A/N: Okay, so I missed my own deadline by one day but I'VE FINALLY UPDATED!!! *cues the Hallelujah Chorus* I've lately been suffering from a bad case of writer's block, but I've finally pushed through it! And as a thank-you for everyone's overwhelming support for this story, I've made an official trailer for it! A real trailer, mind you. Not a slide show. Go to my profile and check it out.

HAPPY LATE VALENTINE'S DAY!! And congrats to Deanalyn, who's FINALLY gotten engaged to her sweetheart, Troy! (It's about time, gwathel-nin!!)

Hope this chapter and the one coming up are worth the wait! I'll get to work on the next update right away!

Chapter 5: A Lost Cinderella

New Year’s Eve, 1942

Whizz!

“Haha, got you!”

Whizz!

“Nyeh, missed!”

Snowballs and cheerful taunts shot through the chill December air. Children ducked behind snow forts and gleefully scooped up frozen ammunition to fling back at the opposing side, while others made snow angels or stacked lumpy white boulders on top of each other for snowmen. It was Winter; a glorious, happy winter that held onto the afterglow of Christmas while anticipating the new year to come.

Oblivious to the noise and flying snow a few feet away from him, Warren sat on a cold park bench, huddled up in his coat, eyes darting over the pages of his new book: The Scarlet Pimpernel. He’d gotten it brand-new as a Christmas gift. The moment he’d picked it up and drank in the first paragraph, the story captured his imagination…or rather seized it in an iron grip with no intention of letting go until he finished.

An impolite snowball thudded against his back, wrenching him back to the real world with a start. Somewhat irritated, he turned…and a surprised smile spread across his face.

“Johnny! I should have figured it was you who threw that…”

“Hullo, Warren!” The boy grinned back at him, a mop of curly black hair flopping in his eyes and a bold red scarf wrapped snugly around his neck. “I had a feeling I’d find you with your nose stuck in a book. And it’s John now, not Johnny.”

He jogged over and collapsed into the seat beside Warren, letting out a long, cloudy breath. Soon the two boys were laughing over past school troubles and catching up on lost weeks.

“So how’s life without me?” asked John in nonchalant manner, digging his hands into his pockets for warmth.

“Nice and peaceful,” retorted Warren, trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face. “But what about you? I thought you were spending the hols with your parents; what on earth are you doing here?”

“Looking for you! I came by your house but you weren’t there, and then your Mum said I might find you here, so here I am and here you are!”

“But why were you looking for me?”

John feigned an hurt expression. “What kind of a cold-hearted question is that? Do I need a reason to see you? Do I need a reason to talk to you? Really…”

“Fine,” laughed Warren. “You’ve made your point. It’s good to see you, too.”

“I should hope so,” he huffed. A second of silence passed, and he grudgingly added, “Alright then, so maybe I do have my reasons…”

“I knew it,” Warren groaned. “You always do when you descend on me from out of the blue and act chummier than usual...”

“At any rate,” John cut in, rolling his eyes as he rose from his seat and faced Warren, “I was wondering...my dad’s throwing a big party back at the manor tonight, and I’ve convinced him to invite you. And anyone else you’d like to bring. Which reminds me, have you found a girl yet?”

Warren gave his friend an incredulous look. “You have got to be joking.”

“Oh come on, Warren!” The boy punched his arm with an impish grin and danced away again, like a reckless young bird itching to fly. “Get your nose out of your books and do something crazy and impulsive for once! You need a girl, for Pete’s sake! It’s New Year’s!”

He pulled Warren to his feet and they began walking to the edge of the park.

“And besides,” he added glumly, “I’ll be positively bored to tears if you don’t come. All the grownups will be busy sipping champagne, acting rich and discussing politics, making the war sound completely dull and I’ll be sitting in a corner somewhere wishing I’d never been born. You wouldn’t do that to your pal John, would you? You’re not that cruel, are you?”

Warren merely returned the puppy-dog look with a mild glare, tightened his protective grip on the book and quickened his pace.

John trotted alongside and raised his eyebrows. “I say! You owe me one. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Ugh, you just had to bring that up, didn’t you...”

“Yes I ‘had to’, so there. But only as a last resort!” Warren stopped as John faced him and crossed his arms, a smirk dancing on his lips. “What do you say?”

“I say it was stupid to wait and tell me at the last minute, because now there’s hardly any time and Mum will...”

“Actually, I already talked to her,” said John. “And she says it’s perfectly fine for you to go. I’ve arranged everything; all you need to do is wear something decent. I have a feeling you’ll clean up rather nicely. Sorry, but I’m not letting you get any excuses this time.”

Warren sighed in defeat. John was a clown with a heart of gold (as well as one of the richer kids in school); the kind of person who is friends with anyone and everyone. He was especially good to Warren, despite his tendency for dragging him in and out of trouble at school. He’d befriended him when no one else would and kept the bullies off his back countless times. Warren did owe him.

“Alright, alright. I’ll go.”

“Oh hurrah!” John gave a gleeful whoop of delight. “Now all we need to do is find a girl for you…”

“Oh would you let up?”

“It’s true!” protested John. But after a brief pause, he turned and eyed Warren in suspicion. “That is, unless you’ve already found one and haven’t told me. Hmm?”

Warren awkwardly cleared his throat. “Well…”

“Ooo-ooh!” John crowed in triumph and elbowed Warren in the ribs. “By Jove, it’s about time! Why didn’t you tell me sooner? C’mon, then! What’s her name?”

“It’s nothing to get excited over,” said Warren. “She hardly talks to me at all, and we’ve only met once or twice…”

“Well I can easily fix that.” John winked.

Warren gave him a threatening glare. “Don’t you dare…”

“Oh calm down,” said John, rolling his eyes. “I won’t do anything stupid. Just give me the name; I’m dying to know who’s caught the eye of the bookworm.”

Warren sighed. “Phyllis. She said her name’s Phyllis.”

“Phyllis, eh?” A perplexed look flashed across John’s face. “I haven’t heard of any Phyllises at St. Finbar’s, and I know the name of every girl from that school. Is she from somewhere else?”

“No, it’s definitely Finbar’s.”

“Hrmm…” John thought a moment, and then his face lit up. “Haha, I think we may have an alias on our hands, Warren! A mystery girl with a secret name; a Cinderella. This should be interesting…”

“Oh do let it go,” pleaded Warren. “I’m already beginning to dread this New Year’s party you’ve forced me into.”

John pointed a threatening finger at him. “Don’t you dare back out on me now, Warren Carmichael.”

“I won’t, I won’t.” Warren raised his arms in surrender. “I already said I’d go, didn’t I? But you promise that after this, we’ll be even?”

“Cross my heart,” said John, a solemn frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. It was only because he looked for it that Warren was still able to see the mischievous twinkle in his eyes. And that always meant he had something up his sleeve.

“I swear, Johnny, you’ll be the death of me someday,” he muttered.

The boy growled. “I told you, it’s John now.”

--

Susan ran a slender finger over the glistening tubes of lip color that stood invitingly on her mother’s vanity. She chose two colors, one in each hand, and studied them carefully as she tried to decide which one to choose.

“Mmm, this one would complement my dress...Edmund? Which color do you think I should pick?”

“That’s not the best question to ask me, Su...oh blast this confounded thing,” grumbled Edmund, fumbling with his tie as he scowled in the mirror. “It won’t behave itself.”

Susan sighed and put down the lipstick for a moment to assist him. “Well, you certainly won’t get it to behave if you treat it that way. Here, let me do it.” Turning his shoulders towards her, she pushed his hands out of the way and fussed with black silk.

Susan had always enjoyed getting dressed up and going to parties. She liked the powdery smell of makeup, the softness of fine fabric brushing against her legs, the sound of heels clacking alluringly against the floor and the warmth she felt inside when people looked at her with admiring eyes. She loved to feel beautiful and always had.

But there is a fine line between love and obsession. And the harder her siblings tried to pull her back, the closer Susan crept towards the edge.

“Has anyone seen my shoes?” asked Lucy, her voice in sing-song as she skipped through their mother’s bedroom and peeped under the vanity. “I can’t find them anywhere and Mum will be cross.”

“It depends on which ‘Mum’ you’re talking about,” said Edmund, flashing a teasing grin at Susan. Normally she would have wrinkled her nose at him or laughed; but instead she sighed again in an awful grownup way and ignored the joke.

“There,” she said crisply, giving his tie a firm pat. “It looks perfect now. I can’t say the same about your hair though. It isn’t...”

“I refuse to slick it back,” said Edmund, a look of disgust on his face. “I like it the way it is, thank you.”

“Fine,” huffed Susan, “but at least tackle it with a comb before we leave. I don’t want my siblings looking like hooligans at the party.”

“Well I, for one, enjoy being a ‘hooligan’ sometimes,” laughed Lucy. “Remember the time when we—oh there they are! How did they end up there?” She grabbed her runaway pair of shoes and tugged them onto her feet, rumpling her skirt in the process. Susan clucked her tongue in disapproval and turned to put the finishing touches on her makeup.

Minutes later, she smiled in satisfaction and twirled in place, the folds of her black skirt whispering against the air. “How do I look?”

Lucy pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side. “You look very...”

“Fancy,” put in Edmund.

Lucy sent a light glare in his direction. “I was going to say pretty...”

“Alright, then,” said Susan, raising her eyebrows at them. “What’s wrong?”

“You look fine,” assured her brother with a hasty smile, “it's just that I'm not used to seeing you with so much makeup on.”

“I think you're beautiful,” emphasized Lucy. “And the dress looks very becoming on you.”

“Good.” Susan smiled back at her and twirled again. “I want to look especially nice.”

“You mean, you want to look especially nice for Ian.” Lucy's smile became mischievous. Edmund said nothing, but his eyes grew cold and his right hand unconsciously reached for a sword hilt that wasn’t there.

“Oh really, Lu,” sighed Susan, “did you have to bring that up? It’s bad enough being teased endlessly by you and nagged at by the boys. And look, Edmund’s about to start lecturing me again and—”

“I'm sorry,” Edmund cut in gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t mean to upset you. I just don’t want another Prince Rabadash incident to happen,” he added, lips twitching upwards. “You can’t be too careful when it comes to suitors.”

Susan felt utterly confused and gave him a blank stare. “Prince who? What are you talking about?”

“Oh don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about him!” Lucy stifled a giggle and flopped on the bed, chin in hands. “The look on his face when he was dangling from that hook...and when Aslan turned him into a donkey. Absolutely priceless.”

Edmund chuckled. “And it served him right, too, the scoundrel. He had no business courting my sister one moment and plotting Narnia’s downfall the next.”

“Narnia?” Susan murmured, her voice lost. For some reason, the name tasted sour in her mouth. Lucy’s grin faded a little and she glanced at Edmund, confused and concerned. Edmund stared at Susan, his gaze intense.

“Yes. We ruled there, remember?”

“Oh.” Susan blinked and forced a smile. “Yes, of course.”

Narnia. She knew it well, and she could easily remember things about it: talking animals and walking trees, kings and castles, dryads, mermaids, magic...but that was all. They weren’t memories to her anymore; they were simply facts. Dry, lifeless facts. There had been mermaids, but the color of their skin and the silvery music of their voices were gone. She knew there was a castle and that she had been queen, but she couldn’t recall the weight of a crown, the vast, marble columns of a throne room or the heavy responsibility of ruling a country. All the things that made Narnia real to her were vanishing, leaving her with nothing but a shadow to hold on to. And the more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. Talking animals? Magic? They were things you found in fiction and fairy tales. Was it even possible for such things to exist in Reality?

Maybe it all felt shadowy for a reason. Maybe it never really happened. In the end, perhaps it had all been…pretend. Was that all it was? A fairy tale game? A pair of pretty glass slippers she was outgrowing?

The idea made sense to her. And Susan loved sense.

“Children!” Their mother’s voice called from living room, breaking the awkward silence. “Hurry up; your father’s got the car ready! You don’t want to be late, do you?”

“Coming!” Susan called back, taking time for one final glance in the mirror. Smoothing her hair, she grabbed her coat and walked out into the hall, leaving Edmund and Lucy behind to share a long, troubled look.

She passed Peter’s room and caught sight of him leaning his hands against the dresser, eyes half-closed, softly humming a tune to himself. Despite her hurry, the song caught her attention and held it firmly, somehow willing her to stop and listen.

She halted, her slender eyebrows furrowed. It was haunting and beautiful, and so…familiar. It stirred something inside her and whispered across her memory, seeping through the chinks in her mind like liquid moonlight. Where had she heard it before…?

Peter turned, and a pair of sad, ancient eyes met a pair of lost blue ones. Time stretched and something flickered between them, both seeking an understanding that neither was able to give.

“Come on,” Susan finally blurted, shaking herself and motioning towards the front door. Peter smiled and took her arm, and the moment was gone.

“Let’s go.”