as well. There was a faint - a very, very faint - humming sound.
If hoovers had been invented in those days Paul would have thought it was the sound of a hoover being worked a long way off - several rooms away and several floors below. But it was a nicer sound than that, a more musical tone: only so faint that he could hardly hear it.
"It's alright; there's no one here," said Paul over his shoulder to Digma. He didn't bother to whisper. Digma came out, blinking and looking extremely dirty - as indeed Paul was too.
"This is bad," she said. "It's not an empty house at all. We'd better bunk before anyone comes."
"What do you think those are?" said Paul, pointing at the coloured rings.'
"Oh come on," said Digma. "The sooner-"
She never finished what she was going to say for at that moment something happened. The high-backed chair in front of the fire moved suddenly and there rose up out of it - like a pantomime villain coming up out of a trapdoor, the alarming form of Aunt Andrea. They were not in the empty house at all; they were in Digma's house and in the forbidden study! Both children said "O-o-oh" and realized their terrible mistake. They felt they ought to have known all along that they hadn't gone nearly far enough.
Aunt Andrea was tall and very thin. She had a long face with a sharply-pointed nose and extremely bright eyes and a great tousled mop of grey hair.
Digma was quite speechless, for Aunt Andrea looked a thousand times more alarming than he had ever looked before. Paul was not so frightened yet; but she soon was. For the very first thing Aunt Andrea did was to walk across to the door of the room, shut it, and turn the key in the lock. Then she turned around, fixed the children with her bright eyes, and smiled, showing all her slightly yellow teeth.
"There!" he said. "Now my fool of a brother can't get at you!"
It was so dreadfully unlike anything a grown-up would be expected to do. Paul's heart came into his mouth, and he and Digma started backing towards the little door they had come in by. Aunt Andrea was too quick for them. She got behind them and shut that door too and stood in front of it.
Then she rubbed her hands and made her knuckles crack. She had very long, beautifully white, fingers.
"I am delighted to see you," she said. "Two children are just what I wanted."
This scared the children even more.
"Please, Miss Ketterley, it's nearly my dinner time and I've got to go home. Will you let us out, please?" Paul pleaded.
"Not just yet," said Aunt Andrea. "This is too good an opportunity to miss. I wanted two children. You see, I'm in the middle of a great experiment. I've tried it on a guinea-pig and it seemed to work. But then a guinea-pig can't tell you anything. And you can't explain to it how to come back."
"Look here, Aunt Andrea," said Digma, "it really is dinner time and they'll be looking for us in a moment. You must let us out."
"Must?" asked Aunt Andrea in an unpleasant tone.
Digma and Paul glanced at one another. They dared not say anything, but the glances meant "Isn't this dreadful?" and "We must humour her."
"If you let us go for our dinner now," said Paul, "we could come back to see you after dinner."
"Ah, but how do I know that you would?" said Aunt Andrea with a cunning smile. Then she seemed to change her mind. She stopped smiling and her mouth drooped. "Well, well," she said, "if you really must go, I suppose you must. I can't expect two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me." She sighed and went on. "You've no idea how lonely I sometimes am. I have so few visitors. But no matter. Go have your dinner. But I must give you a small present before you go. It's not every day that I see a little boy in my drab old study; especially, if I may say so, such a very attractive young gentleman as yourself."
Paul began to think she might not really be mad after all. She was certainly very perceptive.
"Wouldn't you like a ring, my dear?" Aunt Andrea asked Paul.
"Do you mean one of those yellow or green ones?" questioned Paul. "How nice of you!"
"Not a green one," said Aunt Andrea. "I'm afraid I can't give the green ones away. But I'd be delighted to give you any of the yellow ones: with my compliments. Here, come and try one on."
Paul had now quite got over his fright and felt sure that the old lady was not mad; and there was certainly something oddly attractive about those shiny rings. He moved over to the tray.
"Why! I declare," he said. "That humming noise is much louder here. It's almost as if the rings were making it."
"What a droll fancy, my dear," said Aunt Andrea with a laugh. It sounded good-natured, but Digma had seen an eager, almost a greedy, look on her face.
"Paul! Don't be an idiot!" she shouted. "Don't touch them."
It was too late. Exactly as she spoke, Paul's hand went out to touch one of the yellow rings. And immediately, without a flash or a noise or a warning of any sort, there was no Paul. He had vanished. Digma and her aunt were alone in the room.