Five Times the Night was Too Long (and One Time It Wasn't)

1. The Stone Table (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan)

In the ever-deepening dark, she curls around her sister as best she can. Lucy's face is pressed into her shoulder, tiny body shaking with muffled sobs as the air lies heavy and silent around them - and around the still form of what was once Aslan, lying beside them on the table.

The wind is cold, slicing through her like a whip, almost cold enough to freeze the tears that keep dripping down her cheeks. A storm is gathering overhead - she can feel the electricity in the air, and the harsh bite of the wind reminds her of winters back home, just before snowfall in late winter.

And other than It is so cold, the other thought that keeps racing to the top of her mind is, It is so dark. There are no stars above, no moon for her to see the cold body of the lion she'd thought was going to set all to rights. She feels empty inside, because all the hope of the last few days, the thrill of excitement when the Beavers first mentioned this person called Aslan and this prophecy that said they were going to be kings and queens - it's dead. Dead like he is. Dead like Peter and Edmund will be tomorrow, if there's a battle - and there's going to be a battle.

With a shudder, she buries her fingers in Lucy's hair and wishes it was Aslan's mane. But that's all gone now - chopped off and cast to the wind, as if it wasn't the purest gold in this godforsaken land. She sobs and holds Lucy closer, and hours pass. And she's still crying. And all she can think, after she's gone round and round remembering the horrors they just witnessed, is how is it still so dark?

It's been like this before. Back home. During the air raids, and Father leaving, and the last night before they were sent off to the countryside. She knows what it is, and it's fear - fear and anguish and guilt, and goodness knows what else. It wells up in her throat every time she's certain she's finished with crying, until finally it's all she can do to keep from shrieking in frustration.

And the dark remains.

2. The Pass to Anvard (The Horse and His Boy, Shasta)

At first, he's not sure which is worse - the darkness, or the mist that keeps closing in on him. If it was just one or the other, it would be one thing, but the both of them make it hard to focus and even harder to know whether he's going to make it to the end of this ride.

It should comfort him, how steady the horse's gait, how rhythmic the hoofbeats sound as it plods its way along the rocky path. But he knows they're in a wild spot - can feel the wind whistling past him, and feel the air growing cooler. He keeps thinking they will have to find the end of the path or the end of the fog or the end of the dark sometime or another - but they all seem to just - go on. Forever. He shivers and sticks his hands in his sleeves, leaving the horse to do as it likes with its head.

Oddly enough, he feels a wave of homesickness for the little shack he grew up in, where there always seemed to be a glow from the nearby village when the sun went down, or flickering lights offshore from overnight fishing boats. Arsheesh himself always lit a little lamp and left it burning overnight, despite the smell of fish oil and the harsh smoke it gave off.

He'd give anything for a lamp right now. Or a torch. Or even a sliver of the moon - just something to see by. They can't go any faster because they can't see, and it makes him sick, thinking about his friends left behind, and Rabadash probably murdering everyone in their beds at Anvard, and suddenly he feels more alone and lost than he's ever felt before.

And the night stretches on.

3. The Horn (Prince Caspian, Caspian)

The How is filled with the sounds of the injured, and for some odd reason (maybe the fact that they are all injured because of him), he can't bear to stay inside. So he paces the length of the How on the outside, nodding at the sentries (surely they must hate him - he's no military leader!) and staring off in the direction that Trumpkin started off in, a few hours ago after their council, and then in the other direction in which Pattertwig had scampered away.

He stops by a small outcropping near the backside of their encampment and reaches down to his belt, drawing out Queen Susan's ivory horn and running his fingers over the engravings. Sunrise. They'd agreed to wait until sunrise. He's aching to blow it now, to summon the help they so desperately need. Every minute is a man who might die, for if Miraz attacked now with the full force of his fist, it would be a slaughter.

But morning it must be. As the hours crawl by, he settles against a rock and watches the stars. Tarva and Alambil have sunk low under the western horizon. He almost wonders if their conjunction were only a dream - from a time that feels like a lifetime ago.

It is three hours until dawn when he hears movement from the enemy camp, and stands to warn a sentry. He feels a sinking feeling as he watches the torches of his enemy begin to move. He wonders if he will even be alive at sunrise, to call for the help of the kings and queens, and glances always anxiously toward the horizon, even as they ready for an attack.

But still, the sunrise does not come.

4. Island (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy)

For the first time in a while, she is not shivering because of the cold. She hears the screams of laughter from that island - the sounds of a Witch gaining a victory she did not deserve, by means of spilling innocent blood. There are grown men turning pale all around her, Eustace is babbling about scissors, and even Caspian is shouting for them to turn the ship around with a note of panic in his voice.

How long have they been sailing through this darkness? Minutes? Hours? It feels like it's been an eternity, though maybe that's just the fear running through her veins. She clenches her jaw and grips the wooden railing tightly, closing her eyes and trying to will it all away, like the horrible nightmare it is.

"Aslan, Aslan, if you ever loved us at all," she whispers, tightening her hands around the railing and staring hard into the blackness. "Send us help now."

The blackness around her is silent.

5. Underland (The Silver Chair, Rilian)

The ropes cut into his wrists as he strains against them, arching his back against the chair and grunting curses and threats at the lady who sits smiling serenely across from him, thrumming a quiet tune on her harp. It is a patient smile. It is a familiar tune. He has heard it many times in the ten years that he has been here - ten years of regret, of wishing he had simply taken his friend's advice and stayed away from the fountain. Ten years of living peacefully alongside a woman he only remembered to be his mother's killer for one hour every night.

How foolish he's been. How disappointed his father must be - or would be, if he knew that his son was still alive. How many years he's wasted in this darkness, surrounded by mindless underworlders and ruled by a witch who cares nothing for him, nothing at all.

Prayers fall amidst the curses, prayers to the lion who had saved his father, and forefathers - the savior of the kings and queens of Narnia, since the beginning. For ten years he's prayed.

And for ten years, there is nothing from the dark around him.

1. The Morning (The Last Battle, Probably Edmund)

There is a bare moment, between the second he looks up and notices the train coming around the bend far too quickly, and the moment when a soft darkness envelops him, during which an emotion sweeps over him like a breeze. It's not fear, exactly, nor even sorrow, certainly no pain. Perhaps a confusion, as his mind attempts to understand just what is happening.

The darkness that comes then softens the confusion, and feels instead like he's been nested in the softest down comforter, head buried beneath the sheets, perhaps trying to go all the way to the foot of the bed as he'd liked to do as a child. But just as he's preparing to settle in the darkness, it begins growing lighter and lighter, like the fog lifting or the sun rising or a ray of sunlight shining into a dark, deserted room - and he breathes in, and it is good.

And as it happens, there is no more dark. As it happens, they've been in the dark all along - the feeble, half-shod trappings of their world were dim reflections of This Place. And now that they're here, and Aslan is here, and the long night is over, it suddenly seems clear.

And this is the feeling that washes over him: the hope that comes from an answered prayer in the dark, the sight of an albatross glowing like a star in the blackness, the sound of a horn cutting through the bleakness of dawn, the warmth of a breath on one's hand from the mist, and the bright fury of sunrise as the table cracks and the Lion returns.

(And he can't help but think, that were it not for the night, we would not greet the morning with such joy.)