P.E

Chapter Fourteen: Propinquity Exhumed

By Tonzura123

Disclaimer: I do not own Narnia- but I have made several offers.

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you," Matthew 7:7

"And do you know what she said?" came Sister Gastion's voice from within the Headmistress' office, its pitch close to piercing the glass that divided the well-lit, handsomely furnished interior from the gloomy, Spartan-accommodated waiting room, where Lucy Pevensie morosely sat, determinedly avoiding the alluring urge to twiddle her thumbs.

There was a murmured comment from the Headmistress, a demure, yet powerful, tone that Lucy found rather pleasing. Much like that of Susan when she was older- or younger, if you wanted to be complicated. Just hearing it simultaneously managed to calm and alert the young lady, filling her with a sense of purpose unlike any other that the world could dare offer her.

She readjusted herself in the chair with a barely-contained sigh.

'Susan...'

The gorgeous girl was probably worrying herself sick by wondering where her little sister had gotten off to. That is to say, if her older sister hadn't already figured out her whereabouts from the other girls in her class. St. Finbar's was, after all, notorious for its wildfire gossip. Whisper a secret in your best friend's ear, and the entire school would know it by the end of class.

Not that what had happened had actually been a secret, Lucy mused idly.

"Well, send her in," the low voice hummed pleasantly, causing poor Lucy's heart to leap with a dreadful mix of measured anxiety and carefully observed hope, “And we shall see.” The door next to the thick glass swung grandly open to reveal the self-righteous expression of Sister Gastion, who sniffed and sort of jerked her head to the inside of the office.

"Am I to come in now?" asked Lucy delicately, her agitation with the woman not quite worn, but her desire to do right overwhelmed her bruised (and, as Peter would say, “barely existing”) pride, giving her an edge of maturity. One the Sister would need fifteen years to establish.

Sister Gastion seemed to catch herself in the midst of the act of brutish sign-language, pursed her lips, and shifted the head movement into a stern nod.

"Yes," she emended.

"Thank you," knowing, from years of dealing with stiff-necked politicians, that regality was an important key to hushing their accusations, Lucy slipped gracefully from the sparse chair, alighting to her feet as a bird alights to the air, and glided from her seat passed her teacher into the room. Anything to escape the morgue-like setting of the waiting area.

"Miss Pevensie," the Headmistress greeted her instantaneously, waving at a chair before her desk, "Please make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you," she said again, and as Lucy settled herself, she allowed her eye to take in the fair visage of the woman seated across from her.

Mother Renee was, like Sister Gastion, robed in the same warm, black garments that made up their winter-wear nun habit. She was, overall, dressed in a perfectly insipid manner, though the slightly more ornamental cross that dangled from the Mother’s neck caused the Sister’s to seem incongruously gaunt in comparison. Leaf-like patterns twined fleetingly around the faint etching of a man with his arms fanned out on either side, with the tips of his fingers just grazing the tip of a single gold-gild leaf. The older lady (for she was at least fifty, if not older than that) had (somewhat) tucked the graying wisps of her curling hair up into the black drapes of her headpiece, the only evidence of her experience, aside from the deep wrinkles that framed her mouth and eyes from years of laughter and firming sunlight. She was, Lucy thought to herself, a very handsome lady for one so up in her years. And somehow, it seemed the distinct aging process that was intended to lighten and dull the eyes of the elders had missed Mother Renee altogether- her eyes were as deep a blue as Peter’s, if not deeper. So dark a blue, in fact, they seemed almost like the night sky.

‘She must be a very sweet, old dear," Lucy surmised wryly, "Not a single frown has been thrown at me since I came in!’

But a sideways peek at Sister Gastion told a completely differentiating story.

“I do hope you teach young Miss Pevensie a thing or two about respect!” the lady said loudly, as though Lucy was not in the room at all, and ignoring her glance with obviously practiced concentration, “Since she doesn’t seem to know that God commands all children to be obedient to their betters!”

Lucy gave her a scrutinizing look, but said nothing.

“Sister Gastion,” the Mother murmured, “I do believe Sister Margaret mentioned that the pair of you were put in charge of preparing supper tonight? Why don’t you go ahead and get a head-start on that?”

“But Mother-!” she looked pointedly to Lucy, who stared pointedly back.

“I shall be perfectly equipped to deal with this young woman, Elizabeth.” Mother Renee fingered her cross pensively, now directing all of her attentions to the small figure seated before her, who was still suffering the light-headed euphoria of being addressed as a “young woman.” Not a “child” or a “little girl-” but as a young woman!

“You may leave now,” came the final say from the Head mistress, and (in a flurried fit of her dark habit) Sister Gastion stormed from the office with only a 'Behave yourself!' aimed at the young Queen, before the handsome, oaken door swung shut behind her.

“Now,” Mother Renee said, and Lucy turned back around in her seat to meet her entrancing gaze, “What is it that occurred in your classroom, Miss Pevensie, between you and the Sister? Please...Start with the beginning.”

‘But that would mean going at least ten years into the past, wouldn’t it?’ a small voice whispered dully from the tight ache in her chest. Lucy brushed her hand lightly across it, shaking her head to straighten her thoughts.

“I- we- were in the middle of an embroidery lesson, Mother, and I’ve never been any good at it, to be honest.” And how Susan was a valid testimony to that. “When the Sister saw my work she was…” Lucy searched for a bland term that would not make her appear to be accusing the woman, “…Not pleased with my performance. She made a few comments that I disagreed with, and when she disagreed with my disagreements, things all began to go downhill. I suppose I should have held my tongue.”

Surprisingly enough, the Mother didn't jump to agree with that statement.

“What sort of comments did the Sister make, Miss Pevensie?”

“She wondered why I didn’t put more work into the task so that I would be practiced enough to decorate linens and such for my future husband. And when I told her I never intended to marry, she told me that I should imagine I was doing the work for God instead, since I was obviously meant to become a nun,” Lucy couldn’t contain the wrinkle that scrunched her nose up into her face, “But, to tell the truth, Mother, I don’t exactly intend to join a convent either.”

“And you expressed this sentiment to Sister Gastion?”

“I did.”

“Well,” Mother Renee sighed hopelessly, “the Sister is the type of woman to want you to fit into one stereotype or another. She’s very precise about how she divides people.”

“’Nun’ or ‘wife’? I must say that neither choice appeals to me.”

“Then what will you do?” Mother Renee wondered aloud, and Lucy was again filled with a thrill of excitement. There was simply something about the wizened woman. Something different from all the other grown-ups...Something else. And whatever it was, it made Lucy feel as though another adult was actually taking her seriously for the first time in...Aslan-! It must have been at least a year since she'd last seen her friend, King Caspian.

“I shall work independently," Lucy stated firmly, "and live in a house paid for by myself. I may decide to live completely on my own, or maybe with my-“ the euphoria, at once, vanished into nothing, “-My siblings…”

When Lucy’s voice trailed quietly off and her small shoulders fell forwards like a fragile shield over her chest, Mother Renee shifted in her seat so that she could closely evaluate her.

“...Sister Gastion was not the main reason for your irritation. Was she, Miss Pevensie?”

The ache easily swelled to a flaring, gaping wound and Lucy shuddered, clenching her fists to pummel back the pressure drowning her eyes.

“No, ma’am.”

A soft look stole upon the withered face, and an even gentler tone asked, "Your family, then?"

Bull’s-eye.

Though the sudden and alarming desire to bawl took the Valiant Queen's interest by storm, the deeply-instilled, time-hardened resolution to act her age (her true age- not what the rest of England seemed to think about her) violently smothered it beneath its hand.

'Have faith!' the small voice whispered,' Aslan isn't done with you yet- just trust Him, and everything will work out. It always works out...'

"My brother-" Lucy began, then stopped herself.

Exactly how did one explain their magically-associated circumstances to a woman of the faith? Or even one notof the faith, for that matter? What sane adult (besides Professor Digory Kirke, who knew all about magic) would bother listening to the fantastic stories of a seemingly twelve-year-old girl? Who, after listening, would even believe it? Fear suddenly welled up from its cold, hidden spring into the pit of her stomach, her tiny flicker of hope hissing and spitting painfully as the seeping misery determinedly attempted to snuff it out completely.

Across from her, Mother Renee tilted her head ever so slightly to her right shoulder, the movement causing a strangely soothing rustling from her apparel. Almost like the rustling of feathers- or of wings.

"Your brother? Is he ill? Or simply going through a challenging time? Speak up, Miss Pevensie. You can tell an old woman what's troubling you. Don't run from your fears, my dear."

'Run not from one fear...' Peter's words resonated the lullaby in her mind, his deep tones ringing out altruistically from a distant memory, and Lucy looked up again. She couldn't have been in a worse pinch- not wanting to lose her newly found credibility with this woman (her possibly only English ally) before she even managed to leave the office. But if there was the one chance...The even slightest of possibilities that Mother Renee could help in some way or another...

'Biaxs mi Lan...' her brother continued, softly now, with the ghost of his fingers brushing wisps of hair from her eyes, 'Biaxs mi Lan...'

'If she could save Edmund...'

"Mother!" Lucy fairly exploded, twisting her skirt between her hands with anxiety, "Do you believe that God can warn you of something before it happens?"

"Is that was this is about?” by her facial expression, Lucy could tell she was just as surprised at her outburst as she, herself was, and she rubbed a translucent thumb over her mouth to straighten her wrinkles out from a tempting smile, “You know there are prophecies in the Good Book, yes?" At Lucy's nod, the elderly lady folded her hands over her desk and continued in low, slow tones, “I want you to understand, Lucy Pevensie, that I myself have never personally heard such a message. Those that have, I believe, are among the blessed.”

“’Blessed’? Even if it’s warning against something bad?”

“Especially if it’s warning against something bad,” Mother Renee finally let her mouth curve upwards into a gentle smile, “My sister used to tell me that the Lord once spoke to her, you know.”

“Really?” despite herself, Lucy felt an inkling of joy at the very idea, “What did He tell her?”

“It was more of an obvious-answered question than anything. My sister had been working part-time in a clothing factory, you see, a little while after the first war. I had offered her a small place just outside of the convent, but she had two small children to provide for, and couldn’t get to work from there. I suppose she didn’t realize we would have taken care of everything for her- she had always been independent. Anyway, not too soon after she declined out offer, her children were harmed in a rail-way accident. One died, the other was hideously scarred forever. When the doctors came to give her the news, my sister told me that she began sobbing out-right and praying to be saved with all of her might. Praying to save her child, praying to protect them, praying that her baby boy would get into heaven. She told me after the matter that she had been praying for what turned out to be three straight hours, when a still, small voice suddenly spoke to her…”

Lucy found herself leaning expectantly inwards, hands gripping the armrests in earnest.

“What? What did it say?” she asked breathlessly, and Mother Renee smiled broadly.

“He said, ‘Sarah, am I God?’ and she clapped her hands over her mouth and told Him ‘Yes, sir!’ Now isn’t that something?” the elderly lady sighed happily and fingered her crucifix, “In less than five words He virtually told her that He could do anything, and would give her anything.”

“Anything, hm?” Lucy fiddled with her skirt again, thinking furiously, “Mother Renee?”

“Yes, dear?”

Taking a deep breath, she lightly knocked on the wooded base of her armrest, and asked;

“Is there any way that I could, possibly, pay a visit to my brothers?”

OoOoOoOoO

“Monochrome.”

“Pardon?”

The Hag raised her one, good eye up to my face, and it was everything I could do to not look away from her ghastly, yellow, grinning teeth that clustered within her blood-red beak.

“Monochrome. The combination of black and white. Bad and good. Darkness and light. It’s the perfect word to describe the joining of two completely different elements to create a contrasting mood or pattern,” she washed her gaze up and down my form, instigating thousands of goose-bumps to erupt on my flesh, “And it describes you amazingly well.”

I licked my lips, nonchalantly backing up against a tall Ash tree that stood behind me.

“How so?”

“Well, as one prime example, you are currently using the present darkness to attempt to hide yourself from me. A curious notion, to be sure, White-haired Child.”

“But I’m blond,” I blinked, only capable of saying the first, stupid words to pop into my head.

The Hag merely threw back her head and shrieked in her mirth…

OoOoOoOoO

CLANG!...CLANG!

The courtyard clock exclaimed the time proudly from its stationary place across the school grounds and I moaned wearily, the sound echoing strangely from where my head was bent, the vibrations of my larynx bouncing around almost gleefully within the gleaming, porcelain bowl.

‘Ugh,’ was all my typically witty mind could summon, and I weakly reached up with one hand and blindly pulled the gleaming lever down to do away with the sick floating inside the toilet, blearily watching it swirl into the unknown world of London plumbing.

Never, in all my weeks at this school, had I been so glad that no one shared a dorm with me.

I had explained the situation to Collins when I had first been offered the chance to study at Hartbee’s School for Young Men, although the man had been rather dubious at the time. I had told him, flat-out, that it would be impossible for me to share a room with anyone, due to what my family’s local physician called “night terrors”- a violent nightmare that was nearly impossible to wake the sleeper from. In Narnia, we called them “Roraithan,” which essentially had the same definition.

Except, in Narnia, it was used as an adjective- and it was to describe the sleeper themselves.

I spat to diminish the sour flavour lurking in my taste buds and wiped excess vomit from my mouth with the back of my pajama sleeve, carefully pulling myself up with the solid aid of the wall, and painstakingly shuffling across the floorboards to my bed. Once there, I let my aching body collapse, face-first, onto the twisted sheets, not caring to tug them over me.

I hurt. My stomach was rebelling. My heart thrashed about in my chest. My lungs drew air tentatively. My hands screamed from where they had tried to throttle the (now) splintering bed post. My head spun and pounded and rocked and swayed and flared with such utter agony, that I couldn’t concentrate on anything but it. Part of me wished the Roraithan would take me again.

A spike pierced my temple and I folded my face farther into the mattress, missing the presence of my older brother sleeping soundly only a few feet away. Deus- I’d have given my bleeding arms just to have him in the general vicinity! To have him rush in with that terribly worried face and ask if I was alright. To have him tell me to buck-up and get on with it. Or maybe just to know that was capable of being near me. That he wasn’t restrained or in trouble.

That he could hold his own without me there to protect him.

But in the past few weeks, since our last discussion, we’d only managed to spend less time with one another- the exact opposite of what each of us truly wanted, and we both knew it. I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye during classes (probably because I, in turn, watched him) and try to be ready in the event of an injury during rugby (and no matter how hard I played, no one ever seemed able to maim me enough to need medical assistance).

I astonishingly missed all of his fussing.

A flame licked up my sides, curling me into myself as if I was nothing more than burning, blackening paper.

“I get it!” I hissed out, “I get it! I’m not protecting them right! I’m doing something wrong! So please! Tell me how to save them!”

Maces hammered my skull, the ringing in my ears increasing in pitch rapidly.

“I’m in the dark!” I cried, and I mean literally cried, too tired to give a fig either way, “I can’t see where all of this is going! PLEASE ASLAN!”

‘Just look at this when you feel lonely, Edmund, and you’ll think of home…’

My eyes opened, the pain racing rampant around my body somewhat diminishing in light of the epiphany that struck me in a gentler, yet somehow far fiercer, way.

“Lucy,” I breathed, and found I had the strength enough to slip down from my bed and crawl across the floor to my bag, pulling a wrinkled sheaf of artist paper from the front flap, not caring that my hand was rattling the picture around too hard to properly view it, its image already engraved in my mind’s eye, “Aslan, why do you want me to see this again?”

‘Perhaps you missed something,’ a soft voice whispered in the back of my head, where the constant, crushing pressure was already waning, “Perhaps it is to comfort you.”

But what could I have missed? It was the same image- the same miserable figure huddled hopelessly in the darkest corner of the coldest cavern. The same colours. The same ring of golden sunlight revealing a fine, green patch of dew-covered grass. The same artist. ‘I think…’

Frowning, I turned the paper over to look at the back, where I found Lucy had, indeed, signed her name in medieval-type font across the bottom.

But what I had missed, during the last times I had looked at it, was the title.

“’Hope Grows,’ huh?” I whispered weakly, a grin twitching the corners of my mouth up, “Lucy, dear sister, I think you’ve been reading too many penny-dreadfuls again.” But even a jest given with a full heart seemed crass to the moment, so I bowed my head over the painting, and fervently prayed for the safety and happiness of the ones I held most dear.

A/N: Hello and thanks to all who went on to read this chapter, the fourteenth of a hopeful many! The last installment received oodles of responses from several people, and I thank them all very much for taking the time and effort to do so.

The plot is mounting! Lucy is out on campaign to see her brothers, Peter and Edmund’s awkwardness hasn’t (yet ;D) been emended, and Edmund’s feeling is growing in intensity, along with his night terrors! Something’s definitely cooking…but who’s the chef?

My only regret is that Peter’s scene was about one-hundred and seventy words long. But get this- it’s an excerpt from another multi-chapter story I’m planning to start putting up after P.E finishes. Those who guess the title get a cyber-cookie. Flavour of your choice. ;) And the scene DOES relate to the chapter, if only to reinforce some ideals.

I hope you enjoyed the chapter- if you find any mistakes (grammatical, spelling, factual, etc) please contact me. Any other issues with the chapter are also encouraged to be shared, so that they will not repeat in future updates.

Thanks again, from the bottom of my heart!

As Always,

-Tonzura123

New Vocabulary:

Insipid- dull, ordinary, boring

Incongruously- inappropriately, absurdly, inconsistently

Propinquity- closeness (of a relationship), or of proximity, similarity

Exhume- to bring into light, especially after being hidden or unknown; to reveal