Neither of the young women spoke as they slowly made their way through the long and ornate hallways. It was a beautiful place, and perhaps they could've appreciated it more if they weren't currently trespassing and hoping not to get caught by its sole occupant.
Finally, they reached the other end of the house and found themselves inside what appeared to be a large library. The room was filled with shelves and shelves of books that ran all along the walls and reached as high as the ceiling. Patterns of stars and several floating books circled around the upper balcony. In the very center of the room was a fancy podium that held one very thick book.
"This must be it," Elizabeth said softly when she looked at the scattered letters across the cover.
Lucy attempted to remove the latch on the book, but it wouldn't budge.
"Lucy, look."
Elizabeth pointed to a raised engraving on the top right of the podium of a cherub blowing a gust of air across the top. They could've sworn that it moved.
Lucy took a deep breath and blew onto the cover of the book. The scattered letters turned themselves around and arranged themselves properly so the title was now clear. When Lucy tried the latch again, it now easily opened.
She eagerly flipped through the pages that each contained a different spell. There was one for curing a toothache, one for healing injuries, and one for sending someone to sleep. She turned the page again and read out loud,
"'With these words
Your tongue must sew
For all around there to be snow',"
A lone snowflake fell onto the right black page, and when they looked up, the entire room was now coated in a layer of the same snow that now fell all around them and dusted their hair and eyelashes with pure whiteness. The two of them smiled in amazement at the beautiful magic.
Lucy realized that several snowflakes had fallen onto the book and she took a deep breath to blow it all away. Once she did, the pages suddenly started turning on their own faster and faster until Lucy slammed her hand onto the book to stop it.
The snow was gone, if it had ever even been there at all, and they both turned when they heard the sound of eerie whispers. Lucy and Elizabeth shared a nervous look and then turned back to the book.
Lucy examined the page she'd stopped on. "'An infallible spell to make you she; the beauty you've always wanted to be'."
The painting of a woman on the right side disappeared to show Lucy's face. Then ever so slowly, Lucy's face transformed into that of her sister's.
"Susan, what's going—" Lucy started with a laugh, but she stopped when she saw Susan's mouth moving at the same time as her own. "…on?" Lucy lightly brushed her cheek, and when Susan did the same thing, she realized that she was looking at a reflection. "I'm beautiful." She quickly turned to Elizabeth. "Do I really look like her? Like Susan?"
Elizabeth thought that Lucy looked beautiful the way she was, but apparently, she took too long to answer because Lucy rushed over to a glass cabinet to see if she had really transformed into her sister.
Disappointed that it was her own face looking back at her, she hurried back to the book only to see the image of her as Susan fading away. "No, wait!" she cried as she slammed her hand onto the page. She looked at the words above the returned painting of the woman. "'Make me she, whom I'd agree…'"
Desperate to look like Susan again, Lucy tore the page straight out of the book. As soon as it was separated from the binding, the pages furiously began turning again so forcefully that it made Elizabeth flinch in surprise.
"Lucy!" a deep male voice echoed firmly.
Lucy gasped and looked around the room.
"Lucy," the voice said much gentler.
"Aslan?" Lucy said softly. "Aslan?"
Elizabeth heart trembled at the sound of the deep and powerful voice, and judging from Lucy's reaction, it belonged to the Great Lion. She had never seen the him with her own eyes like the others, but just hearing the sound of his voice was enough to make her feel warm and comforted, even if he had only said Lucy's name.
As Lucy nervously tucked the torn page into her vest, Elizabeth stepped towards the book and stopped the pages from turning anymore. Her stomach clenched when she saw the page her hand rested on.
A spell to erase a memory.
Her fingers lightly ran over the words, wondering if the spell would work in the way she wanted it to if she used it. The same eerie whispers from before seemed to sound in her own head, urging her to take the spell for herself.
Elizabeth knew that she was supposed to be the adult in this situation for Lucy's sake and set a good example, but she simply could not let the opportunity to use the spell pass. She didn't have time to recite it now like Lucy had with the beauty spell, so she gripped the page and quickly ripped it out of the book for use later. And just like before, the pages began quickly turning with a loud whoosh when it came free. She hoped neither of them would face any serious repercussions for this. It was only two little spells. Surely in this giant library, the owner of the book wouldn't miss them.
The book slowly stopped again, this time on the spell they had been looking for in the first place.
"'A spell to make the unseen seen'," Lucy read. On the right side was a very long spell that they assumed would make the invisible creatures outside visible again. Lucy began reading it slowly and clearly so as not to mess up any of the words and cause something worse to happen.
Then she reached the end, "'The spell is complete. Now all is visible'."
It was at that moment that Lucy and Elizabeth realized that someone else was in the library with them.
"Ed," Caspian said quietly. He quickly went over to the boy and shook him awake. "Ed, wake up. Wake up, look."
Edmund drowsily stood up and looked around their campsite to see multiple large footprints. He looked over at his sister's blanket, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw it was empty. "Where's Lucy?"
Caspian looked over at Elizabeth's blanket which was missing a person as well. "And Elizabeth."
"Lucy?" Edmund called. "Lucy!"
At the sound of his urgent cries, Eva and the rest of the crew members awoke and stood up from their own blankets.
"Everybody up!" Caspian ordered.
"Get up!" Drinian said firmly. "Get up, I said!"
Everyone quickly grabbed their armor and weapons and began following in the direction of the footprints, hoping to find the two missing members of their party.
"This way!" Caspian said.
"Move, you blackguards!" Drinian demanded.
As the group quickly made their way further into the island, a flash of light caught Eva's eye. "Edmund," she said, lightly hitting him on the arm.
Edmund knelt down to get a closer look at the object on the ground. "Caspian, Lucy's dagger."
"What happened to them?" Eva asked quietly.
Suddenly, several spears pierced the ground all around them. Everyone quickly pulled out their weapons and tried to find who was throwing them.
"Stop right there or perish!" a gruff voice yelled.
Something yanked Caspian's sword out of his hand and hit him in the face. The crew members attempted to fight back, but unseen forces knocked them around, hit them, and disarmed them with ease. Eva attempted to swing her sword in the direction where she thought there was a creature, but she only swung open air. She cried out in pain when something roughly yanked on her hair then snatched the sword from her hand. The invisible creatures pointed the stolen swords at them, boxing them in.
"What sort of creatures are you?" Caspian demanded.
"Big ones!" the gruff voice answered. "With the head of a tiger and the body of a…"
"Different tiger!" another voice finished.
"You don't want to mess with us!"
"Or what?" Edmund challenged.
"Or I'll claw you to death!"
"And I'll ram my tusks right through you!"
"And I'll gnash you with my teeth."
"And I'll bite you with my fangs. Grrr!"
The creatures' threats would have been a lot more intimidating if they had remained invisible. But before their eyes, they slowly began to materialize in front of the crew. Small creatures with only one foot stood atop one another to make them seem taller than they really were.
"You mean squash us with your fat bellies?" Edmund asked sarcastically.
"Yes!"
"Fat bellies?"
"Tickle us with your toes?" Caspian laughed.
Looking down at himself and realizing he was caught, the creature with the gruff voice fell from his perch atop two other creatures.
Edmund marched up to him and aimed his sword at him. "What have you done with my sister and our friend, you little pipsqueak?"
"Now, calm down," the creature pleaded.
"Where are they?"
"You better tell him!" one of them said.
"Go on, Chief, tell him," another added.
"In the mansion," the chief told Edmund.
"What mansion?"
Barely seconds after he'd asked the question, a huge house suddenly materialized to their right.
"Oh. That mansion."
"You know, I'm really getting tired of you all leaving me behind…"
Everyone turned at the sound of Eustace's voice, admittedly forgetting that he had been camping out on the shore with them, and saw him fighting his way through the brush to rejoin them. He froze when he saw the one-footed creatures.
"It's the pig!" one of them exclaimed.
"The pig has come back!"
"This place just gets weirder and weirder," Eustace muttered.
"Weird?"
"Him calling us weird?"
At that moment, Lucy and Elizabeth exited the mansion alongside an older man in a long robe. The creatures quickly began calling out "The Oppressor!" as they anxiously hopped away from him.
At their panicked shouts, Eva turned around and saw three approaching figures. "Elizabeth!" she called.
"Lucy!" Edmund exclaimed with relief as he sheathed his sword.
The man put his hand to his chest and bowed before the three of them. "Your Majesty. My Lady."
"Caspian, Edmund, and Eva," Lucy introduced. "This is Coriakin. It's his island."
Caspian, Edmund, and Eva politely bowed their heads in return.
"That's what he thinks!" the chief creature yelled behind them. "You have wronged us, magician."
"I have not wronged you," Coriakin said as he walked forward, causing all the creatures to once again anxiously hop away on their one foot. "I made you invisible for your own protection."
"Protection?"
"That's oppressive!"
"Oppressor!"
"I have not oppressed you," Coriakin said gently.
"But you could have, if you wanted to!"
Coriakin tossed something at them. "Begone."
"It's a spell!"
"Hurry!"
"Run!"
"What was that?" Lucy asked.
"Lint," Coriakin told her, a ghost of a smile on his face. "But don't tell them."
Eva leaned over to Edmund. "I like this guy."
"What were those things?" Eustace asked the man.
"Dufflepuds," he answered.
"Right, of course. Silly me."
As Coriakin led Lucy, Edmund, Eva, Elizabeth, Eustace, Caspian, and Drinian into the mansion and through all the long hallways, Caspian gently touched Elizabeth's shoulder. "Are you all right? You weren't hurt, were you?"
Elizabeth smiled softly at him. "No, I'm fine."
The page from the spell book tucked into the pocket of her long skirt felt like it was burning a hole through the material, as if trying to get her to admit to her theft.
"I'm so sorry. This never should've happened when I was only a few feet away from you."
"Caspian, it's not your fault. The creatures were careful to not be heard."
"What did they need you for?"
"They wanted Lucy and I to find a spell to make them visible again. I suppose they didn't enjoy not being able to see each other."
"I can't say I was rather fond of that either."
"For what it's worth…you did keep your promise. You came."
Caspian smiled at her. He hoped that even if he hadn't been able to prevent the Dufflepuds from abducting her, he had earned just a little more of her trust simply by coming for her.
"What did you mean when you said you made them invisible for their own good?" Lucy asked Coriakin.
"It seemed the easiest way to protect them," Corakin answered. "From the evil."
"You mean the mist?" Edmund clarified.
"I mean what lies behind the mist."
Coriakin led them back into the library where Lucy and Elizabeth had found the spell book. Fortunately, he hadn't seen them steal two of his spells, and if he had, he hadn't said as much. The magician unraveled a large magical scroll onto the floor, and the pictures came alive as part of it lifted off the paper.
"That's quite beautiful," Eustace remarked. When he saw everyone looking at him, he quickly added, "I mean for a make-believe map in a make-believe world."
Eva looked at the moving border that showed Peter and Elaine charging across a field atop a unicorn and a horse. "Edmund, is that the battle against the White Witch?"
"Yeah, it is…"
Edmund could remember that moment on the battlefield as if it had happened yesterday. He had never been more scared for himself and all of his comrades, but he had also been exceedingly proud and supportive of his older brother which was a far cry from his attitude only a few days prior to then.
Knowing that Edmund had almost lost his life on that battlefield and that seeing the beginning of the battle probably brought back a few unpleasant memories, Eva gently took his hand in hers.
"There is the source of your troubles," Coriakin told them. The map moved across the ocean and showed them a black island glowing with the green mist. "Dark Island. A place where evil lurks. It can take any form. It can make your darkest dreams come true. It seeks to corrupt all goodness. To steal the light from this world."
"How do we stop it?" Lucy asked him.
"You must break its spell." He pointed to Edmund's sword. "That sword you carry, there are six others."
"Have you seen them?" Edmund asked.
"Yes."
"The six lords…they passed through here?" Caspian said.
"Indeed."
"Where were they headed?"
"Where I sent them." The map moved over the ocean again, and a small blue light appeared over a beautiful island that was the complete opposite of the other one in every way. "To break the spell, you must follow the Blue Star…to Ramandu's Island. There, the seven swords must be laid at Aslan's Table. Only then can their true magical power be released. But beware. You are all about to be tested."
"Tested?" Lucy said.
"Until you lay down the seventh sword, evil has the upper hand. It will do everything in its power to tempt you. Be strong. Don't fall to temptations. To defeat the darkness out there, you must defeat the darkness inside yourself."