School the next day nearly disappeared in the events of the night before, pleasantly for Peter, bewilderingly for Susan. The revelation had given Peter confidence. If Narnia didn't exist, explain the existence of a small island named after the very country nearly neighboring that land! He never touted it, though. He continued to respect the professors' wishes never to refer to Narnia, yet he couldn't help using the existence of New Telmar to cement his own faith in Narnia and Aslan.

Susan, on the other hand, went about her day with a furrowed brow. Here she was doing her best to forget about Narnia, for her sanity's sake if not for Benton, and yet it insisted on popping up to point the finger at her doubting heart and say, "Aha! You can shut your eyes, but I still exist, whether you like it or not! You have no control over me!"

Every time she even considered discussing her dilemma with Benton, she was overcome with the sense that he would be extremely disappointed in her somehow. As soon as she completed her last class for the day, she did not wait for Benton as usual but headed straight for the door. She heard him calling after her, but she couldn't talk with him; not yet. She deliberately chose the most roundabout way home, knowing Benton would try to follow her.

It was supper by the time she arrived at the house. Coming toward the front steps, she nearly tripped over a child digging in the gutter. It was Melanie, scraping away at the soft mud with her fingers. Susan rolled her eyes and turned to the door. Just as she laid her hand on the knob, a loud horn sounded. It was Benton in his father's automobile.

"Susan!" he called, "Will you go out with me?"

Unsure of what to do, Susan replied, "Five minutes," and went inside, shutting the door after her. She may have intended to wait there until Benton grew tired of waiting for her—except for the fact that her brothers and sister were discussing that everlasting Narnia again! She could hear Edmund's excited voice as he recounted how he, Lucy, and Reepicheep had been taken captive by slavers and sold in a marketplace.

"… and that would have been the end of us, except Caspian came in at the last minute with a whole army of sailors all decked out in armor and freed all the slaves sold that day and abolished the trade!"

That decided it. Susan changed her school-clothes for a nice dress and went outside. Benton was standing on the sidewalk trying to talk to Melanie. Of course she couldn't hear him. Susan put a hand on his shoulder and he turned. "Ready?" he asked, eyeing her dress with approval. She nodded. He turned back to Melanie one last time. "Good-bye!" he said loudly. Melanie never responded. He shrugged and helped Susan into the car before sliding in himself.

"Who is that, anyway?"

Susan waved her hand. "Oh, that's—" she stopped as "NEW TELMAR" flashed in her mind's eye. She looked down at her hands. "—Nobody; it's . . . no one."

Benton shrugged, "If you say so." He pulled away from the curb as Melanie kept digging.

Melanie had not been wholly unaware of the pair. She felt the brush of Susan's leg as she walked past, but currently, she was experiencing a more compelling stimulus. It called her to dig. It begged to be uncovered. She felt it while sitting on the sofa, and she had wandered all around the house first before finding herself outside, scraping away at the soft soil of the gutter in front of the house. There was something there. Melanie dug for a long time before uncovering something hard, rough, and knobby. She grabbed a specimen and pulled it up into the dying sunshine. It was a tree-root. It must have been cut down a long time previous to be buried so deep under the dirt. Something glinted in the small hole she'd just dug. She reached in with deft fingers and carefully extracted it. There in her muddy palm was a gold ring set with a pretty green stone! It seemed to glow with its own light. Another glint distracted her from the beauty of the first ring. She slipped the green ring into her pocket and reached for a second ring among the roots.

Instantly, she was falling underground, deeper and deeper. A long time passed, and gradually, the darkness began to fade around her. It grew lighter, and Melanie perceived she was falling . . . up? The light around her was murky, as if she was in water, and her arms and legs floated outward, but all these sensations barely had time to register before there was an incredible rush and a gasp, and Melanie automatically pulled herself up onto a high bank of some sort. There was a pond she must have just exited, yet she was not wet at all. She took a moment to gather her bearings. She seemed to be in a sort of wood. For miles around she saw nothing but grass, trees, and the odd shrub. The strangest feature of the landscape was the line of pools that stretched all the way to the horizon on either side. Each was exactly like the others.

Melanie suddenly grabbed her head as she felt a strange thudding in her ears. It made her head spin, but then she heard a steady whoosh-whoosh-ing sound, like the feeling of her breath on her tongue. Wait a minute—

She heard?

The strange vibration in her ears, was this hearing? Melanie placed a hand on her throat and exhaled. Whoosh.
That was it! The noise had been her own breathing! Excited, she puffed and puffed until she felt light-headed, and then—

"Ha."

What was that? Something moved in her throat and the breath was no longer a whoosh it was "ha." Was that talking? Was Melanie, the girl born deaf, now hearing and speaking? Melanie tried again, experimenting with reproducing the puff with a vibration of her throat. "Hhhh-hhaaa, hhhaa, h-aaah, ha-ha! Ho—" There! She moved her lips and tongue and there was a different noise. "Ha-ha, ho-ho, hhooo, ho, hee—" Another sound!

Melanie eyed the expanse of forest, the strange wood with no dirt to be seen, only trees, ferns, and grass. A slow smile spread its glow across her face. She removed her shoes and stockings and took off running through the forest, yelling out her new sounds.

"OOOOHHHHAAYAAHAAAEEEEOOOOWWW WAAYAAAHHHWOOOHWEEEOOOOOAAAA !"

After running some distance, she paused in a small clearing to dance around, adding her tongue for more sounds.

"Lalalala! Leeleelow! Lay-low-lee-low! Lellowleeliolye!"

She jigged from one foot to the other, adding her lips into the mix of jibberish. "Momo, popo, babee, bo! Talakanamobo-do!" Breathless, she finally stopped.

"Come."

In the silence, the command sounded urgent. Melanie heard the word, and saw white, spectral hands making the sign before her eyes.

"Come!" they said again. They pointed behind Melanie, back to the pools. She turned and took a few hesitant steps in that direction. When she stopped, the hands and voice said, "Yes! Come now!" Melanie ran to the pools. The sign seemed to indicate one particular pool, for in its murky depths the white hands contrasted sharply with the darkness.

"Come in," they said.

Melanie only hesitated a moment before jumping into the pool.