Full disclosure: I read TLBW for the sole purpose of seeing if I could (spite)cross it with Narnia, my one true fandom, of which it is clearly an attempted deconstruction. This is that fic. It's a bit AU, because for most of Philippa's half there were two obvious possibilities for Evelyn's ambiguous disappearance. My expectations went one direction, and Weymouth's actual ending went firmly the other. I've combined both options here. Fic journal on Tumblr as usual.
Once upon a time, there were three siblings who visited another world.
Once upon a time, there were four.
They are not together when it happens. One is in England, and one is in America, and one is wrapped in cold greyness, but it does not matter.
They are suddenly together in a wooded glen. James sits down hard. Philippa gives a little scream. Evelyn's gaunt face lights up as bright as the sun.
"I knew it!" she cries. "I knew one day we'd go home!"
Her sister pales. But it is their brother who speaks.
"Ev," he says slowly. "I...don't think this is the Woodlands."
Evelyn turns. There is a stag standing at the edge of the woods, and she is already halfway across the clearing when she realizes it is white, not red.
They are not together when it happens. One is at home, and one is at a party, and one is running an errand, and one is at chapel, but it does not matter.
They are suddenly together in a wooded glen. Peter gapes for only a moment before he rushes forward to steady Susan, who is nearly fainting with shock.
Edmund clears his throat. "Have...have we gotten back?"
"No," says Lucy decisively. "Aslan said we wouldn't. It must be somewhere else."
A twig snaps, and they all turn. There is a stag standing at the edge of the woods, but it is red, not white.
"Narnia?" says Philippa. "What's Narnia?"
The white stag shakes his antlers. "This land is Narnia, this world to which I have called you, for one of you has walked down a path from which she cannot retreat."
Evelyn's happiness shatters. "Then I'm not home?" she whispers bleakly.
But her siblings look at her face, and see that something in the air here has brought color to it where there was none before, and though their hearts weep for her, they cannot be entirely sorry.
Edmund wrinkles his brow. "I don't remember any place called the Woodlands in Narnia."
"We're not in Narnia, Ed," Lucy says with exasperation.
The red stag shakes his antlers. "And I have never heard of such a place."
"Oh dear," says Susan weakly, and sinks to the ground. "I'm sorry—I don't think I can do this again."
And her siblings immediately gather around, supporting her as memories she has spent years warding off come rushing forward once more.
"You are not Cervus," Evelyn says with icy certitude to the white stag.
"No," says Philippa. "But you know Cervus was only ever the Guardian of the Great Wood, Ev. An overseer, a watcher. There to guide at start and end, but without any power to change the in-between."
"And I've rather sort of a feeling," says Jamie, stepping up beside them, "that this fellow is something more than that."
The white stag throws his head back and trumpets a clarion call.
And then they are all nine standing in a different wood, in the soft green light and silence amid limpid pools of water.
"Cervus!" cries the youngest girl, and rushes forward to throw her arms around the red stag. He bends his head against her back and holds her close as she trembles.
"The Wood Between the Worlds," the oldest boy says in wonder. "Su, look—just like the professor told us!"
It catches the attention of the others across the way. "Do you know where we are, then?" the older girl calls out.
The four walk around to join the three. "I think so," says the eldest of the four. "But it's...rather a long story. I'm Peter Pevensie, and these are my siblings, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy."
The middle of the three laughs once, bitterly. "Philippa Hapwell, Jamie and Evelyn. It seems as though our stories may be much the same."
Lucy claps her hands. "Oh, do let's share them, then! It's not every day you meet people from another world!"
So they speak, and the tales are long, but there is no true time in that place.
"I was thirteen to your fifteen," Peter says. "But sometimes the growing up must be done quickly."
Jamie nods. "And I was never a knight, but I knew the power of an oath."
And even though one war was long and one short, they are both eldest brothers, and have shared in what that means.
"How could you reject your home?" Evelyn demands. "How could you just throw away who you were?"
"Because it was not my home," says Susan sharply. "And I did not entirely throw it away—I still sought blindly to recapture some small part of it in my own world. How could you not even attempt the same?"
They stand in opposition, each considering the other's wrong choice, but only one recognizes herself wrong as well.
"And I wonder," says Philippa, "whether that made it easier for you to accept that you'd betrayed your family—to know that there was a way to return, and to have taken it already. I didn't have that."
"I don't recall it ever crossing my mind," says Edmund, "but I suppose it's possible."
Privately, he thinks it had more to do with Aslan than with himself.
"How did you survive the return?" Jamie asks. "When you were younger than Ev at the beginning and older at the end?"
"It helped that the first time, it was an accident, and no one said we couldn't go back," says Lucy. "But then, we'd never quite thought of Narnia as our real home, and our Lion was more than your stag."
Her smile is radiant though she has not seen him in seven years, and in the back of his mind Jamie wishes he could meet the creature who has left such an impression.
"But have not our paths been the same?" asks Susan.
"I think," Philippa says slowly, "that while it may appear so at first, my choice was made from a desire to embrace my own world, and yours was made from a desire to reject the other."
A small difference, they think, but one of great significance.
"Were you already hurt?" Lucy asks. "That spending only six years there should leave you so broken?"
"Six years? It was my home," says Evelyn.
And they are both seventeen, but one has melded both her worlds and both her ages, and one has never tried.
At last the stories all are told, and they turn to the stags.
"What now?" says Peter, speaking for all the seven travelers. "I know we four must return to our own world, for Narnia is closed to us, but what of these three?" He looks to the white stag. "I know we have not quite caught you, good cousin, but perhaps we might try a wish?"
"I am able to send them back," says Cervus, "but I cannot bring them to the Woodlands."
"I won't go back to England!" Evelyn cries. "I can't!"
The red stag bows his head. "I am so very sorry, child. I cannot be more than what I am."
"I am," says the white stag, and the pale fur ripples into gold.
Light flashes in the dappled glimmer of that in-between place, and joy shines brightest on the face of Lucy.
"I stand above all stories," the enormous Lion continues, "as she who penned your tale ought to have known, and so it is in my power both to call you and to send you thence. You are right, High King, that you and yours are to return. So also for these elder two."
And then he looks at Evelyn. "Littlest daughter," he says very gently. "To you, I offer a choice, for though you did not intend it, the path has closed behind you. The river's banks are steep and slick, and none you love will find you again."
Jamie covers his face. "Oh, Evie," Philippa quietly wails.
"And this is the choice: will you come with me now to a land you have never seen, but which is fairer than you have ever dreamed? Or will you return to your old little story, which is but a shadow, and dwell there forever?" And in his face and his voice there is such golden promise that Evelyn of the Woodlands, Evelyn Hapwell who has suffered these six years past, hesitates for a moment.
But only a moment.
She takes a step back, and wordlessly winds her arms around Cervus' neck.
"So be it," says the Lion. Sorrow fills the words. "Then make your farewells, dear ones, for time grows short."
Evelyn's siblings rush across to her and the red stag, and as they all come together in a weeping huddle, the other four draw nearer to each other.
"How awful," Lucy says, reaching for her sister's hand. "Do you suppose...if one of us had grown that attached to Narnia, and the rest of us hadn't said we were leaving..."
"If it had been any of us, Lu," says the older girl, "it would have been you. But it wasn't."
"You said it yourself," Edmund adds. "At the end of the Silver Sea. That it wasn't Narnia, it was Aslan."
"I think for Evelyn it was both the land and the stag. Except..." Peter frowns a little, and does not continue.
"Except she refused to try to live without them," Susan says bluntly. "I can say it, if you can't, since she and I are two sides of a coin. One who would not accept England, and one who would accept nothing but England."
There is a collective intake of breath from her siblings, followed by a collective sigh.
"And it is awful. It is horribly awful and I feel terrible for them. But..." Her voice grows quiet and sober. "I'm alive. And maybe her choice is set in stone, but I'd rather like to change mine. Only, I've no idea what to say to him. Or...Them? Him? Oh dear."
Lucy squeezes her hand. "Perhaps you won't need to say much."
Susan looks down at her sister, and one corner of her mouth turns faintly upward. "We've been here before, haven't we?"
"Yes," says Lucy with a grin. "And you ought to remember now, what happened last time, and what didn't, and fear not."
Susan only bites her lip and squeezes Lucy's hand in response. Her other hand finds Edmund's, and Peter's finds her shoulder, and so they all wait.
At last the Hapwells break apart. Jamie wipes his face on his sleeve, and Philippa tucks a sodden handkerchief back into her pocket. Even Evelyn is a little red around the eyes as her siblings take a few steps away from her, and immediately wrap their arms back around each other.
Evelyn lays one hand on Cervus' side and raises her chin. "You may send us home now."
The great emerald eyes gaze calmly at her.
"...please. Sir."
"As you have chosen." He opens his mouth, but no roar rings out. Instead, a gentle Wind swirls through the clearing, and Evelyn has just enough time to blink in surprise before she and the red stag fade from sight.
There is a smothered, inarticulate noise from one of the remaining pair, but no one can tell which.
The Lion pads softly toward them. "Children, it is time for you also to return. Be good to one another and to those you love, for grief is great."
"Sir," Jamie starts, then stops. He looks at his sister, and back at the Lion. "It's just...maybe it's selfish, but I wish we had longer. After everything we've heard, I think I can speak for both of us when I say, well...we'd like to know more about you."
Philippa dabs her eyes a final time, and nods.
"I am in all stories," says the Lion. "If you truly seek me in your own place, you will find me, though I may not look as you expect. Farewell."
Then it is the five of them alone in the Wood, and he turns toward them.
Lucy, of course, is the first. In any world, by any name, He is still Himself—she has never lost that childlike joy, and flies across the grass to fling her arms about his neck with wild abandon.
Peter and Edmund nearly match her speed, if not quite her exuberance. There is easily room for all of them, for he is larger than in years past, near or beyond the size of a cart-horse.
At thirteen twice, Susan was a child and hung back in fear, despite the weight of a vanished crown. At twenty-one twice, she has grown back into some of that weight, and takes a step forward on her own. But she has not grown as much as might be, and so there she freezes again, torn between terror and love and despair and hope. A whisper rises to her lips, one soundless plea from an old, old song.
And He answers.
Beneath their feet, the ground rolls slightly. Across the lawn, the Lion turns his head towards her. Above them all, the ever-green leaves of that ageless wood are set to rustling. Black hair streams around a pale face, and a smart skirt flaps briskly for a moment.
Something inside Susan unknots. She sucks in one deep gasping breath, then a second, and a little of the pinched nervousness fades from her face. Her knees are still weak, but her feet take a firmer step forward, and another, and another, until at last she stands before the Lion.
She cannot face him fully, not yet. She moves to one side and buries her face in the flowing mane instead. And it is there, concealed yet entirely present, that she speaks. Her siblings cannot understand her words, but when she grows silent they hear the response.
"Daughter, they are forgotten as though they never were."
A pause, and then another murmur.
"You have grown, dear one, and so you see more of me."
This time the pause is much longer, and if the question is spoken aloud at all, it is so quietly that the others cannot hear it.
"All are mine who wish it so, and I do not deny them."
Still hidden, Susan's shoulders begin to tremble. The Lion turns his head so that she is entirely shrouded in the living gold of his mane. It ripples in the Wind, and three and Three bear joyful witness as what was once broken begins to mend.
After the tears cease, they stand awhile in tranquil silence. The air in that wood is filled with life, redolent of song, and rich with a Presence rarely felt in such intensity elsewhere. But however timeless the place, the four know this meeting cannot last forever, and so they drink in every moment they are so wondrously given.
At length the Lion asks quietly, "Are you braver, child?"
Susan emerges from the golden veil. This time, she meets his eyes squarely. "Yes, Aslan."
"It is well spoken. Stray not again."
"I will try not to."
The faintest of Breezes skips through the wood, and with it comes a sense that the time has arrived. All four move to stand side by side before him. They do not speak, for their hearts are full, and what words could ever say enough? But He who knows all things knows also the hearts of men, and so they do not fret.
The Lion looks down at them—down indeed, for though they have all grown once more to young adulthood, still he is greater than ever before—and smiles a lion's smile. It washes over them, a wave of kingly benison, and they stand taller.
"So all things must draw to an end. You cannot remain in this place. Yet you know Me, and it may be that we shall soon meet again. Now, therefore..."
"Please!" The question bursts forth, and none is more surprised than Susan to find that it has come from her. "Aslan...please, how long is soon?"
A gentle growling chuckle rumbles through him. "Ah, child, do you not recall your sister's tale? All times are soon in my sight. And now, farewell."
The Lion opens his mouth.
No gentle Wind this. These four have journeyed nearer the light than their three counterparts, and are strong enough to bear the roar that sets the leaves above to shaking.
And then they are back, with the echo of that roar still ringing in their hearts.
Peter sinks back into the sofa cushions and takes a deep breath. He has a feeling his siblings may be arriving home sooner than originally expected. After another breath, he gets up to put the kettle on.
Susan looks at herself in the mirror. The compact nearly slips from her hand, but she recovers and snaps it shut. Returning it to her handbag, she opens the powder room door, and goes to inform her friends that she feels a touch under the weather and will be departing early.
Edmund stumbles on the street, returned in the middle of a step, and manages to catch the eggs before they fall. He adjusts the packages and increases his pace.
Lucy genuflects, blows a cheerful kiss to the tabernacle—the gold of Earth may not be living fur, but here it adorns the same Person—and patters quickly out of the church.
One by one they arrive, sit around the kitchen table, drink the tea in wondering silence—and then the dam breaks, and like a mighty torrent, the words pour forth. For the first time in years they speak excitedly together of all things past, and present, and yet to come; for the first time in years there are four voices raised in memory and joy.
"And I've just remembered," says Peter, when the light coming through the windows has begun to fade and their hearts have somewhat calmed. "Su, the professor and Aunt Polly have been planning a little gathering, just us Narnians. Would you like to come?"
Lucy and Edmund hold their breath. The slate has been cleaned, but they cannot complain if she wishes the fresh writing to begin slowly—
"Yes," says Susan, called gentle, and smiles. "I think I'd like that very much."