The White Witch's Son | Casmund

4

Unaware of their little sister's danger, Peter and Susan ran around the professor's house searching for Lucy.

"Anything?" Peter asked as he reunited with Susan. They were playing cricket outside when Lucy went inside the large mansion they were staying at for some water. That had been over two hours ago, and now they were getting worried. They'd decided they needed to split up and search the house as best as they could from top to bottom, but he hadn't found any sign of where his youngest sister could be.

"No. Where is she hiding? Is she still mad at us for not believing her about her make-believe world?" Susan said, a little irritated. Lucy had come running in after begging Peter and Susan to play hide and seek with her, only to announce she'd been gone for hours when she'd only disappeared to hide several minutes ago. Lucy then went on about finding a magical world in the wardrobe.

She loved her sister dearly, yet Lucy drove Susan insane with her constant talking of this world of snow and ice, an evil witch who's the queen and the friendly faun she'd met called Mr Tumnus. At first, Susan tried to entertain her sister's imagination, listening to her story and pretending to search for the mysterious doorway to this magical world through the wardrobe, but as the days went by. Lucy's infatuation grew, and Susan and Peter finally had enough of their younger sister's antics. She snapped, shouting at her sister to stop speaking about this world, that it wasn't real and a figment of Lucy's imagination. Lucy looked like Susan had slapped her, but at the time, Susan didn't care; she wanted Lucy to stop talking about Narnia, and she did. Her sister became quiet, staring off into the distance whenever she was with her siblings, lost in another world, that world. Peter's idea to play cricket was meant as a distraction for Lucy to draw her out of her make-believe world and into the real one. It seemed to work until Lucy went inside, and now they couldn't find her.

"Did you check the wardrobe?" Susan asked. Lucy was obsessed with that thing, and if their sister had hidden away, she might be in there.

"I looked inside, but I couldn't see anything," Peter said. With a sigh, Susan ran upstairs to the empty bedroom with the large wardrobe inside. She could hear the thundering footsteps of Peter as he chased after her. Susan opened the wardrobe door and found nothing but fur coats hung up in a row.

"Lucy," Susan said, pushing the coats around, feeling for her sister, reaching into the empty space. The wardrobe seemed to go further back than she first thought. Perhaps it leads to another room where Lucy's hidden away. With another sigh, Susan stepped inside, pushing past the fur coats and ignoring her brother calling her name. Susan moved deeper into the wardrobe until the wooden floor gave way to the soft crunch of... snow? Susan's eyes widened as she took in her new surroundings: the ground covered in white snow, trees on either side of her standing tall and proud. The cold breeze washed over her as if she'd stepped outside on a crisp winter morning, not the warmth of spring she knew it should be.

"Susan!" Peter shouted before he came tumbling out of the wardrobe. Peter stared, stunned, just as in shock as Susan was.

"It's impossible," Susan said. Her eyes still couldn't take in the wonder of the world before her.

"We owe Lucy a massive apology," Peter said. The mention of their lost sister snapped both Pevensie's siblings out of the stupor and into the reality that whilst the imaginary world they thought their sister had dreamt about was real, their little sister was still missing. Potentially lost in a strange and, if the evil witch queen was real, cruel world.

"We need to find Lucy," Susan said, marching out into the forest, looking for any small glimpse of their sister. Peter turned back, reaching into the wardrobe and plucking two fur coats from the hangers; if they were going to search this world for their sister, they'd need some kind of protection from the harsh winter.