he ship moved from one side to the other with the dance of the gentle waves of the sea. No matter how much time had passed, Lucy knew that swing, it was familiar and distant and it reminded her of her many journeys when she had been more than the name of a queen of old. The sea, the sky, the horizon and its promises were precisely the same. And the salty smell, the breeze that brought the aroma of the ship's wood, mixing them in that purple, cobalt sunset, and above all, the sensation, the weight in her heart, the one she had wanted to get rid of so many times, between arrivals and farewells from Narnia... the one who was always with her, from whom she found no hiding place.
It was a mild afternoon. The laughter of the sailors mixed with the cry of the waves as they collided with the Dawn Treader. It was hot, and Lucy felt the night dew stick to her white shirt. She had spent much of the afternoon playing chess with Reepecheep, but she had finally gotten tired of it, and Reep wanted to join that night's celebration anyway. She still couldn't believe they had made it out of their little adventure on the Lonely Islands.
Watching Reepecheep dueling any sailor who seemed interested, Lucy lifted the metal cup to her lips. A bitter taste ran down her throat with the liquid. That night Caspian was more relaxed. They seemed to be making progress on his voyage and he wanted to reward his sailors for their good work. And his men seemed happy with the sea weather, enough to allow themselves a celebration. It had been so long since Lucy had been allowed to drink wine or ale... the taste reminded her of banquets at Cair Paravel, a flash of those nights that seemed endless, with the laughter of her siblings and friends echoing through her memories.
Edmund had joined the sailors, trying to be nice to Eustace, who was complaining about how incredibly irresponsible Caspian was letting his crew get drunk. Lucy knew how much this was hard for him. However, his attempt to show kindness to their cousin caused her emotions to stir in her. She had taken the cup and moved towards the bow, feeling the wind ruffle her hair.
Perhaps Susan would not have been entirely fine with Lucy drinking alcohol when she was technically still so young. She remembered that she had never liked that custom, not even when they were grown women. But, she reminded herself bitterly, Lucy wasn't Susan anyway. She didn't look like her as much as she would have liked.
Edmund on the other hand, thought Lucy, was Edmund in any age and world. Her brother, prudent and wise. Fair and beautiful.
The thought made her cheeks flush red, or maybe it was the heat of the alcohol rising through her veins and reaching her face She closed her eyes as she felt familiar arms close around her. She knew him by his scent, the warmth of him, even when she'd been too thoughtful to hear him coming. Ed.
She allowed herself to wrap in his embrace. She missed it so much, back in England. The gray and the rain of that country made Edmund gray too. He almost always feeling slighted, powerless, unlike in Narnia, where his advice was sought no matter how old he appeared. England was where Edmund hid under a layer of bitterness. Narnia was where Edmund was green foliage, blooming, steady, sure, and always loving and honest with them all.
Perhaps that was because he felt closer to Aslan.
The hug ended sooner than Lucy would have liked. She wanted to scream when he pulled away from her, even though he looked calm and happy. He held his own cup in one hand. The other leaned on the hilt of his sword.
"Is everything okay, Luce?" he asked. He had noticed that Lucy was staying away from the group.
"Of course, Ed," Lucy replied, noticing that her voice was a little slurred. Her grown woman body could make it through a night of enjoying and wine, but this girlish body that she seemed to be trapped in was feeling the effects of the alcohol so quickly... The breeze rocked the ship and Lucy clung to the railing. "We are in Narnia, huh?"
She couldn't stop some of her feelings from slipping through the sound of her voice. Edmund seemed calm and happy, looking at the same horizon as her. The sea breeze mingled with his scent brought to Lucy's mind memories of an older Edmund, for in the years before they returned to England they had often sailed together, to and from the Lonely Islands. It was the same essence, the same king, the same man.
"Narnia," Edmund repeated on a sigh. The sun was setting in the distance, taking away the heat. And the sea began to merge with the sky. "There are no sunsets like this in England."
Grey. The rain, the fear. The tasteless afternoons locked in the room that their uncles had kindly provided. Feeling so small, so...
"I missed it so much," Lucy agreed, her gaze fixed on the waves. She didn't want to see Edmund, she didn't want the image of his smile illuminated by the last sun of the day to stay in her mind, to haunt her at night. "I almost thought I would drive crazy without seeing that beautiful sun again."
Edmund chuckled lightly, a laugh so pure it was absorbed by the silver foam.
"I wish Peter and Susan were here again," he mentioned, and oh, there were so many unspoken things Lucy could read in there. The fear of the end. The expectation of the beginning. How long would they be allowed to stay this time? Maybe years, like the firs time. It would never be enough, not an hour or an eternity. With the ache of conscience, she raised the cup to her lips once more, when she put it back down, the sun was gone. Only the reddish echo was left, dissolving into blue.
"It would be so good".
"I certainly prefer Peter's snoring to Eustace's."
"You can stay in Caspian's cabin whenever you want, you know," Lucy mentioned. "It would be nice to have late-night talks again."
She didn't know why she mentioned it to him. She knew that Edmund, in his sense of justice, would not allow a King of Narnia to spend the night as a common sailor while he enjoyed comfort. He was okay with Lucy sleeping in her own space, away from noisy and often smelly men. But he would never have given himself such privileges.
"Although Susan wouldn't consider it appropriate," she pointed out, in an attempt to lighten the matter. Edmund raised an eyebrow.
"And since when does Susan have the last word on what you do or don't do, sister? As far as I can remember, that didn't stop you from sneaking into Eustace's room at our uncle's house."
"I needed to talk," she tried to defend herself, red with embarrassment. "The house at night is so…"
"Cold and silent," he agreed.
"It's spring here, Ed. Like it was."
He could see that Lucy was trying to contain the longing in her eyes. But he knew the effects of wine and sailors' spirits, and he had lived enough lifetimes to know his sister well. He could tell that she was going to lose control of her thoughts soon. Lucy had never liked hiding them anyway.
He put an arm around her, trying to convey comfort.
"Do you remember the last ship trip we all took together?" Lucy asked. "It was one of the last times we saw Aslan. And Peter got us lost by believing that he could navigate without a map, right? I remember how angry Susan was."
"Though we wouldn't have found that island any other way, would we?" Edmund mused. "We were going to do something there, we had it planned, although I don't remember what."
Before finding the lamp post. They had so many plans, they had left so many things unfinished...
"Sometimes I feel like a ghost," Lucy confessed. "As if I shouldn't be here. Although I guess that's just the way things are."
"I know the feeling, Luce."
They were silent for a moment. In the distance, the laughter of the sailors prevailed over the roar of the sea. That was a perfect flash in time. There would be no night more complete and fulfilling, Lucy thought as she allowed herself to lean back into her brother's embrace… there would be no sunset more splendid than this one here with Edmund, even if they were only the memory of a beloved king and queen.
The drink had gone down in the barrels, passed from cups to the lips and mouths of thirsty sailors. It had stroked Lucy's chin as one or two cups turned into three, and Edmund wondered if he should stop her. But Caspian had claimed his attention, asking him to tell his men tales of the old days, and Lucy was left alone looking out over the ocean.
At some point, he found her dozing on the deck, leaning against one of the barrels. It seemed that the wine had finally taken its toll, but Lucy was still clear enough to wish everyone a good night and retire to the cabin for the night. Perhaps she had missed the dance that used to accompany drinking nights, or the merry fauns and dryads in the gardens of Cair Paravel. Lucy longed. Edmund could see it in her bright smiles and quiet resignation.
Sailors mostly tell love stories. Sailors live in love with the sea, so it's easy for them to talk about it. Late into the night, even Eustace fell silent to listen to the stories of Drinian and the more experienced sailors. They spoke of mermaids and sea nymphs, whom Edmund remembered had been friendly to him and his siblings during their reign.
In Caspian's cabin, which was close enough for the voices to be carried on the wind, Lucy dozed. In her dreams the stories she heard in the distance, her own memories, and the most hidden desires of her soul were mixed.
She had traveled by ship with her siblings for the last few days, before the white stag. She had seen that same horizon, that same lost sun that she later longed for so much, painful with its burning caresses, she had allowed herself to be swallowed by the seas of Narnia.
Lucy had thought, at the time, that she should allow her emotions to be swallowed up like the sun. She had had such strange feelings, almost torn. Where she had never felt guilty before, the last few days in Narnia had been strange, like foreboding. They had almost warned her that she would lose everything, everything…
She had been about to kiss Edmund one of those nights, she remembered. The details were too blurry that it made her wonder if it had been like that or if it was all a product of the confusion and desire for Narnia that followed when they'd returned to England.
Peter, Susan, and Edmund and Lucy had shared a wonderful dinner. It was a night when every wave beating against the wood of the ship was blessed by Aslan. And she, Lucy, wanted it so badly, to feel her brother loving her.
She didn't remember what happened next. Just that longing, that pain. And to think after, in England, that she had been a worthy daughter of Eve, driving them into banishment from their blessed land for a dirty and dark sin.
And then, they could never stay again. They came back, almost as a reminder of what had been and would be taken from them. And she had to go back to being a girl. And Edmund was always with her.
Someone knocked on the door, pulling her out of her stupor between the lucidity of her memories mixing with her dreams. And so, suddenly, Lucy realized that her cheeks were soaked, and that she had been crying.
"Luce," Edmund called. "Is everything okay in there? Open the door".
She got up immediately, realizing that everything seemed to move. It wasn't just the rocking of the ship, she noted. She was drowsy from the wine.
When she opened the door, dressed in her fine white nightgown and her hair loose over her shoulders, she saw Edmund waiting for her. He was half lit by glowing candlelight, and Lucy, saw glimpses of the man he would become. A sharp angle in his chin, or the twinkle in his eyes. She felt far from the woman she once was.
"You were crying," Edmund reported. "What's going on?"
She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
"I was dreaming memories," she found herself saying. She felt light and didn't feel like hiding her thoughts. "I was thinking of Aslan. And Susan and Peter, and you."
Edmund understood instantly. He passed into the room without saying anything, and Lucy closed the door behind him, following him.
"Come here".
She listened. She followed him to her bed, where he had sat. The ship was still moving with some speed in Lucy's hazy mind. But when he reached out a hand to take hers and pull her into his arms for a hug, Lucy went to him. Suddenly the cloudiness of the world didn't seem so bad. Just warm, peaceful. She missed this about being a woman. When the stars of Cair Paravel had shone silverier in the mantle of heaven and time stood still and it was always Lucy reigning with her siblings, like a mythical and glorious queen. Lucy the valiant, who hadn't been afraid to love.
"I don't want to go back," she blurted out, half afraid half in pain. She didn't want to complain, as it had given them the chance to come back one more time, hadn't it?
"We're not coming back right now," Edmund reassured her, rocking her lightly.
She hid in the crook of his neck. "I wish Peter and Susan could come."
There would have been no point in counting the times he or she had said that. Her siblings were a part of her heart, like a lost heartbeat that had become trapped in the other world. "I wish we had never left."
"I'd follow you back to that lamp post," Edmund stated, half lost in the sounds of the men outside. "And back through the door of the waredrobe."
"Yes, but..."
She went silent. Though the lack of their siblings and the pain of leaving their home that time in the forest tore at her heart, Lucy knew that the longing building in her throat was for something very different. Edmund, steadfast and dependable, didn't walk away. She would have wanted him to. She would have wanted Peter there to love like a sister to a brother.
It would vanish. If this was the last time they came to Narnia, she would be so unable to tell it ever in the other world. She wouldn't risk. Words would die before they were spoken, the heart before another beat. She was out of breath...
"I love you, Edmund."
The way he answered without thinking made Lucy's skin burn.
"I love you too, Luce."
She could secretly crave for him. He didn't had to know, after all. It would not change anything. Edmund stayed with her until Lucy went back to sleep, too tired. He stayed with her a little longer. Lucy was pale on the bed, clearer than a star. Narnia changed each time, but Aslan's light continued to permeate her skin. Even in England.
He kissed one of her sleeping hands. Every finger of hers, even her palm. Edmund wouldn't dare do more. He would not allow his darkness to stain her.
If only they could stay a little longer, until he could see her grow again, and then find the spring breeze in her eyes and her smile. If Edmund could treasure her, if he could live a life with her here...
Later that early morning, Lucy tought that she dreamed that she was dancing with Edmund in the firelight on the ship's deck. She thought she dreamed that she was laughing and that her arms were filling with sea salt and that she was screaming that she loved him. And that her heart yearned for him. And she thought she dreamed that she fell exhausted into Caspian's arms and that the sailors said that the valiant queen was also a mad queen. But she was fine because she was finally kissing Edmund, like a king and queen should every day of their lives. And she it fine because Eustace was finally speechless. But Lucy was free, so free.
And she thought she dreamed that her brother kissed her until dawn, and it was still him, her brother Edmund. And Lucy was still Lucy, loving him. It was Lucy's body that burned as if Edmund were fire, it was Lucy's body that was that of a queen and not that of a child.