Narnia – An Hour of Silence

By Allyson

The hour the battlefield went silent was the moment they knew their Father was not coming home to them. A day of national mourning and celebration for those lucky enough to return home passed unnoticed in the Pevensie household. Grief blanketed their home, their brave Mother, who had kept their spirits going for such a long time, was now inconsolable.

Peter felt numb when he heard the news. Survivors guilt from all those near-misses in Narnia clouded his thoughts; making him believe that he should have been there, that somehow if he could have joined his Father's regiment he might have been able to save him. Maybe take the fatal wound for him. He forgot that he was still only a boy and too young to join up. He believed that it should have been him.

Susan was in denial. It was surely only an administrative mistake and any day now her Father would walk back through that front door with arms wide open to hug her and tell her that he had just been delayed on the journey back to London. She clung to that belief with the conviction that no matter how dire the turn of events or how much the odds were stacked against them, her two brothers had always returned from battle. So why couldn't the same happen to her Father?

Edmund withdrew into himself in shock. He would never be able to apologize to his Father about his behaviour before his Father left to join the fighting. He could still remember his Father standing in the doorway ready to leave, calling out that he loved him. But Edmund had refused to leave his room, to say goodbye, despite the longing inside to just run down the stairs and beg him not to leave. It had been too late. His mind shuttered like a closing trap as his own parting words haunted him, "Fine, leave, see if I care." At the time he hadn't realised it was not his Father's choice to leave and now Edmund would never be able to speak to him again. The sickness in his stomach became acute and he tried his best to block everything out. To remember was too painful.

Lucy didn't think she'd ever cried so much but as she watched her family become torn apart she tried to rally herself. She made sure her Mother and Edmund ate, even though with the latter it seemed a lost cause. She helped Susan take care of the chores around the house and kept a watchful eye on Peter when his eyes became haunted. She didn't understand why her Father had been taken away from them. There had been so many things she had wanted to tell her about her adventures in Narnia. He would have loved to have heard about Aslan, Mr Tumnus and how she had helped so many wounded Narnians back to health. How she now wanted to become a nurse so that she could continue to help people. But maybe he would hear about it? Maybe Aslan had shown him how to get to Narnia before he had died. After all, Lucy had overheard her Mother tell her Aunt that his body had never been found. The thought warmed Lucy up like one of her Father's hugs and she smiled.

Outside the window, a dying ray of sunshine lit up the garden as the sun began to set and shone upon a stray red poppy waving in the breeze. They may never see their Father again but he would never be forgotten.