AN ENCHANTER'S FORETELLING. [NARNIA]

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | LATE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
LATE

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APRIL. NARNIAN-YEAR 1004.

Just when she thought her schedule couldn't get any more hectic, it did.

As the approaching April rolled around quicker than anticipated, something overtook the usual joyful ambience of the mystical realm—something they hadn't felt since the miserable, never-ending winter. It was sorrow, and a sense of familiar hopelessness had washed over the country, like a tide crashing against its sandy shore. Unlike those past few days, when Rose spent her entire evenings cooped up in the library, reading, and oblivious to the world around her, the realm had turned grim and miserable.

Nobody knew why, either. Nobody could understand why Narnia had turned bleak, not when those past few days were spent in a long-lasting bliss. Perhaps Rose was the oblivious one to the atmosphere around her, but she swore everything turned dreary. Mysterious enough, no longer did the trees twirled around with the cool, spring breeze. Neither did the birds' sing their gentle melody, or come out of their homes within the surrounding woods.

The rest of the days in March were spent awfully in agony and despair, and just like Susan Pevensie had commented in the morning during the week, it felt like Jadis had never left at all. Like the hundred-year-long winter had never ended, like there was no hope. Like it had felt the day the Lion had sacrificed Himself on the stone table that fateful night; bleak and dismal, despite the clear absence of the once-comforting snow.

Everyone seemed to have been getting a bad feeling, as though something was to happen. May Aslan help her, but Rose was getting that feeling of dread, too, regardless of her cheerful disposition and questionable ability to lift the spirits of those around her. How she despised the feeling of hopelessness; that blasted feeling she had grown to be so accustomed to that past week.

She hadn't met up with dear Edmund for the past fortnight, or as a matter of fact, barely even seen him. Perhaps during those long, miserable suppers, but asides that, she hadn't really seen him. She wished she did, though. Just a few days prior, she visited the forgotten library in search for the familiar dark-haired King, but she was only met with solace and a fireplace that had been recently put out. Days after her brief search had she visited the familiar gardens, but once again, no one was there, either—only the familiar echo of the water fountain's splashes against the stone ring greeted her silently.

She had even made a basket full of the delicious honey and ginger biscuits, hoping Edmund would be there waiting for her.

It wasn't the bleak atmosphere that had made them stop meeting that week, it was their unusually hectic schedules. Blasted schedules of ours! It was precisely why she had been desperately craving Edmund's company the entirety of the day, but alas, she knew she couldn't see him. Not yet, but soon enough. Perhaps later that day she would visit the library again, and if she was hopeful, he would be there. She would be lucky if she even bumped into him in the corridor.