~By the Lion's Mane: The Call~

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

~Edmund~

As soon as I had stepped between the twisted twin trunks of the old tree, I found myself back in the London train station with the same train whooshing past, blowing my dark hair off of my forehead. We were standing in front of the same bench, our luggage sitting on the ground waiting for us to pick it up, as if we'd never left.

I looked down to my left, meeting the bewildered glances of several people who were probably telling themselves they had just imagined the strangest thing—that a frantic teenage girl with wild red hair had just galloped past on a huge white stallion.

But I could already see them dismissing it with the slight shake of their heads, blinking quickly and then stepping onto the train and continuing with their lives. I, however, couldn't just move on with the bustle of everyday life as easily.

Everything was going to be much harder now, especially knowing that I had left her there to wait for me to return for Aslan-only-knows-how-long. We had had such a short time together, barely any time at all to ourselves. If only I hadn't wasted so much time ignoring what was right there in front of me all along.

I really was such an idiot. We could have had years together, had I not been so shortsighted.

And now... I had to return to school.

By Aslan, how I hated school. The fights, the professors, the lessons, the food... I loathed it all. It was incredibly dull, and once again, we would all have to adjust to being treated like children again. Despite the fact that I was thirty-two now, I was trapped in my sixteen year old body.

I was brought back to the present by the train conductor asking for my ticket. I had a moment of panic, not having the slightest idea where I had put it. But then I found it in my trouser pocket, right where it had been a month ago.

The conductor punched it and then moved on to the next compartment, leaving me and my family to stare out the window at the passing gloomy scenery in silence.

____________________________________________________________________________________

~Rose~

I turned and sobbed into my unicorn's silky neck, and he laid his head across my back in an equine hug. I felt as if someone had run me through with a sword, an extreme pain I had experienced not that long ago.

I would never see Susan or Peter again. They were gone forever. And I didn't know when I would see Edmund or Lucy again. They might return to Narnia when I was an old woman on my deathbed, still exactly the same as they were when they disappeared through the tree. It hurt too much to think about.

For the next few days, I only came out of my room to talk to Anduril in the stable. Other than that, I took all my meals in my room and spent all of my time just sitting by the window. But even that was painful, because my gloomy chamber overlooked the courtyard, and beyond that, I could see the tree, still gripping the side of the cliff. I wept a lot, thinking about how perfect we had been until we had to leave that orchard.

But at last, after a week holed up in the room, I knew I had to get out. I bathed again, dressed in a new dress I had had made that was fashioned after one of my old ones, despite the protests from the seamstresses. I brushed my hair and braided it, and then walked down to find Caspian after constructing my face to become strong and clear in the mirror.

It took a while for me to find him, since I didn't know my way around this castle. I felt trapped in here; the halls were narrow and dark and cold and all of the rooms had low ceilings and were plain. But I finally found him in his uncle's study, bent over the many papers and documents, his head in his hands.

I rapped my knuckles on the door frame. He jerked his head up, his hair sticking out oddly where he had his hands buried in it. I resisted the urge to laugh, although it was the first time I had smiled in days. It felt foreign to my facial muscles.

"What are you doing?" I asked, walking into the room.

He sighed hopelessly. "I do not know. That is the whole problem. I have no idea how to be king, or how to run a country. I do not know how to manage a castle, or the treasury, or the military, or anything." He let his head fall back into his hands. I felt sorry for him.

"Well," I said after a moment. "What is the most important thing right now?"

He sighed again. "I guess that would be to gain the Narnians' trust. There are more of them out there than those who fought with us, and many still do not trust me. They still believe that I am just like Miraz. But what more can I do?"

I stared out the small window, towards the east, thinking.

"Rebuild Cair Paravel," I said quietly, after what seemed like hours of silence. I wasn't even sure where it had come from. Caspian looked at me.

"What?" he asked in his accented voice.

"Build Cair Paravel again. Restore it to what it once was. If you return the Cair to its former glory, the Narnians will have to realize that you mean what you say." He continued to stare at me, but I could see that he was beginning to understand what I was saying, and a look of hope crossed his face.

But then he shook his head. "But no one living knows what it once looked like. The castle was destroyed when Caspian the Conqueror invaded the country several centuries ago. It is completely in ruins now."

I cleared my throat, raising my eyebrows. "Are you forgetting that I was there? I lived in that castle for fifteen years. I knew every step, every tower, every hall, and every secret it held. I can help you."

I paused for a moment, and then laughed bitterly. "What else am I going to do? The only family I have had since I was fifteen is gone now. I don't know when I will see them next. And I can't stay in this hellish fortress, remembering all those brave soldiers who died in that very courtyard," I said sharply, jabbing my pointing finger toward the barred window.

Caspian looked a bit taken aback by my outburst, but he nodded slowly. "All right then. We will rebuild the castle. But where will we get the labor and materials?"

I pulled over a stiff wooden chair and sat down. Back in the Golden Age, there had been no need of lumber or labor. The few humans who lived in Narnia stayed in the Cair, and the rest of the population was made up of Animals, Centaurs, Dwarfs, Fauns, and the like. They had had no need of lumber for houses. And anyway, we couldn't possibly cut down the trees. It would be murder.

After a moment of deliberation, I said, "We can get the wood from Archenland, their entire country is made up of woodland, and there are few nymphs and dryads. The stone we can acquire from the quarries in Calormene. But in order to acquire the goods, we must forge new alliances with both countries. I doubt there has been friendly contact with them for centuries. As for the labor, the Narnians would probably be willing to help, but there aren't very many of them. We might be able to convince some of the Telmarine builders to help, since they will be out of the job now that there will be no more major construction. But we will also probably have to hire a few workers from the other countries."

Caspian looked overwhelmed. "And... how long will this take? How much will it cost?"

I shrugged. It would take extensive planning to gain an idea of what it would take.

He exhaled slowly, running his hands through his hair again, making it stick out even more. I smiled.

"Where do we even begin?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Well, I guess we could start by making a few trips to Anvard and Tashbaan, couldn't we?"