The Deeper Magic

The Beginnings & After That

Susan held her breath as they ran through the thick, powdery snow and icy trees. The air shimmered. Pine branches reached towards them, pulling at their coats, and the crystal landscape passed through her eyes in a blur of grey and white and blue. After several long, suspenseful moments, her and Peter burst into a clearing, Edmund straight behind them. 

Around them all was quiet, the calmness one could only find in snow. 

Her eyes caught on something that most certainly did not belong in the middle of the wood. 

"Impossible," she breathed.

A lamp post, or perhaps the lamp post, stood there in the center, glimmering in solitary. A sparkling sheen crusted its metal, and a pale yellow light was admitted from within the frosted glass. 

Susan let out a sigh of relief, seeing that Lucy stood next to it. Her hands were placed on her hips, and her eyes trailed up and down the post.

Peter took a few steps forward, breaking the undisturbed blanket of white, while Edmund leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees, catching his breath. 

Susan watched Lucy circle the post. 

Hesitation clouded her thoughts, and she stood there a moment before walking towards her little sister. 

"I can't believe it," she breathed, her voice uncertain.

"This is definitely it," Lucy murmured, dusting the crystals off its post with her hand. 

After all this time, it was still just serene, deceptively so. 

"Can't believe what?" Edmund asked, brushing the snow off of his pant legs. "We knew it was coming."

"No, it's just..." she wrapped her arms around herself, eyeing the post, skeptical. "After thousands of years, it seems exactly the same. It just feels so familiar."

"Maybe it hasn't been," Lucy offered hopefully.

"Yes. Maybe," Susan replied quietly. She stood there stiffly, attempting to suppress the displeased expression on her face. 

Was she the only one who realized something wasn't adding up? If Aslan had thought the situation dire enough for him to appear in her dream, in their world, surely there was something greatly amiss. And in all there time in Narnia, only once had a winter felt so...illusive. She couldn't quite describe why, but it was as if the trees taunted them, the snow lifeless and tired. It felt like within all the beauty, there was a great darkness.

The lamp post just stood there glowing, as if it were trying to draw everyone and everything to it, and then snagging you in a trap once you were close enough and numbed enough. The beauty and the strangeness of such a pretty light in such a strange place was enough to draw your breath away and make once stand there for a good, long while. 

Her gaze traveled to her older brother, watching as he snapped in to action, crossing his arms.

The corner of her mouth raised dryly. Typical Peter, always the leader.

"Well," Peter stated, meeting their gazes. "We need to come up with a plan."

"Have you seen any talking beasts?" Lucy asked, her eyes jumping to the trees.

Edmund shook his head. 

"No."

Susan glanced at Peter.

"This feels wrong, Peter."

"You're right," he murmured. "It does."

Lucy gasped.