A Family Affair
Part 1
“Well,” Edmund said, exchanging a shocked glance with Drinian. “That’s not good.”
Caspian and Lucy, his little sister, had just disappeared without any explanation or warning. Right in front of them, too. Just like the Dawn Treader. Caspian had been in the middle of a sentence! But where could they’ve gone? Back to Earth? If so, Edmund couldn’t figure why Caspian would have been taken too; he’d never been needed in their world before, only they in his.
There were wild gasps and shouts from the gathered crowd of Narnian ship-hands and peasants, along with dozens of questions and shouts for explanations. Edmund had no idea what to say, and apparently, from his expression, neither did Drinian. But more importantly than that, what would Edmund tell Peter and Susan? “Yeah, they just sort of vanished…not really sure where they went or how to get them back…” Not likely! Peter would have Edmund’s head for losing Lucy, his favourite sister, especially since they would have virtually no way to get her back. And Susan…Edmund shuddered at the mere thought of what she’d do to him for losing Caspian. Of course, she denied that she had any feelings for the Narnian king, but Edmund was not blind – he saw the looks that his older sister sneaked at Caspian, even if no one else did. What would she do when she found out that Caspian had poofed into nowhere?
“No, it’s not, your Highness,” Drinian agreed dryly, looking more dejected than Edmund had ever seen him. Now not only was the Dawn Treader missing, but also Narnia’s king and one of its queens! Poor Drinian, Edmund thought. He must be miserable! “We’ll find them, Drinian,” Edmund assured the ship captain, sounding a bit more confident than he felt. After all, how does one find two people and a ship that disappeared into thin air? Edmund suddenly felt slightly sick. Would it even be possible to find them? What would happen if they couldn’t? “Maybe…maybe we should tell Peter now,” Edmund said faintly, not relishing the thought of telling his older brother – always the responsible, capable one – what had happened with the ship, Lucy, and Caspian.
As he and Drinian walked back down the dock, the people’s voices and questions redoubled, making Edmund fear that they wouldn’t be able to get through the crowds, but to his relief, the people made way for him and Drinian, apparently not willing to risk their luck in detaining their king. Their questions never ceased, however: “King Edmund, where have they gone?”
“What’s happened? Will they come back?”
“Is it going to happen again?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Edmund said softly, eager to get away from all the interrogations and reminders that his sister and best friend were missing, perhaps forever.
When Edmund came in, Peter was at the table, poring over an old book, and Susan was looking out the window at the sea, looking lost in thought. Edmund stopped short, wishing he didn’t have to be the one to do this.
Peter must have noticed his awkward presence, for he looked up and asked, “Everything all right, Ed? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He came around the table to stand in front of Edmund and scrutinise him carefully. Susan did not even look his way.
“Um, well…” Edmund stammered, not able to meet Peter’s eyes. “I…” What would Peter think of him now?
Peter raised his eyebrows, looking expectant. “Yes…?” he prompted gently.
Edmund sighed; he might as well get this over with. “Well, you see…” His next words came out in a rush, so eager was he to get them out of his mouth and not prolong his torture, “The Dawn Treader went missing first – it disappeared into thin air, Drinian saw it – and then I went and got Caspian and Lucy came and we went down to the dock but we couldn’t figure out where it went and Caspian was talking and then he disappeared and then Lucy disappeared too and no one knows what happened to them, or where they are, or even if they’re in Narnia, and I have no idea how we’re going to find them…” Clamping his mouth shut, Edmund waited for Peter’s response as if waiting for a blow.
Peter blinked a few times and then demanded, “What do you mean, they ‘disappeared’?”
“Exactly that,” Edmund explained. “One second they were there and the next they weren’t. I don’t know how else to say it.” Peter looked at him like he was crazy, and Edmund blushed defensively, knowing he probably sounded like it.
Peter whirled around and asked his sister, “Susan, do you hear this?”
She jerked to attention, looking bleary. “What? Sorry.”
“Edmund claims the Dawn Treader, Lucy, and Caspian have vanished into thin air!” Peter scoffed, his blue eyes appraising Edmund harshly. Edmund sighed inwardly; of course Peter wouldn’t believe him. What’d he been thinking? It seemed Edmund couldn’t do anything right these days, not since they had come back to Narnia and Peter had decided he still had authority as High King, even though it was clearly Caspian’s time to rule.
Susan’s dark eyebrows narrowed. “Vanished?” she repeated, sounding disturbed. “What makes you say that, Ed? You aren’t playing games again, are you?”
“No!” Edmund exclaimed in frustration. “Why would I pretend something like this? Ask Drinian, he saw it!” He motioned to the ship captain behind him, who, up till now, had remained silent and stony-faced. He spoke up now, to Edmund’s relief: “I’m afraid what his Majesty says is true, King Peter, Queen Susan. The Dawn Treader disappeared about a half hour ago, and like King Edmund said, he fetched King Caspian and Queen Lucy to the dock. We contemplated the reasons for the ship’s disappearance for a few minutes, but then King Caspian and the little lady vanished along with it. Into thin air, like they were never there at all.”
Peter scoffed again, but Susan went white. “Lucy and Caspian?” she demanded. “They’re both gone?”
Drinian nodded. Edmund could tell that she was very rattled by the ship captain’s confirmation, for she sank slowly into a nearby chair, looking pale as death, her blue eyes searching for something in the air.
Seeing this, Peter interrogated her, “You don’t actually believe this, do you, Su? They can’t have just disappeared, whatever Drinian and Ed say – the only time we’ve ever done that is when we’ve come to Narnia, and we’re already here. Aslan wouldn’t have taken them to our world, not both of them, and there aren’t any other worlds to go to.” Edmund wasn’t so sure, but he kept his mouth shut; maybe Peter knew what he was talking about.
Susan echoed his unspoken thought. “And what if there are, Peter? What if there are worlds we don’t know about? What if Lucy and Caspian did get sent to one, for whatever reason? How would we find them? Lucy’s only fifteen! What if something terrible happens to her? Or to Caspian! What then, Peter?” Her voice broke and she looked away, staring at the floor.
Peter started to reply, and then looked lost, as if he had just now realised that finding Caspian and Lucy might be a problem. Edmund bit his lip, wondering what Peter would suggest; surely there wasn’t much they could do. “I…” Peter said, his brow furrowing in thought. “I don’t know. There must be some way to find them….But first of all – Drinian, take me down to where you last saw the Dawn Treader. I want to see that it’s gone for myself.” There was a bit of stubborn pride to Edmund’s brother’s voice, and Edmund knew that Peter wouldn’t believe that he and Drinian had been telling the truth until he saw it with his own eyes.
Drinian nodded and Peter followed the ship captain from the room, leaving Edmund and Susan alone in the room. Edmund didn’t know what to do; his sister looked miserable, he felt miserable, and they could do nothing more until Peter got back and had decided that he would believe them. Edmund had never felt so helpless in all his life.
So he went and sat down beside Susan. They sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own thoughts, until Edmund abruptly realised that his sister was crying quietly. Startled, he tried to comfort her, “We’ll find them, Su, don’t worry. Peter’ll find a way. And if not, maybe Aslan will help us, like he always has before. He won’t let anything bad happen to Lucy, you know that.”
Susan wiped some of her tears away and sniffed sadly. “I know, Edmund. But just not knowing where they are…If anything happened to Lucy, I’d never be able to forgive myself. I know it’s not my fault, but still. And Caspian…” Her voice broke again and she smiled ruefully. “Caspian…” Susan whispered again.
“You still like him, don’t you?” Edmund asked softly.
“So much I can barely stand to look at him,” she admitted remorsefully, wiping away some more tears. “I suppose he thinks I’m being awfully rude, but I’m just so afraid I’ll say or do something completely daft, and-”
“So ignoring him is better?” Edmund asked in disbelief. To him, that made absolutely no sense at all. But then, what did he know of girls and their strange logics?
Susan shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, Ed. All I know right now is that we have to find him and Lucy. That’s all that matters to me.” She smiled through her tears at him, and, bemused, Edmund tried to smile back. It came out resembling more of a grimace. Girls, he scoffed inwardly.
Minutes passed in silence then as the two Pevensies waited for Peter and Drinian to return. Edmund boredly examined a map of Narnia hanging on the wall across from him, tracing the well-known islands and lands with his eyes. It had been so long – too long – since he had been to many of those places, though he had gotten to revisit quite a few of them a year ago when he had sailed with Lucy, Caspian, and Eustace on the Dawn Treader, like Doorn, Felimath, the Lone Islands, and some new ones, including Aslan’s Country, that they had discovered on their voyage. Edmund longed to feel the salty breeze on his face and feel the wind in his hair again.
Peter burst into the room, Drinian not far behind. Looking breathless, Peter came over to Susan and Edmund, saying excitedly, “It’s true; I saw the Dawn Treader’s dock myself, and it’s nowhere to be found.”
“I told you so,” Edmund said pointedly.
“At any rate,” Peter went on, ignoring Edmund, “I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to find them. At all.” He looked annoyed at having to admit that, but he said it all the same. Edmund was sort of proud of him. But only a little.
“Peter!” Susan exclaimed in dismay.
“What? How am I supposed to know how to find them when I don’t even know what happened to them?” he asked fairly. Edmund thumped his head back against the wall, wanting to start the day all over again – maybe then, this wouldn’t have happened. What would happen if Mum ever found out about this? Or worse – if they had to go back to Earth without Lucy! Edmund shuddered at the thought.
Peter sank down wearily at the table, looking like he had suddenly aged a few years. “I just wish Aslan was here,” he said wearily. “He’s know what to do.” He gestured helplessly to the air. “I don’t even know where to start! They could be anywhere….”
“And imprisoned, tortured, or dead,” Susan muttered ill-temperedly.
“Su,” Edmund admonished, the thought scaring him. She shrugged in an I’m-just-saying way, which only pushed his temper farther, but he didn’t let it show; getting angry with his remaining sister wouldn’t help or fix anything.
So the Pevensies sat in silence, each racking their brain to try and figure out a way to find Caspian and Lucy, but even after nearly an hour of suggestions, ideas, and furious brainstorming, they came up with the same, exact thing: nothing.
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Vanessa flipped tiredly through the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, examining the various passages that described the four Pevensie kids. Her favourites were Susan and Edmund, and she thought it would be so cool to get to meet them, but so far, that wasn’t happening. Her snap-teleportation powers apparently didn’t work with books. But hey, it was a brain injury – not everything could be expected to turn out perfectly, right?
So to pass the time and not dwell on the fact that she was brain-injured, Vanessa decided to read aloud; since she couldn’t get into Narnia, reading about her favourite characters was about as close as she was going to get. Vanessa read a few lines about Edmund, Susan, and Peter, respectively, dreaming about what it would be like to actually meet them. Would they look like they did in the movies? Or would the ones in the books look totally different? She hoped they were the movie-versions.
Just for grins, Vanessa snapped one more time, wishing with all her little heart that she could be in Narnia – or, even better, on the Dawn Treader – with Edmund, Susan, and Peter Pevensie.
There was a flicker this time.
Startled, Vanessa barely had time to see the purple flicker that darted through her room before it was gone. It was so fast she wasn’t sure that she hadn’t imagine it out of wishful thinking. She studied her room for a long time, watching for any more purple streaks in the air, but she saw none.
So she shrugged and kept reading, unconcerned.
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Sam’s head hurt.
Groaning, he put a hand to his aching temples, massaging them slowly and trying to work out the throbbing, but that did not help, so he eventually dropped his hand and stared up at the ceiling blankly.
The ceiling. Sam’s brow furrowed. He was inside. How had he gotten back in the ship?
Sam couldn’t remember. The details of what’d happened before he’d blacked out were fuzzy and indistinct; they were no help, therefore. He thought he remembered a voice – the voice of a girl – faintly, but that was stupid; there was no one but him and Caine out here.
Caine!
Sam sat bolt upright in his…hammock? What was he doing in a hammock? Momentarily distracted, Sam examined the woven cloth under him curiously, running his fingers over the rough fabric in wonder. It didn’t look like it had been used very often, and it was impeccably clean, which was a welcome surprise to Sam, especially after almost two years in the FAYZ, where nothing was clean anymore; few things were even close to sanitary to use. But this hammock…it was nice. Comfortable. Back in the FAYZ, kids would have killed – literally – for something like this hammock. Sam’s hand closed around the fabric, feeling instinctively protective, even though he knew there was no one to steal the hammock from him here.
He noticed another above him, and more all around him. Sam counted silently – there were thirteen hammocks in all, including his, and he vaguely wondered why such a small ship that had no crew had so many hammocks. Surely there were better things the space could’ve been used for. Not that Sam was complaining.
Sam jerked in surprise when he suddenly became aware of the gentle sounds of someone breathing beside him. Looking to his right, he saw that he had not noticed this hammock before, and that there was someone lying in it, fast asleep.
Caine.
Stunned, Sam gaped at his brother for a long while, unsure. Caine Soren, his greatest enemy, his twin brother, the brother he had almost died trying to save, was alive. It’d been one thing to hope that Caine might live through his strange power malfunction, but to see him actually still alive and know that he still had those very dangerous powers…well, Sam didn’t know what the heck to make of that.
He reached out and touched one finger to Caine’s shoulder, feeling like a five-year-old who was making sure something was real. To his partial disappointment, partial relief, Caine Soren was real all right, and, Sam guessed, real lucky to be alive.
Sam wondered again how they were alive. His last memory – albeit a vague, indistinct one – was of trying to climb the ship’s ladder and then everything going black. Wouldn’t he have fallen back into the water? And Caine had been on his back….Sam thought. He wasn’t sure, but he seemed to remember his brother being on his back. Everything was still such a blur.
He jerked his hand away from Caine’s shoulder as he heard footsteps on the stairs, freezing in panic. Who else was here? Astrid, maybe? His heart raced at the thought. Maybe she had been poofed in here – wherever ‘here’ was – and she’d been the one that had saved Sam and Caine. Maybe not, though; Sam wasn’t sure Astrid would’ve saved Caine. She probably would’ve left him to drown.
A girl came into view, but to Sam’s disappointment, it wasn’t Astrid. This girl had hair that was brown and a little past shoulder-length, and she wore a strange, medieval-fair-type dress that was blue and brown. She carried a book in one hand and a tray of food in the other. Sam cocked an eyebrow, wondering what kind of crazy place he and his brother had landed in.
When she noticed his eyes on her, she brightened noticeably and hurried over, setting the tray of food down on the floor, but not before Sam had time to see what was on it: bread, cheese, an onion, soup, and a cup of water. His mouth watered at the mere sight of such luxurious food, and his stomach rumbled softly.
“You’re awake!” the girl said happily, blue eyes sparkling with excitement as she looked at him. Sam liked her immediately; such cheerfulness and friendliness had become increasingly hard to come by as the FAYZ wore on back in Perdido Beach, and such sentiments were very welcome to Sam, no matter who they came from. “I was beginning to think you’d sleep for the rest of your life, Sam,” the girl teased, reaching down and picking up the bread. She handed it to Sam, who snatched it from her and began devouring the food with the wild abandon of a starving person. Even though his body had been physically restored, Sam still felt like he was starving; he probably hadn’t had food in days. The girl watched him wolf down the bread with surprised amusement, saying with a short laugh, “Easy. I know you’re hungry, but you don’t want to upset your stomach and start throwing up.”
Sam paused, but decided he didn’t care. He finished the bread in a few more bites, and then asked hoarsely, “Can I have some water?”
The girl smiled warmly and handed Sam the cup. He downed it in a few large gulps, his stomach aching a little with the speed of which he was eating his food. But Sam didn’t care; he’d been starving for almost two years, and this was the best food he’d had since before the FAYZ started.
Then a thought struck him. “How’d you know my name?” he asked the girl suspiciously.
She smiled again, but his doubts refused to be dissipated completely. What if she was some trick of the gaiaphage, like Nerezza had been? Or what if she was just part of the illusion? Sam was leery of her either way.
“You told me,” she answered. “A few days ago, when we first rescued you. I don’t know if you remember or not, but I asked you your name and you said Sam, so that’s what we’ve been calling you.”
“‘We’?” Sam echoed, doubts persisting. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Caspian and me,” she said, and then, eyes flying wide, she exclaimed, “Oh! I haven’t introduced myself! I’m sorry. I’m Lucy Pevensie.” And she held out her hand for him to shake.
Still suspicious, Sam eyed her hand carefully. What if she had some strange power and was just waiting for him to take her hand to use it? Maybe she was like Diana, who could gauge freaks’ powers by touching their hands. If Lucy was anything like that, the last thing he wanted to do was let her know his power; the surprise of it might be useful if he ran into any trouble.
Lucy looked puzzled, but she finally dropped her hand, taking the hint that he wouldn’t be shaking her hand. She was silent for a moment, and then Lucy said softly and earnestly, “You don’t need to be afraid of me, Sam. I don’t know why you should be, but I can tell that you are…Please don’t be. I’m not going to hurt you, nor will Caspian.”
Sam said nothing. He’d heard that one before. He’d have to wait a while before he could decide if this Lucy girl was trustworthy or not, and while he was fine with waiting, he was still hungry. “Could I have some more food?” he asked meekly.
Lucy chuckled, but she handed him the cheese off the platter. “All right, but don’t eat all the food on this ship. The other boy’ll need some too, when he wakes.” She moved over to stand in front of Caine’s hammock, and she gently brushed some of his brother’s sweaty hair from his forehead, reminding Sam, in a way, of how Mary Terrafino used to treat her little kids at the day-care before she took the jump. That was not a very comforting thought to Sam, considering how Mary had ended up and that this was his brother, not some little kid, that was being taken care of by Lucy.
“I wonder what his name is,” Lucy said, more to herself than to Sam.
“That’s Caine,” he answered through a mouthful of cheese. “He’s my brother.”
Lucy looked up at him, surprised. “Your brother?” She glanced back at Caine and then at Sam, and he could tell she was comparing their faces. “You don’t look much alike,” she said doubtfully.
Sam shrugged. “Fraternal twins; we’re not supposed to look alike.” And he returned his focus back on the delicious, oh-so-wonderful cheese in his hands.
“Twins!” he heard Lucy say with a small laugh. “Imagine that…I never would’ve guessed.”
“Huh,” Sam grunted. “That’s what I said.”
Lucy and Sam were silent for a while, Sam busy savouring every last crumb of the cheese, and Lucy going back and forth to fill up the cup with water, giving some to Sam and some to Caine, making sure that they both had enough. The other person she’d mentioned, Caspian, was nowhere to be seen, which Sam found a little odd, but decided not to press the matter. It wasn’t like he really cared, anyway.
Once Sam had eaten all the food on Lucy’s tray and drank four cupfuls of water, he leaned back in his hammock, hand behind his head, thoroughly satisfied in almost every way. The only thing that was missing now was Astrid…
“Sam, what is this place?” Lucy asked him from where she sat leaning against one of the mast poles (Sam didn’t know what they were called).
He frowned. “I thought you knew. I figured…I mean, I thought you were from this place, wherever it is. You have funny clothes that kinda match this weird boat, so…You really don’t know where we are?”
Looking hopeless, Lucy shook her head sadly. “I wish I did. Peter and Susan and Edmund must be so worried about us…It’s been almost three days.”
Curious, Sam pressed, “Three days since…?”
“Since we appeared here.” She gestured about her aimlessly, referring to the while general place. “The Dawn Treader disappeared first, and we went down to the docks to see for ourselves. Edmund thought it was magic that made it disappear, but…I don’t know. Maybe it was. Anyway, Caspian was saying something to Drinian, the captain of the Dawn Treader, and then the next moment, we were standing on the deck of this ship, in the middle of nowhere.” She sighed despairingly, looking so dejected that Sam longed to give her a hug. But considering he barely knew her and he didn’t know if he could trust her yet, that would be a bad idea.
However…her story sounded shockingly similar to his and Caine’s. In the middle of doing something important. No warning. Standing on the deck of some black ship with a weird purple sail. No land in sight. Could their stories somehow be connected? Sam wondered if maybe they were. Excited, he told her, “That’s what happened to us. We were in the middle of a fight, and then I just woke up on the ship with Caine. I don’t really know what happened in between that, though; I was knocked out, but-”
“What?” Lucy interrupted, looking distressed. “Why were you knocked out, Sam? What happened?” Sam wanted to laugh; she sounded like she actually cared. But even if she was pretending, it made him feel kinda good that she should express such concern on his part.
“Caine and I were fighting; nothing drastic,” he said, waving his hand nonchalantly. On the contrary, Sam knew he was lucky to have survived that fight. If things had gone normally, as they should’ve, he wouldn’t have survived. Shuddering, Sam stole a glance at Caine, who, while asleep, looked so innocent and vulnerable that it was almost hard to imagine that he had slammed Sam into walls, broken every bone in his body, and laughed while doing it.
Lucy looked disturbed. “Why were you fighting, Sam?”
Feeling awkward, both because he knew Lucy had never even heard of the FAYZ and because she didn’t know what Caine was really like, Sam explained grudgingly, “Something…happened, back where we come from, and Caine and I are on different sides. We’re the…leaders of the two groups that’ve emerged from the disaster, I guess you could say. We disagree on everything. We have to protect our groups from each other’s. Everything’s a battle between us.”
Lucy looked at him with a sorrowful expression, one that also displayed faint incomprehension, as if she couldn’t understand how brothers could be so set against each other. She also looked a little bit frustrated. Distressed at her expression and feeling an overwhelming need to justify himself and his actions, Sam went on hurriedly, “You don’t know what he’s like, Lucy. He’s sadistic and bloodthirsty; he’d do anything for power and glory, even kill me. There’s no line he’s not willing to cross to get what he wants. He had me whipped, he…” Then Sam realised he was blaming everything on Caine, leaving none for himself. But that was how it really was, he argued with himself. Sam only wanted what was good for the kids of the FAYZ, but wasn’t he just as ambitious as Caine as far as the lines he was willing to cross to make sure those kids stayed safe? He had willingly agreed to the fight to the death between him and Caine…He had lied to Astrid, but to protect her. He knew that was a weak argument; he had killed just as many kids as Caine, if not more. He was just as ruthless, though not intentionally. He was a murderer too. Putting his head in his hands, Sam felt sick. Maybe he was just as bad as Caine. Maybe they were more alike than they had originally thought.
Sam jerked in surprise when he felt Lucy hug him comfortingly. He pulled away from her, staring in shock. Lucy looked surprised too, though he guessed her astonishment was because of his withdrawal. Eyeing her and seeing the innocence in her expression, Sam concluded that she had seen his turmoil and had felt bad to him; she hadn’t meant anything by the simple gesture.
He smiled wryly, suddenly aware that he still had no shirt; he had pulled it off before diving in to save Caine. But from what he had already gathered about Lucy, she probably hadn’t even noticed. “Sorry,” he apologised. “I’m not really used to people hugging me.”
Lucy nodded apologetically. “I’m sorry too; I should have asked first, shouldn’t I have? You just looked so sad…”
Sam laughed out loud; imagine being asked if you could be given a hug! “Nah, it’s fine,” he reassured her, not wanting this gentle girl to be distraught about his reaction to her unexpected show of sympathy. “I just wasn’t expecting it, is all.”
Lucy smiled tentatively, apparently convinced he meant that it was all right.
Caine stirred beside Sam, shifting in his hammock and coughing weakly. Lucy got the cup, still half full of water, and put it to Sam’s brother’s lips. Caine responded immediately to the water, giving a small gasp and lifting his head a little, as if to get as close to the water source as possible. Lucy smiled tenderly at him, stroking his black hair gently. Sam got a weird feeling in his stomach, watching her care for his brother; surely Caine – of all people - didn’t deserve such kind treatment! But then, Lucy didn’t know what he was like; maybe once she did, she wouldn’t treat Caine like that anymore. Sam stopped his thoughts in surprise – why did he care how Caine got treated by this girl he barely knew? Surely Lucy had treated Sam the same way before he had woken. Sam also had a feeling, deep down, that nothing Lucy learned of Caine would change her attitude towards him.
Shaking his head at himself, Sam smiled sadly, watching Lucy and his sleeping brother.
“Do you have any clothes I could wear?” Sam asked then, realising that he couldn’t go traipsing about the ship shirtless. Maybe if it had just been him and Caine, but with a girl around, Sam felt distinctly more uncomfortable going without a shirt.
Lucy thought for a moment and then said doubtfully, “I’m not sure what will be available, or even if there’s any clothes on this ship, but I’ll see what I can find.” She handed Sam the cup of water she’d been giving to Caine, surprising him.
“You’re going right now?”
“Yes,” she said, eyeing him carefully. “Didn’t you want me to?”
“Oh, well….that’s fine. Sure,” Sam said lamely. He not expected her to jump to try and find him some clothes, but then, he’d been used to the belligerent and whiny kids of the FAYZ. Lucy was eager to help in whatever way she could, it seemed.
Lucy chuckled at his confusion. “Just give him small sips once every few minutes. Not too much; be careful.” And she left, leaving Sam alone with his greatest – and fast asleep – enemy.
After a little while of looking, Lucy found Caspian. He had been rifling through a large chest in the captain’s cabin, charts and maps and some other things strewn all about him on the floor. Books lay open beside him, like he had flipped through them, found them boring, and forgotten to close them. He didn’t notice her come in.
Lucy watched him for a little while, noticing how weary Caspian seemed. He sat back on his heels, clutching a map that looked blank, and said something under his breath. It sounded like a curse, but she couldn’t have been sure.
“Caspian,” she said softly.
He started and then turned around quickly, looking surprised to see her. “Oh, Lucy,” he said. “I didn’t see you.”
She smiled and came forward, kneeling down beside him and looking at the map in his hands. It was indeed blank, with only the curving border around the edges. There was a compass at the bottom, and a key, but there was nothing to be seen land-wise. “They’re all like this,” Caspian informed her grimly. “No land, no nothing. Just water, water as far as the eye can see…”
“Well, then thank goodness we’re on a ship,” Lucy said, turning to rifle through some of the other maps. She saw, to her dismay, that Caspian was exactly right – there was nothing on any of the maps. “How depressing!” Lucy said, sitting back on her heels and looking dismally at Caspian. He lifted an eyebrow in agreement, looking none too happy.
Lucy picked up one of the books beside him, and, flipping through the entire thing, saw that it was completely blank. There was no title, either. “Strange…” she murmured, setting the book down again. “Oh!” she said then, “Sam woke up. I asked him if he knew where we are, but he didn’t. He said that he and Caine – that’s the other boy – were in the middle of a fight when they got transported here. No warning, just like us.”
“Really?” Caspian sounded interested in that. “So they just appeared here as well?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm…” Thoughtfully, Caspian picked up the blank book and then the map, looking at each of them with narrowed eyes. Lucy could tell that he was thinking intently, and she waited excitedly, thinking maybe he had thought of an explanation for why they were here. “Caspian…?” she asked, bursting with curiosity.
“I’m thinking…maybe that this is a new world,” he said at length. “There’s no land – yet – and no books have been written. They’re all blank…If this was an established world, there’d be books and maps and cities…but there’s not.” Getting excited, he went on, “Maybe someone created this world and brought us here to live in it.”
Lucy wrinkled her nose. “What good would four people be to a new world? You’d need more than that, wouldn’t you, to create a new world? And land, too…I mean, we can’t just float out at sea for the rest of our lives.”
Caspian deflated. That made sense. Of course she was right; it was silly of him to think that. What purpose would there be in bringing only four people to a new world? Especially one with no land. He shrugged hopelessly. “I don’t know; I thought that might be an explanation.”
Lucy put a hand on his arm. “And it might be right; we just don’t know yet.”
He smiled ruefully and then asked, “Did that other boy ever wake up?”
“Caine? No, not yet. He’s still unconscious, I think. Sam’s tending him right now. Oh! That reminds me! Have you found any clothes around here that Sam and Caine might wear? Sam was asking about it.”
Caspian got up and searched through the big chest again, and, finding nothing, he went on to rummage through some of the other rooms adjoining that one. Lucy waited patiently for his return, looking at the blank map and wishing hard that they could find some land eventually; she didn’t want to live at sea for the rest of her life. That is, if they couldn’t find a way back to Narnia.
He came back with two shirts in his hands and gave them to Lucy. “I don’t know if they’ll fit them, but I think it’ll have to do.”
Lucy unfolded the shirts, admiring the blue and green fabrics. “Oh, these are lovely,” she said, fingering the faint patterns that adorned the sleeve cuffs. “They look so very Narnian, though, don’t you think?” She glanced up at Caspian, looking up at him contemplatively.
Caspian shrugged, tired. He wished they could figure out how to get home, or at least where they were. He missed Susan more and more every day, even though he knew she probably was so wrapped up with Lucy’s disappearance that she hadn’t even noticed that he was gone. Running his fingers through his black hair, Caspian sighed heavily. Why had Aslan brought them here? What was there for them to do in this place? They had saved Sam and the other boy, yes, but somehow, Caspian didn’t think they had been brought here just for that.
Lucy came and hugged Caspian suddenly, saying softly, “I wish we could go home, Caspian…What if we’re stuck here forever?”
Pity washed over Caspian, and he reassured her as best he could, “We won’t be here forever, Lucy. There’s probably some task we have to do here, and I’m sure once we figure out what it is and get it done, Aslan will send us home.”
“I sure hope so.”
When Caine awoke, the first thing he saw was the face of a girl. She was sitting beside him and she didn’t notice him wake, but he was so shocked that he couldn’t say anything at all. First of all, she was beautiful. She had hair that was a very pretty shade of brown and curled down her back, and two sapphire eyes were set above her freckled cheeks. The girl wore a weird, medieval-type dress that was blue and brown, and Caine thought he had never seen a more lovely person in all his life. Even Diana paled in comparison to this girl.
“And the psycho awakes,” Caine heard Sam say dryly from somewhere close by, and, turning his head, he saw his brother lounging casually against a tall mast-pole-like-thing towards the middle of the room. Caine glanced around briefly, realising that they must be under the deck of the weird ship they had poofed onto earlier.
The girl looked over at him and smiled, Sam’s comment alerting her to his awakening. Caine could feel the heat pour into his cheeks as she looked at him, and he hoped it didn’t show, but he didn’t think she’d be able to see it in the dim light.
“You’re awake at last,” the girl said warmly, catching Caine off-guard. Was that…relief he’d heard in her voice? And compassion? Instantly on guard, Caine was suspicious. What if she was some kind of powerful mutant and she was only pretending to be nice to him so that she could attack him later? Caine narrowed his eyes at her, mistrustful and leery.
The girl must have noticed, for her mouth quirked into a little frown. “Now don’t look at me like that, Caine,” she reprimanded gently. “I’ve already told Sam – I’m not going to hurt you, and neither will Caspian. You’ve nothing to fear from us. All I want is to help you.”
Caine doubted that, but he said nothing, still cynical of this strange, beautiful girl who had apparently already talked at length with Sam. Sam, in fact, jumped in to support her: “She’s right, Caine. I’ve been awake for two days, and she and Caspian have never once tried to attack us or anything. They’re not like the people in the FAYZ,” he continued, lowering his voice. “We can trust them.”
Caine squinted at Sam, partially annoyed that his brother was still alive. Hearing Sam’s testimony that the girl was to be trusted only made him want to distrust her more, and he knew that only the girl herself could convince him that she could be trusted, and that it would take a long time for her to do so; Caine had learned not to trust anyone, no matter how hard they tried to convince him that they were reliable. Everyone had betrayed him at one time or another, especially Sam, Diana, and his mother. They were the ones Caine hated most. He privately hoped that this girl would prove to be mostly trustworthy, because it would be a shame to have to hate her and get rid of her.
“What’s your name?” he rasped, shocked at how hoarse and scratchy his voice sounded.
“Lucy Pevensie,” she said, smiling gently at him before leaning down to get something. She straightened, holding a cup in her hand, and asked, “Would you like some water, Caine? You sound pretty hoarse.”
Caine flicked his gaze over to Sam, wondering if it would be safe to drink what she offered him. Sam, seeing his expression, rolled his eyes and snapped, “You’ve been drinking it for the past four days, Caine; it’s water – it’s not gonna kill you.”
He debated on whether or not to trust Sam for a while, biting his lip and weighing his odds, but finally, he decided he was too thirsty to care. But when he reached out to take the cup from Lucy, Caine realised his muscles were still too weak and he had to let his arm drop back to his side. The mere movement had exhausted him completely. Annoyed and embarrassed, Caine snapped, “I’m not strong enough yet. You’ll have to give it to me.” His cheeks were still flushed, but this time, it was from humiliation; he hated appearing weak, especially in front of pretty girls.
Lucy smiled at him reassuringly. “That’s all right,” she assured him, and she slipped her hand behind his head and lifted it up a little. Caine flinched at her touch.
She put the cup to his lips and Caine gulped down the cool water greedily, feeling like he would never get enough, but he was also careful; the drought in the FAYZ had taught him that when he had water, he should save as much as he could for later. But this wasn’t the FAYZ.
When the cup was empty, Caine collapsed back against the hammock he was lying in, exhausted but feeling better. Lucy put her hand on his forehead – checking his temperature, he presumed – and he was relieved when she declared him fever-free. Caine had always hated being sick; it wasted so much time.
“We’re going to let you rest now, all right?” Lucy said, adjusting the thin, blanket that lay over Caine in a motherly way. Caine was surprised at how relaxed he felt around her, but that concerned him, too; it could have been part of her mutant powers, if she had any. Too bad Diana wasn’t there to read her. But, Caine decided, he would rather have Lucy around than Diana; Diana was boring to him by now, but Lucy was new and interesting, even if she was a possible freak. Either way, there was something about her that drew Caine. He would have to be careful.
Lucy got up and said to Caine’s brother, “Sam, let’s let him rest for now, okay? We can go swimming again or something in the meantime. Have you seen the sky today? It’s absolutely gorgeous.”
Sam laughed. “No, I haven’t spent much time looking at the sky, Lucy, sorry. But swimming sounds nice. This weird shirt you gave me gets really hot sometimes.”
“I know; I’m sorry,” Lucy said, sounding sincerely apologetic. “But it’s all there was.”
Sam chuckled again, which grated on Caine’s nerves. “Relax, Lucy; I was just being dramatic. It’s fine. C’mon; we gotta let the psycho get his beauty sleep.” As he walked by Caine’s hammock, Sam grinned at his brother spitefully, making Caine wish he was strong enough to give Sam a good telepathic punch.
“Sam,” Lucy berated, casting an apologetic look at Caine.
“Oh, don’t defend him,” Sam said, an edge creeping into his voice. “He’s used to that and worse, trust me. It’s not like he has feelings, anyway.”
Caine bristled instinctively, and Lucy noticed. “You’re upsetting him, Sam,” she said chidingly. “He’s not going to get better if you keep riling him up. Come on now, before I have to call Caspian in to drag you out.” She said to Caine before they left, “If you need anything, call for Caspian. He’ll hear you.” She smiled again, and then she and Sam left, leaving Caine alone in the quiet room.
All he could think about was the beautiful girl who had just left to go swimming with his brother.
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