Chapter Thirteen
Meeting the Professor
"Edmund?" A voice called out from the darkness.
Edmund turned on his heel towards the voice and saw that it was his sister emerging from the woods towards him. At first, she just stared at him confused, before a smile spread across her face and she started to run towards him.
"Oh, Edmund! You got in too! Isn't it wonderful!" She went on and on as she reached him only to pull him into a tight hug.
Edmund stumbled backward not expecting this and pulled Lucy off of him. "Where have you been?" He said scrunching his face up, his mood going back to frustrated seeing as he had been searching for her for so long.
"With Mr. Tumnus," Lucy went on rambling as Edmund wiped the rest of the remaining sugar off his face and onto his robe. But Lucy wasn't even paying attention to him, she was just focused on explaining what had been happening. "He's fine. The White Witch hasn't found out anything about him meeting me."
Edmund paused upon hearing this and scrunched his face in confusion. "The White Witch?" He asked his sister.
Lucy looked around them before answering and leaned in close to him as in to tell him a secret. "She calls herself the Queen of Narnia, but she really isn't." She explained. She then started to notice the uncomfortable expression had been plastered across Edmund's face as he stared at the ground, not looking her in the eyes. "Are you all right? You look awful," she stated innocently.
Edmund scowled at her before lashing out at her. "Well, what'd you expect? I mean, it's freezing," he said with a shiver and pulled his robe around him tighter missing the warm fur coat that was around him earlier. "How do we get out of here?"
Before answering, Lucy just stared at him waiting to see if he would really tell her before concluding he wasn't going to. "Come on," she said gently taking his hand for him to follow. "This way," she stated as she leads the way back from whence they came.
~
Lucy dashed into Peter and Edmund's room, jumping on the bed to jolt Peter awake. "Peter, Peter wake up! Peter wake up!" Lucy screamed at him as she shook him and continued to jump up and down. Peter groaned and rolled over half asleep trying to shush his little sister. "It's there! It's really there!" Lucy continued shouting at him.
"Lucy, what are you talking about?" Peter mumbled quietly as he kept his eyes closed and slowly started pushing his covers off.
"Narnia!" Lucy started to explain as Edmund had now walked into the room catching up with Lucy. "It's all in the wardrobe like I told you!"
"You've just been dreaming Lucy," Susan sighed as she walked into the room, having been woke up due to all the ruckus Lucy was making.
Edmund was still near the door and walked over to his bed starting to take his bedroom robe off. He had already been through quite the adventure tonight and was beginning to zone out from exhaustion.
"But I haven't! I saw Mr. Tumnus again!" Lucy continued, trying to convince her two older siblings. "And this time Edmund went too."
Edmund immediately stopped what he was doing at this as Susan and Peter quickly turned to face him. Peter was now sitting up in his bed to watch his younger brother with disbelief. "You . . . you saw the faun?" Peter asked him trying to figure out if Lucy was telling the truth.
Edmund looked at both Susan and Peter before starting to shake his head no. Lucy scrunched up her face as she was thinking before she stood off the bed to face Peter. "Well, he didn't actually go there with me. He . . ." Lucy paused thinking once more and slowly started coming to a realization as she turned to face Edmund. "What were you doing Edmund?" She asked in an accusing manner.
Susan raised her eyebrows at Lucy's response towards Edmund. Edmund let out a sigh and a smirk as he continued to shake his head before looking back up at his siblings. "I was just playing along," he explained. "I'm sorry Peter. I shouldn't have encouraged her, but you know what little children are like these days. They just don't know when to stop pretending." Edmund finished as he stared at Lucy and sat on his bed.
Lucy didn't know what to say. Edmund had completely betrayed her and thrown her under the bus. He was with her for crying out loud! Then he lied about it right in front of her. Her sobs came quick and hot with the tears flowing down her face. Her lip begins to quiver and she brought her hand to her mouth. She couldn't be in this room anymore. Not with Susan and Peter thinking of her as a liar, and Edmund staring at her after he completely treated her like he did. Lucy just ran from the room. She didn't know where she was running too, all she knew was that she was getting as far away from her siblings as she could.
Edmund had a coy smile on his face and Susan let out a sigh of frustration with her brother. What a jerk move. Not only did he encourage this but then he completely broke Lucy's heart. Peter did the same towards Edmund as he completely threw the covers off of him. Susan and Peter ran from the room to catch Lucy as Peter grabbed his robe on the way and then threw Edmund down all the way on his bed with a hard shove. He didn't really care how bad it hurt, Edmund completely deserved it whether Lucy was lying or not.
Lucy ran and ran until her legs started to burn. This house was certainly not as cold as Narnia was with all the snow. She could feel her body getting warmer and her tears fell hot on her cheeks. She could hardly even see as she was running, the tears blurring her vision. Lucy had to get away, far away from them. Wherever she was going, she was certainly hiding from her siblings for sure.
As she was running through the hallways, a solid force threw her backward and prevented her from continuing forward. Her sobs stopped for a moment as she sucked in the air after being stopped so suddenly and she looked up to see what she had hit. Instead of finding a wall or even a table, she found a person. A man to be exact. He was quite tall too with a small white beard that covered his chin and white hair that covered the top of his head to the ends of his ears. He also had round glasses on his nose. With his robe, he wore a vest and a tie underneath it. When Lucy looked up at him after having run into him, the man out a small yelp and looked at her quite startled.
Lucy stared at him for a moment or two before she embraced him into a hug and sobbed into his stomach. The man stood with his arms outstretched just staring in shock at the sobbing child holding onto him. Peter and Susan burst into the room and saw Lucy holding onto the man as the voice of Mrs. Macready was heard hollering throughout the house.
"You children are one shenanigan shy of sleepin' in the stable!" She practically screamed, ripping her robe tight, as she ran into the room with everyone else. She took one look at the man and her jaw dropped. "Professor...I'm sorry. I told them you were not to be disturbed," she said in a hushed voice as the Professor turned to look at her after she had run into the room.
"It's all right, Mrs. Macready. I'm sure there's an explanation," the Professor exclaimed as he placed his hands on Lucy's shoulders. He was shocked to find that her bathrobe was freezing and a little damp. Lucy had stopped her sobs for a moment but the tears were still very evident upon her face as she looked up at the Professor. "But first of all, I think this one is in need of a little hot chocolate." He told Mrs. Macready as he guided Lucy into Mrs. Macready's arms.
Instead of making a fuss with Lucy, Mrs. Macready gently took her in her arms and led her to the kitchen to get what the Professor had ordered for her. "Come along dear," she told her as they disappeared from the room.
Susan and Peter used this moment as an opportunity to carefully escape the room unseen but unfortunately for them the Professor noticed before they could get away. He cleared his throat and at this sound, Susan and Peter slowly turned around knowing they had been caught. The Professor didn't say anything or making any motion but simply walked into his office and Susan and Peter knew he wanted them to follow him. Reluctantly, they did as they were told and followed the Professor into his office.
The Professor continued to remain silent as he walked behind his desk and sat down. He then grabbed some ribbon cut tobacco that he kept in an apple shaped jar and placed in into his pipe. As he was mashing them into his pipe he looked up at the siblings with a judgmental look on his face. "You seem to have upset the delicate internal balance of my housekeeper."
"We're very sorry sir. It won't happen again," Peter apologized and then grabbed hold of Susan's robe hoping to pull her from the room with him so they could return to their rooms. Since he already apologized, there really was no reason to stay with the Professor.
However, it seemed Susan did not share the same view as Peter. For Susan, she was sick and tired of all this nonsense that was going on and decided she was finally going to put an end to all of it. "It's our sister sir. Lucy."
"The weeping girl," the Professor confirmed as he looked back down at his pipe and continued smashing the tobacco.
"Yes sir," Susan said quietly. "She's upset," she continued to explain.
The Professor just shook his head. "Hence the weeping," he stated as if it was rather obvious.
"It's nothing," Peter insisted. "We can handle it," he said as he looked to Susan trying to get her to leave with him. He didn't like the idea of involving the Professor with all of this. Their mother left it to him to take care of the family and that was what he planned on doing.
"Oh, I can see that," the Professor replied sassily to Peter's remark.
Peter just let out a sigh and Susan looked at Peter as if to tell him they could certainly not handle this on their own. Neither one of them was parents so it was about time they stopped pretending they were. "She thinks she's found a magical land."
The Professor looked up at her with a small smile and chuckle before turning his attention back to his pipe. "In the upstairs wardrobe," Susan continued.
At this, the Professor stopped what he was doing and dropped his pipe onto his desk. His eyes grew very wide behind his glasses as he looked up at Susan. His face had gone completely pale. He then abruptly stood up, taking the pipe in his hands as well, and walked out from behind the desk until he was standing right in front of them. "What did you say?" He asked, taking Susan's shoulder and guiding her towards the couch in the room.
Peter, finally having given up on keeping it a secret, sighed as he gave in. "Um, the wardrobe, upstairs. Lucy thinks she's found a forest inside," Peter explained as he sat down on the couch beside Susan. The Professor just stood in front of them, his eyes just as big as before and his mouth agape.
"She won't stop going on about it," Susan continued as the Professor sat down in an armchair across from them, never taking his eyes off of them.
"What was it like?" The Professor asked them his eyes looking like they were filled with curiosity.
"Like talking to a lunatic," Susan practically cried out.
"No, no, no, not her. The forest!" The Professor exclaimed and that's when the siblings realized his eyes were big out of fascination and curiosity.
Susan and Peter exchanged worried glances. "You're not saying you believe her?" Peter asked in shock.
"You don't?" The Professor simply retorted.
"But of course not!" Susan exclaimed not believing what the Professor was saying. Was he crazy? "I mean, logically, it's impossible."
"What do they teach in schools these days?" The Professor muttered to himself as he leaned back into his armchair and shook his head back and forth.
Maybe this man really was crazy from what Susan and Peter had read in the articles upstairs earlier that day. If he remembered correctly, this was the same man who had made obscured allocations about what happened to his siblings when they disappeared. "Edmund said they were only pretending," Peter further explained to the Professor, more to convince him and Susan more than the Professor, though.
"He's usually the more truthful one, is he?" The Professor still pried for information.
"No . . . this would be the first time," Peter said slowly.
"Well, if she's not mad and she's not lying, then logically—" he started as he pointed a finger at Susan, putting emphasis on the word logically. "—We must assume she's telling the truth." He finished as he raised the pipe up and took a match from the small table beside his chair and lit his pipe taking a small drag from it.
"You're saying we should just believe her?" Peter asked scrunching up his face in disbelief.
The Professor looked back up at them with a look of hope in his eyes, the paleness now completely gone. "She's your sister, isn't she? You're her family." He said taking the pipe out of his mouth. "You might just try acting like one. You may never know how much they mean to you until you lose them." He stated simply as he placed the pipe back into his mouth.
Peter and Susan nodded as if taking this as a hint that they had reached the end of the conversation and rose from the couch. On their way out, Susan noticed a picture frame hanging up on the far side of the war hidden in the back of the room. Well, it wasn't exactly hidden in the aspect that the frame was eight by five feet tall and placed on top of a shelf that was above a fireplace.
The large picture must have been very valuable, considering the size itself was enormous, but also the ancient factor of the picture as well. The picture must have been ancient. It might have been taken around the same time as the pictures in the hidden room. Susan could figure that much out just because of who was contained in the picture. It was the four siblings, the eldest brother and sister then the younger brother and sister.
The younger brother was sitting on a chair in the center of the frame and he was smiling a toothless smile. He had that same bright blonde hair as he did in the tricycle picture but his cute little hat was gone, but his suspenders still remained. He looked to be about eleven, so it must have been taken about eight years after the one of him on his bike. The older sister was standing on the left hand side of him, seeing as she was taller was standing with a hand on his shoulder and flashing that same toothless smile as her little brother. Her light brown hair was framed on one side of her head and came all the way down to her waist in short waves. She looked to be about thirteen when this was taken.
The eldest of the siblings, the older brother, was placed behind the three and he stood tall alongside the older sister. He was around three inches taller than the older sister and stood with his chin held high. His dark hair was combed back on top his head and he wore a suit and tie. Unlike his other two siblings, he didn't contain any sort of smile. Instead, he stood as he did in the picture Susan found before, as stiff and lifeless once more. He must have been fourteen, the same age as Edmund.
A small blonde girl stood next to the younger brother on top of a stool, seeing as she was much shorter than the two older siblings and to keep everyone's head near the same level, she was placed on top of a stool. She wore the same dress as her older sister, only in a smaller form. The white ruffles on the dress stood out against her bright blonde hair like the younger brother she stood beside. Her left hand was placed on the younger brother's right shoulder while her right hand was wrapped around his arm. Her head was placed on top of her brother's shoulder and she was grinning toothlessly at the camera. A small thing, she was no less adorable and still looked content. She must have been about nine in this picture, only a year younger than Lucy.
Susan reached out her hand against the frame of the picture as she and Peter continued to stare and observe the picture. If they were guessing the ages correctly, this picture would have been taken in 1895, six years before three of the siblings disappeared.
The Professor followed behind them and watched as the siblings stared at the picture. He too looked at the picture as he did every day, and still, his heart felt heavy at the very sight of the picture. To this day the picture filled his heart but also weighed heavily on him. No one discovered where the three siblings disappeared too to this day, and it was likely no one was ever going to find them either.
Susan was the first to turn around and face the Professor. "Is this your family?" She asked him. She asked in a soft voice so as not to upset him, but also full of curiosity thriving for answers. After all, the only person in the world who could answer these questions was standing and breathing right in front of her.
The Professor stared at the picture for a few moments before responding. "Yes, this was taken in 1898, only a few weeks before my mother drowned."
Peter and Susan were silent as they watched the Professor stare at his siblings. He seemed heartbroken as he looked at the frame. Peter was the first to break the silence. "What are their names?"
The Professor turned to Peter noticing that he used the present tense instead of the past. The child was taking into account that they could still be alive somewhere and the Professor respected that about him. Without saying a word, the Professor walked up to the picture and pointed to the oldest boy standing behind the other siblings. "This was Cedric; he was the oldest of all of us. He was never the joyful sibling, always full of hate and anger all the time. None of us really got along with him." The Professor shook his head as he looked at Cedric before turning to the older sister.
"This was Sybil, a true sweetheart. She was quite easy to get along with and everyone always enjoyed her. Out of the three of us, she was the only one who would really get along with Cedric; I always believed it was because they were only a year apart. After our mother passed away she was the first to step up and fill in for her." The Professor then took a moment of silence for his sister before speaking up again.
Next, he pointed to the little blonde boy and let out a laugh. "This was me. I was quite different back then, always getting into mischief. I would always know how to get my sisters into trouble with me which gave my dad and the servants a lot of grief." When the Professor turned to the youngest of the Kirke siblings, his smile was long gone and he just stared at his little sister.
Susan and Peter exchanged a glance as they watched the Professor just stand looking at his sister. "Was she your favorite?" Susan asked him.
Without looking at Susan, the Professor continued to look at the picture of his little sister grinning at him through the frame. His glasses begin feeling much heavier on his face. "Elizabeth was everyone's favorite, and they always are, aren't they? The youngest sibling in every family. Everyone always seems to adore them. Of course, it wasn't hard to fall in love with Elizabeth." The Professor said as he returned a small smile at the little blonde girl.
"She was always full of life that one. Never skipped a beat. Always wanting to be involved, she would join Sybil and me on crazy adventures to town and in our yard. She would crack you up with her innocence. Sadly, she wasn't all innocent. After she saw our mother drown, you would think she would lose that special light she had but she was always full of surprises. She did lose her fear of the water, though, never cared for getting on a boat or going for a swim after that. Which was a shame; she was the best swimmer out of the four of us."
"Do you miss her?" Peter asked as he listened to the Professor's stories of his little sister.
"Not a day goes by that I don't," the Professor said with a sigh. The Professor then walked over to his desk and picked up one of the picture frames placed on top. Then, walking back to the siblings, he showed him the picture in his hands.
The picture was similar to the other one. Only now the family was older. This picture was also in color. Now the young Professor was at least sixteen-years-old and you could tell his hair color was distinctly blonde and combed to the side. He wore a nice jacket as he sat in the chair as before with a blue tie. Just as before, he wore the same toothless smile on his face. Actually, he looked as if he was trying to hold in a laugh. One hand was on his knee while the other was holding his sister's hand.
Sybil, once again wore the same toothless smile as Digory as she smiled into the camera. She looked more mature and peaceful than before. A soft purple dress hung off her shoulders and her long brown hair bounced down her back in waves as before. Sybil really was quite beautiful and looked to be eighteen; Peter stared at her in her frame for a little longer than necessary. Her right hand was wrapped around Digory's arm that was on his knee while her other hand was placed on Cedric's shoulder this time. Cedric was still as unhappy in this picture as he was in the other one. He must have been nineteen now and stood stiffly behind Digory with his chin up. His same dark jacket hung on his shoulders with a matching soft purple like Sybil's dress.
Even though Digory was placed in the center of the picture as before, it was easy to say that he was still not the center of the focus. That credit would have to go to the youngest Kirke sibling, sweet little Elizabeth.
She was no longer standing on a stool like before. Of course, she no longer needed a stool. Elizabeth was much taller and had certainly changed from the more innocent childish frame as before. The girl looked more mature and strong-willed and determined. Her hair was a bright blonde and came down to her elbows in soft waves that matched her sisters. She had a white bow in her hair, tying her hair half-up hairdo. The dress she wore was a soft blue, matching Digory's tie that covered her feet. The older siblings must have been made to wear matching colors and the younger siblings to match as well. Like her big sister, Elizabeth was really quite a sight to see.
The Kirke siblings were the essence of true beauty in their portrait. She was the only one out of the three siblings to flash a bright toothy smile. Her smile certainly was not false and she looked so happy to be with her siblings. Her eyes were bright blue and shone with delight, you certainly couldn't hide the delight in her face. Elizabeth must have been fourteen when this picture was taken, the same age as their brother Edmund.
"This picture was taken a few weeks before my siblings disappeared, Elizabeth had just turned fourteen. The last picture I have of them," the Professor exclaimed, bringing Susan and Peter back to reality. "Elizabeth and I were the only ones that survived the attack, but for some reason, one I still cannot figure out, she never came back. Of course, I don't think she could come back because I could never go back as well. I don't even know if she is still alive over there...I may never know." The Professor trailed off, mainly talking to himself but Peter and Susan still listened never the less.
"I'm sorry," Peter said shaking his head and scrunching up his face. "Survived the attack?" He asked not understanding what the Professor was referring to. World War I didn't happen until years after the siblings disappeared. Nothing else had occurred in England before then, at least not during the time the Kirke siblings disappeared. Peter wasn't following up with what the Professor was referring to.
The Professor seemed to realize what he had said and turned to face Peter and Susan, his face looking dark and pale. "Never mind that, now go along you two. Out! It's way past time the two of you should be back in bed."
Peter and Susan just stared at the Professor for a second or two more before bolting from the room, afraid the Professor was about to come after them from the looks he was giving them. They hurried to their rooms to find that Edmund and Lucy were both asleep in their rooms. The two talked for a moment or so before separating and going to their own rooms to go to sleep.
The conversation with the Professor was strange in the least that he not only believed Lucy, but thought they should too. At least they had discovered something.
The Professor was with his siblings when they disappeared and knew what happened, or at least what had happened to Sybil and Cedric. But out of the three Kirke siblings that had disappeared, Elizabeth was the only one to have survived. Only for some reason, seemingly unknown to everyone, she never came back.
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A/N:
Dang . . . 4,575 words of pure plot line. That's 13 pages!!!
But Digory, MY MAN!!! I've missed you dude!!! But not as much as Elizabeth has . . .
Sorry, that was probably too far . . .
Looks like you're just going to have to stick around a bit longer to figure out if Digory will ever see his baby sister again *insert evil laugh*
If it makes you feel better, you can vote on this chapter :) Or just comment your tears. Either are welcome. Both are greatly apreciated <3