We Seven

A Narnia & Mirror, Mirror Fanfiction

Part 13

"There you are." Helen blinked blearily, as if coming out of a daze, smiling at Susan. "I didn't hear you come back. How was the fundraiser?"

Susan pulled pins from her hair, letting it spill down her shoulders. Her head had been beginning to ache. "Anne Featherstone thought it a success," she said. "She said I should be very proud of my part.

"Personally, I thought we might have done better. Donations were down this year. But, of course, all the right people came."

"I'm pleased to hear it, darling."

Susan stopped mid-pull of the pin grasped between her middle and index fingers. She wondered if her mother realised she'd just called her by the pet-name she usually reserved for Jo. Helen might have done so before, once or twice, but not that Susan properly remembered.

She noticed, with a tightening in her chest, Helen's eyes drifting to the piano. The piano that sat untouched since Jo moved out. And she had rather the idea Helen had been looking at it before she came in, too, an idea that was where her thoughts – those she pulled back from so dazedly when she'd entered – had been.

When she was home, Lucy didn't play anymore. The piano had always really been for Jo, and Lucy was never very good.

Susan guessed it must be out of tune by now, given they hadn't had anyone in to fix it for ages.

It had been left out of tune too long during the war, but after they came back from the professor's, before they needed to return to school, Mr. Pevensie – at Helen's request, saying she missed hearing her children play – called a man in.

The old music teacher they'd never had back again, but that didn't stop Jo from rushing to the bench and playing Fur Elise for Edmund – it was his favourite piece – and The Blue Danube for Nicholas.

Then, when everyone applauded politely, she'd made a little mock bow by bending at the waist on her seat, said it was enough stodgy stuff, and played some jazz they could all dance to.

Susan remembered, thinking about it for the first time in years, Jo had also played Sleeping Beauty, so she could do her old ballet moves.

They used to love each other, back then.

They'd used to have such fun together.

What was it that tore them apart, really?

There was the awful thing Susan had said, two years ago, but they had been fighting – and viciously, too – long before those words died on her lips.

Sometimes, Susan told herself Jo was mentally unstable and her illness of the mind was responsible for the chasm between them, for the severing of their sisterly bond, but in her heart, she knew it wasn't true.

There was Nicholas, but blaming him was too easy. Too simple. Nothing in life could ever be that simple. Logic told Susan as much, even when her heart didn't.

They did not fall out because of a boy.

Perhaps Susan foolishly wanted what she'd imagined Jo had, the position of first girl in the family: Mum's own darling. If so, in a way, she'd got it. Jo never being home these days – all the others were also away at present, off on some lark with Miss Plummer – Susan had first place by default.

Only a day earlier, Helen had kissed her and exclaimed, "Well, at least I still see you!" Mum seemed to have finally forgiven her for breaking her heart, even if Jo hadn't.

Susan was now dearest of them all, thanks to proximity. Some days, although she thought of her constantly, Helen didn't even mention Jo's name.

If she could believe she'd gotten what she wanted – and Susan wasn't sure she had, for that explanation, too, felt much too banal to have been the catalyst for changing her life – she was finding she didn't like it as much as she expected to.

Length of days alone with her parents, without competition for their affections, was also a length of misery without all the others to share in it – this was including Jo – and she was beginning to know it.

She would have given almost anything to hear one of her siblings walk in behind her – even Jo – and knew her mother would have been gladder still.

They were – that is, Peter, Edmund, Royce, Lucy, Jo, Nicholas, Eustace, Jill Pole, the professor and 'aunt' Polly – sitting round a table in a lighted dining room.

It was rather cramped, and they were obliged, in many cases, to recline at the table more than properly sit at it, since it too was small, but none of them – not even Eustace, who could be prickly about personal space – showed any sign of distress over this arrangement.

They were too content jawing about Narnia.

Edmund was regaling them with the story of the Calormene prince's first visit to Cair Paravel. "I thought Peter was going to burst a blood vessel," said he, laughing. "Right there in the stands. You should have seen his face when Jo rode up on Nicholas's horse, wearing my old armour to boot, and unseated that ass" – here he wheezed slightly at his own joke – "in under a minute."

"I was trying to avoid a declaration of war!" guffawed Peter. "And this one" – he motioned across to Jo – "goes and unseats a visiting prince."

Jo mouthed "Sorry," but did not look it and – really – wasn't. She allowed, at least, it hadn't been the wisest course of action, even if it was funny now.

Nicholas turned his head and grinned at her. Chucking her under the chin, "I was never more proud." And he burbled something else the rest couldn't understand but which made Jo blush rather prettily.

Jill Pole's eyes sparkled – she was more than a little in awe of Jo, whenever such stories as these were told. She hoped to impress her by telling, a mite breathlessly, how she'd smuggled a grand outfit from Narnia and wore it here in this world to a fancy-dress ball, though Lucy and Polly were usually the ones she could talk to most easily when it came to clothes.

But Jo could admire pretty things (she still mourned her wedding veil, after all) and gave Jill such praise for her joke as would more than satisfy.

The men – even Nicholas, who, like his wife, could appreciate finery in his way – were very quickly bored with the topic, and Eustace was trying to change the subject and talk about something Reepicheep had said to him on the Dawn Treader, which was really very wise, didn't they know and–

Suddenly Eustace broke off and screeched – a keening, high scream of alarm – and jumped to his feet, both Lucy and Jill – who saw what was amiss the same second he did – following suit.

Royce yelped and turned very white and dropped his glass.

Crash!

The professor might have made to catch it, but he couldn't, otherwise occupied. From Lucy, Jill, and Eustace rising so suddenly, the table was nearly upset, but of course nobody scolded them as the professor reached out a hand to steady it before its wobbling could become a proper topple – because they all saw as well.

Jo grabbed Nicholas's arm.

Peter rose and approached their strange visitor, a man in clear distress who had a Narnian look about him.

"Speak, if you're not a phantom or a dream..."

Talking it over, it became clear what they must do.

Some way, they must get back to Narnia to help the man who'd appeared to them. Only it couldn't be any of the older ones, since Aslan said they'd never return, leaving only Jill and Eustace.

"I have no objection to their going – as Peter says, it cannot be any of us – only I don't see how they might get there," said Nicholas, shaking his head.

Jill suggested asking Aslan, the way she and Eustace had at school, but Eustace said they would never get to Narnia the same way twice. Hadn't the Pevensies learned that with the wardrobe?

"There's..." began Polly, in a cracked, uncertain voice. "There's always the rings, aren't there, Digs?"

"Uncle Andrew's rings." There came a dark, distant look into the professor's eyes. "We buried them, Pol, so nobody could ever use them again."

"But it's a special case, isn't it?" asked Lucy.

"Rot, really," said Eustace, nearly setting off at least three tempers in the room, before he added that unless the place Professor Kirke buried them was untouched after all these years, and they somehow still had access to it...

"Eustace, you beaut! You're a genius!" cried Jo. If she was seated just a bit closer to him, she'd have kissed him.

"I know," he said, preening like a proud peacock. Then, frowning, "But why'da mean?"

"The rings are at Professor Kirke's old house, all snug underground, aren't they? So, we go there, dig 'em up and voila!"

"But the house we stayed at during the war..." The one the professor had lost. "It's not there anymore, is it?" Peter blinked his light blue eyes. "Wasn't it torn down last year?"

"It wouldn't be that old house, Pete," Edmund corrected him. "It couldn't be. Don't you remember? The story Aunt Polly told us, it took place in London. It would have to, for the witch to unseat a cabby and steal his horse and all the other things she did." He blanched a bit, because talking about her never was very comfortable for him. "They could be very close." Perhaps they were not even very far from Finchley.

"It's too bad we can't send Susan for them, if she's so near," Lucy said brightly; but the others were too grave to offer her an answer – it was too painful for them to talk about Susan – and pretended not to hear.

"Do you still have any of your people at that London house?" Nicholas asked the professor, hopeful.

"No – I haven't a single living relation, I'm afraid – Aunt Letty's old house is occupied by complete strangers now. It was sold long ago. A short while after my mother decided it was best Uncle Andrew live with us in the countryside, to keep him out of trouble. To this day, I never knew a man more prone to getting into scraps, especially with money." He sighed. "She would have hated that sale most fiercely, poor Aunt Letty, but here we are. Nothing to be done."

"Nothing!" exclaimed Jill. "But it's not so bad as that! It's not!"

"How do you mean?" Jo asked.

"Only we can go in disguise!" Jill adored disguises – any excuse for one drew her in like a moth to a flame. "Go as workmen! Pretend to be there about the drains!"

"What if they don't have problems with their drains?" Royce put in.

"Old houses such as this always have drain problems," said Nicholas, cheering.

Polly agreed heartily, clapping her wrinkled hands together.

Jill was bitterly disappointed – and Eustace, too – when, although her plan was gladly taken up, they were told, straight out, that they were not to be the ones in disguise. It was settled very quickly that it would be Peter, Edmund, and Nicholas. But Jill supposed, since she was going to get to go back to Narnia, and they were not, she shouldn't grudge them their part in the adventures.

She hoped nobody would forget whose idea it had first been, however.

Lucy had wanted to tell Susan about what they were doing – about the Narnian lord who'd appeared to them, as well as their scheme to get Eustace and Jill over there, into that other world, to assist him.

The others, however, overruled her.

Not even the professor thought it wise.

Jo especially couldn't see there was anything to be gained by it. Ten to one, the man they'd seen was some relation of Caspian's, if he was the great noble he'd seemed to be. Susan wouldn't hear anything about him; she hadn't let Jo tell her when he'd died.

Jill agreed the man did look a bit – though she couldn't be sure, having only seen him so briefly – like Rilian, Caspian's son, so very probably Jo was right. "He might be a cousin or something."

Peter was doubtful. "Caspian had no siblings." There was Caspian's own cousin, Miraz's baby, but Prunaprismia had taken him out of Narnia at Aslan's offer long, long ago.

"But we don't know Caspian's wife hadn't any relations," Edmund pointed out. "She might have had dozens in the sky – hundreds, even, for all any of us could guess at – and that would account for a Rilian lookalike as well, of course. She's his mother."

Jo said this was exactly the kind of talk to put Susan off helping even if by some – she held impossible – miracle they convinced her to support them initially. "She's way too volatile. We can't risk it. This is more important." She sighed, heaving her shoulders. "It has to be."

So, Susan's only notion of the train that day – before – was a vague – very vague – idea her parents would be on it; Mr. Pevensie was to give a lecture in Bristol, and Mum had decided to go with him. Even if the others had told Susan what they were up to – even if Lucy had got her way – she likely wouldn't have realised they all were to be travelling, unwittingly, by the same one.

It was Edmund who knew about railways and would have worked out they'd – the professor, Aunt Polly, Eustace, Jill, Jo, Royce, Lucy, and their parents – all unknowingly be on it together.

Standing on the platform, holding the green and yellow rings – successfully retrieved – in a leather-gloved hand, Peter mused it was too bad for their mother. Helen got to spend so little time with Jo these days. If she'd realised they were on the same train, she'd want to sit with her – she and Royce might have swapped places in their compartments. Royce for his part probably would have enjoyed sitting with their father, too. In a family with so many boys, the youngest could easily get lost in the shuffle when it came to father-son time. But it would be much too late to let them know about it when the train came in, because while all the friends of Narnia would get off at this station, their parents would doubtless be sticking it out until the next, so they could get on to Bristol in a timely manner. It would do them no good switching trains here.

"Funny Lucy doesn't know," Peter went on. "But I couldn't have told her – I only found out this morning."

Edmund winced and mumbled something about his knee. It was sore from a recent rugger incident and going around digging today at the crack of dawn hadn't helped it.

"Peter...? Edmund...?" Nicholas sounded anxious. He was leaning forward, towards the tracks, blue eyes popping.

"What?"

"Does either of you think the train is taking the bend rather fast?"

In her compartment, Helen Pevensie found herself seated across from a very nice gentleman indeed.

A Mister Joshua Iredale, employed as some kind of minster on the Board of Health.

At her side, her husband was absorbed in his notes, so she had ample time to chat quietly with the fellow. He had a wife and two children and was going back to them; the other members of his delegation were being taken to Cornwall by aeroplane, but Joshua confessed he'd always had rather a fear of the dreadful flying machines, not at all lessened by the bombings during the war.

Air raids were a nasty business, didn't she think?

"No – no, indeed – I said, when they told me their plans," he said to Helen, rather grave, his grey moustache twitching his displeasure, "you can all do just as you wish, it's not my concern, but I shall go at least part of the way by train, thank you. The British Railways are the only civilised manner of travel I am prepared to recognise." He cleared his throat. "Of course, my daughter – bless her – has taken an outright fancy to the dratted things. She wants to be an aviatrix! Can you imagine? Primrose – that's my wife – allowed her to read too many fantastic Jules Verne novels growing up, and this is what mischief comes of it." But he was smiling. "I think" – rummaging clumsily through the briefcase he drew into his lap – "I have got a photograph of her somewhere hereabouts. Should you like to see her?"

Helen nodded, warm dark eyes aglow. She was a true lover of all children, the motherly admirer of everybody's child. She'd even – as well as she was able, considering – managed to genuinely like her nephew Eustace, and this was before he turned out all right, before Alberta accused her children of negatively influencing him.

Mr. Iredale handed her a grainy photograph of a girl wearing bows and gingham standing on the stairs beside a little boy with damp, flat hair in a dressing-gown. "That little imp is my son Titus, and there's my Louisa. My Lulu." He added, turning red, "Of course, that's an old photograph; she's a good deal older now. Quite a lady. I shouldn't call her Lulu in public. But it is a difficult habit to quit."

"I won't tell," Helen promised, and made a motion like she was zipping her lips. "How old is she, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Twenty-one."

"Oh, she's of an age with my two eldest, then – Susan and Jo."

"You have children, too, eh?" He was beaming. "How many?"

"Seven." For she always included Nicholas in the count.

He laughed so hard he coughed, panting for restored breath. "You're having me on, I shouldn't wonder! Making a joke, pulling my leg, what."

"No, no," she laughed, shoulders shaking good-naturedly. "Truly. I have seven." Laughter abating, she added, "Only Susan at home just now, though." From her purse, she took out a rather tattered, edge-torn sepia bundle (it is no small task to carry about photographs of all your children when you have seven of them, and her bundle was fat and weighed as much – it sometimes felt – as a Bible, but Helen faithfully did so) and handed it to him. "There's Peter, my eldest, then Josephine, Nicholas, Susan" – here Joshua inhaled in sharp surprise and wheezed out a compliment at how extraordinarily beautiful Susan was, as people who had never seen her before were wont to do – "Edmund...just here..." She leaned over to tap a corner of the photograph. "Then, beside him, there are the twins, Royce and Lucy."

While Mr. Iredale flipped through the photographs – she may as well have handed him a book to amuse himself with – Helen let her gaze drift out the window to the view rushing past.

She found herself thinking of Jo. And of Susan, as she had left her this morning.

There were days – unhappy, long, doubtful days – she wondered if the coldness between her eldest girls was partially her own fault; Susan was not entirely wrong about Helen's having turned a blind eye to Jo and Nicholas. Not when they were younger, no, the only exception she made for them then was at the station, when he and Peter were leaving for the professor's cottage. She'd let them kiss and cry and be affectionate there, in parting, but she'd have had to be sharper with them if she caught them at it in her home while Jo was still school-aged, no matter how dearly she loved Nicholas. In severe circumstances, she might even have been obliged to ask him to leave. She was thankful for their general discretion during those 'school' years; it saved her a great deal of heartache.

But she had seen a little of what Susan was complaining about the night she brought them home from The Dorchester.

Once, a few weeks after Jo's eighteenth birthday, she'd found them asleep in each other's arms in the old bomb shelter, when she went out to see if they had any canned beans left in there. Their clothes had been rumpled, with one or two buttons done up in the wrong place, but fortunately the well-covered state of them left enough room for doubt.

With Susan, however, it was true Helen would never have let a thing like that slide.

She didn't really know any of Susan's beaus. None of them were part of the family the way Nicholas was. If a strange older man had been with her second daughter in that bomb shelter, she wouldn't shut the door behind herself quietly in an attempt not to wake them. She wouldn't have pretended she hadn't seen. There would have been slamming and yelling, and Mr. Pevensie would have been told.

Such a foolhardy man would have been lucky to get out of that shelter with all his bones intact.

Hypocrisy was never Helen's intention, but she wondered if it seemed so to Susan.

It was so like – if looked at wrong – to playing favourites.

Did Susan imagine she didn't love her as much as Jo, because she'd adopted Jo first and Susan had just been a happy surprise after all the baby things for the new three-month-old had already been arranged? Somehow, it had been easier with Lucy – somehow, Lucy's love was taken on trust, pure and beautiful and the simplest way to love someone.

Helen thought there'd been a time – when Jo and Susan were very small, perhaps – their love for her, and hers for them, and theirs for each other, was just the same as Lucy's.

When had they grown up and needed more, leaving her in a deficit?

She wished there was some way she could have assured both girls she cared about them desperately, that her love for them was unending.

Jo felt a hand shaking her shoulder. "Hmm?" She cracked open an eye to see Royce looking down at her worriedly. "What's the matter, Royce?" Her mumble was borderline peevish.

"The train's sped up."

She yawned. "So what?"

"Really sped up," he insisted. "Like majorly fast. It shouldn't be this fast."

Coming to, irritation vanishing, Jo could feel what he meant. She sat up, blinking around the compartment. Everything was blurry and she was starting to be rather nauseated. The luggage above their heads was rattling, suitcases and hatboxes and umbrellas beating themselves against shaking racks.

"That's weird," she allowed.

Royce tried to stand – maybe he meant to leave the compartment and track down the conductor, or maybe he meant to do something else entirely – but the force of the speed – picking up even more now – threw him back down.

"Lucy," he said, and Jo felt her heaving stomach clench, realising he wanted to be with his twin – that that was what he was after.

He was really, really scared, and not even trying to hide it.

But Lucy was in another compartment with Aunt Polly.

Royce would have to settle for her, if he needed a sister. She flopped like an overcooked noodle at her first attempt but finally managed to get herself into the seat beside her brother and put her arms around him.

"It'll be okay," she promised. "Whatever it is, they'll fix it, or we'll run out of tracks." She spoke of running out of tracks the same way she'd talk about running out of biscuits.

She longed for Edmund to be here, probably as much as Royce wanted Lucy. The truth was, she didn't know anything about trains, finding all that technical stuff boring, and she was sure Royce knew she was talking bullshit.

Still, he clung to her, slipping his arms round her waist. He seemed so small pressed to her side like this. You'd never guess he was every day of seventeen.

Overhead, one of the straps holding the luggage in place snapped loose and – though she managed to disentangle herself from Royce's grasp and push her little brother aside, hopefully to safety – she wasn't able to duck or scoot back to the other side of the compartment before the edge of a huge flying metal trunk struck her brow.

She saw stars – stars she couldn't put any names to.