The White Witch's Son | Casmund

1

She's only four when she finally asks. Watching her older brother and sister do their schoolwork. She wonders whether she'd be playing with her brother had he still been here. Lucy knew she had an older brother who went missing the day he was born. The police searched, but there wasn't a trace of where he went. The police interviewed countless staff and patients at the Maternity House, but no one had seen anyone sneaking into Mrs Pevensie's room and snatching her baby from his crib. The police had a theory; a woman unable to have a child took the first one she could find; they'd hope to find someone matching that description, a woman who recently lost a baby or child via either illness or miscarriage or stillborn who suddenly had a child. They found no one.

The Pevensie family returned home without a baby, and the search for James Pevensie was soon called off. Over a year later, Helen discovered she was pregnant with a little girl, Lucy. When she gave birth, she had Susan with her; inevitably, when her mother fell asleep, Susan stayed awake watching over her newborn sister, protecting her in case any baby snatchers came. They didn't, and later the following day, Helen Pevensie left the maternity house with her daughter and the overwhelming sadness of what could have been two years ago.

Lucy grew up with stories of her missing brother, the life her mother wove out for him, a life he'd never live. She'd say the fae took him to fairyland where he'd play with other children daily, or James is living with an elderly couple who couldn't have children and saved him from the child snatchers and are now looking after him whilst trying to find his birth parents. All her stories had happy endings; her father's, not so much. Lucy wasn't meant to know this or hear her parents' conversation. On James' birthday, long after Lucy and her siblings were sent to bed, she snuck out of bed and crept down the stairs. She heard her mother crying into her father's arms.

"I wish we could see him once, just to know he's safe, just to know James is alive and happy," her mother wept.

"Helen, I want nothing more but for James to be brought back to us, but we need to be realistic here. We have Susan, Peter and Lucy to care for. We need to accept that James is dead. The police would've found something by now, but they haven't. We need to accept that whoever took James killed him because hiding a newborn from their family or neighbours was too risky," her father said.

"No, I refuse to believe that. James is alive. I can feel it in my bones. Our son is still alive," her mother said. Lucy heard her father sigh as he brought her mother closers. Lucy crept away from the living room door and snuck back up the stairs to the room she shared with Susan.

Now at the age of eight, being sent to the countryside to escape the bombing in London, Lucy wished she and her siblings could be whisked off to another world to escape the horrors of her own. If they were lucky, they'd meet James there because Lucy believed, just like her mother, she believed her brother was still alive, and she'll find him soon.

Light on his feet, Prince Edmund, darted through the trees, his eyes focused on tracking the fleeing creature. The wolves ran beside him, not daring to overtake and surround the creature until they got the prince's order. Edmund stopped in a small clearing, lifting his bow and pulling the string back. Taking a deep breath, Edmund steadied his hand and fired; the arrow sailed through the air and hit the creature's leg. It grunted but kept running, its movement slower.

"Get it," Edmund ordered; the wolves flew past him quickly, surrounding it as he approached. He slung his bow over his shoulder. It wasn't his choice of weapon, he preferred his sword or magic, but the bow has some uses when Edmund needs a long-distance attack. Unlike the minotaurs, the dwarves and the other two-handed creatures loyal to his mother, Edmund believed it important to master different weapons than sticking to one.

"You've been seen spreading the word to others about the downfall of my mother," Edmund started, flicking his wrist to bring the creature, a beaver, to his height, "I want to hear what you've been saying; after all, creature, my mother is the reigning queen, and should there be any threat to her reign we should know about it."

"I'm not telling you anything, witch; they have foretold you doom since the beginning of Narnia. Her downfall is here, and there's nothing you can do," the beaver sneered, but Edmund smirked. He let the creature drop to the ground.

"So, the children of Adam and Eve will come and let me guess, Aslan has returned," Edmund said. If a beaver could pale, then this one would've been as white as the snow which covered Narnia. Growing up, Edmund knew his destiny, to protect his mother's reign, and should the prophecy come true, and the children of Adam and Eve somehow defeat his mother, then Edmund knows how to bring her back. Aslan won't expect it, and once the new kings and queens of Narnia are crowned, he'll leave. Giving Edmund the perfect opportunity to dispose of the new kings and queens and return his mother to the throne.

"I thought so," Edmund said. Turning his back to the creature, he started walking away; as he approached the end of the clearing, he turned his head to look partly over his shoulder, "Kill him."