wis·dom
/ˈwizdəm/
noun
the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.
Narnia had always been a free country, until she came along. Jadis was the devil in disguise, and she brought to the kingdom an eternal...
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"I was never prepared to live the rest of my life without you." - Unknown
England, 1949
Edmund got everything he wanted. Everything was okay.
He was lying on the grass, and Olivia was next to him, laughing as she pointed at the clouds in the sky. Peter and Lucy were laughing, his brother pushing her gently in a swing on a hill upwards. Susan was picking roses on the fields with the help of Polly Plummer and Jill Pole; once they were picked, the flowers would grow back instantly. Eustace and Digory Kirke ate sandwiches in a picnic cloth, discussing matters of chemistry and atoms. Everyone was happy.
It was all he needed—seeing his wife's smile, to be near her, to be able to reach his arm and stroke her cheek. It felt so real, like the grass was actually brushing his arms and Olivia was actually next to him, saying that a cloud above them looked like an elephant. Like Susan and Jill were actually laughing about the funny colour of a rose like Lucy was actually being carried by her brother down the hill.
Except it wasn't real. Edmund wasn't in this magical place. Lucy and Peter weren't laughing together, and Olivia was dead. Nothing would ever be the same again.
He lost track of time. How long had it been since he last saw Olivia? How long had it been since he lost her? How long had it been since he showered? God, he stank. He stank of death.
Edmund still couldn't believe it. There he was, lying down on the bed he shared with her in their cottage in Oxford, the one she had inherited from her father and now belonged to him. Her will had been put up perfectly, like Olivia knew she was going to die.
Except there was no way the girl had known she would die: it was a heart attack. Olivia was perfectly healthy, practically an example. And suddenly, there she was: just a limp body lying in the attic of their house.
No matter the things she had left them, no one dared to touch what had once been Olivia's. Digory Kirke still hadn't done a thing with the small amount of money she left him, Susan and Lucy didn't dare get close to her jewels.
The house seemed empty without her presence. There was just no use in anything anymore. Olivia was his world, his everything. She died and took a part of him along to the other side.
His life had stopped. Edmund didn't attend his classes at college anymore, didn't bother to try and pay his tuition, and was as useful as a sack of potatoes. While he handled grief by not getting out of bed, Peter tried to fill his mind as much as he could with affairs and duties, Lucy as well. Susan stopped going to parties and she stopped scolding them about Narnia, but they suspected it wasn't because of Olivia's death. Eustace even moved in with them after her death, to help his cousins during their grief. He, too, felt useless, but their cousin needed to be strong for the four siblings he had learned to love dearly.
