How Can We Live?

by: mokatster

Chapter Five: Unexpected discovery

Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia! I also have a deplorable lack of knowledge of swords and armor and things of that nature, which shows in this chapter and the next. Please excuse the lack of description! I also acknowledge that the humor in this chapter is a little silly.

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“Edmund.”

Lucy’s voice was insistent but, being absorbed in his book, Edmund didn’t respond. The entire family—except for Susan, who had gone to bed early, complaining of a headache—was gathered in the living room to listen to the wireless. Ever since Edmund could remember, it had been a family tradition to relax after dinner and listen to the news broadcast and then the story programs featured afterward. This week being the week before Christmas, they were serenaded nightly with Christmas carols and entertained with the familiar holiday stories.

But even though Edmund enjoyed Christmas, he was only half-listening to the radio. He had discovered a book on the Crusades before he left school, and all he really wanted to do was read it. He had long been interested in investigating whether or not the design of the armor and weapons was like what he himself had used in Narnia, and he was finding the parallels intriguing.

“Edmund.”

Edmund sighed inwardly. What could be so important?

“What?” he asked absently, not looking up to where Lucy was snuggled next to Mum and Dad on the sofa.

“I thought you weren’t going to do anything intellectual over the holiday?”

“This isn’t intellectual, Lu. Not stimulating in the slightest.”

“What is it, then?”

Edmund heaved a real sigh this time, not bothering to conceal his irritation. Lucy was nothing if not annoyingly persistent.

“It’s about Penny the Pony and how she jumps over the moon and finds the gooey lemondrop mountain.”

Lucy giggled. Peter turned and looked up from where he was sprawled in front of Edmund’s armchair, clearly amused. “Sounds like your kind of story then.”

Dad chuckled with Lucy this time, something Edmund noted with distinct satisfaction. It seemed his father laughed too seldom these days.

Giving up on reading, Edmund closed the book and gave his brother a whack on the head with it. “I found it on your shelf, Pete!” He grinned evilly. “And I’ve noticed, at the part where Penny dies from sugar overdose, that the pages are all wrinkled…” He flipped through the pages of his book and, trying to look sorrowful, sighed. “Looks like someone has shed many a tear over the pretty pony’s untimely death…”

Lucy laughed. “Ed, you’re awful!”

Peter tried to look indignant, and massaged the spot where Edmund had hit him, though he was obviously suppressing a smile. “Hey, that’s not my book! I think you’re just blaming me to try to cover up your love of pretty little ponies!”

Lucy couldn’t handle any more and buried her face in her father’s shoulder in a fit of giggles. Mum smiled and shook her head, obviously finding the situation amusing but seeming to think that, as a parent, she should maintain some semblance of seriousness. “Edmund, you shouldn’t hit your brother.” Her smile faded into a worried frown as she looked concernedly at Peter. “Peter, dear, you’re looking a bit pale. Are you feeling all right? Did you get enough sleep last night?”

Edmund smirked and interjected before Peter could speak. “He was too busy reading the sequel to Penny the pony: Molly the Mare and the Rainbow of Sparkles.”

Peter reached up to hit him hard on the shoulder. Ignoring Edmund’s indignant protest, he turned back to his mother. “I think I am a bit tired.” He stood and stretched. “Maybe I’ll go and read another chapter of Great Expectations—“ he looked pointedly at Edmund, who snorted—“before turning in.” He kissed both his parents and Lucy good night and headed to the stairs.

“What, I’m not good enough for a kiss?” Edmund protested jokingly, raising himself slightly from the chair.

“Not tonight, pony boy!” Peter called from the hallway. His footsteps sounded on the stairs as he headed to bed.

Edmund settled back in his chair, chortling. He cracked open his book once again and immersed himself in the different sword types of the Middle Ages.

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It was only a few minutes after Peter had gone upstairs that Lucy felt her eyes start to grow heavy. As a queen in Narnia, she had been accustomed to going to bed quite late some nights, sometimes even after midnight! But now that she was back to being a girl in England, she also fell back into her self-proclaimed “English habits,” and the desire to go to bed early (or at least at a somewhat reasonable hour) was one of them. So she bid her parents—and Edmund, though he didn’t look up—goodnight with a smile, and followed her eldest brother upstairs.

She had expected Susan to be asleep already, so she was surprised to see their door slightly ajar and the light on. She was about to enter, but the sound of Peter’s voice brought her to an abrupt halt, her hand still stretched out to push the door open.

“So if you don’t have a headache, why didn’t you stay downstairs with the rest of us?”

Lucy frowned, letting her hand fall back down to her side. Was Susan avoiding them? Why on earth would she do that?

“I can’t just pretend that everything’s perfectly fine, Peter.” Susan’s voice was strained, as if she was about to snap at someone any second. “It’s hard enough at school, but I’m so busy with homework there that I can distract myself. But here…” she trailed off.

Worry flooded Lucy’s mind. What was wrong with her sister? Why hadn’t she noticed before that something was wrong?

“What’s so different about home?” Peter asked, sounding confused. “We’re plenty busy here, and we definitely have a lot more fun here than at school.”

“No.” Susan said, vehemently. “Because when I’m at home, everything reminds me of--“ she broke off.

“Of Narnia?” Peter said, quietly. “I don’t understand why that's a bad thing; England seems so different, I would think any reminders of Narnia would be welcome.”

His voice wasn’t bitter as it had been the previous year, Lucy noted with some relief. It had been some time since Peter had gotten into a fight, but still—last year had been so trying, Lucy had thought her elder brother almost unrecognizable at times. She still had this fear that something would happen to change Peter back to that bitter, hardened young man he had been.

Lucy heard Susan take a shuddering breath, and she leaned closer to the door to hear her sister’s response.

“It’s Lucy,” Susan choked, the anger evident in her voice. “Everything she says, everything she does—it’s as if we never left!”

Lucy stepped back from the doorway as if she’d been slapped. The frustration and anger in Susan’s voice was so potent; she believed that if she dared to walk into the room at that moment, her sister’s ire would grab hold of her throat with terrible dark claws and strangle her. Part of her wanted to leave, but shock kept her rooted to the spot. She didn’t think her sister had ever been this angry with her before. Heart hammering, she listened to Susan rage against her.

“She acts as though she hasn’t a care in the world, as if this world is the most exciting place to be! Everything makes her happy, nothing is ever wrong, and if it is, then she’s just so excited for something better that she completely ignores the fact that she’s miserable! I just—how can she be so—“ she broke off, seemingly too frustrated to articulate anything further.

Lucy was still, tears stinging her eyes, and feeling very much as if she wanted to shrink into the floor and never come out.

“I don’t think you’re being fair, Su,” Peter protested angrily. “This is how Lucy has always been; she sees everything differently. You don’t have any right to be angry with her for doing absolutely nothing wrong.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Lucy misses Narnia just as much as the rest of us,” Peter continued, soothingly. “She’s dealing with it the best way she can.” He paused a second or two before adding, “Personally, I think she handles it the best out of all of us.”

“Oh, of course she does!” Susan said scathingly. “She can never do anything wrong!”

Susan’s words and her tone cut Lucy straight to the heart. She would never have believed that her sister—gentle Susan—could ever say such things about her with such sarcastic malice. She stood outside the door, quivering, torn between the thought of running away or staying put and listening to more. Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her and whirled around.

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Edmund didn’t even notice that Lucy had gone upstairs until Mum asked if he was going to bed too. Startled, he shut his book and hastily bid his parents goodnight before following his sister.

He nearly ran into Lucy in the dark hallway, where she was lurking outside the room she shared with Susan. She wheeled around as he approached, and he was startled to see that she was in tears.

“Lucy, what—“

She gestured frantically at him to be quiet and motioned towards the door, which had been left ajar. Edmund frowned and crept closer, wondering what had gotten Lucy so upset. Peter’s voice floated from the room and his tone made Edmund’s stomach clench.

“Susan, what’s the matter?” Peter sounded extremely worried. “I know you can’t really be mad at Lucy—what’s the real trouble?”

A combination of anger and worry stirred within Edmund. Is this what had Lucy so upset? What had Susan said? He reached out a hesitant hand to touch Lucy on the shoulder. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, and looked up at him with the expression of a puppy that had just been whipped for the first time in its life. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she buried her face in his chest, sniffling.

“It’s just—I feel like—” Susan sighed, heavily. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“I know it’s hard, Su, but we’ve done this before. It’s not any different from the last time, really—”

Susan interrupted, her voice shaking with tears and anger.

“It is not the same, Peter, and you know it! Stop pretending that it’s no big deal; I know you’re just as upset about it as I am!”

Lucy pulled away from Edmund and looked up at him, her tears gone, but distress etched across her features. He met her worried gaze with his own. What was going on?

“I know,” Peter murmured. “It’s hard to believe we’re never going back.”

Susan was ranting in between angry sobs.

“Why would Aslan do this to us? Why can’t we go back? Edmund and Lucy can! Why can’t we?”

Lucy grabbed Edmund’s hand and squeezed it. He returned the pressure, worry tightening his chest.

So it was about Narnia. He should have known that Susan and Peter weren’t really as accepting of their fate as they had seemed a few months ago.

Peter was speaking again.

“You heard what He said: there’s nothing left for us in Narnia. We’ve learned all we can.”

“But Edmund and Lucy have been there just as long as we have!” Susan protested, her voice louder than she probably meant it to be. “They’ve done just as much as we have! What makes Him think that we’ve learned enough and they haven’t? Why is He pushing us out?”

Edmund heard Peter sigh.

“I’ve thought about that too…and I don’t really have an answer. Nobody who really knows Him can ever claim to understand Him completely, can they?”

Silence.

“We shouldn’t be jealous of them,” Peter continued. “We should be happy that they have the opportunity to go back. And…” he hesitated. “I’m sure it’s not because Aslan loves us any less.” And although his voice was firm, Edmund didn’t think he sounded entirely convinced. He exchanged a guilty look with Lucy and she moved a little closer to him.

“Peter,” Susan choked. “How can we live—?”

“—without Aslan?” Peter finished softly. He was silent for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted, heavily.

Lucy obviously couldn’t stand another minute out in the hallway listening to her older siblings while they were so miserable. She started into the room, but Edmund pulled her back, shaking his head frantically at her. They couldn’t go in there—they were part of the problem, they would only makes things worse! Lucy gave him an exasperated look and tugged his hand impatiently.

Edmund sighed. He hadn’t heard what Susan had said before he came upstairs, but she must have been pretty horrid to make Lu cry. And yet after all that, Lucy still wanted to go in to offer comfort.

He really didn’t understand his little sister sometimes.

With a resigned grimace, he yielded to Lucy’s relentless pulling and together they burst into the room.

Peter and Susan were both sitting back against the headboard of Susan’s bed; Peter had his arm around Susan, who was leaning into him with her head on his shoulder. They both broke apart, startled, when the door opened suddenly. Edmund nearly trod on Lucy as she hesitated for a moment in the doorway, suddenly uncertain as to whether or not she should have interrupted.

Peter and Susan both looked a bit embarrassed. Edmund wondered if they suspected that they had been overheard. He noted that some confusion and sadness lingered in their faces.

“Oh, sorry, Lu,” Peter stammered. “Do you want me to leave so you can go to bed?”

Lucy crossed the room quickly and smothered Peter with a hug. Without hesitating, Edmund followed suit, moving to the other side of the bed and wrapping his arms around Susan, who clutched him tightly. He tried to put a lot of reassurance into the hug, to communicate with touch what he couldn’t comfortably convey with words. He felt she had somehow understood him because when she finally let go, her eyes seemed less preoccupied. She smiled at him and patted the space on the bed in front of her.

“You’re welcome to join us, if you want.” The Gentle Queen was back, for the moment.

Edmund shrugged, and sank cautiously on the bed. “As long as we aren’t interrupting anything…” he trailed off uncertainly. He saw Lucy looking questioningly at Peter and Susan.

“No, you aren’t,” Peter smiled and motioned for Lucy to sit on the bed too.

Peter had to have known that he and Lucy had overhead them. But he obviously didn’t want to pursue the topic at the moment. Edmund grimaced to himself. Well, his brother wasn’t going to get away from it that easily; he was just going to have to corner Peter later. He glanced at Lucy as she sat down beside him. They needed to talk about something else…

Lucy cottoned on right away. “So, are we planning any sort of Christmas surprise for Mum and Dad this year?”

Peter looked thoughtful. “I didn’t have anything planned, but we should do something special. After all, it’s Dad’s first Christmas home in ages!”

Susan beamed. “Oh, yes! I was actually thinking about this the other day…” she leaned forward conspiratorially, and for a while they all pretended to think of nothing but Christmas presents.

A sudden knock at the door made all four of them jump. Mum poked her head inside and smiled at their guilty faces.

“What, still up?!” she teased. “You lot need to get into bed! It’s nearly half past ten!”

Peter smiled, which he obviously thought was enough to placate Mum. “Sorry, Mum, we’ll be off to bed in a minute. We promise.”

Dad appeared in the doorway, obviously surprised that they were all still awake. “What are you all doing in here?”

The girls smiled innocently at him.

“We were just talking,” Susan explained, evasively. “But we’re all going to bed now, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, Daddy,” chimed Lucy. “We were just about to kick the boys out!” She mock-glared at Peter and Edmund and spoke in a deep, commanding tone. “Get out!” She pointed imperiously toward the door.

Peter laughed.

“All right, all right we’re going.” He glanced at Edmund, grinning. “We don’t want to incur the wrath of Lucy. Remember what happened the last time?”

Edmund made a face at the memory. He had believed himself to be the master of all pranks, but he had never thought of pouring water into anyone’s bed. It had certainly been a shock, to say the least, to climb into a pile of soggy sheets that particular night. He didn’t even remember what he and Peter had done to deserve such treatment!

Mum smiled and came in to give each of them a kiss. “Good night, loves.”

After bidding their parents good night, Edmund stood and bowed to his sisters. “Ladies? Your servant.” He grinned rakishly and turned to head out the door, only to whirl around a second later as Lucy shrieked. Peter had scooped her up and dropped her onto her own bed.

“Yeah, get her, Peter!” he cheered as a giggling Lucy twisted and wriggled to escape Peter’s tickling fingers. Susan laughed.

Mum’s voice sounded from down the hall.

“Children! That doesn’t sound like you’re going to bed!”

Chuckling, Peter gave Lucy one last hug and followed Edmund to their own room.

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A/N: One chapter left! Thanks to all who have favorited, alerted, or left reviews for this story! I greatly appreciate the feedback, and will welcome any comments you guys have! Thanks also to all the silent readers out there--I hope you're enjoying what you're reading! :)