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Narnia: Adonai
Written for Narnia Exchange '09. Originally posted here.
Adonai
Narnia. Lucy, Edmund, Susan, Peter(, Aslan?). G. Thanks to Wyrm and Bedlam for the beta.
Lucy knows Aslan by many names.
This world is still strange to you, with its habit of dividing its loves to name them. It insists on the measurement of details. Here on the other side of the looking glass, things are always what they seem because they have to be labeled as such. You have to be careful, or people might talk.
“Talk is dangerous,” Susan said in a warning tone. “Some people wield words like weapons.”
“We might as well be in Calormen,” you had replied, and you smiled to show her you were joking, but that’s not enough for Susan these days. Not enough or maybe too much. She frowned at you, you who don’t know how to make your sister smile anymore.
“We’re in England.” She enunciated the word, as if enunciation were enough. Maybe it’s not. Not for you, or maybe it’s too much. You remember a time when you didn’t have to say the name of your home with such conviction just to believe it was real.
+
Edmund holds you close with one arm, and holds the umbrella steady with the other. It’s a rainy night in England, and you think of how, on the other side of the world, perhaps it is sunny and warm. Perhaps there the sky is blue and the sun gilds the earth. It’s as if there were only a finite supply of color in the world, and England has to wait until the morning to be something other than gray gray gray.
Aslan is everywhere, you’re saying to Edmund. Even here, He’s everywhere. Before you stepped through the door in the sky, He had commanded you to know Him by another name, and so you try to. You seek him out – but in which story? Jesus was nailed to the cross for your sins, but Odin was hung from the world-tree and pierced with his own spear to know the runes. Persephone consigns herself to hell for half of eternity so that you may have the springtime.
There are so many gods who have sacrificed for us all, as Aslan has.
“Lu,” Edmund says. “You see Aslan in everything. Even in the clouds in the sky.”
You retort, “Don’t talk to me like I’m some child,” and you can tell that he notices the sharpness in your voice by how his expression softens.
“Sorry,” he says, and you let him kiss the top of your head. “I forget myself, your majesty.”
You’re not sure if you’re mollified, but you swallow your pride and lift your head. Even here in England, with your somber dresses and shoes that pinch, you are still Queen Lucy of the eastern sea. Aslan named you the Valiant, just like Adam named the animals in the garden before he fell from grace.
+
Mohini, Narasimha, Vamana, Parasurama: the list goes on, and yet these are only a handful of Vishnu’s avatars. (Narasimha, the man-lion. You read of his retribution against the demon king, and you’re reminded of the first battle, the Witch’s blood on His teeth.)
The Lord Vishnu is innumerable – all over the universes constantly, writes the Bhagavad Purana, without cessation, as water flows constantly from waterfalls. He is legion, vast, and of everything, that he cannot leave himself without returning to himself at the same time. You find yourself drawn to his ubiquity because these days this is what you know: the presence of the Lion all around you, and the way His message resounds.
In Narnia, the gods walk the same earth you do. You can remember embracing Aslan, how tangible and specific He was in your arms. You remember how soft His mane was and the gold of His eyes. You realize that, more than missing your god, you miss your friend. You’re not like Susan, who has cycled one world into another within her. You’re not like Edmund, with his talent for plurality. You are not Peter – you don’t have his weather-beaten patience. As it is, here, you don’t know whom to hold. Here, sometimes everything feels like too many answers for just one question.
This is the crux of it, you say to your brother. Whose name should you call on when you ask for forgiveness?
Edmund replies, “Why do you think you need to be forgiven, Lu?”
“It’s not… Well. Just for argument’s sake, you know?”
“Yes,” he says, and leaves it at that.
+
There is something about the way the light falls upon the lamppost that makes you hum a little melody to yourself without even thinking. Your heart remembers a springtime that was bright and blessed – the swaying of tree branches had looked like dancing, and the splashes in the river sounded like a lover’s laugh.
You walk up the steps of the church, and Edmund says, “We’re here.”
You step inside.
You’ve always liked sitting near the front, but Edmund is already sidling into the last row, so you follow. The air is soothing with the weight of other people’s meditation, and smells faintly of wood polish and the morning’s incense. From the corner of your eye you see Edmund watching you, as if waiting for some cue. Watching you, and so you smile at him. You slip your hand into his and he smiles back, and then you pray the best way you know how.
+
Jesus was also a prophet in the Muslim religion. They call him Isa, and he is one of the five rasuls, the carriers of sharia. Isa was wholly human and no son of god, for there is only one god in Islam, and he cannot be divided into littler gods. You won’t find Allah in the three parts of Christian hypostases or the sanctities of saints. The faithful pray only to him and only in one direction, and this is a singularity that comforts you. A Muslim knows where to point his love and to whom he should entrust his weaknesses.
When you told your siblings this, Peter and Susan had exchanged looks and perhaps some consternation. Edmund was the only one waiting to hear more. He truly deserves his title, you think. The Just, who listens to all testimonies.
“Their religion comes from the desert,” you continued. “If there’s no water to wash themselves before prayers, the faithful wash themselves with sand.”
Edmund understands.
+
When you return home, you find Peter and Susan in the parlor talking in low tones. You can’t see Susan’s face, but Peter’s expression is weary, his mouth a thin line. They both look up when Edmund clears his throat, and Susan is quick to break away, beaming as she comes.
“You two,” she says. “Where have you been? Swimming with your clothes on from the looks of it.”
You let Edmund field Susan’s niceties as you make your way to your eldest brother. Susan gets along best with Edmund these days, and neither you nor Peter are quite sure what to make of it. In Narnia, her patience for frivolity and Edmund’s tendencies towards self-enclosure had tried each other, but here it is a different story, as it always is. Imagine how deep the scar of Edmund’s first betrayal must go that he sees himself mirrored in every wayward decision, and reaches out to those determined to be apart.
Peter smiles for you. “Hello, Lu.”
“Would you like some tea?” you ask.
“Looks like you’re the one who can use some tea.”
“Well, have some with me, then.”
“Peter, Lucy,” Susan calls out. “I’m off to see the girls.”
“It’s raining,” Peter retorts peevishly.
Susan waves her umbrella at him. “That’s why we’ve got this, hmm?”
“What if you catch cold?”
“Oh, honestly, Peter.”
“The rain’s letting up anyway,” Edmund cuts in before Peter can reply. “It’s not as strong. A nice drizzle, maybe, by now.”
Susan gives him a grateful look. “That’s good to know.”
And then she departs, leaving nothing but the look on Peter’s face, the way he frowns at Edmund. Edmund shrugs.
There’s nothing left to do but put the kettle on, so you do.
+
The bedroom you share with Susan used to feel big and lonely when it was just you alone, but now you’re used to it. Through the wall, you can hear your brothers trying not to let their argument escalate. You curl up in bed with a battered copy of The Secret Garden, reading it for the hundredth time while you wait for Edmund to knock on your door.
“What was he on about this time?” you ask, when he finally does.
Edmund rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t like me encouraging Susan. I’m not encouraging anything except some peace. I’m tired of them going at it all the time.” He sits down in his usual chair, and tips it back on two legs to rest his feet on your bed. In your head, you hear Peter and Susan’s voices telling him to stop that, he might fall.
He spots the book on your lap, and he says, “That book again? Do you never tire of it?”
“Of course not.”
“Real life is so much better than the stories that echo it, Lu.”
“Silly,” you say. “It’s real life that echoes the story.”
+
It’s real life that echoes the story, the way worshippers echo their god. In Narnia, you knew to whom to give your heart. You never had to scrabble for your place in His world because you were written to be by His side.
Now that you’ve been cast out of Narnia and commanded to search for Aslan here, you find Him everywhere. How can you not? He filled your being and crooked Himself to fit your empty spaces. You shaped yourself around His love because destiny said you would, and you believed it, you believe it still. You recognize Aslan in all the gods of this world, and you see His mercy in every balance struck between good and evil. A hundred gods, each with a hundred names, a hundred ways to sin and as many ways to be forgiven.
If you refuse to see what is everywhere, then you will end up nowhere. If you find no water in the desert, you wash yourself with sand.
You must pray with the world that is given to you.
+
You wake up in the night because someone is shaking you. No, someone is shaking Edmund, who is sleeping curled around you.
“Edmund!” says Susan’s voice in the dark. “Edmund, what are you doing?”
“Sleeping,” he murmurs, and you intertwine your hands with his and hold on tight.
“Well, sleep in your own room! Edmund!”
He complies, grumbling while Susan keeps up a quiet but steady stream of disapproval. The floor creaks under his weight, and you don’t know whether to keep your eyes closed or open them to watch your brother go.
“All right!” he hisses. “All right, I’m going!”
Susan follows him into the hall, and then you hear Peter’s bleary voice join in, then all three of them are going at it, the quietest fight in the world. You wonder what they’re telling each other on the other side of the wall. You wonder if Aslan can see you now, and what He would have to say about this. You think about this world’s impulse to identify the different shapes of love, and wonder why one simple love is no longer enough.
When your sister comes back, you are wide awake, and you softly call her name.
“Lucy?” she says. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Susan, do you ever miss Him?”
She continues puttering around the room, getting ready for bed, undoing this and unbuttoning that, slipping on this and slipping off that. She unties her hair and it falls over her shoulders, rendering her silhouette familiar to you once more. She shows no intention of answering your question, and you think maybe she’s just going to ignore it, the way she ignores all things about Narnia these days. But then she says, “I suppose.” She says, “Yes. But I suppose things must change, after all. We’re not children anymore.”
Before she can change the subject, you blurt out, “I miss talking with Him especially.”
“You? But you’ve always been close to him. You talk with him all the time.”
“Me? But… Well, but He’s not a tame Lion, and He doesn’t—”
“What?”
“Aslan.”
“Oh.”
“Who did you think?”
“I…” Susan hesitates. “I thought maybe you meant Peter. I thought maybe…”
In the dark, you can only see her silhouette as she sits straight-backed on her bed. You can only see the angle of her chin as she breathes in, out. The realization of her confession hangs in the air, and you can feel your sister retreating into herself again as if chastised.
“Never mind,” she says, her voice quite small.
So you say, “He misses you too.”
“Aslan?”
“Peter.”
She settles in under the covers, and says, “It’s late. We should sleep.” Then, under the guise of afterthought: “You know, Edmund has his own bed to sleep in. I don’t see why he needs to sleep in yours.”
You reply, “Good night, Su.”
“Good night, Lucy.”
+
You associated the sea with home. You were accustomed to finding your moments of peace with it – bits of time stolen between one royal duty and another when you could sneak down to the shore to dip your feet in the water and lift your head to the sun. You talked with the seagulls and seals, and bid the mermaids teach you their songs. When the days were not so busy, you would herd your siblings to the beach and force them into a picnic. “You’d die drafting treaties and arbitrating border disputes if you can help it,” you would say. “Thank Aslan you have me to prevent that.”
You used to wake to the susurrus of waves outside your window, but now you are accustomed to the hustle and bustle of London. It’s different, but you suppose it’s not so bad. When you live in the city, it’s easy to be awed by humanity. Your senses are constantly assaulted by the proof of all that humanity can do, all the things it has built: telegrams that convey messages faster than a falcon ever can, and streetlights that drown the light of stars.
You know that you are more than the sum total of your frailties but, here, you are surrounded by all that is human, including their flaws, so sometimes you slip into thinking that they are all that matter.
+
When your father announces a trip to the seaside, you clap your hands and cheer, and your mother smiles at the childishness of your reaction. Being the youngest child is a comforting role to fall into. You are still a queen, but much less is expected of you here, and you feel guilty for finding that liberating.
On the beach, you cajole Peter into helping you build a sandcastle, and you convince your father to let his children bury him up to his neck in sand.
“If I get an itch on my nose, you must scratch it,” he says, and you all promise you will.
The sun approaches the horizon, and you keep track of the colors in the sky: gold and blue-gray, giving way to orange and pink. You and Edmund are skipping rocks at the water’s edge when your mother asks where Peter and Susan have disappeared to. You say you don’t know.
“I think they went to get more sandwiches,” Edmund says.
“We have enough sandwiches,” your mother replies.
Edmund shrugs.
When the pinks and oranges begin to fade to a deep purple, Peter and Susan return from wherever they’ve been. Your sister’s eyes are a little puffy, but there is something calmer about her expression. When you hullo at them, Peter’s smile is brittle, but genuine.
“All right, Lu?” he says.
“Where are our sandwiches, then?” your mother asks.
Susan looks up. “What?”
“Mother, I think we’re missing a towel,” Edmund calls out.
When your mother goes to recount the towels (“Honestly! We should be more careful with our things.”), Susan turns to you and asks, “Where’s your sandcastle, Lu?”
“The waves washed it away.”
“Ah.” She nods. “Happens.”
Your father says, “Helen, I think I’ve got sand in my—”
“George!”
“Remind me to never be buried in sand ever again.” He makes a silly face at you, and you can’t help but giggle.
You all gather the umbrellas, the bags, the towels – “Where’s my book?” “Has anyone seen my hat?” “Were you even wearing a hat?” – and you begin to make your way further up and further in, away from the sea.
You and Edmund bring up the rear. “Got all the towels, then?”
He says, “Yup.”
+
The rest of your family is sleeping, but you are restless, and so you’ve made your way out of the inn and to the sea. This is where Edmund finds you.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks.
At night when the moon is the only light there is, the world is cast in black and white. You would have to lean in closer to see the color of Edmund’s eyes and the brownish tints in his hair. You rest against him and try to relax, but Edmund recognizes the tension in your body. He holds you close. He rubs your back.
“It’s just that,” you begin, and are annoyed by the tremor in your voice, “it’s just that if you’re thirsty -- if you’re in the middle of the sea and you’re thirsty, then you might as well be in the desert. What difference is there?”
He doesn’t reply, and you’re grateful for it, for the silence, and for the lack of an answer, at least for now.
Eventually, Edmund says, “Give me your hands.”
You do.
He takes a handful of sand and pours it into your open palms, and begins to rub it against your skin. When you realize what he is doing, you choke back a sob. You won’t cry, you won’t. “Edmund,” you start to say, but he doesn’t stop. The sand is rough, but his touch is gentle, his own hands warm.
“Edmund,” you repeat, and your voice cracks. You reach for him and catch his face in your hands. You can barely see his expression through your blurring vision. “Brother.”
“Sister,” he says.
You lean forward and kiss his forehead, and you rest your forehead against his, breathing wetly. He covers your hands with his, and turns to kiss first one palm, then the other.
He says, “It’s all right.”
He removes your shoes, and he rubs sand against your feet and around your ankles. You squirm when he touches your soles, and he smiles. “Tickles?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I won’t.”
Your heart goes ta-thump ta-thump and your cheeks heat up as you are filled with the familiar feeling of being unconditionally loved, of falling into something bigger than yourself and at the same time made just for you. “Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,” you begin, scrabbling for purchase in the words. “At the sound of His roar, sorrows will be no more.”
“When He bares His teeth,” Edmund continues, “winter meets its death.”
“When He shakes His mane--”
“We shall have spring again.”
The night is quiet but for the waves and the wind.
“Do you remember, Ed?” you ask. “All those hymns we used to sing?”
He chuckles. “How can I forget? We only performed at every ceremony and festival for fifteen years.”
“Come here.” You open your arms and he settles into your embrace, leaning back against your body. With the back of his head on your shoulder and your cheek against his temple, you both face the sea.
You begin the first verse, softly, and then Edmund’s deeper voice mingles with yours. You interlace your fingers with his, and together you sing Aslan’s providence into the colorless night.
Adonai
Narnia. Lucy, Edmund, Susan, Peter(, Aslan?). G. Thanks to Wyrm and Bedlam for the beta.
Lucy knows Aslan by many names.
This world is still strange to you, with its habit of dividing its loves to name them. It insists on the measurement of details. Here on the other side of the looking glass, things are always what they seem because they have to be labeled as such. You have to be careful, or people might talk.
“Talk is dangerous,” Susan said in a warning tone. “Some people wield words like weapons.”
“We might as well be in Calormen,” you had replied, and you smiled to show her you were joking, but that’s not enough for Susan these days. Not enough or maybe too much. She frowned at you, you who don’t know how to make your sister smile anymore.
“We’re in England.” She enunciated the word, as if enunciation were enough. Maybe it’s not. Not for you, or maybe it’s too much. You remember a time when you didn’t have to say the name of your home with such conviction just to believe it was real.
+
Edmund holds you close with one arm, and holds the umbrella steady with the other. It’s a rainy night in England, and you think of how, on the other side of the world, perhaps it is sunny and warm. Perhaps there the sky is blue and the sun gilds the earth. It’s as if there were only a finite supply of color in the world, and England has to wait until the morning to be something other than gray gray gray.
Aslan is everywhere, you’re saying to Edmund. Even here, He’s everywhere. Before you stepped through the door in the sky, He had commanded you to know Him by another name, and so you try to. You seek him out – but in which story? Jesus was nailed to the cross for your sins, but Odin was hung from the world-tree and pierced with his own spear to know the runes. Persephone consigns herself to hell for half of eternity so that you may have the springtime.
There are so many gods who have sacrificed for us all, as Aslan has.
“Lu,” Edmund says. “You see Aslan in everything. Even in the clouds in the sky.”
You retort, “Don’t talk to me like I’m some child,” and you can tell that he notices the sharpness in your voice by how his expression softens.
“Sorry,” he says, and you let him kiss the top of your head. “I forget myself, your majesty.”
You’re not sure if you’re mollified, but you swallow your pride and lift your head. Even here in England, with your somber dresses and shoes that pinch, you are still Queen Lucy of the eastern sea. Aslan named you the Valiant, just like Adam named the animals in the garden before he fell from grace.
+
Mohini, Narasimha, Vamana, Parasurama: the list goes on, and yet these are only a handful of Vishnu’s avatars. (Narasimha, the man-lion. You read of his retribution against the demon king, and you’re reminded of the first battle, the Witch’s blood on His teeth.)
The Lord Vishnu is innumerable – all over the universes constantly, writes the Bhagavad Purana, without cessation, as water flows constantly from waterfalls. He is legion, vast, and of everything, that he cannot leave himself without returning to himself at the same time. You find yourself drawn to his ubiquity because these days this is what you know: the presence of the Lion all around you, and the way His message resounds.
In Narnia, the gods walk the same earth you do. You can remember embracing Aslan, how tangible and specific He was in your arms. You remember how soft His mane was and the gold of His eyes. You realize that, more than missing your god, you miss your friend. You’re not like Susan, who has cycled one world into another within her. You’re not like Edmund, with his talent for plurality. You are not Peter – you don’t have his weather-beaten patience. As it is, here, you don’t know whom to hold. Here, sometimes everything feels like too many answers for just one question.
This is the crux of it, you say to your brother. Whose name should you call on when you ask for forgiveness?
Edmund replies, “Why do you think you need to be forgiven, Lu?”
“It’s not… Well. Just for argument’s sake, you know?”
“Yes,” he says, and leaves it at that.
+
There is something about the way the light falls upon the lamppost that makes you hum a little melody to yourself without even thinking. Your heart remembers a springtime that was bright and blessed – the swaying of tree branches had looked like dancing, and the splashes in the river sounded like a lover’s laugh.
You walk up the steps of the church, and Edmund says, “We’re here.”
You step inside.
You’ve always liked sitting near the front, but Edmund is already sidling into the last row, so you follow. The air is soothing with the weight of other people’s meditation, and smells faintly of wood polish and the morning’s incense. From the corner of your eye you see Edmund watching you, as if waiting for some cue. Watching you, and so you smile at him. You slip your hand into his and he smiles back, and then you pray the best way you know how.
+
Jesus was also a prophet in the Muslim religion. They call him Isa, and he is one of the five rasuls, the carriers of sharia. Isa was wholly human and no son of god, for there is only one god in Islam, and he cannot be divided into littler gods. You won’t find Allah in the three parts of Christian hypostases or the sanctities of saints. The faithful pray only to him and only in one direction, and this is a singularity that comforts you. A Muslim knows where to point his love and to whom he should entrust his weaknesses.
When you told your siblings this, Peter and Susan had exchanged looks and perhaps some consternation. Edmund was the only one waiting to hear more. He truly deserves his title, you think. The Just, who listens to all testimonies.
“Their religion comes from the desert,” you continued. “If there’s no water to wash themselves before prayers, the faithful wash themselves with sand.”
Edmund understands.
+
When you return home, you find Peter and Susan in the parlor talking in low tones. You can’t see Susan’s face, but Peter’s expression is weary, his mouth a thin line. They both look up when Edmund clears his throat, and Susan is quick to break away, beaming as she comes.
“You two,” she says. “Where have you been? Swimming with your clothes on from the looks of it.”
You let Edmund field Susan’s niceties as you make your way to your eldest brother. Susan gets along best with Edmund these days, and neither you nor Peter are quite sure what to make of it. In Narnia, her patience for frivolity and Edmund’s tendencies towards self-enclosure had tried each other, but here it is a different story, as it always is. Imagine how deep the scar of Edmund’s first betrayal must go that he sees himself mirrored in every wayward decision, and reaches out to those determined to be apart.
Peter smiles for you. “Hello, Lu.”
“Would you like some tea?” you ask.
“Looks like you’re the one who can use some tea.”
“Well, have some with me, then.”
“Peter, Lucy,” Susan calls out. “I’m off to see the girls.”
“It’s raining,” Peter retorts peevishly.
Susan waves her umbrella at him. “That’s why we’ve got this, hmm?”
“What if you catch cold?”
“Oh, honestly, Peter.”
“The rain’s letting up anyway,” Edmund cuts in before Peter can reply. “It’s not as strong. A nice drizzle, maybe, by now.”
Susan gives him a grateful look. “That’s good to know.”
And then she departs, leaving nothing but the look on Peter’s face, the way he frowns at Edmund. Edmund shrugs.
There’s nothing left to do but put the kettle on, so you do.
+
The bedroom you share with Susan used to feel big and lonely when it was just you alone, but now you’re used to it. Through the wall, you can hear your brothers trying not to let their argument escalate. You curl up in bed with a battered copy of The Secret Garden, reading it for the hundredth time while you wait for Edmund to knock on your door.
“What was he on about this time?” you ask, when he finally does.
Edmund rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t like me encouraging Susan. I’m not encouraging anything except some peace. I’m tired of them going at it all the time.” He sits down in his usual chair, and tips it back on two legs to rest his feet on your bed. In your head, you hear Peter and Susan’s voices telling him to stop that, he might fall.
He spots the book on your lap, and he says, “That book again? Do you never tire of it?”
“Of course not.”
“Real life is so much better than the stories that echo it, Lu.”
“Silly,” you say. “It’s real life that echoes the story.”
+
It’s real life that echoes the story, the way worshippers echo their god. In Narnia, you knew to whom to give your heart. You never had to scrabble for your place in His world because you were written to be by His side.
Now that you’ve been cast out of Narnia and commanded to search for Aslan here, you find Him everywhere. How can you not? He filled your being and crooked Himself to fit your empty spaces. You shaped yourself around His love because destiny said you would, and you believed it, you believe it still. You recognize Aslan in all the gods of this world, and you see His mercy in every balance struck between good and evil. A hundred gods, each with a hundred names, a hundred ways to sin and as many ways to be forgiven.
If you refuse to see what is everywhere, then you will end up nowhere. If you find no water in the desert, you wash yourself with sand.
You must pray with the world that is given to you.
+
You wake up in the night because someone is shaking you. No, someone is shaking Edmund, who is sleeping curled around you.
“Edmund!” says Susan’s voice in the dark. “Edmund, what are you doing?”
“Sleeping,” he murmurs, and you intertwine your hands with his and hold on tight.
“Well, sleep in your own room! Edmund!”
He complies, grumbling while Susan keeps up a quiet but steady stream of disapproval. The floor creaks under his weight, and you don’t know whether to keep your eyes closed or open them to watch your brother go.
“All right!” he hisses. “All right, I’m going!”
Susan follows him into the hall, and then you hear Peter’s bleary voice join in, then all three of them are going at it, the quietest fight in the world. You wonder what they’re telling each other on the other side of the wall. You wonder if Aslan can see you now, and what He would have to say about this. You think about this world’s impulse to identify the different shapes of love, and wonder why one simple love is no longer enough.
When your sister comes back, you are wide awake, and you softly call her name.
“Lucy?” she says. “I thought you were asleep.”
“Susan, do you ever miss Him?”
She continues puttering around the room, getting ready for bed, undoing this and unbuttoning that, slipping on this and slipping off that. She unties her hair and it falls over her shoulders, rendering her silhouette familiar to you once more. She shows no intention of answering your question, and you think maybe she’s just going to ignore it, the way she ignores all things about Narnia these days. But then she says, “I suppose.” She says, “Yes. But I suppose things must change, after all. We’re not children anymore.”
Before she can change the subject, you blurt out, “I miss talking with Him especially.”
“You? But you’ve always been close to him. You talk with him all the time.”
“Me? But… Well, but He’s not a tame Lion, and He doesn’t—”
“What?”
“Aslan.”
“Oh.”
“Who did you think?”
“I…” Susan hesitates. “I thought maybe you meant Peter. I thought maybe…”
In the dark, you can only see her silhouette as she sits straight-backed on her bed. You can only see the angle of her chin as she breathes in, out. The realization of her confession hangs in the air, and you can feel your sister retreating into herself again as if chastised.
“Never mind,” she says, her voice quite small.
So you say, “He misses you too.”
“Aslan?”
“Peter.”
She settles in under the covers, and says, “It’s late. We should sleep.” Then, under the guise of afterthought: “You know, Edmund has his own bed to sleep in. I don’t see why he needs to sleep in yours.”
You reply, “Good night, Su.”
“Good night, Lucy.”
+
You associated the sea with home. You were accustomed to finding your moments of peace with it – bits of time stolen between one royal duty and another when you could sneak down to the shore to dip your feet in the water and lift your head to the sun. You talked with the seagulls and seals, and bid the mermaids teach you their songs. When the days were not so busy, you would herd your siblings to the beach and force them into a picnic. “You’d die drafting treaties and arbitrating border disputes if you can help it,” you would say. “Thank Aslan you have me to prevent that.”
You used to wake to the susurrus of waves outside your window, but now you are accustomed to the hustle and bustle of London. It’s different, but you suppose it’s not so bad. When you live in the city, it’s easy to be awed by humanity. Your senses are constantly assaulted by the proof of all that humanity can do, all the things it has built: telegrams that convey messages faster than a falcon ever can, and streetlights that drown the light of stars.
You know that you are more than the sum total of your frailties but, here, you are surrounded by all that is human, including their flaws, so sometimes you slip into thinking that they are all that matter.
+
When your father announces a trip to the seaside, you clap your hands and cheer, and your mother smiles at the childishness of your reaction. Being the youngest child is a comforting role to fall into. You are still a queen, but much less is expected of you here, and you feel guilty for finding that liberating.
On the beach, you cajole Peter into helping you build a sandcastle, and you convince your father to let his children bury him up to his neck in sand.
“If I get an itch on my nose, you must scratch it,” he says, and you all promise you will.
The sun approaches the horizon, and you keep track of the colors in the sky: gold and blue-gray, giving way to orange and pink. You and Edmund are skipping rocks at the water’s edge when your mother asks where Peter and Susan have disappeared to. You say you don’t know.
“I think they went to get more sandwiches,” Edmund says.
“We have enough sandwiches,” your mother replies.
Edmund shrugs.
When the pinks and oranges begin to fade to a deep purple, Peter and Susan return from wherever they’ve been. Your sister’s eyes are a little puffy, but there is something calmer about her expression. When you hullo at them, Peter’s smile is brittle, but genuine.
“All right, Lu?” he says.
“Where are our sandwiches, then?” your mother asks.
Susan looks up. “What?”
“Mother, I think we’re missing a towel,” Edmund calls out.
When your mother goes to recount the towels (“Honestly! We should be more careful with our things.”), Susan turns to you and asks, “Where’s your sandcastle, Lu?”
“The waves washed it away.”
“Ah.” She nods. “Happens.”
Your father says, “Helen, I think I’ve got sand in my—”
“George!”
“Remind me to never be buried in sand ever again.” He makes a silly face at you, and you can’t help but giggle.
You all gather the umbrellas, the bags, the towels – “Where’s my book?” “Has anyone seen my hat?” “Were you even wearing a hat?” – and you begin to make your way further up and further in, away from the sea.
You and Edmund bring up the rear. “Got all the towels, then?”
He says, “Yup.”
+
The rest of your family is sleeping, but you are restless, and so you’ve made your way out of the inn and to the sea. This is where Edmund finds you.
“Can’t sleep?” he asks.
At night when the moon is the only light there is, the world is cast in black and white. You would have to lean in closer to see the color of Edmund’s eyes and the brownish tints in his hair. You rest against him and try to relax, but Edmund recognizes the tension in your body. He holds you close. He rubs your back.
“It’s just that,” you begin, and are annoyed by the tremor in your voice, “it’s just that if you’re thirsty -- if you’re in the middle of the sea and you’re thirsty, then you might as well be in the desert. What difference is there?”
He doesn’t reply, and you’re grateful for it, for the silence, and for the lack of an answer, at least for now.
Eventually, Edmund says, “Give me your hands.”
You do.
He takes a handful of sand and pours it into your open palms, and begins to rub it against your skin. When you realize what he is doing, you choke back a sob. You won’t cry, you won’t. “Edmund,” you start to say, but he doesn’t stop. The sand is rough, but his touch is gentle, his own hands warm.
“Edmund,” you repeat, and your voice cracks. You reach for him and catch his face in your hands. You can barely see his expression through your blurring vision. “Brother.”
“Sister,” he says.
You lean forward and kiss his forehead, and you rest your forehead against his, breathing wetly. He covers your hands with his, and turns to kiss first one palm, then the other.
He says, “It’s all right.”
He removes your shoes, and he rubs sand against your feet and around your ankles. You squirm when he touches your soles, and he smiles. “Tickles?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“I won’t.”
Your heart goes ta-thump ta-thump and your cheeks heat up as you are filled with the familiar feeling of being unconditionally loved, of falling into something bigger than yourself and at the same time made just for you. “Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,” you begin, scrabbling for purchase in the words. “At the sound of His roar, sorrows will be no more.”
“When He bares His teeth,” Edmund continues, “winter meets its death.”
“When He shakes His mane--”
“We shall have spring again.”
The night is quiet but for the waves and the wind.
“Do you remember, Ed?” you ask. “All those hymns we used to sing?”
He chuckles. “How can I forget? We only performed at every ceremony and festival for fifteen years.”
“Come here.” You open your arms and he settles into your embrace, leaning back against your body. With the back of his head on your shoulder and your cheek against his temple, you both face the sea.
You begin the first verse, softly, and then Edmund’s deeper voice mingles with yours. You interlace your fingers with his, and together you sing Aslan’s providence into the colorless night.