Once a Queen

Wondrous Winter

The next day was just as Peter had promised it would be: bright, sunny, and warm. Lucy had begged Elise for hours to read to her outside, and Elise always found it hard to say no to her youngest sister. So while Elise read to Lucy in her typical soothing voice, Susan, Peter and Edmund had begun to play cricket, and Edmund was up to bat.

"Peter winds up, poised to take yet another wicket!" Peter yells, doing a sort of jump as he throws the ball.

Elise chuckled and rolled her eyes at her older brother's enthusiasm in games. However, her eyes narrowed as the ball kept going towards Edmund, and yet he made no move to react.

Standing up abruptly, Elise barely had time to yell out, "Ed!" before the ball collided with his leg.

Ed emitted a groan of pain as he clutched his leg, glaring harshly at Peter.

"Whoops! Wake up, Dolly Daydream," Peter scoffed, not sounding sorry at all. However, Elise couldn't help the slight grin that appeared on her face, and as she looked, she saw identical grins on both Susan and Lucy's faces as well.

Not taking kindly to the jab, Edmund glowered, staring back at the house. "Why can't we play hide-and-seek again?" he asked.

"I thought you said it was a kid's game," Peter smirked.

Knowing a fight between the two loomed ahead, Elise stepped over to Edmund and put her hand on his shoulder.

"Besides, we could all use the fresh air," she said calmly, hoping to mitigate the fight.

Edmund merely rolled his eyes, shoving his sister's hand off his shoulder, muttering, "It's not like there isn't air inside."

Peter, not hearing him, wound up once more, preparing to begin the game again.

"Are you ready?" he shouted to Edmund.

"Are you?" Ed retorted, pounding his bat against the makeshift base they had placed on the ground.

Smiling, Elise turned back around and made her way over to the tree she and Lucy had been reading at. She was stopped abruptly by a resounding crack and the following shatter of glass.

Horrified, Elise turned to her brothers once more, and stared up at the second story window that was now broken.

The siblings made their way inside quickly, hoping that Mrs. Macready hadn't heard the crash. They now stood over a suit of armor that lay haphazardly on the ground, the cricket ball right in the center.

"Oh well done, Ed," Peter accused.

"You bowled it!" Edmund retorted, not wanting the blame to be passed off onto him.

"Shhh!" Elise quieted them quickly, rushing over to the closed door. On the other side, she could hear Macready's muffled voice. As the footsteps grew louder, Elise jumped away from the door, covering her mouth in fear.

"The Macready!" Susan whisper-yelled.

"Run!" Peter told them.

Elise stood for another second by the door, knowing it would just be easier to accept the consequences instead of running from them, as that was the coward's way out. She was torn out of her thoughts abruptly by Lucy grabbing her hand and tugging her after their siblings.

They were met with a closed door just down the hall, and Peter frantically tugged at the handle with no avail. The door was most certainly locked. Sighing in defeat, Elise looked farther down the hall to the familiar door that led to the room with the wardrobe.

"Hey!" she whispered to her siblings who were still worriedly crowded around the locked door, as though with enough force, Peter could open it, which in turn would just cause more trouble for them.