A/N: Almost didn't get this one up today, but here we are. I tried to fit as much plot stuff to give us a shot at getting back to Narnia by Chapter 63. Not sure if I managed, but I'll know by next week. Who else is anxious for Part 4?
Update 9/4/2022: Unfortunately, Chapter 62 won't be up until tomorrow. It's a LOT of ground cover in one chapter and I still need to get this thing through my usual edit cycles. Should be up by 6pm tomorrow!
Chapter 61 Content Warnings: mourning the death of a parent
Chapter 61: in circles somewhere else
Addie
The days after the funeral stink of mourning. Both Addie's jobs allow - encourage - a few days off but the house is empty, there's too much food, and the neighbours…
They mean well. She would've gone hungry many a night without their help. But their concern chafes, makes the grief fester like an infected sore. Addie returns to work a day early just to escape the cloud. Record-keeping can be lonely, too quiet, so Addie lists shelves and box numbers and folders and record cards in her head until closing to keep her mind busy.
Thanks to the neighbours' kindness, she doesn't need to cook, though she'd like to. Meat pies and bread and fresh vegetables from the communal garden appear on her doorstep, and she can't let these gifts go to waste.
A few nights a week, she's busy with cleaning shifts. It's gruelling work that scars her knuckles with bleach burns and thickens her shoulders and back with muscle, but it keeps her mind quiet. She's too tired by then to do much thinking, or feeling, or grieving.
Sometimes it's better - easier - to just exist, floating from one day to the next, one shift to the next, one more rushed meal and restless, dreamless sleep before starting the same patterns over in the morning.
The nights Addie doesn't have cleaning shifts are the hardest.
She should sleep the whole time like her body begs her to. Those nights, she should be tired enough to sleep in her own bed and forget how empty the house is, how there is no one else here and she is alone.
What should it matter, being alone? If she's asleep, she shouldn't know the difference.
Instead, Addie haunts her mother's house - her house now, legally, thanks to Mum's will. She wanders from her room to the kitchen to the sitting room and back again, tracking circles in her bare feet on the floor she sweeps every morning.
Addie never ventures upstairs. That's Mum and Dad's bedroom, and she knows they're gone, knows it like she knows the shape of her next breath, but to see the empty bed, the undisturbed sheets, the dust collecting on the nightstand and windowsill?
It'll be real, then.
Not yet. Let the loss be nothing more than memory.
Just a little longer.
Autumn comes, and she hates it. The rain pelts Addie on her way to work, the roof of the house when she sleeps, and the train station overhang when she visits Ted at work on the way to Josie's flat.
Summer is fading into winter, and the house is still empty.
Lifeless.
So Addie sells it.
It's probably foolish, giving up a house in the heart of London, but the money pays the last of the funeral expenses with enough left over that she can comfortably lease a flat for a long time - maybe with a roommate, so she won't be alone.
Thanks to her work schedule, weekly library trips with Josie have become monthly at best, quarterly more often. She sees Ted even less, which is fine - ex-sweethearts shouldn't spend too much time together. Josie said that makes feelings come back, fuzzes the line between friends and something more, plants false hope where there should be fond distance.
Addie doesn't believe that until Ted's hand lingers on her shoulder too long one night at the pub, an offering she refuses to decipher heavy as drinking songs and gossip and clanking glasses drown out rational thought.
It could be the ale, or Ted could be concerned, like his pinched mouth and soft eyes say, or it could be exactly what Josie said.
Each option irks her as much as the others, so Addie introduces Ted to a pretty girl with a loud, contagious laugh and guileless green eyes.
Addie watches Ted slowly forget she's there, and here is something else she's good at:
Disappearing.
The next day, Addie quits her cleaning job so she can box up the memories she wants to keep. Addie fills her suitcase - the same she took to the countryside all those years ago - with her clothes and shoes, and piles her keepsakes on the kitchen table.
It's not much: a faded blue tablecloth, a tea kettle older than she is, the quilt Mum made three (or was it four?) Christmases ago, and a snow globe of a castle Josie gave her last year.
"Like in your sketches," Josie said. "Just imagine it at Christmas."
Addie adds her sketchbook to the pile.
She can't leave the upstairs bedroom and all its trappings to the whims of new owners. Mum kept framed pictures up there, if nothing else.
Addie steels herself and pads up the creaky steps.
She was right; it's dusty.
Addie cleans every surface to a polish Mum would have praised, strips the bed, and saves what few clothes from Mum and Dad's closet she has room to pack - a floral dress Mum wore every birthday, a pair of sensible heels, and her father's least faded necktie. Ted offered to store boxes while she's looking for a flat, but she'd rather not bother him unless she must.
By midnight, her parents' belongings are sorted into keep, sell, and give away piles, and Addie is sitting on the end of the mattress with a leather-bound book in her lap. She found it tucked inside a pillowcase - the fluffier one, clearly not slept on in years. The nightstand's squeaky top drawer held seven more.
It's probably old ledgers. Might not be anything important.
Addie's hands shake as she cracks it open.
Her mother's scratchy, cramped handwriting stares back, a litany of diary entries from January 1952 until… Addie skips to the bookmark denoting the last entry: May 1953.
27 Jan. 1952
My love,
I think she's found someone. I worried she might never, but there's something about this boy. He's gentle, respectful, holds a good job (a conductor, nothing military. Forgive me, my dear, but I couldn't bear Adelaine missing someone as I miss you. You would not want that for her either, I think.)
His name is Ted, and you would approve of him. Addie might not love him yet (she likes him, certainly) but given time, she will. I like how he looks at her. It reminds me a little of how you used to look at me.
I wish you were here to meet him.
I wish you could see our girl grown and starting to make her way in the world.
Addie swallows tears and flips ahead. She can't cry on the pages, can't bear to ruin them.
28 Apr. 1952
My love,
Adelaine turned 20 today. The same age I was when we found out I was expecting. How young we were then… Your eyes lit up when I told you, and how you kissed me! But the next moment, you ran to the table muttering about pounds and baby clothes and a proper house as you scribbled numbers.
Such a worrier, you were, always working extra shifts. But I would not have this house to keep with our daughter if you hadn't.
I always miss you, but today, seeing how our daughter has become a young woman…
If you are out there, if there was a mistake and you are somehow alive in the world, come home.
Come home and see how your daughter has grown into a woman - a stubborn woman. See your stubborn chin, your fleeting smile, your short fingers, your high cheekbones. Hear the stories she tells, see how quietly she moves through this house, always taking care of things as you did. Come home and mourn the years you have missed seeing her grow up with me.
Just come home to me. Come home to us.
After all those years, Mum never stopped hoping. Even with the widow's pension, she never stopped.
Addie traces the letters telling her what she carries of the father she was too young to remember, and then their shared features - cheeks, mouth, fingers. She has her mother's height (lack of it) and penchant for solitude, but she never knew what she had of her father. Mum never spoke of him.
Addie wipes her runny nose. She can't begrudge her mother for that; she kept secrets from her, too.
18 Nov. 1952
My love,
You were right about the factory. I tried not to write too much of this cough - you know I hate worrying you - but it's harder to breathe now. Despite my efforts, I think Adelaine sees the handkerchiefs. I've tried to wash them out. I wonder if she'd figure it out either way. She insists on taking more and more chores herself, though she's working too. You'd be so proud, she's a records keeper. A better future than the factories. She'll do well with Ted, make a comfortable life.
Forgive me, I'm rambling.
You would hate this thought, but sometimes, it gives me comfort to think of meeting you again, if this sickness is as I fear. If you are gone beyond this world, perhaps I can find you in the next.
Wait for me?
While you do, tell our parents how long I survived without you. My father especially - that'd surprise him. I hope you've found my sister, too; Dolly just needed more time to warm to you.
If there is a life after this, Mum must've found Dad by now.
Addie's thought little of her parents' families; they're all gone, one uncle who lives across the Channel and the others claimed by the war or the same sickness that took Mum. Like Dad, Mum rarely spoke of them. When she was younger, Addie thought it was because they'd stopped existing to her. Now, Addie wonders the opposite. Maybe Mum never spoke of them because they were too real, the memories of them too acute.
Addie flips through the rest of the diary. The entries taper off in 1953, and the last is barely intelligible, full of misshapen letters and misspellings. Mum wrote to her parents, to Dad, and the last page is to Addie.
It's similar to what she said at the hospital, at the end: stop settling, keep looking, go find happiness that makes your heart burst. But there's a paragraph about the countryside.
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. And no, before you get frustrated, it's not obvious. But I'm your mother, and I knew you before. You never sat still when I sang to you, and now you can spend hours at the library devouring books. You hated cooking, but when you came back, you surpassed anyone this side of London. You baked bread like you've done it for a decade. Thank the Shaws for me. I know you still write to them, and I'm glad you do.
And 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.
Addie hiccups a sob. Even beyond the grave, Mum's meddling in her love life. She never knew Mum found her old sketchbook. Until this morning's packing, she hadn't touched it in over a year.
She's just glad Mum doesn't know the boy she used to dream about is gone, and so is the girl who drew him.
Caspian
The seas east of the Lone Islands batter the Dawn Treader with an eighteen-day gale that breaks the mast and nearly drowns them all. When Rhince spots a mountainous isle off to port, Caspian mutters thanks to Aslan and takes his shift rowing with a little less care for his grumbling stomach and pounding headache. Everyone's been on half rations for a week, and they all share the same symptoms of dehydration.
Two days later, the Dawn Treader drops anchor in a bay encircled by craggy cliffs. The entire ship's company rows ashore to drink and splash and bathe in the freshwater stream tumbling down between two cliffs. Caspian utters no word of repairing the ship and replenishing supplies until everyone has drank and eaten a good meal of fish and wild berries.
Afterwards, there is work aplenty to make the Dawn Treader seaworthy again. Caspian leads a hunting party to gather any game the land yields, sends a logging party with Edmund to search for a strong tree for a new mast (pine, if possible, though the sap will be irksome), and sends four men back to man the ship. Lucy oversees the other tasks: clothes to wash and mend, water casks to mend and fill, and sails and various other ship parts to repair.
Eustace disappears.
"I ought to have known," Edmund says. "Probably heard us talking about the long day's work ahead. Don't worry, I suspect he'll be back just as dinner gets going."
"Oughtn't someone go after him?" says Lucy. "It might be dangerous - at least, for him."
Caspian considers it, but with so much to be done, he has no men to spare trying to track Eustace. The boy's made every point to be useless aboard, and he's clearly determined to continue the pattern ashore.
"If he's not back by sundown, we'll search for him," Caspian says. "Until then, let him sleep it off."
That approach, as it turns out, is a terrible mistake.
Caspian can say this for Eustace - the boy has a talent for causing trouble. Somehow, the boy gets himself turned into a dragon with a gold armband around his left foreleg. The band is wide enough to cover half a grown man's forearm and bears an engraving of a hammer with a diamond set above it like a star - the insignia of Lord Octesian's house.
At first, Caspian and Lucy thought the dragon to be Lord Octesian. But then Edmund asks if the dragon is Eustace, the dragon thumps its tail and sobs, and that's as clear an answer as they'll get. The arm band confirms the presence of Lord Octesian on the island, but none of their searching bears fruit in finding the man.
Fortunately, Eustace the dragon is far more helpful than Eustace the boy. After the first day of moping, Eustace makes himself useful - invaluable, actually, though Caspian can barely fathom the word. As a dragon, Eustace finds a towering pine for the new mast, brings dozens of wild boar and goat carcasses for the crew, and keeps everyone warm on chilly nights.
On nights Eustace isn't being used for warmth, Caspian thinks he hears dragonish whuffles, if dragons can even do such a thing. For a moment, Caspian almost rises to attempt to comfort him, but Reepicheep consoles Eustace with tales of his adventures and legends of kings and emperors and knights who found themselves enchanted and then broke free.
Caspian's glad to leave the comforting to Reepicheep. He only knows how to survive grief and loss; soothing the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune is beyond him, and Eustace would not likely appreciate a lecture on the blessed numbness of staying busy.
After a week's worth of repairs and re-provisioning, Caspian tells Drinian, Lucy, and Edmund they all need to sail on. His voyage was only to last a year and a day, and four months and a week have already passed. In seven weeks, the Dawn Treader must turn westward, back toward Narnia.
Trouble is, the Dawn Treader can't carry a dragon, Eustace can't fly forever, and towing him on a raft would slow the ship to a crawl. Even so, they can't very well leave Eustace behind. Tiresome though he was, he's part of the group, Lucy and Edmund's cousin, and - despite him being a dragon - it wouldn't feel right to leave Eustace on a strange island all alone. Caspian discusses it with Drinian, Lucy, and Edmund while Reepicheep keeps Eustace occupied.
"We could leave a few men with him," Drinian mutters. "Volunteers only, of course."
"I can't bear to think of leaving him behind," says Lucy.
"The island's got plenty of game and flora to feed us all," Edmund says. "I say we wait another day or two, keep trying to unenchant him."
Caspian glances toward Eustace, whose scaly form is curled on the beach between the waves and the forest.
"We've found nothing so far," he says. "We can linger here another day, but we can't wait forever."
Lucy follows his gaze, concern tight in her forehead. She tried giving Eustace a drop of fireflower cordial to no avail.
"Aslan will help," she says.
Will He? These last three years, Caspian has heard no whisper, seen no shadow of the Lion. His every prayer has been met with the same quiet he faced at the Stone Table.
"Perhaps," Caspian says. "Now that you are here."
Aslan has never come at his prayers, but He may answer Lucy, one of His beloved Queens of Old. Unless Eustace's fate concerns Narnia's, the boy's best hope of salvation, aside from finding a magician, is probably Lucy's prayers.
Even then…
If Eustace is not of Narnia, will Aslan deign to care? Does the Lion care for anything but the kingdom that worships Him?
Perhaps Aslan's answer to Eustace's transformation will be the same He has given Caspian all these years:
Silence.
The next morning, Eustace and Edmund are nowhere to be found. Just as Caspian is organising another search party with a frantic Lucy, Eustace the boy wanders from the forest with Edmund at his side and a fantastic story of Aslan helping Eustace peel off his dragon skin and return to human form. In his misadventure, Eustace learned a valuable lesson about the dangerous enchantments of a dragon's golden hoard, and Caspian knows within two guesses what Lord Octesian's fate on this island was.
Either the old dragon Eustace saw expire was Lord Octesian, or the dragon ate the lord many years ago.
No matter which is true, Lord Octesian is almost certainly dead, and there is no vengeance to be taken on his behalf. The Dawn Treader sets sail that very day, her provisions restored and the crew in much better spirits as the newly named Dragon Island disappears over the stern. A sighting of Aslan lifts any Narnian spirit.
Even Caspian's. However much he wishes he had beheld the Lion too, he's used to Aslan's avoidance - in the War of Deliverance, as the Narnians call it, and every day since the twin oak twisted shut.
He can still be glad the Lion listened to Lucy's prayers.
Some days and a near scrape with a sea serpent later, the Dawn Treader finds another island - a rugged, lonely country that promises little but a mountainous hike to explore and a chance to refill their water casks in a freshwater stream.
On the island's eastern slope as Caspian climbs down from the summit with Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Reepicheep, they find the remains of another lord. First Edmund trips over a rust-eaten sword of Telmarine make in a thatch of mountain heather. Then Lucy finds a chain mail shirt - also Telmarine and rusted to uselessness. Caspian joins them in searching on hands and knees, hoping he's mistaken.
Their search uncovers a helmet, a dagger, the tattered remains of leather boot soles and a signet ring.
"Well then," says Edmund. "I think we've found another lord. What remains of him, anyway."
Caspian picks packed dirt and heather leaves from the ring's facade.
"Lord Restimar's crest," Caspian says.
"Poor man," says Lucy. "How do you suppose he died?"
"Not in battle," says Edmund, sifting a handful of dirt and hair-thin roots. "No bones."
Eustace, who was occupied lounging against a mossy boulder, jumps to his feet, his face greyish.
"Just had to ruin a good perch, cousin, didn't you?" he grumbles. While Eustace's character has improved since Dragon Island, his attitude returns when he's tired, and after the day's steep hike, Eustace must be exhausted.
"Come off it," Edmund says. "I said there aren't any bones."
Eustace crosses his arms and shivers. "Or we've trod all over them. Dreadful, simply dreadful."
"King Edmund is right," chimes in Reepicheep, who has been poking through the heather with his needle-sharp rapier. "I think this is no wild animal's work, either."
"You're onto something, Reep," says Edmund. "An animal wouldn't have got him out of his mail shirt."
Caspian closes Lord Restimar's ring in his fist. Hopefully, the lord met a quick end and suffered little.
"We now know the fate of three lords," Caspian says. "Though I had hoped to find them all alive."
"Better to know than not," says Edmund, shrugging.
"Anyhow, let's move on," Lucy says, rubbing her arms as a brisk wind blusters across the mountainside. "I don't think we'll learn anything else here."
Caspian is glad to oblige. For all the death he has seen and meted out, if he thinks on it too long, it still leaves the taste of ashes and iron in his mouth.
They follow another trickling stream as clear as glass down to a deep lake surrounded by sharp cliffs, as if a Giant cut away the mountain to make a bathing pool. After their mountainous hike, a drink seems well in order. But as they approach, something flashes on the pool's bottom and Caspian can only stare into the water.
"Oh my," says Lucy, as her brother whistles low.
"Don't see that every day," Edmund says.
In the clear water, a large statue of a man - life-sized or close to it - shines gold even with the day's cloud cover. As their party falls quiet, the sun breaks through the clouds, shining on the pool's glass surface, the statue glittering from the depths.
What a fine trophy it would be. Something to show for his voyage, a fitting tribute to the journey's trials and dangers.
"A sight indeed," Caspian says. If only he'd brought rope, they could haul it to land. "Worth diving for."
"No good," says Edmund, "much as I hate to say it. If that statue's solid gold, it'll be far too heavy. Even if it wasn't, we'd have a devil of a time; it's a long way down."
Even as he says so, Edmund retreats toward the forest looking very determined, never turning his back on the pool.
"Let's just go," says Eustace. "No good ever came from chasing gold. Unless you'd all like to try your hand at being a dragon."
Will that boy never be quiet?
"Anyone knows a dragon's hoard is enchanted," Caspian snaps. "You should have known better."
"Now see here," Eustace says, face flushed and voice very like his old, petulant self. "How was I supposed to know anything about dragons and cursed treasure? Seeing as you're the one in charge, you jolly well should've warned me!"
"Bother that, both of you," says Edmund as he breaks a long branch off a nearby tree. "Let's see how deep this pool actually is."
Better indeed, to leave Eustace to his whining. Caspian steadies Edmund as he leans over and lowers the branch into the water. Curiously, it looks the same as the statue the deeper it goes.
"Lion's Mane!" Edmund wobbles and drops the branch, and Caspian pulls him from the water's edge.
"What's wrong?" says Lucy, rushing to help.
"Too heavy," Edmund says, perspiration shining above his lip. "I couldn't hold it."
Edmund slowly pushes Lucy and Caspian away and frowns at the water, the sunlight casting golden light over his features.
Caspian's eyes drift to the statue, and the gilded branch resting beside it. "You don't think…"
"I do," says Edmund.
"With your Majesties' leave," says Reepicheep, who has stayed so uncommonly quiet Caspian almost forgot the mouse was there. "I believe we should depart this place."
Lucy retreats further from the pool. "Then that statue… don't you see? It mayn't be a statue at all. Reep's right; we ought to go."
"Quite so," says Reepicheep. "We've had a narrow escape."
Leaves crunch, and Eustace sounds farther away. "Some sense at last!"
Caspian finds his feet don't want to move.
"This must be Lord Restimar," he says, clenching the lord's ring in his fist.
Edmund hasn't moved either. "Perhaps we should test the theory. Just to be sure."
Caspian plucks a sprig of heather, dips it in the pool, and sets it on a rock. As quick as a blink, a solid gold model of it lies before him.
"Fancy that," says Edmund. Caspian says nothing, his head swimming.
Lion's Mane, the things he could do with this wealth.
Narnia's coffers would never run dry. He could restore Cair Paravel without the Ettins' tribute, shower Narnia in eastern delicacies. He could eliminate taxes, make Narnia a land lush with wealth, the envy of the entire civilised world.
With envy comes conquest.
Caspian's vision of his rule surpassing even the Golden Age splits down the middle, battlefield mud and blood-slick swords stretching before him. Calormen, Telmar, pirates, Terebinthia… even allies like Galma and Archenland could turn on him. What king wouldn't end lives and break every oath for bottomless wealth?
This island must be a Narnian possession, but they must also keep it secret. He will have to personally oversee all missions to this place, with only the most necessary crew.
Yet even the most trustworthy crew can be compromised. Everyone has the capacity for betrayal, for greed. And every secret eventually comes out.
If Miraz were king, he would buy his crew's loyalty and secrecy in gold, and kill them upon their return. The truth of Goldwater Pool would die with them, and any who knew would meet the same end.
"Narnia will be blessed with this island claimed under our banner," Caspian says. "You are all bound to secrecy, do you understand? On pain of death, we are never to speak of this pool's magic. Not even with Drinian."
"Pain of death?" Edmund faces him. "Who are you talking to, exactly?"
Caspian lifts an eyebrow. "You know well that I mean all of you. Would you have every country and kingdom fight over this place?"
"I wouldn't have this pool's secrets known far and wide," says Edmund. "But watch your tone. We're not your subjects - not I and Lu and Eustace, at least."
"Leave me out of this," Eustace calls. "I'm a pacifist!"
"Mind yours," Caspian says. "Unless you would like your world's scale of war brought here."
"Stop it, both of you!" Lucy yells, in a shrill voice that cuts through Caspian's visions of secret voyages and murder. "Look at yourselves, swaggering about like - oh!"
Lucy points to a cliff across the pool, where there stands a lion as big as Destrier, shining true, rich, living gold in the sunlight, and all at once the statue below seems yellow and dull.
The next moment, Aslan is gone.
Caspian realises with a start that his hand had fallen to his sword hilt and drops it quickly. What was he thinking?
Edmund rubs his forehead and blinks at the heather where Aslan was. "What were we talking about?"
"Your Majesties," says Reepicheep. "I believe a dark enchantment lies on this place. We should return to the ship and sail on at once. And if I should have the honour of naming this island, let it be called Deathwater."
"A fine idea," Caspian says. The very air seems to crawl over his skin, whispering temptations that turn his stomach. "Let it be as you say. The Dawn Treader is well victualled for another few weeks."
He turns, staring into the rippling, shining waters at the statue that had once been a man.
The four lords remaining may yet live.
Under the dim light of the stars and the Dawn Treader's deck lanterns, Caspian seeks King Edmund. The events at Deathwater seem to have evaporated like smoke, but after a nightmare of himself and Edmund duelling to the death, he can't sleep.
Edmund is standing on the poop deck, eyes fixed astern as dark water froths in the ship's wake. There is no darkness so complete as ocean's midnight. Beyond the Dawn Treader's flickering yellow lanterns, the dark is fathomless.
Edmund hears him coming.
"Can't sleep either?"
Caspian joins him at the railing and watches the stern's swaying lantern catch tips of waves.
"No," Caspian admits. "And you?"
"If I could, I'd be below deck, wouldn't I?" With a sigh, Edmund lifts his gaze to the stars. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
Caspian brushes off the apology. Somehow, he feels he ought to be apologising.
"Deathwater rattled us all," Caspian says. "Can you remember what happened?"
Edmund squints at the stars as if they'll answer for him.
"Just Aslan," he finally answers. "A hike, and I know we found Lord Restimar's remains. I'm not clear on how."
"Neither am I," Caspian admits. "But I… I fear I behaved poorly. I am sorry for it."
Edmund hums, drumming long fingers on the railing. "Reep thinks Deathwater was cursed. Maybe we all did something. Or we nearly did, and that's why Aslan appeared." With a wry chuckle, Edmund straightens. "I still feel like the wind's knocked out of me."
Caspian wishes he could say the same. Instead, remembering Aslan's bright eyes claws at the rushed, precariously assembled fortress Caspian built over most of his heart. Every mistake, every weakness, every temptation of violence and vengeance and vicious despair that no matter his own desires, Aslan's will for Narnia will bend him to obedience, feels laid bare in unforgiving daylight.
Aslan sees too much, but he does so little.
"I feel precarious," Caspian whispers, a confession he shouldn't make. "As if Aslan has brought me to a cliff's edge and bid me look down. If He had not appeared when He did…"
"That's the thing with Aslan," Edmund says. "He's always there when we need Him."
He shouldn't say it. Caspian bites his cheek to keep from blurting his bitter calculation.
It slips out anyway.
"When Narnia needs Him," Caspian says. It's not quite accurate; Aslan helped Eustace, whether for Eustace's sake or to answer Lucy's prayer.
Edmund's gaze pierces him, silent and perceptive.
"Not just Narnia," Edmund says. "Us too. Aslan… He saved my life, you know. Many years ago."
The weight of history falls like an axe, and all at once Caspian remembers they are not the same, Edmund and him. Edmund is a King of Old, Edmund the Just of the Western Wood, and Caspian, he is -
"He didn't have to," Edmund continues. "Narnia would have gone on much the same if the White Witch had claimed my life instead. That'd be three monarchs instead of four, and Pete and Susan and Lu would've been beside themselves - Pete especially - but I was a traitor, then." Edmund kneads his brow, sighing. "Or maybe I've got it all mixed up and there always had to be four of us. What I'm trying to say is when we ruled - the four of us - in a way, we were Narnia. But we didn't stop being ourselves either. And when we needed Him, Aslan was there." Edmund smiles, half a grimace. "No, that's not quite it either. What I really mean is we thought we needed Him more than we did. We wanted Him, and often, He wasn't there. But when we needed Him - really needed Him - He was there. Like at Deathwater."
Needing, wanting… these past three years, Caspian has learned both can be pushed aside, that the needs of a kingdom are so vast and complex that any one person's desires are easily forgotten - especially his own.
He has found his closest measure of peace that way.
Caspian clasps his hands and stares into the endless depths of the sea.
"You sound like Lucy."
"If you want to know more about Aslan, ask her," says Edmund. "She'd be glad to tell you every story she knows."
Caspian nods and holds his peace. The mysteries of Aslan may be akin to the mysteries of the ocean - enticing, a siren song promising adventure and new horizons, but treacherous beneath the surface.
He has already learned the bitterness of hope. Better not to learn new contours of the same echo.
Yet, like the sea, Aslan is not a mystery so easily dismissed.
"If she wishes to tell them," Caspian says, "I would be glad to hear them."
"Be at the bow at sunrise," says Edmund. "She says Aslan feels closest at the day's dawning." His gaze wanders to the western horizon, another endless expanse of salt water and darkness. "And when you return to Narnia, try the forests by the light of a full moon."
"Opposites," Caspian notes.
"Aslan takes many forms," Edmund says. "We'll never know them all."
At first light, Caspian finds Lucy at the ship's bow, asks for a story of Aslan, and listens as a pilgrim at a holy site: awed, a little envious, but most of all…
Hazy. As if Lucy's Aslan is a mirage and Caspian is half the desert away, desperately seeking an oasis he dares not truly believe in.
Caspian tries. Every dawn on the open sea, he listens to Lucy and reflects on Aslan and prays to the rising sun. He makes Aslan his final thought before bed, and his first in the morning. He ponders Lucy and Edmund's stories like Doctor Cornelius' lessons until he can repeat every memory like it's his own. Until the Dawn Treader finds land - another island - and long after, Caspian makes himself a student, because how else will he understand?
Yet whenever he utters prayers, no matter how drawn-out or brief, poetic or rugged, composed or desperate, Caspian always finds the same answer.
Silence.
A/N: Fun story, the beta reader and I caught something interesting about the gold statue of Lord Restimar on Deathwater. In the movie, Caspian assumes he fell in as he's fully clothed. But in the book, Caspian and the others find chain mail, weapons, and on page 135, Edmund deduces that "He undressed on top of the cliff - where we were sitting." Sooo in book canon, Caspian and everyone's mesmerized by a gold statue sans clothes. They were staring down at some golden cheeks 😭😭
Anyone catch the Hamlet reference my beta reader slipped in?
For next chapter, do y'all prefer a longer chapter to tie up Part 3 (to the tune of 7-8k), or do you like these 5k(ish) chapters?
Chapter 62 Preview:
Addie?
Addie whirls back, and for a moment there's a third face between Ted and Josie, and those eyes -
She blinks, and the mirage disappears.