Title: Eclipse of the Stars
Summary: It's been a year since Izzy left Narnia, and this summer Dana and Jo are visiting to try and help alleviate her feelings of being torn apart and, at times, more than a little self-destructive. But the night of their arrival it's pouring rain and, staying true to the usual cliché, the precipitation brings more than just a little mud.
Excerpt from Chapter One: Pretty as a Car Crash
One year. Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three hundred and sixty five and one-quarter days. Eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-six hours. Five hundred and twenty-five thousand, nine hundred and forty-nine minutes. Thirty-one million, five hundred and fifty-six thousand, nine hundred and twenty-six seconds. All of them agonizing.
Ducking down to look through the top of the windshield, I could see the London airport rising in front of the dark clouds rolling in. I was on my way to pick up a little piece of my home. Well, a little piece of my other home. Actually, if you wanted to get real specific, I'd have to say my other, other home. Perhaps I should explain.
One year and three days ago, I fell through my closet door and into an amazing world that I never knew existed. You probably think I'm crazy, right? Well, I'm not. At least, not all the time. I know that Narnia is real and I know that I was there. No amount of therapy or psychoanalysis is about to change my mind. I have to believe it was real. If I can't, my heart will shatter into a million pieces, because if Narnia isn't real that means the one person I ever really, truly, undeniably loved isn't real either. I had to leave him behind, and come back to my own world, and since then I've never felt the same.
I know, I know, everyone suffers heartbreak every once in a while, but this was something more. We share a much stronger bond than some teenage puppy love relationship. He is my Compositus Animus, my Matching Soul. The connection we have, which can only be achieved in Narnia, because it's got some weird complicated magic to it and magic doesn't exist in our world, is called Animus Vinculum, or Soul Bond. A centaur named Haybra told me that it is the rarest bond two people can have, in which two separate souls are so compatible that they merge together completely.
And so, when I left, it was like ripping one soul in half and not only sending the two pieces in opposite directions, but also putting them in two entirely different worlds. Doesn't that sound terrible? That's because it is.
As soon as I arrived back in the darkness of my closet where almost no time had passed while I was in Narnia, I knew something was wrong. I don't think I really believed what the centaur said until that moment, but there was really no other way to explain why I felt like something was just missing.
I won't say that I felt empty, because that's far too generic and cliché. Though, I probably would've preferred feeling empty because when you're empty there's nothing to feel, and what I felt was agonizing. Anyway, I felt more like a glass that was half empty (or half full, whichever you prefer- I personally prefer empty). The pain of missing half of your soul is almost unbearable at first, but once whatever half is left has filled the void with a rough outline of what used to be there, it lessens to a dull ache.
Now, it's pretty annoying to have to carry that around with you all the time. It's a constant reminder. Even when you try not to think about it, it's still there. Plus, it was a little foreign. I guess when two souls merge together they mix up, so when it's split there's no telling which pieces were going to who. It was a little comforting, knowing I was carrying little pieces of him around with me, but only a tiny bit. But I made do, did my best to enjoy things, went to school, learned things, ate, slept. The usual. All the while I was wondering when and if I would be going back.
I think the biggest clue that I took some of him home was my increased interest in history. Suddenly, it was my favorite class. I also took up an interest in astrology. When I started at Montclair State University in the fall (back in New Jersey so I could go to school with my best friend, Dana), I'd be majoring in military history and my minor was going to be English literature (in honor of my hero, William Shakespeare), but I also signed up for an astronomy class. Unfortunately, they didn't have a fencing team or club. That was another thing I'd taken up when I came back. Out of nowhere, I really wanted to be able to handle a sword. Maybe I wanted the exorcise. Maybe I wanted him to be proud of me.
Him. My stranger. My prince. My Caspian.
I pulled up to the front of the airport in my dad's old, beat up pickup truck with the steering wheel on the wrong side (for England, which was where I was currently residing). Leaving the truck to idle in the drop off/pickup lane, I jumped out (almost getting run over by a taxi) and ran around the hood to embrace my little piece of home- both of them at the same time. My best friends in (this) entire world, Dana and Jo, had spent their well-earned money on plane tickets just so they could come and spend the summer with me. Amazingly, the ache in my chest was overpowered with happiness when I saw them. I knew that if anyone could make me feel better, it would be them. The only other person who could was kind of in a different world, so, there you go.
"Izzy!" they cried in unison as we broke apart.
"Jona!" I yelled in reply, putting their names together. We laughed, and I helped them pile their stuff into the bed of the truck. I pulled the canvas top over their bags and hooked it in place. "I'm so glad you guys are here. I've been feeling kind of Lex-y lately." Lex was the alternate version of myself, the terrible person I become whenever I sink back into my sociopathic tendencies. Before I'd gone to Narnia, they had no idea about my history with the psychiatric system. I was always afraid that they wouldn't love me anymore. I learned a lot about love in Narnia. The first thing I did when I got back was tell them everything via a very tearful three-way phone call.
"Well, we'll just have to kick her ass," Jo said as she slid into the cabin after Dana, who was squished between us in the middle seat. That's the down side of pickup trucks, there's only one seat in the cabin.
"Yeah, yeah." As I pulled away from the curb, I looked up at the clouds again nervously. "Tut tut, looks like rain!"
"Let's hope this hunk 'a junk can handle it," Dana said.
"Six, six, six," was all I said in response. They both laughed, and Jo reached over to turn on the radio. "You're not going to find much. Put a CD in. The case is on the floor." She followed my directions, flipping through the book until she found one that caught her interest and slid it into the player. I groaned. "You've got to be joking."
"Nope!" Jo replied. "I haven't heard this album in a long time."
"It's Good Charlotte," I muttered.
"I like it sometimes!"
"It's Good Charlotte."
"Why do you even have it if you hate it that much?"
"I don't hate it," I replied. "It's my guilty pleasure. I try not to advertise it by playing it in my car." I pulled out of the airport zone and started weaving my way through the twisting streets.
"So roll the windows up!"
"We probably should anyway," Dana said. "It's starting to drizzle." We rolled the windows up, which was quite an experience since we had to do it manually and I was so not taking my hands off the wheel so Dana had to reach across my lap to roll mine up.
"How far away is your place?" Jo asked.
"About two hours," I replied. "Most of which is traveled on dirt roads. I live in the boondocks."
"I want to see John Lennon's grave," Dana said.
"We'll get around to it, but it's already coming down pretty hard and it's almost six. It'll be getting dark soon."
As the drive wore on, we settled into our habit of alternating between conversation and obnoxiously loud karaoke along with the radio. The CD was switched over and over again, so by the time we turned onto the last long stretch of deserted country road the speakers were blasting Superchick.
"Are we there yet?" Jo whined just to be annoying.
"We have like, a half hour drive left," I replied, unfazed.
"Boo. I have to pee and the friggin' rain is making it worse!"
It hadn't stopped pouring the entire drive. I was afraid my poor windshield wipers would snap off and go spinning into the darkness, they were moving so fast. "I have to pee too, but unless you want to go pick a tree in this rain, you're going to have to wait a half an hour."
"Is there even anything to do within a twenty mile radius of your house?" Dana asked.
"We have a pond. My dad had it dredged so it's good for swimming. He even built a dock."
"Sweet. Too bad I didn't bring my bathing suit."
"Neither did I," added Jo.
"You guys are totally useless, you know that?" I asked. I looked over to raise my eyebrows at them. "We can always just go skinny dipping."
"Izzy!" Dana yelled.
"I was just kidding!"
"No! Look!" She grabbed my head and turned it so I was looking through the windshield, and I saw what she was yelling about. A figure, obviously a person, was standing in the middle of the road a few yards ahead.
"Shit!" I screamed, slamming on the brakes. Unfortunately, the road was muddy, so even when the wheels stopped turning the truck kept skidding. My reaction was too late, and all I could do was watch in horror as the front of my truck careened into the person and they disappeared from view. "Oh my God."
