Keeper Of Light |book 2|

Chapter 1. Coming Home

A/N: Does anyone else watch Outlander? Because I do and I absolutely freaked over the finale of season 5. Also if you recognize this song, I feel you.

In disbelief, she shut her eyes closed tightly to make her surroundings go away. Opening again served no luck. Yellow-tiled walls. The smell of rubber. She was at the train station, back in London. Back where she wanted to be, but by different circumstances. Angelina cursed under her breath as she lay on the ground of the familiar train station that brought her to Narnia. She didn't mind the cold, or the dirt.

"Miss, are you alright?" An older gentleman walked up to her. She was laying on the floor, her cheek pressed to the cold pavement.

She didn't want to answer him, for answering would be admitting that she is back in London. Being back was her worst nightmare, even if she did want to see her mother. Angelina shook her head over and over again. "Go away!" She screamed.

The man, startled from her sudden outburst, jumped away, "I'm just trying to help, is there anyone you want me to call?" Of course he would be concerned.

"I need to find a way back! I need to go back, they will die without me!" She screamed over and over again.

"Who are they, where do you need to go back to?" The man knelt down in front of her.

Grabbing him by his collar she looked him right in the eyes, "Narnia! I need to go back to Narnia."

Her eyes were big and her voice cracked. The man, assuming she was on some sort of drugs, smiled warmly and then took her hands off his collar. "I know what you need, and I know how to get back to Narnia, just come with me." He took her by the hand.

"No, you think I'm crazy! I'm not going anywhere with you!" She pulled her hands away and shook her head. More people directed their attention towards them.

Pulling out his cell phone the man dialed a number and called the police. He gave them the information, pinning Angelina to the ground so she wouldn't be able to run away. "I'm only trying to help." He confessed as if apologizing for the inconvenience.

The police arrived in no time, asking her what was going on. When she refused to talk to them they called the ambulance and took her to the hospital. After a couple of sleep inducing drugs, Angelina was sitting up on her hospital bed trying to fight the sleepiness. Her goal was to get back to Narnia, and she was not giving up now. She was still the keeper of light, if only she could control her powers.

Running into the room, Angelina's mother almost fell in front of the bed. This was the first time her daughter was ever in a hospital, especially because of being suspected that she was in possession of drugs. Angelina had never even broken a bone in her body and her mother was proud of that until this day. She wished that it was a broken bone and not drugs. Grabbing her daughter's hand, her mother looked her in the eyes and smiled weakly. "What happened?"

"Mom!" Angelina hugged her tightly.

"What's wrong sweetheart, it's as if you haven't seen me in years." Her mother embraced her.

The truth was, she hadn't seen her for a very long time. If only she could tell her mother about the Narnian adventures, about the great Lion and the stone. About the white witch and her army. About Edmund. The boy with a sword, trying so hard to be a king. If only her mother would believe her and not discard her stories as pure imagination of a 19 year old girl. Then, Angelina remembered, in this world, she was 18. In this world she was back where she started. Tears stung her eyes as she realized all this. It could be years till she goes back to Narnia, if she ever finds a way back.

Her mother noticed her sobs and pulled away, "has someone hurt you? What happened?"

"I fell." She lied, "I fell and I couldn't get up. That's all."

"They said you were talking about something about a Nariya?" Her mother asked, running her eyes through her daughters body.

"Narnia." She corrected her.

Her mother stopped and looked at her, "what's Narnia?"

"Narnia is-" Angelina realized that it was not the best decision to tell her mother about Narnia in front of the nurses and doctor who stared at her curiously. "Narnia is a world I imagined when I was a kid."

"Why would you want to go to an imaginary world honey?" Her mother furrowed her eyebrows and applied a hand to her daughter's cheek.

Angelina looked at the doctor and his glasses. He looked like a mad scientist ready to kill. "Because an imaginary world is better than reality sometimes," for a second she believed herself.

Sighing, her mother turned to the physician, "when will she be allowed to go home?"

"In a few days, we still need to check for drugs in her system." He walked up closer to her with a tablet in his hands.

"I don't do drugs." Angelina crossed her arms in front of her chest and resented the doctor.

He sighed, "we can't take your word for it now can we?"

She felt odd being back, people were so different. Automatic. following routines. They just followed whatever was instructed to them and didn't ask questions. Wishing she could shine her light open their eyes and make them see that there was much more to live for. However hard she tried, the light still wouldn't come out of her hands. Angelina feared that even Aslan could not hear her silent cries, cries she only dared to voice in her head. If the light of Aslan was living in her, a part of Him must be living in her too. She is not the keeper of light for no reason, there is a reason for her leaving Narnia, and not just the cruel tricks of Johanna.

Looking into the cold street of London through her window, she waited for the results of her blood-work. Of course, she was confident in the result and the doctor looked at her apologetically when the tests came back negative. Angelina turned away from him and didn't care for his apology. Feeling safe in a hospital was not part of her plan. A few hours ago she was preparing to board a ship and travel far away.

All she wanted to do is get back to Narnia, to stop the uprising. To stop Nicolas. She wondered if time passed quicker in Narnia, if she was already late? She didn't even know how time worked there. 

From the corner of her eye she swore she noticed her Conscience looking outside the window and nodding his head. He looked as somber as her, as confused, and bewildered. Then her eyes started to close slowly, the sleeping pills they gave her distributed through her system. In her induced sleep she wished she could dream of Narnia, but the dream was empty, as if she were awake in the hospital room but could not move. At least she had her thoughts to battle with before she'd have to wake up again. Conscience started to disappear like fog, as if he were never there.

Hearing the doctor talking to her mother scared her. She sounded concerned and he was trying to convince her that everything would be fine.

"She might have suffered a PTSD episode, or some sort of dream like state. Probably she woke up in shock and fell on the floor. We asked people at the train station, they all confirmed seeing her absolutely fine one second and crying on the floor the next," he explained.

Her mother sighed, "she does spend a lot of time in her head."

"It happens to some people, they daydream and lose a grip on reality, I will prescribe her something," he said confidently. He wrote something down on a piece of paper, "she will have to go to therapy, just so we are all sure she is doing fine. I know a brilliant doctor."

She felt her mother take her hand and hold it. If only there was a way to show her Narnia, to make her understand. Sadly there wasn't. There was nothing she could do, again. She was powerless, literally and metaphorically. If she could only fight falling asleep.

When her brain woke her up and she realized that she was coming back to reality, she had hoped that perhaps she would wake up on the cold pavement of Cair Paravel. Pick herself up, march into the castle and save everyone. Slowly, she opened her eyes and disappointed gripped her heart. She was in a hospital room. There was a metal chair in front of her and a window. The sounds of beeping machines cleared her mind. Letting a tear slip down her cheek, Angelina tried to move around. Outside of the window she could hear the busy streets of London. It rained. It always seemed to rain.