"Alberta?"

Harold was standing, shadowed, in the hall. The tiredness hung from him in a palpable haze, and she could see the lines now etched in his face, permanent as paper creases. With his right hand, he was squeezing the middle two fingers of his left.

"What has happened now?" she asked, shifting aside.

Slowly, Harold made his way to Eustace Clarence's bed, sat down, hands perpetually turning, clenching, turning.

"The headstone is ready," he said, and she could hear the hoarseness in his voice. "The headstones are all ready. I told them we will be- there- tomorrow. I have cancelled my classes."

When his still trembling hands reached for hers as though to comfort her, she knew; when he pressed a slight kiss to her cheek, she knew. She meant to nod, to take his hands, to comfort him, somehow; perhaps even to say something, but her entire being seemed oddly frozen, oddly heavy, and only the sound of her breathing prevented her from feeling like a frozen statue, caked in snow.

She did not know how long they sat there; it felt that years hid behind the cupboard, behind the doors, in the shadow of the desk, that years hurried and sauntered by between them, but her watch hands seemed to have barely moved before Harold was standing, telling her that he would help move Eustace Clarence's things when she had finished sorting through his things, and the room was empty once more.

In truth, she hadn't meant to come back to Eustace Clarence's room, not just yet; not so soon after the suffocating beams of Holy Cross- it was all so heavy, so thick, she felt difficulty even breathing.

"So how was it? Church?" Harold had asked, and he had looked so earnest as he speared the bean, had looked so confused when she laughed and said that she had felt something like that bean.

"It's a different world, Harold," she had said, by way of explanation, and he had looked half horrified when she spoke about the multiple booklets she had battled with during the service.

"Surely that's not a very economical use of resources," he had added, and she had made some quip about how churches and economics did not seem to fit particularly well in her eyes, and that had been that.

"To be honest," Harold confided that night, after she had turned out the lights, "I'm more than slightly relieved that you didn't like it. I don't know what I'd have done if- if my sensible wife had started going to church."

She'd laughed, even with the light streaming from the window onto Millicent's face fresh in her mind (Behold I stand at the door), had not mentioned anything of Gladys Pole (although that had been on the tip of her tongue at least several times over dinner)- had said something trivial about how she was always sensible, unlike some people who frequently forgot to bring an umbrella to work- and they had gone to sleep, content, her earlier resentment over Harold's patronising manner dissipating and swirling with the fog to the skies above.

In the morning, though- in the morning.

Alberta hated mornings.

She had never been much of a morning person, and it seemed to her that mornings existed chiefly to drain away the energy of the days and nights before it. She had never understood why Victor loved mornings, why Helen had been so frustratingly bubbly in the morning ("But surely, Alberta, mornings are- oh, what did L. M. Montgomery write? Fresh and new with no mistakes in them!")- but that morning had been particularly dreary.

She had woken early, though the skies were already lightening in preparation for summer; Harold was still asleep, having somehow managed to steal most of the covers in the night, and he gave a half conscious grunt as she shifted across to face the wall. Shifting itself had been tiring, she saw in her mind herself, sitting up, standing up, walking to the window, preparing for the day. But the strange, anticipatory buzz thudded in her ears, fatalistic drum, and it felt for all the world that some strange net hovered near above her heart.

When Harold had woken up, had pressed a short kiss to her brow (she had closed her eyes and feigned sleep), she opened her eyes once more, saw the sun fully risen outside.

I have missed the sunrise, she had thought, and had been surprised by the slight pang in her heart. Romanticising nature had very much been Victor's thing, never hers. (Perhaps I am doing things because others cannot do them, a voice whispered, but she was too tired, too tired to hear it, and it faded. Since it faded, she concluded it had not been true).

She had skipped breakfast after dressing- not consciously, but instead of walking down the stairs to the breakfast table, her body had shifted, her feet were moving, and she found herself standing outside Eustace Clarence's room.

Behold I stand at the door, she thought, wryly. (But I do not know what I am seeking.)

No, no, that was a lie. The web of string and paper notes was still above her desk, the painting that she did not like but could not remove was still in her sitting room, the stories that had eked their way out of her reluctant niece had still been spoken, the home she had grown up in, that Victor had raised his children in, was still on the verge of being put on the market, and all of it, nearly all of it, focused upon those strangely inaccessible names in the centre.

Unexpectedly, a distant memory came to her; herself, as a child, and her grandmother, whom she could barely remember, reading to her; some story about a young girl, a princess, who had climbed a tower, found her grandmother or someone like that, followed a thread, and found - well, she had found something. Strange how that story came to her now, like something blown in by the wind; she had grown up by the time she had next visited her grandmother, and had politely informed her that she didn't fancy fairy stories, but would rather read the news. Now, a part of her wished, almost wildly wished, that she could recall the story, recall what that young princess had found. She wished that she could find.

And so it was that she found herself here, now, sitting on Eustace Clarence's bed (she would need to wash the sheets- fold the sheets- her heart contracted at the second thought), his papers and his small, bound journal beside her.

Most of his writings were copied out passages from the Bible- she found herself oddly taken aback by the number of psalms in which the writer was angry with God and complained. She toyed briefly with the question of what happened to the writers, especially when other people read their complaints, and felt warm shame pooling in her stomach when she realised how childish that attitude was (struck down by lightning!).

She looked at the small, brown book in her hands, traced the fraying corner in the right, opened the covers. Many of the pages were yellowed at the corners, showed signs of having been turned. So Eustace Clarence had not given up his childhood habit of keeping a journal.

(He got that from me, a small voice whispered, and she felt a small trickle of something warm and pleasant, almost like tears, somewhere near her heart.)

Several pages held diagrams she did not fully understand; she recognised a few circuits, and (using Eustace Clarence's own annotations) identified multiple diagrams of transistors. Several more pages held quotations from various people whose names were only as familiar to her as memories of her grandparents- George MacDonald, Oswald Chambers, G. K. Chesterton. The odd page held accounts of Eustace Clarence's daily life- "School so tiring, science was cut short by a false fire alarm. Didn't even get onto discussing theory of relativity before we were shuffled out for English", dated to 1948; another page holding an account of his attempts at making a vegetable casserole ("Clearly inherited H's cooking ability. A. looked almost sick when she took a mouthful"), another describing one of the new students at Experiment House ("Poor chap looked almost green; Jill tried to show him around, but even then he looked like he was about to faint. Glad he's come now, and not - well, before."). Butalthough she devoured them, she could not help but think there is more there must be more.

The next page held a sketch of a butterfly, and she could not hold back the choking sob that had, without her knowledge, been building in her throat. There were no labels here, but she could see the piles and the cardboard, the pins and the colours, and she reached out a hand, touched the sketch gently, as though it would actually take flight, as though the wing that Eustace Clarence had so carefully shaded and patterned was a light, fabric-like butterfly wing and would bend out of shape if touched too forcefully.

There was nothing on that page, only the butterfly, but she felt no immediate inclination to turn the page, tracing each curve, touching each dot, the thinning lines and the widening segments, all of which had scientific names that she did not know, that Eustace Clarence had once known, had once tried to share with her so eagerly.

But her hand went on turning passages (there must be more there is more there must be)- she saw a sketch of a man in very strange garb, with a very strange name, possibly someone in one of those fairy stories (for really, who named their child Tirian?), an entry filled with crosses and blotches and, among the network of ink, "Jill", and a longer, undated entry, which somehow caught her eye. Perhaps it was the lack of paragraphing, or - well, she wasn't sure what, precisely, it was, but her eyes slowed as they scanned the page, and she went back to the beginning, read the entry anew.

"L. invited Jill and myself over for afternoon tea today. Jill was a little shocked when L. bounded across the room and half tackled her in a hug. Don't blame her; they've never met, and L. can be a bit much like that at times. Still remember when she and E. first came over, and L. tried to hug me. Do not quite remember how I reacted, but I think she cried a little afterwards, so it can't have been very nice. Anyway. The tea. Was jolly good being there; needed the comfort, I think; Jill esp. was feeling down. I guess that's what happens when one comes back after Narnia. Everything became awkward when S. came down, after about an hour, in a spangly new dress. P. told her the neckline was a bit low, and you should have heard her rip into him! E. told him to lay off a bit, but did ask S. to change dress. All a bit embarrassing for Jill and me, it seemed all rather personal. S. flounced upstairs; P. says S. is being v. cagey; can't quite work out why she managed to forget Narnia, or is trying to forget, when he and E. and L. don't have the same difficulty. Jill said that maybe she could understand, that she'd cry awfully if she was told she couldn't be allowed back. Told Jill she was being an idiot, because crying awfully isn't the same as forgetting, or trying to forget. E. and L. seem to be having a competition as to who can defend S. the most; I don't know why, but I think E. seems to understand better. He always understood me the best, anyway Still remember when he told me, "You were an ass; I was a traitor." Can't help but think I was something of a traitor, too. If someone had offered me sweets I might've gone with them, too. That would make me just as guilty for- well, for Aslan's death. But then Aslan died to pay the penalty for E.'s betrayal- not mine per se. So that's not like Jesus- and by the way, it is- different, going to church. Very different. E. says I'll get used to it, in time, and L. says that in some ways it is not so different to Cair Paravel, but I wasn't ever a king, so don't know what she meant. But on Aslan's death- confusing. He died for E. And yet it was Aslan who healed both of us- still remember the skin being peeled off, being reminded, this is not you.

Still not sure how Aslan fits in exactly with Jesus and God; E. tried to explain, but it was all a little confusing. Something about metaphors and parallel parables or something, didn't quite get it. Jill got it a little more, I think; she's more literary that way. P. just told me to see Aslan in Jesus, but got all muddled when trying to talk about how they're part of the same story but different stories? L. just told me to keep loving Aslan and to go to church and love Jesus, because they're the same. Not sure how a lion and God-as-man can be quite the same. L. replied, "Well, they're both God, aren't they? All things are possible with God." Still confused, but not confused enough to try to forget. I know Aslan is real, and I know, know, that Jesus is real. And I know that Jesus died and was raised and is still alive (golly but it looks odd to write that), and because of that he's forgiven me for when I was an ass- when I was mean and spiteful- and I can know Him. Will try to focus on that, and not the confusion. Maybe will try to talk to E. again, sometime, when he is being less confusing.

If E. can ever be less confusing.

Doesn't matter. Will keep searching- maybe things will be as simple as UNDER ME. (Still can't believe Jill and PG and I funked that one up so much.) Will keep searching.

I still believe."

Something in Alberta's head was ringing, but it was a different ringing, clear and light, as though someone had dipped their finger in water and was running it across the top of a glass.

She wasn't sure that things made sense. It would be far too much of a stretch to say that things made sense. Eustace Clarence himself had sounded rather confused- Jesus, Aslan, God, Narnia, church, they all twisted and churned together, and she fancied that if she took string to it, her wall would be even more confused than it was at the present moment. But this was a confirmation, if nothing else, a confirmation that there was something there, that the tangle of string wasn't just a meaningless knot, but something with a pulse, something that meant something.

Carefully, she gathered Eustace Clarence's papers together, slid them in as a fat, communal bookmark to his undated, extended journal entry, placed the book gently on his desk, against the wall, and walked into the hallway, down the stairs. She could hear Harold cleaning up in the kitchen, setting the kettle to boil for another cup of tea (she considered reminding him that he'd be late for class before remembering that Mondays were his days off, often spent researching or editing articles for The Economic History Review). But she did not stop there.

Seemingly of no one's accord, though Alberta knew that that was not the case, she found herself in the sitting room, staring at the painting.

There was something oddly, beautifully, life-like about that boat. Bobbing on a wave, she had once thought, but those words seemed a little shallow now. Rising on a crest, she thought. Not the most beautiful or subtle of waves, but then, the point about this painting wasn't the water, it was the boat. And it seemed to be almost, almost travelling towards her, moving through the canvas and across time (I fell into the painting), travelling somewhere she did not know, and ever beyond.

Aslan, she thought, Narnia.

They weren't her words; she realised with a rush of piercing grief that left her rubbed raw that they would, likely, never be her words. Between Eustace Clarence's unfinished, barely-paragraphed journal entries that he could no longer explain, memories of conversations she refused to let him finish, and Susan's stuttered stories, it seemed a story that would now be forgotten, or never remembered in full. It seemed, now that she recalled something Cynthia had said when covering British and Palestinian relationships in the 30s, that sometimes that the world was like that; fragments of different threads of different stories that never joined, but were eased together to form a great canvas upon which Life threw globs of paint here, there, and left one striding purposefully along one thread, stumbling at another.

But then, even if she did know the story, would she have been able to make total sense of it?

Doesn't matter. Will keep searching. ... I still believe.

And she saw the window, above that awfully low rafters, and its picture of the man, Jesus, she assumed, holding the anachronistic lamp: Seek and ye shall find.

But to find, that implied one had to first seek, and to seek, one had to believe that there was something, and one should have some sort of idea about what that something was.

Eustace Clarence did, she thought, and with a rush, she saw, she understand, she knew.

It couldn't have been just a story. It had never been 'just' a story.

Where shall I begin? she thought, piteously, and saw the string in her room upstairs, all the words, remembered juggling the booklets and the hymn book and the low, dark rafters. Catechisms- would she have to learn them? And there was so much to know, so much she had cut away from her life, had ignored, because she had not needed to know- or had thought she had not needed to know. She saw Eustace Clarence's copies of passages from the Bible, remembered him returning from the Pevensies with enormous volumes to do with Christianity that he had borrowed from Edmund. Where shall I start?

And a flutter rose somewhere in her heart, gripped her throat, shook at her hands.

You know nothing, a voice sneered, and the flutter intensified so that her feet seemed rooted to the carpet, to the ground below, down, down past the cellar, into the darkness beneath the foundations of the house.

I know nothing, she thought desperately, I know nothing and I don't know what I can do- I don't know if there is anything I can do!

And even as the thoughts came, she knew with a sinking dread that it was not something she could do, it was not something she could control, could instantly know.

Is there something there is something now seemed a foolish chant of the past; clearly, there was something, and somehow she sensed that Eustace Clarence had known, that the answer was, absurdly, in a place she disdained, a place she still did not feel comfortable in, even if there were Millicent MacPhersons to guide on through a pewsheet and a weekly sheet and the hymn book- but she sensed, somehow, the answer was there, and it lay in what Eustace Clarence had written about Aslan, about Jesus.

(It is not about me.)

And because it wasn't to do with her, she felt so lost. Before, she was the one pulling the string, analysing the painting, writing the articles; she could do things because it had to do with her. Alberta Scrubb wrote articles, Alberta Scrubb could have majored in art history, Alberta Scrubb lived in a smart house with a smart husband and a talented son. But this, this-

The flutter grew, beating at her head, and she would have covered her face with her hands if she thought it could make things any better.

I can't do it! she wanted to scream, but the beating was so loud in her head that even the dragon boat with its purple sails seemed to blur, to rush over the crest of the waves, madly fall, rise, crash, fall. I can't do it!

- And suddenly, it was still, and that pure, distant ringing had replaced the flutter and beating, and she felt an incredible lightness- and warmth. And it felt so easy, so easy. All she had to do was step out.

Let go, step out.

And she had a strange image, clear as day. She saw herself, but she looked ill, unkempt, and was hunched in the shadows.

Straighten up, put your shoulders back! she wanted to say, but then she saw that the hunch was because she was clutching something, clutching something so tightly that her veins were white, and it was so heavy that her frame was bowing in. And, peering more closely yet, she knew it was a book, a book in which she had stored a complaint that she did not even know she had had, a complaint she had nurtured in her heart against God, but it was addressed to Jill, to Peter, to Edmund, to Lucy, because it was so much easier to hate people than a god she did not (consciously) believe in- and I hate you for stealing the love of my son and the closeness of my brother, it would have been better that you had taken him in illness, but you have stolen my son, stolen his heart and his character and I hate you for stealing- on, and on. And still, she clutched it, and her shoulders bent further and further in, and she could not breathe for the heaviness.

But beyond, she could see light; light so blinding she could not make out the forms or anything within, but light, and she knew, if she would only let go, she could go forth, could discover, search, seek.

And she tried to let go, but her grip was too tight, her fingers so curled they had merged into the book, and her fingers were somehow digging into the page, and the light grew further and further until she could not bear it.

I can't do it, she thought, someone must cut my hands from this book if I am to move!

And then she felt it; felt someone reach out and made a cut, and it was so deep it felt as though it had gone clear through her heart. She shuddered and fancied she saw a gleam, and, with a little gush of blood, her hands were free, the book tumbled to the bottomless darkness, and she stepped forth.

Even as she blinked, the image faded into the consistently blue waters in the painting ahead, but light came through the window, and it caught upon the red lamp on the table, filling the place with colour.

And I can keep on searching, she thought, and thought of the window with its banner Seek and ye shall find, of Eustace Clarence's confused jumble of thoughts, of the many confusing, sometimes cryptic conversations he had tried to hold (but reasoned, they must have been reasoned, she knew how much he read), and the lightness touched, gently, at her heart, spread outwards, and whispered peace, peace, as it passed.

Her hand hovered by the painting once more, and she felt a smile smooth the weariness from her cheeks and ease the tiredness in her heart, and she left the room bathed in the morning light as she went to prepare her breakfast.

A/N: AND IT IS FINISHED! Not a complete conversion, but a definite start. Thank you all who have followed me faithfully to the end- I appreciate all your reviews and your encouragement!

Just a few notes before I sign off: the image of the book with the complaint is stolen from Lewis' impeccable Till We Have Faces. If you haven't read it, you should, because it is one of the most perfect things ever written. The idea that Alberta cannot release the book and needs her hands to be cut from the book is borrowed, albeit in a modified form, from George MacDonald's Lilith, also an excellent read (even if I don't agree 100% with his theology).

Merry Christmas!