Chapter Ten: The Beavers
Susan closed the door as best as she could, but the bottom hinge was broken so the door hung sideways with a gap on the top right corner and the bottom left corner.
Peter piled a few logs in the fireplace, but the wood was wet and Peter wasted two matches on it.
"Does anyone have a piece of paper?" Peter asked after the third match.
"How about this?" Edmund pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Peter; Peter looked at it, grinned and crumpled it recklessly. He shoved it under a log and lit the corner. Slowly, an orange tongue slipped silently over Maugrim's name, it crumpled Jadis and coiled around the faun Tumnus until the paper was reduced to black dust. But it had done the trick and the logs had started to burn.
They sat in front of it, soaking up all the heat it offered.
"Ahem!"
Everyone jerked to their feet and Peter grabbed the poker and swung around to face the enemy.
In the gap in the bottom of the door way was a whiskery brown head with orange front teeth. On his head was a fat little robin that kept twittering nervously.
"It's a beaver," Eustace informed them.
"I wonder if they are friendly." Peter said, lowering the poker.
The beaver came the rest of the way into the room and stood on his hind legs. He tucked his front paws into his belt, next to a little hatchet, and swaggered forward.
"Are y'all the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve?" he asked.
"You talk?" Peter asked incredulously.
"'Course I talk!" the Beaver exclaimed, "I repeat, Are y'all the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve?"
"I suppose so," Peter said.
"Well, then you're to come with me," the Beaver said.
"I don't mean to be rude Mr. Beaver," Edmund said, "But how are we to know we can trust you?"
"Quite right," the beaver pulled a piece of white cloth out of his belt, "Here."
Peter took it and eyed it skeptically, "What is it?"
"It's my handkerchief!" Lucy said taking it, "The one I gave Mr. Tumnus! It has my initials in the corner!"
"Tumnus was warned of the arrest before it actually happened and he gave that to me. He told me to come here every day until you came. He wanted me to tell you to go back, but I'm not going to." The Beaver said, "You'll understand later. You'll come with me?"
Peter looked at Edmund.
"There isn't much else we can do," Edmund said.
"We'll come, then," Peter said, "where will we be going?"
"To my house," the beaver said, "there we can have supper and a real talk."
"Let's go!" Edmund said, excited about the prospect of supper.
"Why didn't anyone ask me?" Eustace grumbled.
Peter and Edmund put out the fire and they filed out of Tumnus's cave into the cold of outside.
The sky was going silver and it had started to snow again. It was going to be dark soon, Susan noted. The Beaver kept to the woods and the going became harder. The snow was hopelessly deep and they plunged into banks up to their knees, or in Lucy's case, up to their waists.
Lucy was in the middle of the procession and Edmund and Peter had her hands, helping her though the drifts. Suddenly Lucy felt something flutter next to her cheek; she looked over and saw the delicate feathers on the fat body of the Robin that had been on the Beaver's shoulder.
Lucy hardly dared to breathe for fear she would frighten it away.
"Hello!" It said, it had a queer, chirping voice that almost sounded like whistling, "I'm Chibb, who are you?"
"I'm Lucy," Lucy said, "And this is Edmund and that's Peter."
"Hello," Edmund and Peter said, looking down at Chibb.
"Is the snow always so deep?" Lucy asked after she fell into a snowdrift and Peter and Edmund fished her out.
"It's a hundred years worth of snow," Chibb said fluttering above her head, "you're only seeing the tops of the higher trees."
"Really?" Lucy said as the robin landed on her shoulder again.
After a few minutes of walking, the trees stopped quite suddenly and they found themselves looking down at a frozen river. They knew it was a river because the snow that had covered it was all blown away, showing rolling gray ice.
Across the river was a dam and in the middle of the dam, all made of branches was a little house with smoke pouring merrily out of the chimney. A small round window in the side cast a soft yellow light unto the snow beneath it.
Far across the river were two hills, jagged and imposing, but the only person that these particular hills had any influence on was Eustace.
"Mr. Beaver," Susan said, "What a gorgeous place!"
"Merely a trifle, merely a trifle, my father built most of it," he said, pleasure written across his face, "and it's not finished yet, the winter came too soon."
The beaver started walking again and they followed him down the slope to the dam. It was icy and very slippery. The beaver dropped down on all fours and scampered across safely, but the children slipped and slid and Susan nearly went over the side.
"It's no use," Susan said, "Let's go on hands and knees. It's better," she said logically, "To be cold, than dead."
The beaver opened a small round door into the house and they slid in feet first because the hole was rather small.
It was beautifully warm in there and they all stood blinking in the sudden light. It was a small round home with only one room with a round table in the center of it. There were bunks on each wall and behind one set of bunks was a nice warm corner with a little spinning wheel in it. Sitting at the spinning wheel was a she-beaver busily spinning.
Next to the spinning wheel was a big open fireplace with a few logs crackling invitingly.
"Here we are Mrs. Beaver," Mr. Beaver called to the corner with the spinning wheel.
The thumping of the wheel stopped and the Beaver jumped up from behind it. When she saw the four children, she let out a happy cry of delight and nearly knocked them all down hugging them.
"Steady on!" Eustace cried.
"Oh that I should live to see this day!" the Beaver cried, tears springing to her eyes, "the Sons of Adam and the Daughters of Eve from the prophesy!"
"Please," Lucy said, "What prophesy?"
"Ah," Mrs. Beaver said, "You don't know it then? Well, it is very old and it's said that it has been here since the beginning of time, said by Aslan himself…"
"Who is Aslan?" Lucy asked, wonderingly. The name seemed to stir something inside of her. She caught the look on Eustace's face and it was of complete horror.
"He's the King," Mrs. Beaver said reverently, "the Great King; he made us all long ago, at the dawn of time. They say that his country is far to the east, because it is from the east that he always comes. If anyone can put all to rights he can…why, you five wouldn't even be here if he hadn't wanted it."
"Now," Mr. Beaver said, "About that prophesy."
"Yes," Mrs. Beaver said, "About that prophesy. Before the witch got into power four thrones and four crowns were made down at Cair Paravel, that's the castle down at the mouth of the great river, and it was said that when two kings and two queens sat on those thrones, evil would be over and done. That's why you four are so important…"
"What about me?" Eustace squeaked indignantly.
"He has a great plan for you too," Mr. Beaver comforted him, "Only I don't know what it is."
"But," Peter said, "I'm no king! I'm just plain old Peter Pevensie!"
"If Aslan picked you, then Aslan picked you," Mr. Beaver said, "and that is that."
"Well," Mrs. Beaver said, "Let's not all stand around talking! These humans are hungry! Mr. Beaver, I dare say you will catch us some fish?"
"I will at that, Mrs. Beaver," Mr. Beaver said, "do you boys want to learn how to catch fish beaver style?"
Peter and Edmund readily agreed, but Eustace preferred to stay behind.
They followed the beaver out of the house and over the ice behind the dam. Several round holes had been cut in the ice, though most of them had been frozen over. Mr. Beaver found the one with the thinnest ice and shattered it with a swing of his hatchet.
"You wait right here," the beaver said, then hurried back to the house.
"I wonder how he's going to go about catching them." Edmund said peering down into the hole.
"Well no matter what," Peter said, "It's going to be interesting."
"I didn't know Beavers ate fish." Edmund said thoughtfully.
"Eustace might know," Peter suggested.
Edmund did not deign to answer.
A moment later the beaver returned with a bucket and put it next to the hole, "No sound now," he warned and leaned close to the ice, listing hard.
The boys leaned forward just in time to something silver drift by and the beaver's paw shoot into the water and reappear with a fish. He dropped it into a bucket and leaned back over the hole.
Edmund looked at the fish flopping in the bucket, its mouth opened and closed and its eyes bulged.
"The fish are sluggish in this cold," Mr. Beaver explained, catching another, "In the summer my dad used to get them by tickling. Have a turn?"
They both tried and went numb from the hand to the shoulder for their pains.
"Got one! Got one!" Edmund cried. "Um…well…I did have one."
"I can't even feel them anymore," Peter lamented.
Mr. Beaver caught twelve more and Peter ended up with one he was able to hold on to. Mr. Beaver bopped them all on the heads, then showed them how to scale and clean them.
"Mrs. Beaver won't be too thrilled about fish scales in her house," the Beaver noted and tried his best to get it all off with a broom. When they finally slid back into the house, they only smelled of fish and there wasn't a scale to be seen.
Mrs. Beaver clucked about the fish, then dropped it into a frying pan she had ready. It sizzled and spat and the whole room smelled of cooking fish.
The girls were setting the table, the plates and silverware were quite different then they were used to, they seemed to be handmade, out of wood. Mrs. Beaver had given Susan a big golden brown loaf of bread to cut and it was still warm from the Dutch oven.
Lucy suddenly found that she was quite tired and Mrs. Beaver told her to go lay down on one of the bunks. Chibb fluttered over, sat next to her head and talked to her about Narnia.
"I'm dying to see a centaur," Lucy said dreamily.
"Oh, you will Lucy, you will," Chibb assured her.
"Are there a lot of people around here?" Lucy asked.
"Humans you mean?" Chibb said, "No there are no humans in Narnia, the witch makes it impossible for a human to come into Narnia and live, that's partly how we know you are the chosen ones."
The thought of becoming a queen did not bother Lucy; in fact, it didn't even occur to her. Susan on the other hand, who was cutting the bread almost savagely, was wondering just how to break the news to everyone that they were only kids and definitely not ready to be kings and queens.
'Aslan chose you,'
This bothered her even more, mostly because she was wondering just what or who Aslan was and whether he was just as evil as the witch. She wondered how they were going to keep from getting killed. The sight of Mrs. Beaver merrily frying fish inspired more courage in her. Here was someone who had suffered much.
Peter badly wanted to talk about the king thing as well, but the subject seemed to be the farthest thing from Mr. Beaver's mind.
As the oldest, Peter held the weight of responsibility of the welfare of the others. If he had been alone he would have been more than happy to free these animals from the witch. If he had what it took, which he was quite certain he did not. Nevertheless, he had the others to think about; he too wondered just how safe they were. He longed to talk to Susan, who, despite her own worries, was usually able to put his to rest.
Edmund was calculating the personalities of the Beavers; he studied human nature as a hobby and could usually judge a personality quite accurately. Of course, Beaver natures were slightly different.
He could tell, despite Mr. Beaver's jolly personality, that he was watching them, undoubtedly wondering if they were really the four from the prophesy. Edmund looked over at Peter and saw that he had a clouded expression on his face; he vaguely wondered what he was worried about. Edmund had no doubt in his mind that Peter could be a king.
Edmund saw Susan out of the corner of his eye, hacking at the bread with none of her usual calm; her slender fingers were clamped on the knife until her knuckles turned white.
Lucy was the only one who seemed herself.
Her little elfin face was wreathed with smiles and her big blue eyes were wide with wonder at the stories that Chibb was telling her.
Eustace, too, was acting himself; he was sitting in the corner with a scowl on his face.
Mrs. Beaver was busy, but she too was watching them. The fish had been fried to perfection and she was putting two on each plate. She had boiled potatoes and put them in her best bowl on the table. The string beans added the final touch and she stepped back, surveying her work. It was, she decided, worthy for any number of people out of a prophesy.
But they certainly didn't act prophetic when she announced dinner; they fell on it like a pack of hungry hounds, not future monarchs.
Chibb feasted on nuts and a little bit of fish in a bowl on the table. He perched on the edge of it and chirped with his mouth full, which Mrs. Beaver repeatedly told him not to do.
After supper Mrs. Beaver served her crowning dish, it was a fat sticky cinnamon role with apples in it.
"And now," Mr. Beaver shoved his fork into his slice, "let's get to business."
"Business?" Peter asked.
"Well, we ought to know just what we are going to do with you," Mr. Beaver said, "for one thing you are humans, you're from the prophesy and you're badly wanted by the police, it was rather foolish of me to let you outside when we were fishing."
"This isn't going to be a short thing," he continued, "in fact we won't be able to do anything until Aslan acts and he will act soon, it has been so prophesied…"
More prophesies, Susan thought wearily.
"…Your lives are worth more to Narnia then any others…"
Everyone is worth something, Edmund thought indignantly.
"…It means that you will have to stay hidden for a while, but if the witch knew you were in Narnia, your lives would not be worth a shake of my whiskers."
"But we aren't kings and queens!" Peter broke out, "we're just kids! I don't think I could lead anyone out of this mess."
"That's not for me to decided," Mr. Beaver said calmly, "Aslan has decided, and Aslan does not, and I repeat, does not make mistakes."
Peter slumped back and realized the uselessness of arguing.
"Now," Mr. Beaver said, "As I was saying, I have a friend who lives across the river, he's a hedgehog and hedgehogs make tunnels, you could probably be hidden with relative comfort there."
"What does 'relative comfort' mean?" Peter asked, he was the tallest and he didn't like the sound of 'relative comfort'.
"Oh," the beaver smiled, "you'll be able to stand up in the main room, he's quite proud of his vaulted ceiling."
"I say!" Lucy broke in, "Eustace?"
There was no reply.
"He was sitting right next to me a moment ago," Lucy said, "But it's gotten so dark in here he might have gone to sleep on one of the bunks."
Mrs. Beaver lit a kerosene lamp and held it up, reveling that there was no Eustace in the room.
"Where has he gone?" Peter jumped up.
"Maybe he's gone outside for a breath of fresh air," Susan suggested.
"He didn't take his coat," Edmund noted, looking at the coat rack.
"Let's go look for him outside," Lucy said, running for the door, everyone followed her.
The sun had long since gone down, but the moon was bright and two jagged hills showed with spectral stillness in the distance. A single set of footprints traveled in a steady line towards them.
Mr. Beaver's face went taught and he hustled them back inside the house.
"Has your cousin ever been to Narnia before?" he asked heavily.
"Yes, he has," Lucy said.
"Were you with him the whole time?" the beaver asked.
"No, I wasn't," Lucy said, "Were you Edmund?"
"No, you goose," Edmund said, "I came to get you, remember."
"Then you are in terrible danger," Mr. Beaver said, "Your cousin has gone to the witch, you are betrayed."
"Oh, no!" Lucy exclaimed, "but Eustace wouldn't do that...would he?"
"He has the look of someone who has been with the witch," Mr. Beaver said, "after you've lived here long enough, you know."
"That means that we can't stay here another minute," Mrs. Beaver said, "You are not safe in Narnia."
A/N Yes, thank you Mrs. Beaver, we knew that being human in Narnia wasn't safe. What are you going to do about it?
Coming up: Flight
In which the children have a lesson in Narnian geography and set off on a desperate journey.