For a while they searched for a way to escape from the witch's castle. They even went inside, thinking there might be some kind of tunnel that would lead to outside the outer walls. There was nothing. All they managed was to get themselves lost in the castle. At last they stopped in an empty room. They were there all night. It was a terrible night. A lonely night. A journey that had started in hope ended in despair for the three lion cubs. Not only would they not be healed, but when the White Witch returned, she would find them and turn them to stone. They fell asleep.

"What was that?" Ha-or Tov cried suddenly, jerking awake, ears twitching. Avel and Emet woke up, too. It was morning. Avel listened. He hadn't heard anything. There were no windows in the room where they were. Just the door they had entered by, closed.

Slowly the noise grew louder. The White Witch returning with her army? It had to be. The three waited together in silent acceptance as the noise increased in volume.

Then, suddenly, a voice drifted up to them in their lonely room. "Now for the inside of the house! Look alive, everyone. Up stairs and down stairs and in my lady's chamber! Leave no corner unsearched. You never know where some poor prisoner may be concealed."

That voice. Something familiar. Where had Avel heard it before? Suddenly the castle was filled with the sounds of running footsteps. The dim light that had been coming from under the door grew brighter. Then there was silence. Avel looked under the door. Had they escaped? His heart leaped into his throat. There, in front of the door, he saw a set of great big paws.

Emet looked under, too. Then he laughed aloud. His eyes were bright with joy.

"What?" Ha-or Tov queried.

And then it came to Avel. The voice. He had heard it when he was under the bush near the camp at the Stone Table. But it couldn't be him…could it?

The creature bent and looked under the door. It was a lion. And for the first time Avel caught a glimpse of his face. Amused by the three unseen cubs behind it.

"Aslan!" Avel breathed the name in wonder.

"I was wondering how long it would take," Aslan said. Then he reared up on his hind legs and pulled the door open. Then he stood in the doorway and added, "Want to come out?"

Avel hesitated. "You…aren't a…ghost…are you?" he asked.

Aslan chuckled, "No."

Avel grabbed the rope around Ha-or Tov's neck and dragged him out of the room. Emet, suddenly shy, followed them.

"What? What? What? Where are we going?" Ha-or Tov babbled as he was being pulled along.

"To see Aslan! Ha-or Tov! To see him." Avel crowed. "To talk to him! Emet! To talk to him." Then he said to Aslan, "We've been looking for you! Trying to find you! Emet can't hear! Ha-or Tov is blind!"

Aslan laughed outright. "Truth. Good Light. Mourner. I was searching for you."

Avel began to run to him, stumbling, pulling Ha-or Tov along by the rope. Emet ran behind him.

Aslan's face was radiant with pleasure as they charged up to him. He pulled them to him and gave each one a great lion's kiss, as Avel had seen other lion fathers do to their sons.

All three at first.

Avel began to cry. His tears dampened Aslan's fur.

"My sons," Aslan whispered. Avel burrowed his face against Aslan's chest and heard his heart beating. It didn't matter to Avel how it had happened, but Aslan was alive again. Avel felt Aslan's breath on his fur.

And then. One at a time.

Ha-or Tov first.

The blind cub's fur glistened in the light from the now open window. Aslan cupped Ha-or Tov's upturned face in one of his big paws and studied the white and blue marbled eyes.

What would it be like? Avel wondered. To see for the first time? Could Aslan do it? Make Ha-or Tov see? Create a vision where there had never been so much as a glimmer of light?

Aslan's face was mere inches from Ha-or Tov's. Eye to eye, he was. Then, with the edge of his paw he lightly touched Ha-or Tov's eyelids and said, "Blessed are you Emperor-beyond-the-sea, who has allowed us to live to see this hour…" And then, "All right, now."

Ha-or Tov opened his eyes. Blinked. Raised a paw to his face in awe.

"Tell me what you see." Aslan smiled into his beaming face.

"I see…the Good light! Aslan! Salvation! You!" Ha-or Tov cried.

Aslan nuzzled him on his head and then leaned over and bit through the rope around his neck, which then fell to the floor. With a paw he gently wiped away a tear from Ha-or Tov's cheek. The cub, seeing, stared out the window, at the blue sky. Everything! Everything! Everything! It was all miraculous! To see what he had only heard and smelled and guessed at. His own paws! His claws! His tail! Staring at the stone floor, he traced a crack with one of his claws. He turned to Avel. "Avel?" Then Emet. "Emet?"

"Yes!" Avel cried joyfully. "Yes! We're us!"

Yes. It was Emet's turn.

"What about you, Emet?" Aslan asked, pulling him closer. "Truth must have ears to hear and a voice to speak in such a world as this."

With a confident wink, Aslan laid a paw on top of Emet's head, covering his ears. Emet seemed to have no trouble bearing the weight of it. Closing his eyes, Aslan sang softly, "Blessed are you, Emperor-beyond-the-sea, who has given us a song of truth…" He removed his paw from Emet's head and opened his eyes. "You must sing the song with me, Emet…Say your name."

Emet's mouth worked like a rusty hinge. Finally he croaked the answer, "Truth."

Avel and Ha-or Tov gasped.

Aslan nodded, "And what do you hear?"

"Your voice," Emet answered. Emet and Aslan gazed at one another for one last long silence. Understanding seemed to pass between them. Truth finally had a voice.

Emet leaped joyfully on Aslan, who ducked, causing Emet to fall over. Unhurt, Emet scrambled up and snuggled up against Aslan. Aslan motioned for Avel.

Avel pointed a paw at himself in question. What could Aslan do for him? He could see. He could hear and speak. He was not lame. Not sick. Had no broken body parts.

"Avel?" Aslan called him to his other side. "How did you come to be called Avel Lo-Ahavah?"

"My beloved friend Hayyim gave me the name Mourner when my mother abandoned me. When she called me Lo-Ahavah. Not loved." Avel said.

"And Hayyim?" Aslan asked, "Where is he, Avel?"

"Nobody knows," Avel said. "He disappeared one day. Nobody even remembers Hayyim but me. And so I'm Avel Lo-Ahavah." At this confession of heartache, Avel's lip trembled.

"Ah," Aslan said.

Just then a centaur came running up the stairs behind them. "Aslan!" he cried, "Quick! We found more stone statues! There's a bunch of them! Hurry!" Aslan and the three cubs raced off after the centaur.

When they reached there, Avel, Emet, and Ha-or Tov started looking around. Suddenly, Avel saw it. A statue of a young faun in one corner. Avel went over to it and cried, "Hayyim!"

It seemed as if Aslan was instantly at his side. His eyes. Warm. Deep. Kind. They reached into Avel's soul. "Blessed are you who mourn," Aslan said. "You will be comforted." Then he asked Avel, "Do you believe this, Mourner? Can a fractured heart be whole?"

So this was the broken thing in Avel. Aslan saw it. Found it. Understood it…it was Avel's heart all along.

Sorrow. Despair. Loneliness. A longing for love. Were these wounds harder to heal than eyes that had never seen the light? Ears that had never heard the truth? A voice forever mute? Avel was not sure.

Aslan said, "Avel, even when one non-talking sparrow falls I know…and care."

Aslan did not demand an answer from Avel. He breathed on the statue of Hayyim.

"Avel," Aslan said, "tell me what you see?"

"My beloved friend," Avel said softly, "a stone statue."

Slowly color began to lick its way over the statue. Before Avel knew it, there stood Hayyim, blinking, looking around, looking bewildered.

Aslan asked, "Avel? Tell me what you see."

Emotion choked Avel. He bit his lip, barely able to speak. "I see…Hayyim…Life!"

"Yes," Aslan grinned. Hayyim dropped to his knees and enveloped Avel in a hug. After a few minutes they pulled away. Aslan laid his paw on Avel's head and said, "Blessed are you who mourn. You will be comforted. I came looking for you to tell you that I love you more than anything in the world. Do you believe me?"

Avel nodded. Yes. How could he doubt it? The whole time he had been looking for a chance to talk to Aslan. And Aslan had his eye on him all along.

Aslan looked him in the eye. "From today, I give you a new name. You'll no longer be Avel Lo-Ahavah. But you will be called friend to the brokenhearted. Haver."

Avel, or Haver as we will now call him, stood up. The pain…it was gone. The hurt he had carried with him ever since his mother had left him was gone. For the first time in his life, he felt loved.