Finding Narnia

A Chronicles of Narnia Fanfiction by Darkened-Storm

Disclaimer: I, Darkened-Storm, own only my plot, ideas and characters. C.S Lewis owns The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Any characters you do not recognise from his series, including Stephanie and Rebecca Pevensie, are my creations.

Chapter 2: Cousin Lucy's Magical Land

When the next morning came there was a steady rain falling so instead of exploring outside, the children sat in the sitting room the Professor had set aside for them and Susan made a game of asking them the meaning of different words in a dictionary Steph had found in the Professor's library.

It wasn't a fun game and the expression on Edmund's face was enough to convey his disapproval, whether it was because he found the game dull of because he didn't know as many words as the older children, Steph didn't know. They gave Lucy easier words to guess.

"Gastrovascular," Susan sounded out the word for them to define. It was Peter's turn to guess, but he had long since lost interest in the game and was staring out at the rain lashed window.

Steph nudged Peter with her foot. He turned away from the window to roll his eyes at both of them. "Is it Latin?" he asked.

"Yes," Susan said.

From beneath one of the wooden sitting chairs, Edmund said. "Is it Latin for worst game ever invented?" he asked his sister.

Susan gave an annoyed sigh, slammed the book shut and glared at her two brothers, both of whom were grinning broadly.

"It's an adjective," Steph said. Before the war, her father had been a doctor in a hospital and she knew the word from reading it in one of the anatomy books he father kept at home. "It's used to describe an organism having both a digestive and a circulatory system."

Susan smiled at her appreciatively but Edmund rolled his eyes. "This is such a bore," he said.

Lucy came over to sit by Peter. "We could play Hide and Seek," she suggested.

"Hide and seek is a kids game," Edmund said nastily from the floor.

"It's the perfect game for you then," Becky said. After last night, she didn't very much like Edmund at all and her favourite way to deal with people she didn't like was to be just as mean to them as they were to other people.

"Be nice, both of you," Steph warned them before they could get into a fight. Earlier that morning, Edmund had gotten into a disagreement with Becky over something he'd said to Lucy. Steph had tried to give Edmund the benefit of the doubt, much to Becky's chagrin, but she'd noticed Edmund was always twice as nasty to Lucy as he was to anyone else.

"Edmund can be a bit troublesome," had been Susan's only explanation when Steph had asked but she had later heard from Lucy (who was too young to know any better) that Edmund hadn't been himself since he'd gone away to school last year. Peter on the other hand, was very good with Lucy and often gave in to her to keep her happy.

"Come on Peter, please," Lucy said, tugging on his arm until he got off the chair and began to count. "One, two, three…"

It was impossible, Steph thought, for anyone to deny Lucy something she wanted and she wasn't the least bit surprised when Peter got up from the chair and began to count. "One, two, three…"

Lucy's face lit up with delight and she scampered out of the room to hide. Edmund looked thoroughly annoyed but jumped to his feet and ran away to hide when Peter reached "eleven" and one by one, they all went off to hide.

Susan chose to hide in an old wooden chest in one of the many hallways. Steph passed her on the way to the library, where she thought to hide amongst the shelves, but then reasoned to herself that Peter would look for her there first and instead crawled into a small cupboard under a staircase not far from where Susan was hiding.

It would have been smarter, Steph thought, as she squeezed into the space, to hide somewhere away from the other children and make it harder for Peter to find them all, but then she didn't want to bump into the Macready on her way, who would surely disapprove of Lucy's game.

Just when she had squeezed as far back into the cupboard as she could manage, the cupboard door opened again and Steph thought she had been found, but it was only Becky, who said; "move over" and squeezed in beside her.

"Ouch, you're on my foot!" Steph exclaimed.

"Shh! He's coming," Becky hissed and they both fell silent.

Sure enough, a short while later they heard the unmistakable sound of Peter's footsteps coming down the hallway and the opening and closing of doors and the rustle of curtains as he searched for his family. Then Steph heard Lucy's voice shouting from one of the spare rooms.

"It's all right! I'm back, I'm all right!"

Edmund said something, his soft voice muffled by the door and then Peter, in a much louder voice, said to them both; "you know, I'm not sure you two have quite got the idea of this game."

Giving the game up for lost, Steph clambered out of the cupboard, ignoring Becky's protests. Peter, Edmund and Lucy were standing in the corridor. Edmund was glaring at his little sister, annoyed that he'd been lured out of his hiding spot by his red-faced little sister. Lucy herself was shivering and she looked as though she'd been out in the snow in mid-winter.

Peter looked helplessly from one to the other, clearly wondering what was going on.

"You know, this is the strangest game of Hide and Seek I've ever played," Steph told, earning an eye roll from the older boy.

"Haven't you been wondering where I was?" Lucy asked them.

"That's the point," Edmund told her impatiently, drawing out his words as though Lucy was five years old. "That's why he was seeking you!"

"Does this mean I win?" The commotion had drawn Susan out of her hiding spot and she was delighted to see them all there. Her grin faded when she saw Lucy looking red-faced and frowned.

Peter turned to his sister. "I don't think Lucy wants to play anymore," he told her.

"I've been gone for hours," Lucy said and Steph could see she was getting frustrated.

"Batty," said Edmund, tapping his head. "Quite batty." Becky stomped on his toe and he fell quite.

"Don't be silly, Lucy," Susan said, but Steph, who had made up a lot of stories and imaginary lands to keep her sister entertained over the summer holidays had an idea of what Lucy was doing. "She's just making the story up for fun, aren't you Lu?"

"No, I'm not," Lucy said, very seriously. "It's a magic wardrobe, with a wood inside and a faun called Mr Tumnas and an evil Witch. Come and see, I'll show you."

There was nothing to do except to follow her and she led them upstairs to the third floor, passed a lock door none of them had been able to open, to the spare room. She turned the knob and went inside. Steph gave Peter a puzzled look, wondering if they should go in. With a shrug of his shoulders, Peter led the way in, holding the door open for his family.

The room itself was empty, save for a dead blue bottle on the windowsill and a very big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking glass in the door. Lucy marched right up to the wardrobe, pulled open the door and said; "see for yourselves!"

Susan leaned into the wardrobe and pulled the coats apart. They watched her knock once on the back of it. Someone knocked on the other side, giving them all a fright until Becky pulled Edmund out from behind the wardrobe and they all realised it was him who had knocked back.

"Funny, aren't you," Becky said with a scowl and wrapped him over the head lightly with her knuckles.

"Ow," he exclaimed, fending her off and rubbing his head. "It was just a joke."

Peter fixed his brother with a disapproving look before they all turned back to the wardrobe and Lucy, who was standing beside the door, looking as surprised as the rest of them.

"Lucy, the only wood in here is the back of the wardrobe," Susan said at last.

Steph peered into the wardrobe, and sure enough, it was just an ordinary wardrobe, with a bunch of coats hanging inside. "It certainly does look ordinary," she decided. She didn't want to mention that, for a moment, she'd almost believed Lucy. Really – a magical land inside a wardrobe? What had she been thinking?

From the look on Peter's face, she could tell she wasn't the only one who'd almost believed Lucy. "One game at a time, Lu," he told her. "We don't all have your imagination." He turned away from the wardrobe and ushered his brother and sister out of the room. Susan Becky took a quick glance inside the wardrobe again, shrugged her shoulders and followed.

"Come on, Lu," Steph said, trailing after them, but Lucy remained where she was, her face turning from pale to a bright tomato colour.

"But I wasn't imagining!" she cried, much louder than was acceptable indoors and Steph hoped the Macready hadn't heard.

Susan turned around and said, very crossly; "that's enough, Lucy."

"I wouldn't lie about this," Lucy insisted.

"Well I believe you," Edmund said at once, and they all turned to look at him. He grinned nastily. "Didn't I tell you about the football field I found in the bathroom cupboard?"

Peter rounded on his brother. "You have to make everything worse, don't you?" he told Edmund.

Edmund looked indignant. "It was just a joke."

Peter scowled at him. "When are you going to learn to grow up?"

"Shut up," Edmund said at once, and he was yelling now. "You think you're Dad, but you're not!"

"Well that was nicely handled," Susan said scornfully and went after her younger brother. Steph gave Peter a reproachful look, which he ignored and rounded on his little sister.

"But it really was there," Lucy insisted again. She looked as though she was about to cry.

"Susan's right, Lucy," Peter told her. "That's enough." He turned and left the room, heading in the opposite direction to Edmund and Susan.

"Peter!" Steph called, hurrying after him and leaving Becky to deal with Lucy. She only caught up with him when he reached the end of the hall and fixed him with the most unimpressed look she could manage. She took a moment to catch her breath, then said; "There's no need to tell Edmund off like that, he was only joking."

Peter sighed, looking remorseful. "I suppose I could have handled that a bit better," he admitted.

"You didn't handle it at all Peter, you just yelled at him," she told him bluntly. "You're not going to win any points with Edmund if you treat him like that."

"He needed to be told," Peter said.

"Yes," she agreed. "But you haven't done yourself any favours getting him all upset up like that – in fact you've probably made him even angrier at you."

She didn't mean to sound mad at him - she knew he was trying to help them, just as she was trying to help her sister, but he was going about it the wrong way. "You're not their father, Peter," she told him quietly.

Peter shifted, his expression growing dark. "No," he agreed coolly. "But I'm the best they're got."

The next few days in the Professor's house were some of the worst summer holidays Steph had ever spent. The weather was still quite terrible, but none of them dared to mention playing Hide and Seek again so they found other things to do inside the house. Peter and Edmund found a long room on the third floor with a suit of armour in it and spent a lot of their time wondering if they could take it apart and put it back together again. Becky and Susan played indoor games such as "I Spy".

During these raining days, Steph spent most of her time in the library or the sitting room reading some of the Professor's books. She was incredibly intelligent for her age and loved to read books - books with stories about a boy and his talking bear, stories about a genie in a lamp and a wicked witch with a magic mirror. Each night, she would pick a different book to read to Becky and Lucy.

Four days into her stay at the Professor's house, Steph was on her way back down to the library to replace some of the books when she heard a muffled sobbing coming from the room adjacent to the sitting room.

"Lu?" she called, peering into the room. "Is that you in there?"

Lucy was curled up on the sofa. She was red in the face and her eyes were quite puffy. The poor girl had been a miserable sight around the house since her so called adventure in the wardrobe, and the situation was only made worse by Edmund, who Steph was quickly coming to realised could be a nasty little boy when he wanted to be, and for that reason in itself she was infinitely glad she did not have and brothers.

Edmund never teased Lucy when the older children were around - Peter was always quick to tell him off and Becky was twice as nasty to him in return - but they could tell the bullying was still going on behind their backs because Lucy would disappear for ages before coming back and they could tell she had been crying.

"Lucy," Steph said, sitting on the sofa next to Lucy. It took her a few tries to coax Lucy from her balled up position on the sofa and when she did, the younger girl climbed into her lap and rested her head on Steph's shoulder.

"Lu, what's the matter?"

Lucy dabbed at her eyes with her sleeves. "Everyone thinks I'm lying – I know they do even though they don't say anything. Edmund keeps asking me if I found any more countries inside the closets."

Steph scowled, cursing Edmund in her head. "I wouldn't pay any attention to him, Lu," she told her cousin. "If you ignore him he'll give up on it eventually."

Lucy nodded, looking a little better. "Do you believe me?"

Steph shook her head. "I believe you when you say you're not lying," she said. "But, Lu, I think it's more likely that you imagined it – or maybe it was a dream."

"I wasn't dreaming," Lucy insisted. "I remember we were playing Hide and Seek. I couldn't find anywhere else to hide in the room, so I got into the wardrobe. I remember thinking that it would take forever for Peter to find me amongst all the coats and mothballs when I felt something wet under my feet.

"It was snow, and when I turned around, I was in a white forest and I met a faun there, his name was Mr Tumnas. He invited me back to his cave for tea and played me a Narnian lullaby.

"I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I remember is poor old Mr Tumnas. He was crying and said that he'd have to hand me over to the White Witch – she's the one who made it always winter but never Christmas. But then he said he'd help me escape and took me back to the wardrobe.

"And then I climbed out of the wardrobe, and Peter had just finished counting – which is weird because I could have sworn I was gone for hours, like I said. I can't have just dreamed that all up could I? It must have been real."

"Peter, Susan and I all looked in the wardrobe and there was nothing there but a bunch of coats, Lu. No forest, just coats," Steph said. "How can something be real if we can't see it?"

Lucy had an answer for this. "Maybe you can't see it because you don't believe," she said simply.

After dinner that night, Steph pulled Edmund aside. "What did you say to Lucy?" she asked him.

Edmund, who had never managed to be quite as rude to her as he was to Peter or Susan, but still rude enough, scowled at her and tried to wriggle free, but she'd caught him by the scruff of his shirt and didn't let go.

"I didn't say anything that wasn't true," Edmund said angrily. "If Lucy would just stop telling lies then I wouldn't have anything to tease her about." He had a nasty expression on his face and didn't seem in the least bit sorry – in fact, Steph rather thought he looked like he was proud of it!

"You know something Edmund," she said coolly, "nasty little boys such as yourselves always get their just deserts."

She let him go, satisfied that he'd spend the rest of the night trying to figure out what 'just deserts' were. She didn't think it would stop him from teasing Lucy altogether, but she hoped it would at least make him think twice about it.

Edmund wasn't the biggest problem Lucy faced however. As much as she didn't want to get Lucy in any more trouble, she couldn't not tell Peter and Susan about the faun and the witch. She was amazed that someone as young as Lucy could create such a complex world in her mind but Susan and Peter were beginning to think Lucy was out of her mind.

As much as Steph knew that Lucy's Narnia couldn't be real, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more to the wardrobe than they'd seen. Unable to contain her curiosity, she went up to the Wardrobe Room after Lucy and the others had gone to bed to have another look at the wardrobe.

It was the finest wardrobe that Steph had ever seen. The wood was perfectly even across the entire wardrobe and pictures had been carefully engraved in the panels. The first depicted an apple and on the panel opposite there was an etching of two rings. In the two corners of the wardrobe was a lion's face. On the door of the wardrobe itself, there were three etchings. The first was of a crown surrounded by branches, and the second was of a tree – Steph thought it looked very similar to an apple tree. The last etching depicted a sun rising over an ocean.

It was magnificent – magical even, Steph decided, running her hands across the wood and stopping when her hand rested just above the doorknob. She hesitated, then turned the knob and pulled the door open.

She parted the coats as Susan had done before and peered into the wardrobe and half hoped to see the trees and snow Lucy had described.

All she found was the back of the wardrobe. She knocked on the wood once, twice, then looked around between the coats. She tapped the floor, wondering if perhaps it had a false bottom, but found only solid wood.

Chastising herself for being so silly, she shut the door and glared at the wardrobe for a long moment before she turned on her heel, stormed out of the room and walked right into Peter, who was going the other way.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"No it was my fault," Peter said apologetically. "I didn't think anyone was up here." She was glad to see he wasn't still mad at her for what she'd said earlier. He looked up and down the hallway, as though he was wondering where she had come from, and saw the open door. "Were you … did you just come out of the Wardrobe Room?" he asked her.

There was no point lying. The door to the Wardrobe Room was the only unlocked door in this wing of the house. "Yes. I – I just wanted to have a look for myself… make sure there really wasn't a magical land in there."

She felt like an idiot. Peter probably thought she was an idiot, but to her surprise, he just smiled. "It would be something, wouldn't it?" he said wistfully. "I'd imagine any world in there would be a whole lot better than ours right about now."

"Maybe that's why Lu made it up," Steph suggested.

"Well, I've never known Lucy to lie like that. She is always so honest, and the way she insisted it was there, it was almost as though …"

"As though she really believed it was there," Steph finished for him.

Peter nodded, an uneasy expression on his face. "That's what worries me," he said.

"We should talk to the Professor about it," Steph suggested. She didn't like the idea that Lucy might be going mad – but well, she knew war could do all sorts of things to people.

Peter nodded his head in agreement. "He'll write to father if he thinks there's something really wrong with Lu," he said; "it's getting beyond us."

I am not nearly as happy with this chapter as I should be - truth was the only good scenes I had were Steph's scene with Peter and her exploring the wardrobe, but I had already written the other scenes so I thought it would be a shame not to include them.

I am also still looking for a beta-reader for this fic if anyone is interested.

I also am opening this fic up to you readers to have some of your own OCs included - I am looking for Talking Animals/Dwarves/Centaurs to include in this fic and my upcoming fic so just let me know in a review or a PM if you have any characters I could borrow =) I will give you full credit for them of course.

As always, thanks for reading and please review =)