Chapter 5

** Wow, it is amazing to think that years have passed since I last updated this story. I received an email the other day saying that someone added it so they could be notified when it was updated and shocked to see that it was still being read! After re-reading what I have written, I hope I can keep up with the pace! Thank you all! **

Upon waking Peter felt the immense soreness from sleeping on the cold stone floor of the cave. Glancing around him, he noted that Lucy sat up but with her back to him and Edmund was already stationed at the entrance.

"Morning," Edmund spoke with little enthusiasm in his voice. "We haven't heard anything since dawn; even then they had seen nothing of either of them."
Peter's eyed darted from the entrance to deeper within the cave. Lost and without a plan for their next move he decided to do something he hadn't before.

"What do you think we should do?"

The question hung in the air for the younger siblings to grasp. Lucy blinked a few times and then stood with the courage she had mustered on her shoulders.

"We will find her! I think we would truly know if she had left Narnia and I think she is still here."

Though young and small, Peter knew of the wise queen that dwelled within her. He looked into her eyes and remembered when they had once been the elder kings and queens, her eyes had kept its' youth. Her faith in her family sparked the dormant determined flame deep within him, bringing up his sword the blade swept hard across the stone. The zing it created echoed in the cave.

"The storm last night probably did stop her. It's not exactly a short walk from the castle to the lamp-post." Edmund said reassuring the others and himself. The others shook their heads in agreement, eating what little food they had left the hurried it down with little water and set out in the day's new light.

Surprisingly, the three found that they had traveled further than expected. In the forest they heard the birds sing their morning praises to the sun; while each kept silent they looked in every direction for a sign of Susan. Neither had a clue what the sign could be but something was driving them to find it. Even though their hunt was feeling fruitless, Peter could not help but admire the land around him. He truly felt in his being that this place was a second home to him and honestly could not answer on which was his true home. In this world he felt the magic surge through him, a knowing of belongingness over took him while in Narnia. It was too strong of feeling to shake, even though he would admit that at the moment his emotions were not exactly to his understanding.

Looking to his siblings that coursed the path before him, he noted that their strength became his own but at the same time he felt weak for what loomed over him. He hoped that it concealed and they detected nothing, but Edmund was not as young and naïveté as Lucy. He knew that something else was going on; true he may just be thinking it was sibling rivalry but to tell him the truth would be too much for the young king to bear. Peter's stomach lurched at the thought of the truth that he dare nor speak or say within his thoughts. He wished they had never left the comfort of the old Narnia, the one they had grown up in. He was sure of himself than; nothing faltered or broke him down. He recalled not feeling the way he did towards Susan then, but as she said 'Narnia is a place for forgetting.' It was as though Narnia took something from you and filled you with something else. You came to Narnia one way but would leave another. He loved the kingdom with much of his heart could allow, but from the moment they fell back into their own world everything had changed.

Peter, upon their return, thought they would be wiser and seasoned to life. When really they plopped right down where they started and more confused than before. Still, even if his heart and his mind could not settle, he needed to find her to at least ease one problem in his life. Coming up in an embankment the children heard the rushing of water. Soon they saw the white froth of the rapids and decided to take time to sit and rest.

"Do you think she knows we are searching for her?" Lucy asked, hoping for one of them to answer. "When we do find her I hope she doesn't get angry at me." She added meekly.

"She'll probably be mad at all of us, Luce." Edmund chimed in as he filled his canteen in the river. "I don't recall this patch of Narnia, Pete you have a clue where we might be?"

Jolting him awake from his tormented thoughts, Peter ran Edmund's question through his brain. "I don't. Traveling through the night I lost track…I do believe this is a branch of the main river in Narnia, following it would bring us to some of the ruins left after war."

Each shook their heads while details of the war entered their minds. Edmund, as if the idea struck him across his face, he bolted upwards waving a finger.

"That's where Jadis would be I bet! You know that old cow is hungry for what she had! That's all she bloody has left!"

"We are out here looking for Susan not the Witch." Peter said levally He began to twist his sword into the ground as he thought deeply. He was so lost but had to stay his composure for the sake of his siblings and for the safety of the kingdom. His young heart was aching while his equally young mind fought for the next move. Jadis was far from his worries but even so he knew that the kingdom that looked to him for guidance would rather a hunt for a witch than a missing queen.

A sly smile etched away across the pale stone face of Jadis. She watched the young queen sleep, her chest rise and fall. Every intake of breath Jadis felt jealousy for such a heavy sleeper, no less enjoying pleasant dreams despite the information she divulged last night. Jadis was very familiar with jealousy but to resent someone for sleeping had brought her to a new low. Missing the comfort of her beloved cold surroundings, she doused the lasting flames with the close of her eyes. Truthfully if she could have anything back that she had lost she would want the endless snow and ice, perhaps not it covering all but her own mountain top seemed dutifully owed to the once proud queen. Even now with her anger towards the tiny kings and queens of Narnia all the old witch longed for was sanctuary fit for her icy being. She would never get the revenge she once allowed to consume her soul, all she could hope for now was to quietly slip into the background of Narnia and be lost to it forever.

The smoke from the fire swirled around the two of them and soon caused Susan to stir awake. Yawning and rubbing her eyes she caught sight of the witch sitting across from her staring her down.

"You could have gotten me up if you wanted." Susan said noting the extinguished fire.

" Sleep is a luxury only some can afford," Jadis said waving a hand to a stone turning it into a water basin. "Wash your face; I suggest you get prepared for the day ahead."

"Is that a hint?" Susan gave a little smile but did as the witch said. Dipping her hands into the basin she quickly pulled them back. "This water is freezing!"

"You expected something else?" her tone was as icy as the water.

"I'm trying to learn to not expect anything anymore." The young girl replied, again dipping her hands in the water she let the frigid water wake and renew her. Drying her face with a layer from her skirts again the witch and young queen sat across from one another. The fire was no more and Jadis had turned the stone back to its former state.

"Jadis," Susan could hardly look into her eyes. "I don't know what I should do."

The old witch straightened her back and cast her view to Susan's pleading face. "You dare ask someone who once wanted you dead? Honestly, I will tell you I want no revenge for I have learned it's a bitter taste you will drink till your own demise. Silly girl, you cannot ask advice from me. Look at what my choices have brought me! Ruins! I gave you shelter in my own collapsed life and therefore cannot offer you useful word. Spare me the torment and find your own way in this world or another."

Susan took her words in slowly, sipping at each phrase and with each gulp it was a hard swallow. Here before her sat a witch whose entire goal in life had left her helping one of the people she had loathed and tried to kill with every fiber in her being. Susan realized that no matter the choice you make down the line you may end up exactly the opposite of what you intended. It was a cruel realization that no one could give her the answer she wanted to hear, even if she had no idea what she wanted anymore.

The lump that had been in her throat for ages lessened, "I cannot control my life."

Jadis, hearing what Susan had said, look astonished. "What?"

"I can't control it!" Susan said almost gleefully. "You thought you controlled everything including your hatred when now I see even you have faltered. Blaming myself for how I feel and why I feel this way was my biggest mistake….I see it now."

"A lesson some usually do not learn until they've hit the bottom." Jadis said closing her eyes. Susan finally saw what had happened to the witch before her. Her own mistakes had led her to finally see the big picture and now wanted nothing more but to survive. Susan's life flashed before her eyes, memories beforeNarnia captured her and her family, memories of days that were lost as they fell from the wardrobe. They surged within her and filled her with a power she had never felt before. The power to overcome her fears, her doubts and pain.

Small tears streamed down her smiling face as everything that once plagued her melted away to leave her happy and whole. Wiping them away she caught the eyes of the witch narrowed in her direction. They shared the silence that surrounded them.

"Jadis...will you help me?" Susan swallowed as she felt like she was about to make a deal with the devil. "I need to know something."

Curiosity flicked in her eyes, "What could you ask of me?"

The witch watched as Susan's hands felt for her throat then lower to grasp a necklace. Unclasping it she held it up the in the sun's light. "Can you tell me where I come from?"

Jadis paused and contemplated what she being asked to do, the girl dangled the bauble yet the witch knew this was an important thing for her to ask. Helping was something Jadis had never done and with it she weighed out its consequences. "What does it mean to you? Will you grant me a wish as well?"

"A wish for a witch," Susan smiled at the thought, "What would you want in exchange?"

"A past for a future." Jadis smiled. "I give you your past and you'll give me my future. Declare me a mountain that I can call my own and I shall never leave it. A promise from me that I will never want anything more than freedom."

The request tossed in Susan's mind. She exactly wasnt in any place to declare any decree and one that favored enemy one in Narnia. Peace was something any kingdom could want, in Narnia or her other kingdom. Susan had a thought that she would have to wage her own war with her siblings to keep this promise with Jadis, but she was ready to take lead with her life.

"With what power I hold I will sway the others to do so." she said slowing. With that said she watched Jadis smile and hold out her hand. Tossing up the locket it floated to her hand and hovered.

The witch made it turn over and over, she inspected and it turned faster and faster. "How did you get this?"

"My parents gave it to me, if you open it their pictures are inside." she replied sounding a little confused. "They probably bought it somewhere and had my named engraved?"

"No...it's not as simple as that..." Jadis was truly intrigued as she let the trinket spin around above her hand. Standing up with both hands she held them on either side as the necklace spun and began to glow. "This is magic!"

The light begain to turn green and finally flashed to cast its glow in a bright green light. Susan quickly covered her eyes then as she felt the light dim she looked to see the witch's blonde hair floating out from her head and her eyes large and fixed on the necklace that now was completely shining but starting to cause a swirling mass of vapor. Another surge of light it cracked and the vapor swirled to begin to form figures that slowly created into better detail.
The witch and queen saw these once blurry smokey figures form into a hunched black figure in the rain coming up upon a door. Susan could barely breathe as this sight before her took place and painted a window into something like watching a movie on the big picture screen. She looked closer and closer until the vapor formed the door better, she gasped as she realized what was going on. The door was her own, the door to her home in England. The black hunched figure held up a skinny and frail looking arm as the hand knocked violently on the door. It opened to show her parents shocked faces to the creäture in the rain. They both watched as her parents mouthed open and formed words but you could hear nothing. Then the hunched figure stood straight and the black cloak fell to show a lovely but thin woman with long black hair.

Susan then heard Jadis gasp and bring a hand to her open mouth. Her eyes were wide but now her look was in fear. Susan looked back to the vision to see the dark headed woman with a sad face and teary eyes hold up a bundle of blankets and beg her parents on her knees. Her father looked to her mother who with shaking arms take hold of the bundle. With the lady still on her knees she tore a necklace from her neck. It was a long chain with a round charm that looked like it was woven silver and it wrapped over a glowing light. As Jadis had done with her own necklace, that woman held her hand out and the necklace spun and flashed the green light but now it changed into a locket.

"Did you see that light?" Edmund's voice sounded from a nearby tree. Peter had been busily watching the ground to plan his next step and missed whatever the light was that he spoke of. "It came from over there where that thicket of trees are!"

"What could make a green light like that?" Lucy called from far behind them both. She had been gathering water from the creek.

"Give you one guess!" Edmund yelled to them both as he produced his sword and held it high. Peter sensed his brother's eagerness and knew that only one person they knew that could magic up a flash of light like that.

"We'll go around it and see if we can take her from the side!"

The vision, as fast as it formed, was already gone and all that remained from it was the locket hovering in the air with a light greenish glow around it. Both Jadis and Susan had said nothing and now catching their breaths. Susan noticed the single tear that fell down Jadis's sharp cheek.

"Who was that woman!" Susan cried to the witch who eyes still wide stared at the locket as it glowed in front of her.

"It cannot be!" Jadis hissed her eyes still teary but none dared flow. "It cannot be!"

"I do not understand! Was that...my mother?"

Jadis let out a cry, and gripped her stomach. "You cannot be!"

"Tell me!" Susan ran to Jadis and gripped both her wrist and shook them. "Keep your promise to gain mine!"

The witch gasped her air, and narrowed her hateful eyes at Susan in disgust. She tried to gain her composure but it was very hard after what she had seen. She looked into Susan's eyes and that's when Susan went blank yet kept her hold on to the witch.

The woman's eyes, Susan thought and recalled the vision. It's details were fuzzy at first but when it showed close up the woman as her cloack fell she remembered her eyes. The same eyes were now staring back at her shocked face.

"Who is she!" Susan yelled.

"MY SISTER!" Jadis roared and pulled her arms to her and broke the hold that she held on her. "In the beginning when I was claiming Narnia as mine she formed up against me and with Aslan. She dared to go against her blood and so I saw that her blood spilled!"

Tears now fell from the cold witch's eyes as she recoiled and fell to sit in the broken stone throne. She cried and held her stomach. "In the beginning it had lasted for years, she fought me for so long how was I to know she had a child."
Susan could not believe the sight before her, the vision had shown her more than what she had anticipated and now watched as the witch cried for her sins. Susan thought of her parents, those who raised her how their scared faces took in the baby without a question, the woman's begging was enough for them to see she truly needed their help. They had no idea where she had come from, nor what magic they had witnessed which had set their family in Narnia's history.

"It was your destiny to come through to this world, don't you see? If it was not so then you were not the chosen ones. If you were not supposed to be one of the four you would have never found the door that linked us. Destiny brought you here and not being a blood relative to those who also were the chosen four has nothing to do with it."

Jadis's words rang in Susan's head. Susan was meant for Narnia, Narnia was hers before she even knew it existed, her blood was of Narnia. She had fulfilled her mother's duty by protecting it from her sister and now her secret was free.
"How could I have not seen her face in yours" she heard Jadis say, when looking down she saw her staring at her. "You found your way home even when she had locked you away from it."

"SUSAN!" they both heard someone yell and each noted the young man's voice. The trees began the rustle and leaves crunch, there before the broken witch and reclaimed young queen stood the three strong each flourishing a sword.

"Has she hurt you!" Peter yelled as he rushed to Susan, keeping his sword pointed at the witch with one arm, with the other he reached out for her. Susan, forgetting her their troubles from before, wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him.

Edmund and Lucy rounded and kept their brother's side and kept their eyes narrowed at Jadis who sat speechless.

"We were so worried!" Lucy said hugging Susan.

"Why are you here?" Edmund kept his distance and watched Jadis.

Jadis gained some of her composure back and rose to loom over the young kings and queens. She had wiped away her tears and she kept her eyes on Susan's. "I should ask you the same but I know at least why one of you are."

The three saw that Jadis was staring at Susan, Peter turned his gaze to her. "What's happened?"

"So much..." her words trailed. "I-I-"

"Tell them!" Jadis roared then took it upon herself. With her wicked hands she flung them to the still floating necklace and forced it to show its true story again.

The vapor came back and Susan found herself yet again in the grips of a past she never knew existed. This time she took the time to detail out her mother as she formed before her. A ghost of a sister to the woman who had tried to kill her and the people she loved dearly. Now she watched as Edmund and Lucy fought in their minds to understand what they saw, and Peter's stunned face to see his parents take the bundle that he now understood was never a product of his own parents. He saw their shocked faces take in the wreckage of the woman who pleaded at their doorstep, a victim that they knew not what of. Each child noted the woman whose hood had fallen back to show a different version of the woman they had grown to hate, yet saw her dark hair match that to Susan's.

The vision closed again but this time the pendant fell to the ground and the green glow died. Peter felt Susan's grip on his shoulder as he still held her in his arm and his sword had fallen to rest on the ground. The weight of his guilt released his heart as he was able to fully understand his feelings and what truths he had just learned. He never could have thought that his heart knew the truth before he did. He understood now that all those years ago their fate had been sealed the night Susan and the gift of Narnia had been given to his family. Before he had never truly believed that everything happens for a reason but now he felt that where he was supposed to be was with his family, Susan and Narnia.

"Susan's mother was the White Witch's sister!" Lucy cried staring at Jadis and Susan. "I always thought you didn't favor Mother or Father but...but..."

"This is wild!" Edmund cried still holding his sword drawn toward Jadis.

"And this is not a trick?" Peter asked, looking into Susan's face. "You believe this?"

"Yes," she breathed out and enjoyed its sound. "Mother told me in her last letter...that's why I've been so..."

"Jadis," Peter turned his attention to the White Witch. His arm released Susan and with both his hand he put his sword in the hilt. "What does this mean for you...for us?"

Taking what little power and lead in the situation as she could she would not deny him an answer. "The circle is complete. Narnia found a way for its lost daughter to find her beginning and give her an end. prophecies are not clear nor do we truly understand them till all is revealed."
Susan smiled, she felt free and it was a feeling she had longed missed before her troubled days had began. All was revealed and it gave her answers she never knew she would want. Susan's hand fell by her side and found Peter's. She gripped it and held her head high.

"You kept your promise and I will keep mine." she looked to the others. "Jadis gave me my past and I will give her a future. She asked for a place to call her own, to keep to herself and wage no war toward Narnia again."

Lucy, Edmund, and Peter shocked by Susan's words looked to Jadis and understood. Taking his post as high king, Peter knodded his head. "Name what land you want and it will be decreed to be yours and no one elses. It will be etched in stone the promise made between a queen of Narnia and Jadis, the White Witch."

Jadis's eyes closed at the ending words, a smile swept across her face and what worry she had held vanished. Opening them her eyes now changed did not hold that hatred nor contempt for anything. Her sins washed away as her sister's last wish that her daughter survive the wrath of Jadis came true. "Know that you have found your place, Susan."

With her hand still locked in Peter's, her smile curving her lips, and her heart freed from all ache she spoke. "I do."