Agnus Dei

He has never been to a church before, and so it comes as something of a surprise when his parents inform him and his siblings one evening over supper that they are all to attend service together the next morning.

"It's because of the war, I expect," Peter muses out loud later, when they are all four of them gathered, as usual, in the parlor. The fair-haired boy furrows his brow momentarily, before reaching a hand out to slide his white bishop over two squares. "They're relieved that we're all safe and together once again."

He just nods as he silently contemplates his black pieces. The knight has always been his favorite, for reasons he cannot quite name - perhaps for the unpredictable patterns it can trace. He touches one of his now, fingertips unmoving on the cool wood for seconds before he shifts it in that irregular L upon which he's built up so many stratagems. They have found themselves sitting down to the blacks and whites of the game more than ever before, ever since there. Perhaps because it reminds them so well of being the Magnificent and the Just, of the heightened and heady feeling that comes with devising and testing battle tactics. "Check," he murmurs. A golden fire roars in the grate, and he knows that they are lucky, indeed, to feel relief, when so many in the country – in the world, he thinks with a small jolt - are weeping at this very same moment, and will continue to do so for longer than anyone ought.

"It will be a new experience, at any rate," says Lucy from where she is curled up in the corner chair with an old book of poetry. "And we've always loved those."

Susan says nothing at all as she sits at the desk writing a letter to her newest beau, lightly tapping her foot to the muted strains of a popular tune emitting from the wireless.

The church reminds them all of Narnia, somehow, from the moment they stand on the pavement staring up at the enormous, stern façade, breath coming out in tiny puffs of air, hands safely ensconced in coat pockets. The doorway arches high and mighty over their heads like the front gates at their beloved Cair Paravel, and the solemn air within makes them think of their coronation ceremony as they inhale the thick scents of incense and holy water with deep, steady breaths.

It feels so much like coming home that his heart clenches and twists.

Seated at the end of his family's row on a front pew, he cannot keep himself from craning his neck this way and that like a small child, drinking in as much as he possibly can with his eyes before the service begins. When he spots an image of a snow-white lamb on one of the stained-glass windowpanes, he stills, staring for what feels like an eternity. He finally tears his eyes away to glance over at Lucy, ready to nudge her and direct her attention to the sight, but he finds that she is already looking intently at him. When she catches his eye, she smiles and nods, eyes bright with something unnameable that he feels inside of him too, warming his entire being.

"It's him," she whispers.

During the service itself Peter sits perched on the edge of his seat the entire time, elbows on knees and face left wide open with a raptness that none of them has seen in a long while.

Susan's eyes are dark with unfathomable shadows, her gaze directed nowhere in particular, unseeing.

He himself finds that he is torn between devouring every word that spills forth from the priest's mouth like honeyed wine, or absorbing every word of the heavy book that he has found tucked into the little shelf in front of him.

Two words are stamped in gold upon the crimson leather of the binding, and he makes a note to himself to find one of his own as soon as he leaves the church.

"It's unbelievable, isn't it?" says Peter excitedly, later that night. They are all in the parlor again, on the rug in front of the golden roar that leaps about in the fireplace.

"It's the most marvellous thing," says Lucy. She looks like the Peter of hours ago, elbows on knees and eyes still impossibly bright.

Susan is not on the floor with them. She is penning more letters, the scratch of her pen almost-but-not-quite drowning out the soft sounds of the wireless, but her foot is still tonight.

He remains silent, and his heart continues to clench and twist in the way that it has ever since that morning.

We're home, he thinks.

That night, he dreams of Aslan the Lamb.