A/N I was originally going to post this on Christmas, but I think it`s needed more now. This is dedicated to the strong, amazing BlueViolets87. Please go over to her heartfelt stories and comment lovely things to brighten her day! Please spread some holiday cheer over there, I would really appreciate it. Even If you don`t celebrate Christmas, have a wonderful winter and holiday, and an extraordinary New Year!

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. – C.S. Lewis

Somewhere In My Memory

It was that time of year again. Snow fell lightly down around the English countryside, making everything look like a shaken snow globe. Candles were alight in all the windows, cookies baking in the oven, and Owen had just brought in a large, magnificent tree.

"Mummy, can we please decorate the tree now?" Lucy tugged at the hem of my dress as I tried to finish putting my lipstick on.

"Just a moment, Lu. Go wait by the tree with Daddy and Hamilton." I fixed the smudge she had caused and meticulously went over my lip again.

I heard the banning as she pounded down the hall.

I decided I was acceptable after a few more seconds of studying my reflection, and replaced the cap on the tube of lipstick. I walked to the hall closet and used the step stool to get the box of Christmas ornaments and lights down from the shelf. Brushing the dust off the top of the box, I joined my little family around the tree.

After a small struggle, we managed to get the tape off the box. Owen took out the lights and started to wind them around the tree with Lucy. She twisted and twirled under the glow of the lights, dancing to a tune all her own. She giggled as Owen tickled her, her dark chocolate ringlets bouncing, and I smiled wishing she would stay four forever.

"Can I turn on the radio?" Hamilton asked.

"Go ahead." Owen said, and the seven year old`s eyes lit up and he ran to the box in the corner and anxiously turned the dial.

I brought out a plate of warm Christmas cookies as Lucy and Owen finished the lights.

Hamilton greedily plunged the hand not holding a half-eaten cookie deep into the box of Christmas ornaments, pulling out several ceramic reindeer. Then, he rushed over to the tree and reached as high as he could, standing on the tips of his toes like a perfectly balanced ballet dancer, and hung the ornament as high on the bough possible. Lucy bounded over and joined him in the decorating, and she was soon followed by Owen and I. The four of us tore through the box, only resting when only tissue paper was left inside.

We sat down on the sofa and surveyed our work.

"It needs more ." Lucy said thoughtfully.

"We don`t have any more." I said.

Owen closed his eyes and whispered, "Su, didn`t you have that old box from you`re parent`s house?"

The children gasped, and I rushed upstairs and into the wardrobe in the spare bedroom. Sure enough, a wrinkled old box sat under a pile of linens. I sat on the ground with the box on my lap, hesitating.

"Did you find it?" Hamilton called.

I carried my load downstairs and opened the box.

"Whoa." Hamilton said, staring at the hand-painted ornaments that glittered and shone in the light from the tree.

We went slowly through this box, Owen and the children studying and marveling at my childhood.

I sat on the floor, back a bit from the others who were sifting through the box. "Daddy, what`s this?"

"That`s a fawn." The little paper drawing of Mr. Tumnus was hung on the tree.

"A deer? It looks like a goat." Hamilton said.

"No, look, it`s standing up and has horns. And a scarf." Lucy said.

Lucy pulled another hand-drawn ornament out of the cardboard box.

She looked at it for a moment, then up at me. "Mummy, what`s Nar-nar-ni-a?"

I gently took the ornament from her small hands. It was a drawing of a lamp-post, covered in snow. Written on the lamp-post in pale in fading ink was 'Narnia'. I hadn`t seen the childish script in a long time, but I remembered it well. I turned it over and saw that on the back of the picture was more writing.

For Susan the Gentle

Merry Christmas! I can`t wait to go back soon!

Love,

Lu

"Mummy, what is it? What`s wrong?" Hamilton and Lucy crowded around me.

"Nothing, just…"

Lucy looked at the ornament over my shoulder. "Lu. That`s me!" she pointed a small finger at her name. "Did I make this?"

"No, your Aunt Lucy did, when she was little."

"Who`s she?"

"She`s Mummy`s little sister." Owen said. Hamilton and Owen looked sympathetically towards me, but Lucy, who was too young to understand what had happened to her aunt and uncles, looked up in wonder, eyes wide.

"You have a sister? Where is she?"

"I have two brothers and a sister. Peter, Lucy, and Edmund. Peter was strong, a born leader. Ed was smart, fair, and kind, like Hammy. And Lu was sweet, trusting, and so, so brave. She was the one who found Narnia."

"Narnia?" Hamilton said.

"Narnia is a magical world, full of talking animals and kings and queens, where even the trees and water are alive. I used to be queen of Narnia, and ruled alongside your aunt and uncles."

"Will we get to go?" the children asked.

"It`s just a-"Story, I almost said. Was it? I thought back to my memories of Narnia, the twang of my bow, the beautiful glint of the snow, the terrifying sound of Aslan`s roar.

I remembered how it had felt, like a little candle burning, a secret only my siblings and I knew. I remembered how amazing and wonderful it all felt again, when we did finally go back.

But then I remembered how I'd felt when Ed and Lu came back from Eustace`s house, when they excitedly rushed upstairs to my room and told me about their trip on a ship with Caspian. I was jealous then, left out, spiteful. Aslan had told Peter and I that we`d never come back to Narnia. It wasn`t fair. So of course I said the worst thing possible to say.

'Still playing those games again?' and 'Aren`t you too old to believe in Narnia?' still rung in my ears, no matter how many years have gone by, they are as fresh and hurtful as ever. I had acted like Edmund had when Lucy discovered Narnia, and poor Lu acted the same way she had before. She ran from the room, crying.

"What`s wrong with you?" Edmund had said, before following Lucy out.

Now my own children looked up at me with the same excitement and wonder as my siblings once had.

"Soon." I said finally, because deep in my heart I had always know the truth. Narnia was real.

"When will we get to meet Uncle Peter, Aunt Lucy, and Uncle Edmund?" Lucy asked.

"They`re in Narnia, waiting to meet you." I wished that was true, and that there hadn`t been a train accident. Maybe then I could have apologized and told them I did believe.

"Can you tell us how you first found Narnia?"

"I didn`t find it, actually. Your Aunt Lucy did. She was always so brave. Anyway, so we were staying in a big house in the country with an old professor during the war. It was a rainy day, so we thought we`d explore a bit. In a spare room upstairs, Lucy found this old wardrobe and climbed inside…" As I told my children of the wonderful land I would never again see, I glanced out the window and saw, in the light of the setting sun, a white stag standing majestically in the snow. I blinked for not even a second, and all of a sudden it was gone.