~By the Lion's Mane: The Call~

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

~Edmund~

I tossed my small trunk onto the bed with a frustrated sigh, where it landed with a squeak of the mattress springs. I ran my fingers through my hair, surveying the small, ugly room at my Aunt and Uncle's house.

As I began to unpack and fling things into drawers, I reflected on my rotten luck and how I had gotten to come here.

Mum and Dad, now that the war was finally over and Dad was able to come home, had decided to take a holiday to America. Oh, and Susan, being the second oldest and the most spoiled, got to go with them. They had left by steamship the morning before.

Normally, we would be fine staying by ourselves in Finchley. But Peter was off at University, and Mum and Dad didn't think Lu and I were old enough to stay at home by ourselves for so long.

"Ridiculous that I'm thirty-two and I'm not allowed to go along on their merry little adventure. Instead, I have to stay here and be babysat by my bloody relatives," I muttered irately to myself.

So since we couldn't be left alone, Lucy and I had been sent to stay for the duration of their trip at our Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta's house.

"I hope you haven't damaged my beetle collection with all of your rampaging around like that," I heard a nasally voice say behind me. I stopped putting away a shirt and sighed, closing my eyes briefly.

Turning around to face the owner of the voice, I said, "No, you needn't worry about your horrid little collections. Believe me, I wouldn't dare touch them." I grimaced, thinking about the many species of insects he had pinned to little labeled cards displayed around the house in glass frames.

The little brat I was speaking to was my insufferable cousin, Eustace Clarence Scrubb. He was quite deserving of such a name.

He was just one more reason I despised my current situation.

As he continued on about science and bugs and Harold and Alberta (Eustace called his parents by their first names) and his ghastly school, Experiment House, I let my mind wander to other subjects, ones that didn't give me a severe headache.

My favorite such subject was Rosie.

My heart clenched when I thought about her, and for the millionth time, I found myself wondering about what she had been doing waiting for me. How long had she been waiting now? Had she given up hope of ever seeing me again? I wouldn't know until Aslan decided it was time.

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The weeks crawled by slowly, and I began to believe I would go mad from boredom. The house was stiflingly hot and humid, despite me having turned on every fan in the house. The air was stagnant and heavy, and there was precious little to do in the neighborhood.

Occasionally Lucy and I would take a bus to town and go to the public pool to swim, or go to get ice cream. But it was a long trip, and Eustace always had to go along with us, even though he complained loudly the entire time.

So we were mostly stranded at the house. I spent a lot of my time in Lucy's room, where I could finally get away from horrid Eustace and our Aunt and Uncle. There we would lay on her bed, staring at a painting that hung crookedly on the wall.

It was a painting of a ship sailing atop the crest of a deep blue wave. The ship had a huge purple sail and the head of a dragon.

I spent a lot of time on my back, hands behind my head, studying it. But one day, I sat up suddenly and walked over to it.