~By the Lion's Mane: The Call~

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

We had good winds as soon as we sailed from Dragon Island, and came upon another small island not far from it. There wasn’t anything there except rabbits and small brown birds and a few goats, and it was all shrubby and rocky. There were huge, ugly scorches that blackened some places, and ruins of several stone huts.

“It looks like pirates’ work,” Caspian said as we surveyed the little island.

“Or another dragon’s,” I guessed. “If it had been pirates, then surely we would have heard of lands beyond the Lone Islands.”

We picked around in the rubble a bit, but found nothing interesting except a tiny little canoe, just the right size for Reepicheep. He was delighted when we suggested bringing it aboard.

“I suppose this island needs a name as well,” Caspian said.

I nodded, though I didn’t have any ideas myself.  

Edmund sighed and decided, “Well, there’s not much here except these big burnt marks, so Burnt Island ought to describe it pretty well.”

I smiled to myself at Edmund’s ‘creativity’ and it was decided. After that had been done, we cast off, and continued our voyage east.

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We saw nothing on the horizon for the next several days. I grew bored and fidgety again, sighing frequently and pacing up on the deck. I climbed up and down the ropes until Edmund told me to stop or I was going to fall and break my neck.

Reep and Eustace played many games of chess, in which Eustace lost, and he began to lapse back into the irritable prat he had been before his dragon days.

Caspian and I practiced with our swords until he beat me, and then I got mad and stormed off. Lucy was the only one that was still cheerful, especially when on Day Five it began to shower, and we all had to go below.

“Look, I believe it’s finally stopping!” Lucy cried happily, pointing out the window of the room.

I got up to peer outside. “Yes, I think you’re right Lu. But what in the name of Aslan is that?” I exclaimed.

We ran up to the deck and lined the rails, staring out over the gray waters.

“Mermaids!” cried Lucy in delight.

And indeed they were. They were watching us from just underneath the surface of the steely water. But the longer I looked at them, the more I saw that they were nothing like the mermaids from childhood fairytales, or the beautiful, genial merfolk that lived off of the warm, coastal waters of Narnia.

These creatures had huge, inhuman eyes and wide mouths filled with needle-like teeth. Their tales were like that of a shark’s and they had razor-sharp fin-like protrusions on every joint of their bodies.

“Lucy,” I began in a warning voice. “I think we had better get back.”

She nodded and stepped away from the rail a bit. I turned to Caspian saying, “Caspian, maybe you should ask the men to stay back a bit from the rails. I don’t like the looks—“

I broke off as I took in the sight of him. He was leaning as far as he could over the rail, his lips slightly parted.

“Caspian?” I asked.

He didn’t respond. Then I noticed his eyes. Though he was focused intently on the merfolk below, his eyes were dazed and dreamy, as if he were caught in a trance...