The Exhaustion of Dawn - for bedlamsbard
Title: The Exhaustion of Dawn
Author: intrikate88
Recipient: bedlamsbard
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers only for Magician’s Nephew; warnings for general depictions of mental illness.
Summary: After coming back from the War with little more than a debilitating case of shell shock, Digory has trouble believing that the world, which seems to be falling apart around him, is anywhere he would want to stay. While staying with Polly to recuperate, he investigates the rumor of fairies that Uncle Andrew told him about, and finds more than he expected, but perhaps exactly what he hoped for.
The Exhaustion of Dawn
And memories
When just for moments, landscapes out in France
Looked so like the English downlands that the heart
Checked and stood still…
Or then, the song and dance
Of Battalion concerts, in the shafts of light
From smoky lamps: the lines of queer, warped faces
Of men that are now dead: faces lit up
By inarticulate minds at sugary chords
From the vamping pianist beneath the bunting:
‘Until the boys come home!’ we sing. And fumes
Of wet humanity, soaked uniforms,
Wet flooring, smoking lamps, fill cubical
And wooden-walled spaces, brown, all brown,
With the light-sucking hue of the khaki… And the rain
Frets on the pitchpipe of the felted roof
Like women’s fingers beating on a door
Calling ‘Come Home’…. ‘Come Home’
Draw the long trail beneath the silent moon…
Who shall never come…
* * *
And all at once (they never knew exactly how it happened) the face seemed to be a sea of tossing gold in which they were floating, and such a sweetness and power rolled about them and over them and entered them that they felt they had never really been happy or wise or good, or even alive and awake, before. And the memory of that moment stayed with them always, so that as long as they both lived, if ever they were sad or afraid or angry, the thought of all that golden goodness, and the feeling that it was still there, quite close, just round some corner or just behind some door, would come back and make them sure, deep down inside, that all was well. -The Magician’s Nephew
* * *
In short: Digory did not quite make it to the end of the War. Not because he showed the white feather, which fear his uncle had used to goad him when he was young, though it probably would have been preferable if he had turned coward. Maybe it would have turned out better for all of his men if he had.
Or maybe they would all have died anyway.
Digory spent three months in hospital. He probably should have stayed longer, but he couldn’t bear seeing the haunted faces of all the other patients and knowing he looked exactly the same. Still, he had to keep going to doctors for stomach pains and the vision problems that just wouldn’t go away, as well as some more unpleasant problems that didn’t bear speaking of. It turned out that when left alone he didn’t notice days passing, or remember to eat, or in fact get out of bed, so his mother came from the country house to the house in London to take care of him, bringing Uncle Andrew with her.
Digory felt even worse knowing that he was nearly forty and still needed his mother to take care of him, but did not feel quite bad enough that it made him get out of bed, so for a month they lived in the near-silent London house. The loudest sounds, beside the commotion of traffic outside, were the cackles and rambling from Uncle Andrew, who was approximately one hundred and eighty years old, or at least ninety-five.
One afternoon, after Digory had spent the morning intermittently napping following a night spent awake-but-with-nightmares, his mother shook him awake.
“You need some fresh air and sunshine,” she said briskly. “You’re going to sit outside with your uncle.”
“I’m too tired, Mother,” he muttered, trying to bury himself in blankets.
“And I’m going to strangle that old fool if he starts talking about Mrs. Lefay again,” Mabel announced. “Get up.”
Which was how Digory found himself in the garden with his back against the apple tree he had grown from a Narnian apple, with Uncle Andrew by his side chattering animatedly about Atlantis sinking into the ocean. Digory tried not to think about wet nights in the trenches and what he would have given to drown in some nice fresh seawater. He chose to change the subject with a question.
“Why does Mother dislike Mrs. Lefay so much?”
“Well, you know magic, boy,” Uncle Andrew said vaguely. “Sometimes requires specific things that common folk don't care for. Virgin’s blood. It turned out by that point that Letty didn’t qualify, which surprised us all, since she was always rather plain. Mrs. Lefay finished the spell, but Mabel raised an awful fuss, and that was Mrs. Lefay’s last time in jail.”
Digory thought this story was missing a few details. They were, however, details about which his interest had suddenly vanished. It might have been the first time such a thing had happened; he was generally interested in finding out everything about everything.
“But you may yet find a fairy godmother for your children,” Andrew continued.
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Uncle Andrew. I don’t foresee any children in my future.” Digory said, and stared at his hands.
There would be no wife, no children. There had only ever been Polly, and he would make as unsuitable a husband for her as she would a wife for him, besides which she was almost too old to have children, anyway.
They had discussed it, of course; had talked about how perhaps in some other world where she could settle down and he could remove his face from his books long enough to know what country he was in, their children would wild in the country house as they grew old together. But every discussion had ended with the agreement that such a thing was impossible for them. It wasn’t that they didn’t want that life; they just weren’t capable of wanting it more than they wanted everything else.
Digory drew himself away from the memory, and thought back over the conversation. “Fairy godmother?” he said.
“I may not be a practising magician any longer, boy, but that doesn’t mean I do not still have ears! Fairies have been seen in the north.” Uncle Andrew delivered the words in grave, hushed tones, as if expecting Digory to marvel at his wisdom. Some things hadn’t changed in thirty years.
“Is this like last week, when you took your tablet and thought you saw German soldiers digging a tunnel from our garden into Whitehall?” Digory asked.
Andrew glared. “Wretched boy!” He pulled a wrinkled letter from his pocket and waved it at Digory with a shaking hand. “I heard it from Mrs. Wright, in my theosophy circle. Listen. ‘Though no one believes them but me, they do not recant their story. My daughter and my niece have seen fairies in the garden, and by the stream, and though I have not seen them yet for myself I know that what they say is true. Rest assured that I will send you proof the moment I have it for myself.’ You see?”
Digory raised an eyebrow. Mostly at himself, because he genuinely wondered what the point was of arguing with Uncle Andrew. “You’re basing this on the word of an excitable mother in…” he peered at the letter, “West Yorkshire, who probably has nothing to do with her life but roll bandages and make jam. Hardly conclusive evidence, Uncle Andrew.”
Andrew sniffed derisively, and carefully folded the letter before returning it to his pocket. “With that attitude, you’ll never see anything magical.”
Digory thought of adventures, of other worlds, of chill winds whipping his hair against his skin as Polly clung to his waist and he looked down at the ground far below and the horse’s wings next to his legs. He thought of the hope that kept him from falling from despondency into utmost despair, how it felt like a lion’s breath and the sound of laughter from around the next corner.
“Maybe,” Digory said, “but I think I have already seen more magic than most people do in one lifetime.”
* * *
The next morning, a letter from Polly arrived.
D.-
So you are finally out of the hospital, and I am finally out of The Hague, and perhaps the War will stop troubling us long enough for us to get our first good night of sleep in what feels like years. Negotiations in the anti-war movement went about as expected, which is to say less than anyone wanted but at least we were there. I do not know who I am more frustrated with sometimes, the men who do not listen or the women in my own suffragist movement who think it is our duty to support those men, even as they send more and more boys to the trenches.
That is part of the reason I did not stop in London upon my return, though I want very much to see you: the London Society for Women's Suffrage and I are on the outs and if they didn’t stir up trouble for me I would just stir it up myself. (I am certain, however, that whatever happened it would have made quite the diversion for you and all your fellow patients in hospital; remember the elephant and all the police who swore they’d never forget us?)
I have now settled for a while in a cottage in Bingley, to help Catherine Marshall with both continuing work on the franchise as well as the Women’s International League. You are welcome to come join me; I would like your company and can even put you to work writing and researching, if you wish for diversion. Or you can sit and stare at the clouds, if you prefer.
Just come.
All my love,
Polly
“I think you should go,” said Digory’s doctor that afternoon.
“Go to Cottingley and find out about the fairies,” said Uncle Andrew.
“You once brought back my health,” said Digory’s mother. “Go see Polly. Do something for your own health.”
Digory did not have much fight in him left. He packed his bag, and sent a telegram to warn of his arrival. When he boarded the train to Bradford, for the first time since he had returned to England, his head stopped hurting.
* * *
Polly was the only person at the station when he arrived, and so she made free to embrace and kiss him in a shockingly unladylike fashion, or at least, in a fashion that would have been shocking if Digory hadn’t grown up with her.
He kissed her right back, then held up the bag he had brought with him. “I come bearing apples from our tree, and wine from France,” he said.
“Excellent.” Polly’s eyes sparkled. “Maybe I’ll bring you home with me after all.”
“I was going to stay at the New Beehive Inn,” Digory protested, heaving his suitcase into the back of the automobile. “For the sake of your reputation.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “I’m an active suffragist who regularly sees the inside of a jail cell,” she pointed out. “I’m in deepest West Yorkshire working out ideas with Catherine Marshall about international agreement and ending the War, which most people seem to think makes me a traitor. I really do look forward to finding out what greater indecencies you propose to inflict upon my reputation.”
“The doctors did say there was some risk I might take off all my clothes and wander away,” offered Digory. “Wait, never mind, that was about Uncle Andrew. Sorry to disappoint, I’ll probably just scandalize your neighbours by sitting around and reading all the time.”
Polly, however, still had a look of horror on her face, presumably from the thought of a denuded Uncle Andrew, and not in regards to any scandalizing of her neighbours, which in fact she actually rather enjoyed doing. She had gotten a full three days of peace and quiet after putting those African fertility statues outside her cottage door.
“How is Mr. Ketterley, anyway?” she asked. “The last time I saw him he thought I was Jadis.”
“To be fair, you were bossing around a small army of women and muttering about invading Parliament at the time,” Digory pointed out.
That earned him a solid punch in the arm, the delivery of which caused Polly's car to swerve just slightly, which was in turn enough for Digory to complain both about both her driving and her treatment of poor invalids.
It was good to see her again.
They were back to her cottage by the time Digory finished telling Polly how Uncle Andrew was and then the state of the rest of the family, and finished with the rumor of fairies that Andrew had told him to investigate; Polly, it seemed, was acquainted with the two girls, Frances and Elsie, who had seen them. They were actually quite close, it turned out, as Cottingley was the next village over from Bingley, and Polly’s cottage was the last house on the street before the fields took over. Apparently being slightly distant from the rest of the people allowed Polly to feel a bit free to indulge in her own style of decorating.
“I like the carvings,” Digory said, peering at the statues on each side of the front door. “West African?”
“Yes, from an Umbundu village.” She pushed open the front door and ushered Digory inside. “I helped them get rid of a pack of missionaries who were more interested in burying them in tracts than giving them food or doing anything about all the fourteen-year-old girls dying in childbirth. The Portuguese weren’t very happy about it at all, but at least there’s a qualified doctor there now.
“I still had to leave rather quickly, though, before the soldiers came. That’s how I met Frances-she was on the ship from South Africa with me. Didn’t seem like the most sensible girl, but she’s young. The sort that would probably think illustrations of rabbits in waistcoats are worth emulating with pets, but probably wouldn’t see the point in carrying a game of pretend to the point of making trouble.”
“No unleashing jewelry-thieving amazons into the streets of London for Frances, then?” Digory asked, grinning.
“She’s still young,” said Polly, grinning back. “Give me time.”
She opened a door. “Here’s your room, and also where I keep my desk, so please don’t hesitate to write letters for me if you find you can’t sleep.” Digory placed his suitcase at the end of the bed, and removed his hat and placed it on top of it. Polly reached for his hand and pulled him towards the kitchen. “Shall we open that bottle of wine, now?”
* * *
That first night, Digory awoke, choking on the taste of metal and gas and gunpowder, and trying to push the sweat-sticky twisted bedclothes away from him. He didn’t quite manage to start breathing again until after he had switched on the light, and it was another minute before his heart slowed down enough and he could form a coherent thought. This had not been the usual nightmare.
There had been an army; that was usual. There had been wounded soldiers. But they were not men he knew. They were not men, at all.
What they were, he wasn’t sure. They were tall, too tall, too quiet. It was all too quiet. And there was something else about them that didn’t seem right. But they, and the brightness of the flags they carried, were all he could remember.
He spent the rest of the night in the kitchen, drinking tea and reading.
* * *
Asking Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright about the fairies turned out to be easier than Digory expected.
As the day after Digory arrived was a gloriously sunny summer day, and even though he hadn’t really slept, he and Polly went hiking, stopping for a pub lunch in Haworth and ending up near Cottingley late in the afternoon. The sun cast long shadows through the wood they walked through, and Digory was beginning to think about supper and how very nice it was to work up an appetite. He was realizing how good of an idea it had been to come up to this part of the country, where life was simple and beautiful, and even though in many ways the world had gone mad there was still a steadily beating heart of England where one could come and make sense of things.
At exactly that moment, a small cat in a knitted bobble hat and a lumpy pink sweater sprinted past them, yowling ferociously and attempting to shoot hair in all directions. A moment later there was a scream, a splash, and a girl’s voice shouting, “ROSEBUD, RUN!”
Polly looked at Digory, and raised her eyebrows. The cat doubled back, having lost the hat, and attempted to climb Digory as if he were a tree. Digory defended his face and ran with Polly towards the source of the screaming.
It turned out there were two sources, both of them young ladies with a marvellous ability to harmonize. The first was on the bank of Cottingley Beck, attempting to pull the second girl out of the river and not having much luck. At first glance, Digory thought that the girl in the river must have fallen after getting her foot stuck between two stones, but then he looked closer and saw his mistake.
Stones did not reach out arms and pull back.
He leapt to help the girl on the riverbank, pushing the part of his shirt where the cat clung around to the back so that the scared little thing could sink its claws into his spine and not be in the way of the rescue.
Polly grabbed a fallen branch and began beating at the creature rising from the churning water, but even with two people, one of them a grown man, trying to pull the girl in the river out, they couldn’t quite win the struggle.
At last Polly delivered a great thwacking with the branch, and something cracked loudly. Digory and the first girl went stumbling and falling backwards, pulling the second girl and the creature onto the riverbank with them, drenched and coughing. The cat decided this would be an excellent time to depart, and used Digory’s face as a jumping-off point to leap for the nearest tree from which to watch the proceedings.
“Elsie!” cried the half-drowned girl. “Is Rosebud alright? Did she escape the clutches of that evil… thing?”
“Er, is Rosebud the cat?” asked Digory. The girl looked at him, as if it was the first time she had noticed his existence.
“Yes, that horrid creature tried to swipe my poor kitten off the rocks and drown her!”
Digory surveyed the concerned young lady, whose hair was askew and who was already showing bruises on her forehead, arms, and ankles, and wearing a dress that was clearly not going to be wearable again. “Rosebud is fine,” he said, and pointed up at the tree where she sat.
Rosebud hissed at him. Rosebud had had a very trying day.
Polly stood over the four figures, leaning on her fearsome branch. “Frances, I can’t imagine your aunt is going to be impressed with the state of you when I take you home.” She pushed back her Panama hat from her face and turned her gaze to what they had pulled out of the river with Frances. “And what to do with you?” she wondered aloud.
“I think you should keep beating it with your stick,” suggested Frances.
“Just because something tries to tear you limb from limb and eat your cat is no reason to bludgeon it to death,” Polly said with disapproval. “It may have simply been a misunderstanding. However, it seems to be coming round. You may want to back up.”
Elsie and Frances scrambled back. Digory did not, but looked closer at the creature as it stirred. It was human-shaped, but if standing, would have been too tall, and it had green skin. Not leaf-green, but pale and tinged, as if its skin was translucent enough to see far too many blue-green veins through it. Digory recalled his dream with a start; that was what he couldn’t remember. They had been green, too.
It coughed up an impressive amount of water and then rolled over onto its back. Polly poked it. Its very large eyes opened.
“You may have just scared two girls witless,” Polly said sweetly, “but I advise you to consider taking a different approach with me.”
The green creature surveyed her, and drew back slightly. “You have faced warlords and soldiers and weapons,” it rasped.
“That’s right.” Polly said. “And you’re just a woman in a stream. Was there any particular purpose to you grabbing my young friend?”
“And my poor little Rosebud!”
The green creature-woman, apparently, though Digory hadn’t quite seen that until Polly had pointed it out (and perhaps it was a good thing he was never getting married, because that was not very flattering)-sat up, and put a hand to her head. “I am… a traveller. I move between the worlds. I am older, now, and I wish to rest. But I cannot stay anywhere unless someone takes my place on the other side of the gate. The cat might have worked, but the girl fell in instead.”
She directed a baleful glance in Frances’ direction. “I would have settled for her.”
Digory looked at the girls. “Is this fairy you’ve been talking about?”
“How did you know-“ started Elsie.
“Yes,” said Frances. “One of them.”
* * *
There were more, according to the girls, and more than that, according to the woman from the stream, who allowed them to call her Jenny Greenteeth. Whether she was the actual Jenny from folklore, Digory had no idea, but she certainly had some affinity for water; she never stopped dripping. (Frances, on the other hand, did eventually stop, but Rosebud, who had unravelled most of her sweater by this point, would only leap back and forth between Digory and Elsie until Frances was dry.)
Jenny led the four of them through the wood to Gilstead Crags. Elsie, having grown up in Cottingley, was the only one of them there that knew the name of where they were. The sun had set and a bright full moon had risen by the time they got there, and surrounding the Crags were lights and mirrors, flashing and reflecting the moon, and white streamers, blowing in the breeze around lanterns and the effect was that of floating ghostly lights. A soft glow emerged from a wide crack in the rock face, and Jenny motioned for them to follow her through it.
The cavern inside was too large to actually be in the physical location it occupied, Digory saw immediately. This was magic. The other thing he noticed was the multitude of people similar to Jenny: tall, with greenish skin stretched tightly over their bones; scattered here and there were other people, looking as if they had various degrees of human in them. The banners and tapestries adorning the walls were the same bright silk he had seen in his dream.
The similarities were disconcerting. His vision blurred and went dark for a moment, and then cleared, leaving him briefly dizzy.
“Look at the food!” Elsie whispered to Frances.
“Don’t touch it,” Digory said sharply. There were tables around the cavern, covered in plates of bread, bowls of fruit, platters of meat, and all of it looked delicious. His stomach gurgled noisily, and suddenly the idea of having worked up an appetite didn’t seem as good as it did before. “Traditionally,” he clarified, “in folklore from all over the world, fairy food has a bad reputation. We should stay away from it until we know more.”
Jenny led them through the fairy hall, which was more subdued and quiet than such a place should be. Digory was unsure if that was just how it was --he had the impression of a deep grief from Jenny's people-- or if it was all for the intruders. Polly and Digory traded glances; Frances and Elsie were silent.
There was a man in the farthest corner of the cavern; he might not be a king, and was not wearing a crown, but it was clear that everyone else revolved around him. He sat with only a drink in hand, while everyone around him ate. Digory removed his hat, feeling that it was only polite.
"I see your attempts failed, Jenny," the man remarked to the fairy woman. She nodded. "But why did you bring them back?"
"We were curious," said Digory, "to see the fairies. And to see if we could help, without harming any kittens."
Rosebud agreed loudly, and then jumped on a table to fiercely attack some grilled fish.
"We've travelled between worlds, too, sir," Polly added.
He looked down at her. "A long time ago.”
"Y-yes. A very long time ago.”
“But you came home,” the fairy king said, and seemed sad. “You had a home to go back to.”
His people had lost that, he told Polly and Digory. They could always walk in the places between the worlds, peering through the hidden doorways at places they passed and perhaps bringing things home with them, but never able to stay. But then there was a war in their world, one that kept spreading.
There was always a war, Digory thought.
The fairies had fled. When they returned, their entire world was gone.
“My people are tired of drifting,” the man concluded. “Whenever we try to settle in a new world, we cannot stay. Not unless someone from that world stays here. It seems a balance must be preserved.” He fixed his eyes on Jenny. “Though usually the trade is done willingly.”
“Sir,” Digory said, “have you ever gone to a world called Narnia?”
The fairy king considered. “There have been so many that I can’t remember,” he confessed. “But it sounds familiar.”
“It has lots of talking animals,” Polly prompted.
The king waved a hand at the table by him. “You could find it for yourself, you know. The food will keep you here, and let my people stay in your world. If you wished to see Narnia again.”
Digory looked from the king, to Polly, to the food and wine close enough to reach for. Nearly thirty years had passed since they had been in Narnia; by now King Frank and Queen Helen would be old, and their children would have spread out over Narnia and Archenland and perhaps further south into that unnamed land Digory still wondered about.
Many years of peace, Aslan had promised that world. There were no newspapers there, or full hospitals, or trenches scratched across barren earth, or towns empty of young men.
The opportunity was all he had been waiting for, and so Digory didn’t know why his mouth was full of the terrible metallic taste that he had had upon waking from his nightmare.
“The girls can’t stay,” Polly said abruptly, interrupting Digory’s thoughts. “They should have gone home already. It’s late.”
Digory wondered when Polly had become a responsible adult.
The fairy king nodded. “You are free to leave, of course; no one will stop you. You are also free to come back.”
It was just the dangerous sort of thing, Digory thought, that you expected fairies to say. He could tell it bothered Polly, too; she hustled him quite unmercifully as they took their leave.
* * *
“I left my hat,” Digory said.
“What?” Polly looked back at him. The girls were already farther ahead, discussing nervously but loudly how angry Mr. Wright was going to be at them returning so late. “Does it matter?”
“I like that hat,” he said. “Why don’t you take the girls home and I’ll meet you at the cottage after I go back for it.”
He thought he could see Polly frowning through the dark. “Fine,” she said, “do you know your way back?”
“I think I can find it.”
He had left his hat, yes, and he did very much want it back. But there was something else in that cavern for him. It was that feeling that there would be something better just around the corner, that if he just kept going a little while longer he would find some better world. It was a feeling that had sustained him through three months in hospital and had kept alive memories that he thought were too good to be true.
One sip of fairy wine, and he could be back in the Wood between the worlds, letting its peace drive all memories of the trenches from his head. He smiled at Polly. “I’ll be fine. Go.”
She sighed, but nodded. They were nearly all the way back to Cottingley.
Digory turned, and walked back down the way they had come. Light clouds had drifted over the full moon, and the breeze carried a slightly damp chill, as if to spite the summer. There was a fairly regular trail of pink yarn pieces to follow back to the Crags; Rosebud had shed most of the sweater on the way. Digory felt his face; his cheek was tender, where the kitten had raked her claws while springing upwards, and he was somewhat grateful that his evening was not going to be spent dodging it any longer.
Somehow, the walk back to the fairy hall seemed to take less time than it had to leave. When he returned to the Crags, he heard fiddle music drifting through the woods, and the sounds of dancing. Jenny Greenteeth sat cross-legged on a boulder outside the cavern, wearing his hat and smoking a long pipe. In the dark, she looked almost human, perhaps one who had been sick recently.
“You forgot something,” she said.
He climbed up to sit beside her. “That happens to me a lot,” he agreed.
They were silent a moment, and Jenny passed him her pipe. When he hesitated, she said, “There’s nothing magic about it. Not like the food and the wine.” He thought she might be lying, since she had after all recently tried to pull a girl into the river to bring her to the space between worlds by force. He drew deeply on the pipe anyway, and handed it back.
“There’s a war in this world too, you know,” he said. “Like in yours. Staying here won’t change that.”
“I’m not looking for safety,” she said. “There’s a farmhouse near here, just like the one I grew up in with my sister.” She drew her knees up to her chest. “I could live there. I could have a home again, instead of spending my life only looking in windows. I’ve been in hundreds of worlds, and none of them are free of conflict or things needing fixing. But they’re still places to be a part of.” She sighed. “I think we’ll find a world someday. New ones begin as often as old ones end. Waiting for things to get better takes so very long, though.”
“It does,” Digory replied. “It seems like I’ve waited too long already, most days.” He took a deep breath. “But we could trade places. Instead of waiting anymore.”
The argument he was waiting for didn’t come. He thought about the stories he had read. Fairy bargains were never difficult; that was why they sometimes ended in someone sleeping for twenty years. He just wasn’t sure that, if everything went wrong, he minded the idea of sleeping for twenty years and waking up when the world was a different place.
Jenny knocked the embers out of her pipe, and he followed her inside to sit down at a table. There was no lack of food, and Jenny reached for an empty glass, then filled it with a white wine. The way it swirled in the cup made Digory think it might be honey wine. He took it when she handed it to him, and added some cheese and what appeared to be mushrooms to his plate. Jenny sat at the next table over, looking out across the hall and poking at the bowl of clams (though whether this was for eating or for sport, Digory was not sure).
“Digory!” Polly’s voice rang through the cavern.
He sighed, and looked down at the amber liquid in the goblet. It smelled like summer turning into fall, the hot smell of crisping grass and ripe fruit and nearby water swirling around mossy stones. It was much nicer than green and yellow rings.
“Digory, you… you can’t do this,” she said, slowly descending the steps, as if now that she had run all the way to the Crags, she didn’t know what to do anymore. “I don’t have a reason. But I think we would know, absolutely, if it was time for us to go back to Narnia. I think we’d be there before we even knew how to go. And I think that any way you might leave this world without me-“ here she faltered, just for a moment, “-can’t be right.” She frowned. “You’re not enchanted this time, are you?”
The corner of Digory’s mouth turned up briefly. “No. I’m not enchanted.” He set the goblet down on the table in front of him, ignoring the small sharp intake of breath from Jenny.
“I’m… I’m tired, Polly. The world has changed. I thought… I thought that war would be like something out of Shakespeare, or Tennyson. That I could fight bravely for a glorious victory and then go back to teaching and writing. But Polly, it isn’t like that at all. Nothing will ever be the same. The sun rises over the trenches like the sun in Charn.” He traced the cup’s pattern with his fingers. “How can this world be one that I’m supposed to stay in?”
Polly had made her way across the cavern to him. “It hasn’t ended yet,” she said softly. “We’re still here. We’re still holding the little things together, even if the rest of the world is falling apart.” She put a hand on his shoulder, and sat beside him. “When we were children, we flew over half the world to get the seeds of a tree that would guard against injustice and domination in Narnia. How can we leave this world without defending it first?” Her grip tightened. “How can you think of leaving me here to defend it by myself?”
He laid a hand over hers. “Come with me. We could go together.”
Polly let out a short laugh, and looked down. “If you go, of course I’m coming with you. Obviously. Someone has to keep you from ringing strange bells. But we shouldn’t leave, and you know it.”
He didn’t answer, but looked at Polly. She was heading rapidly for middle age, as he was, and showed the effects of too much sun, too little exposure to fashion or ladylike manners to perhaps be considered pretty by most people, but she was the most beautiful and fierce woman he had ever known. She had no regard for anyone who tried to stop her doing what was right, and no interest in censoring herself to make people in power feel comfortable. Digory felt as if he could see the future in her face, wherein she was a delightfully terrifying old woman who skipped over living with an abundance of incontinent cats, and instead went straight for keeping tigers.
And with one sip of wine, he could lead her out of the world that needed her to keep being that woman.
He closed his eyes. Everything was too bright, and he wanted a moment to pause before letting that hope of golden goodness that the lion had given him all those years ago slip through his fingers.
Somehow, with his eyes closed, it hurt less than he thought it would to push the wine away.
He opened his eyes when Polly took his hands, intertwining her long, strong fingers with his. “It will be better, one day,” she said. “We’ll be in the world we should be. But it takes a different kind of magic.”
“I know,” he said, and was surprised to find that he did. The hope was still there, and it convinced him of something else. He turned around, to face Jenny. “I think there will be a world for you,” he said, cautiously. “A new place. I saw a world born once in a day, but… I think that some take longer.”
“Probably,” said Jenny. “But I was never very good at patience. And a girl on another riverbank hit me with a frying pan a few days ago. I’d like a place to settle down and not startle people in rivers anymore.”
“I wish you the best of luck with that?” Digory said. “Thank you. For everything, even if it isn’t what I need.”
It wasn’t the most tidy of goodbyes, but Digory did not know what else could be said. So he accepted his hat back from Jenny, nodded to the fairy king, and, still holding Polly’s hand, let her lead him back out into the woods.
* * *
“We can’t tell anyone about this,” Polly decided, as they sat outside her cottage later, watching the moon move toward the horizon as the eastern sky showed the faint greyness of approaching dawn. “There are probably people that would go, just to escape their lives. But if they care enough to leave, they care enough to change things here. Maybe that’s why we don’t have the ability to visit other worlds already, because we need to make this one worth living in, first.”
“That’s a very thoughtful and articulate sentiment, Pol,” said Digory. “Do you spend a lot of time wanting to see Narnia again too?”
She smiled wryly at him. “Rioting in London doesn’t keep me busy every hour of the day,” she replied. “I decided a long time ago, though, that if we weren’t supposed to be doing something here, we would never have come back to England. And if we were supposed to be in Narnia, we’d walk through a door and find ourselves there. Taking control of that magic would just make us like Uncle Andrew.” She sighed. “And, strangely, I’m just too busy to corner houseguests to tell them about Jadis, or take off all my clothes in public.”
Digory shrugged. “I’m still an invalid. I might have that sort of time.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “Of course, the rumors about the fairies have already spread. You won’t be the only one up here asking about them. Since you have so much time, maybe you can stop them.”
“Does anyone in town have a camera?” Digory asked. “I brought a book of Rackham illustrations. If Elsie and Frances took pictures with the paper fairies, everyone would think it was all just a bad fake.”
“We can try that.” Polly yawned. “I’ve been up all night, you didn’t sleep last night, now that it’s nearly daylight I say we go to bed.” She stood, stretching, and turned towards the door.
“Polly,” Digory said, unsure of what he was saying next. “You… you really would have given up everything here, to come with me?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation.
“I know we’re not getting married. We’re not going to ask each other for that, again. But I thought that was why we weren’t-because we were no good at giving up everything for each other.” It was more than he meant to say. But he had thought going somewhere else would help him find peace. Maybe that wasn’t the only idea that needed to be set right.
She walked back over to where he still sat, and leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead. “We aren’t the sorts to be husband and wife. We aren’t married because neither of us really wants to be married, to be together like that. That’s all it ever was.” She reached out a hand and pulled him up. “Let’s go to bed. We’ll make fairy pictures in the morning.”
* * *
Who of us
But has, deep down in the heart and deep in the brain
The memory of odd moments: memories
Of huge assemblies chanting in the night
At palace gates: of drafts going off in the rain
To shaken music: or the silken flutter
Of silent, ceremonial parades
In the sunlight, when you stand so stiff to attention,
That you never see but only know they are there-
The regimental colours-silken, a-flutter
Azure and gold and vermilion against the sky:
The sacred finery of banded hearts
Of generations…
--Ford Madox Ford, “Footslogger”
Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: Hi! I love stories that happen outside what we actually see, so just a couple of ideas:
1. gritty crime story set during the Long Winter starring Maugrim and the Secret Police
2. Lucy and Tumnus's second meeting in LWW (bookverse or movieverse, I don't care), the one that takes place at the same time that Edmund meets the White Witch
3. so why do people join up with the White Witch, anyway? (no absolute evil, please)
4. surely other people have wandered into the greater Narnian world aside from Our Heroes. It would be really cool to see, mmm, missing people from our world (Amelia Earhart, the Roanoke colonists, and so on) end up in that world (maybe not in Narnia proper, but, you know, we've got Calormen, Archenland, Telmar, the various islands, the north...). Crossovers are fine if you feel so inclined. (Chrestomance! That would be awesome.)
5. what did Polly and Digory (and Uncle Andrew if you like) think of the Cottingley Fairies?
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: believe, disaster, discovery, tea and cookies
What I definitely don't want in my fic: I'd prefer not to have anything very shippy with any of the canon characters. I'm fine with movieverse or bookverse, although I wasn't very fond of the VotDT movie.
Author: intrikate88
Recipient: bedlamsbard
Rating: G
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers only for Magician’s Nephew; warnings for general depictions of mental illness.
Summary: After coming back from the War with little more than a debilitating case of shell shock, Digory has trouble believing that the world, which seems to be falling apart around him, is anywhere he would want to stay. While staying with Polly to recuperate, he investigates the rumor of fairies that Uncle Andrew told him about, and finds more than he expected, but perhaps exactly what he hoped for.
The Exhaustion of Dawn
And memories
When just for moments, landscapes out in France
Looked so like the English downlands that the heart
Checked and stood still…
Or then, the song and dance
Of Battalion concerts, in the shafts of light
From smoky lamps: the lines of queer, warped faces
Of men that are now dead: faces lit up
By inarticulate minds at sugary chords
From the vamping pianist beneath the bunting:
‘Until the boys come home!’ we sing. And fumes
Of wet humanity, soaked uniforms,
Wet flooring, smoking lamps, fill cubical
And wooden-walled spaces, brown, all brown,
With the light-sucking hue of the khaki… And the rain
Frets on the pitchpipe of the felted roof
Like women’s fingers beating on a door
Calling ‘Come Home’…. ‘Come Home’
Draw the long trail beneath the silent moon…
Who shall never come…
* * *
And all at once (they never knew exactly how it happened) the face seemed to be a sea of tossing gold in which they were floating, and such a sweetness and power rolled about them and over them and entered them that they felt they had never really been happy or wise or good, or even alive and awake, before. And the memory of that moment stayed with them always, so that as long as they both lived, if ever they were sad or afraid or angry, the thought of all that golden goodness, and the feeling that it was still there, quite close, just round some corner or just behind some door, would come back and make them sure, deep down inside, that all was well. -The Magician’s Nephew
* * *
In short: Digory did not quite make it to the end of the War. Not because he showed the white feather, which fear his uncle had used to goad him when he was young, though it probably would have been preferable if he had turned coward. Maybe it would have turned out better for all of his men if he had.
Or maybe they would all have died anyway.
Digory spent three months in hospital. He probably should have stayed longer, but he couldn’t bear seeing the haunted faces of all the other patients and knowing he looked exactly the same. Still, he had to keep going to doctors for stomach pains and the vision problems that just wouldn’t go away, as well as some more unpleasant problems that didn’t bear speaking of. It turned out that when left alone he didn’t notice days passing, or remember to eat, or in fact get out of bed, so his mother came from the country house to the house in London to take care of him, bringing Uncle Andrew with her.
Digory felt even worse knowing that he was nearly forty and still needed his mother to take care of him, but did not feel quite bad enough that it made him get out of bed, so for a month they lived in the near-silent London house. The loudest sounds, beside the commotion of traffic outside, were the cackles and rambling from Uncle Andrew, who was approximately one hundred and eighty years old, or at least ninety-five.
One afternoon, after Digory had spent the morning intermittently napping following a night spent awake-but-with-nightmares, his mother shook him awake.
“You need some fresh air and sunshine,” she said briskly. “You’re going to sit outside with your uncle.”
“I’m too tired, Mother,” he muttered, trying to bury himself in blankets.
“And I’m going to strangle that old fool if he starts talking about Mrs. Lefay again,” Mabel announced. “Get up.”
Which was how Digory found himself in the garden with his back against the apple tree he had grown from a Narnian apple, with Uncle Andrew by his side chattering animatedly about Atlantis sinking into the ocean. Digory tried not to think about wet nights in the trenches and what he would have given to drown in some nice fresh seawater. He chose to change the subject with a question.
“Why does Mother dislike Mrs. Lefay so much?”
“Well, you know magic, boy,” Uncle Andrew said vaguely. “Sometimes requires specific things that common folk don't care for. Virgin’s blood. It turned out by that point that Letty didn’t qualify, which surprised us all, since she was always rather plain. Mrs. Lefay finished the spell, but Mabel raised an awful fuss, and that was Mrs. Lefay’s last time in jail.”
Digory thought this story was missing a few details. They were, however, details about which his interest had suddenly vanished. It might have been the first time such a thing had happened; he was generally interested in finding out everything about everything.
“But you may yet find a fairy godmother for your children,” Andrew continued.
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Uncle Andrew. I don’t foresee any children in my future.” Digory said, and stared at his hands.
There would be no wife, no children. There had only ever been Polly, and he would make as unsuitable a husband for her as she would a wife for him, besides which she was almost too old to have children, anyway.
They had discussed it, of course; had talked about how perhaps in some other world where she could settle down and he could remove his face from his books long enough to know what country he was in, their children would wild in the country house as they grew old together. But every discussion had ended with the agreement that such a thing was impossible for them. It wasn’t that they didn’t want that life; they just weren’t capable of wanting it more than they wanted everything else.
Digory drew himself away from the memory, and thought back over the conversation. “Fairy godmother?” he said.
“I may not be a practising magician any longer, boy, but that doesn’t mean I do not still have ears! Fairies have been seen in the north.” Uncle Andrew delivered the words in grave, hushed tones, as if expecting Digory to marvel at his wisdom. Some things hadn’t changed in thirty years.
“Is this like last week, when you took your tablet and thought you saw German soldiers digging a tunnel from our garden into Whitehall?” Digory asked.
Andrew glared. “Wretched boy!” He pulled a wrinkled letter from his pocket and waved it at Digory with a shaking hand. “I heard it from Mrs. Wright, in my theosophy circle. Listen. ‘Though no one believes them but me, they do not recant their story. My daughter and my niece have seen fairies in the garden, and by the stream, and though I have not seen them yet for myself I know that what they say is true. Rest assured that I will send you proof the moment I have it for myself.’ You see?”
Digory raised an eyebrow. Mostly at himself, because he genuinely wondered what the point was of arguing with Uncle Andrew. “You’re basing this on the word of an excitable mother in…” he peered at the letter, “West Yorkshire, who probably has nothing to do with her life but roll bandages and make jam. Hardly conclusive evidence, Uncle Andrew.”
Andrew sniffed derisively, and carefully folded the letter before returning it to his pocket. “With that attitude, you’ll never see anything magical.”
Digory thought of adventures, of other worlds, of chill winds whipping his hair against his skin as Polly clung to his waist and he looked down at the ground far below and the horse’s wings next to his legs. He thought of the hope that kept him from falling from despondency into utmost despair, how it felt like a lion’s breath and the sound of laughter from around the next corner.
“Maybe,” Digory said, “but I think I have already seen more magic than most people do in one lifetime.”
* * *
The next morning, a letter from Polly arrived.
D.-
So you are finally out of the hospital, and I am finally out of The Hague, and perhaps the War will stop troubling us long enough for us to get our first good night of sleep in what feels like years. Negotiations in the anti-war movement went about as expected, which is to say less than anyone wanted but at least we were there. I do not know who I am more frustrated with sometimes, the men who do not listen or the women in my own suffragist movement who think it is our duty to support those men, even as they send more and more boys to the trenches.
That is part of the reason I did not stop in London upon my return, though I want very much to see you: the London Society for Women's Suffrage and I are on the outs and if they didn’t stir up trouble for me I would just stir it up myself. (I am certain, however, that whatever happened it would have made quite the diversion for you and all your fellow patients in hospital; remember the elephant and all the police who swore they’d never forget us?)
I have now settled for a while in a cottage in Bingley, to help Catherine Marshall with both continuing work on the franchise as well as the Women’s International League. You are welcome to come join me; I would like your company and can even put you to work writing and researching, if you wish for diversion. Or you can sit and stare at the clouds, if you prefer.
Just come.
All my love,
Polly
“I think you should go,” said Digory’s doctor that afternoon.
“Go to Cottingley and find out about the fairies,” said Uncle Andrew.
“You once brought back my health,” said Digory’s mother. “Go see Polly. Do something for your own health.”
Digory did not have much fight in him left. He packed his bag, and sent a telegram to warn of his arrival. When he boarded the train to Bradford, for the first time since he had returned to England, his head stopped hurting.
* * *
Polly was the only person at the station when he arrived, and so she made free to embrace and kiss him in a shockingly unladylike fashion, or at least, in a fashion that would have been shocking if Digory hadn’t grown up with her.
He kissed her right back, then held up the bag he had brought with him. “I come bearing apples from our tree, and wine from France,” he said.
“Excellent.” Polly’s eyes sparkled. “Maybe I’ll bring you home with me after all.”
“I was going to stay at the New Beehive Inn,” Digory protested, heaving his suitcase into the back of the automobile. “For the sake of your reputation.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “I’m an active suffragist who regularly sees the inside of a jail cell,” she pointed out. “I’m in deepest West Yorkshire working out ideas with Catherine Marshall about international agreement and ending the War, which most people seem to think makes me a traitor. I really do look forward to finding out what greater indecencies you propose to inflict upon my reputation.”
“The doctors did say there was some risk I might take off all my clothes and wander away,” offered Digory. “Wait, never mind, that was about Uncle Andrew. Sorry to disappoint, I’ll probably just scandalize your neighbours by sitting around and reading all the time.”
Polly, however, still had a look of horror on her face, presumably from the thought of a denuded Uncle Andrew, and not in regards to any scandalizing of her neighbours, which in fact she actually rather enjoyed doing. She had gotten a full three days of peace and quiet after putting those African fertility statues outside her cottage door.
“How is Mr. Ketterley, anyway?” she asked. “The last time I saw him he thought I was Jadis.”
“To be fair, you were bossing around a small army of women and muttering about invading Parliament at the time,” Digory pointed out.
That earned him a solid punch in the arm, the delivery of which caused Polly's car to swerve just slightly, which was in turn enough for Digory to complain both about both her driving and her treatment of poor invalids.
It was good to see her again.
They were back to her cottage by the time Digory finished telling Polly how Uncle Andrew was and then the state of the rest of the family, and finished with the rumor of fairies that Andrew had told him to investigate; Polly, it seemed, was acquainted with the two girls, Frances and Elsie, who had seen them. They were actually quite close, it turned out, as Cottingley was the next village over from Bingley, and Polly’s cottage was the last house on the street before the fields took over. Apparently being slightly distant from the rest of the people allowed Polly to feel a bit free to indulge in her own style of decorating.
“I like the carvings,” Digory said, peering at the statues on each side of the front door. “West African?”
“Yes, from an Umbundu village.” She pushed open the front door and ushered Digory inside. “I helped them get rid of a pack of missionaries who were more interested in burying them in tracts than giving them food or doing anything about all the fourteen-year-old girls dying in childbirth. The Portuguese weren’t very happy about it at all, but at least there’s a qualified doctor there now.
“I still had to leave rather quickly, though, before the soldiers came. That’s how I met Frances-she was on the ship from South Africa with me. Didn’t seem like the most sensible girl, but she’s young. The sort that would probably think illustrations of rabbits in waistcoats are worth emulating with pets, but probably wouldn’t see the point in carrying a game of pretend to the point of making trouble.”
“No unleashing jewelry-thieving amazons into the streets of London for Frances, then?” Digory asked, grinning.
“She’s still young,” said Polly, grinning back. “Give me time.”
She opened a door. “Here’s your room, and also where I keep my desk, so please don’t hesitate to write letters for me if you find you can’t sleep.” Digory placed his suitcase at the end of the bed, and removed his hat and placed it on top of it. Polly reached for his hand and pulled him towards the kitchen. “Shall we open that bottle of wine, now?”
* * *
That first night, Digory awoke, choking on the taste of metal and gas and gunpowder, and trying to push the sweat-sticky twisted bedclothes away from him. He didn’t quite manage to start breathing again until after he had switched on the light, and it was another minute before his heart slowed down enough and he could form a coherent thought. This had not been the usual nightmare.
There had been an army; that was usual. There had been wounded soldiers. But they were not men he knew. They were not men, at all.
What they were, he wasn’t sure. They were tall, too tall, too quiet. It was all too quiet. And there was something else about them that didn’t seem right. But they, and the brightness of the flags they carried, were all he could remember.
He spent the rest of the night in the kitchen, drinking tea and reading.
* * *
Asking Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright about the fairies turned out to be easier than Digory expected.
As the day after Digory arrived was a gloriously sunny summer day, and even though he hadn’t really slept, he and Polly went hiking, stopping for a pub lunch in Haworth and ending up near Cottingley late in the afternoon. The sun cast long shadows through the wood they walked through, and Digory was beginning to think about supper and how very nice it was to work up an appetite. He was realizing how good of an idea it had been to come up to this part of the country, where life was simple and beautiful, and even though in many ways the world had gone mad there was still a steadily beating heart of England where one could come and make sense of things.
At exactly that moment, a small cat in a knitted bobble hat and a lumpy pink sweater sprinted past them, yowling ferociously and attempting to shoot hair in all directions. A moment later there was a scream, a splash, and a girl’s voice shouting, “ROSEBUD, RUN!”
Polly looked at Digory, and raised her eyebrows. The cat doubled back, having lost the hat, and attempted to climb Digory as if he were a tree. Digory defended his face and ran with Polly towards the source of the screaming.
It turned out there were two sources, both of them young ladies with a marvellous ability to harmonize. The first was on the bank of Cottingley Beck, attempting to pull the second girl out of the river and not having much luck. At first glance, Digory thought that the girl in the river must have fallen after getting her foot stuck between two stones, but then he looked closer and saw his mistake.
Stones did not reach out arms and pull back.
He leapt to help the girl on the riverbank, pushing the part of his shirt where the cat clung around to the back so that the scared little thing could sink its claws into his spine and not be in the way of the rescue.
Polly grabbed a fallen branch and began beating at the creature rising from the churning water, but even with two people, one of them a grown man, trying to pull the girl in the river out, they couldn’t quite win the struggle.
At last Polly delivered a great thwacking with the branch, and something cracked loudly. Digory and the first girl went stumbling and falling backwards, pulling the second girl and the creature onto the riverbank with them, drenched and coughing. The cat decided this would be an excellent time to depart, and used Digory’s face as a jumping-off point to leap for the nearest tree from which to watch the proceedings.
“Elsie!” cried the half-drowned girl. “Is Rosebud alright? Did she escape the clutches of that evil… thing?”
“Er, is Rosebud the cat?” asked Digory. The girl looked at him, as if it was the first time she had noticed his existence.
“Yes, that horrid creature tried to swipe my poor kitten off the rocks and drown her!”
Digory surveyed the concerned young lady, whose hair was askew and who was already showing bruises on her forehead, arms, and ankles, and wearing a dress that was clearly not going to be wearable again. “Rosebud is fine,” he said, and pointed up at the tree where she sat.
Rosebud hissed at him. Rosebud had had a very trying day.
Polly stood over the four figures, leaning on her fearsome branch. “Frances, I can’t imagine your aunt is going to be impressed with the state of you when I take you home.” She pushed back her Panama hat from her face and turned her gaze to what they had pulled out of the river with Frances. “And what to do with you?” she wondered aloud.
“I think you should keep beating it with your stick,” suggested Frances.
“Just because something tries to tear you limb from limb and eat your cat is no reason to bludgeon it to death,” Polly said with disapproval. “It may have simply been a misunderstanding. However, it seems to be coming round. You may want to back up.”
Elsie and Frances scrambled back. Digory did not, but looked closer at the creature as it stirred. It was human-shaped, but if standing, would have been too tall, and it had green skin. Not leaf-green, but pale and tinged, as if its skin was translucent enough to see far too many blue-green veins through it. Digory recalled his dream with a start; that was what he couldn’t remember. They had been green, too.
It coughed up an impressive amount of water and then rolled over onto its back. Polly poked it. Its very large eyes opened.
“You may have just scared two girls witless,” Polly said sweetly, “but I advise you to consider taking a different approach with me.”
The green creature surveyed her, and drew back slightly. “You have faced warlords and soldiers and weapons,” it rasped.
“That’s right.” Polly said. “And you’re just a woman in a stream. Was there any particular purpose to you grabbing my young friend?”
“And my poor little Rosebud!”
The green creature-woman, apparently, though Digory hadn’t quite seen that until Polly had pointed it out (and perhaps it was a good thing he was never getting married, because that was not very flattering)-sat up, and put a hand to her head. “I am… a traveller. I move between the worlds. I am older, now, and I wish to rest. But I cannot stay anywhere unless someone takes my place on the other side of the gate. The cat might have worked, but the girl fell in instead.”
She directed a baleful glance in Frances’ direction. “I would have settled for her.”
Digory looked at the girls. “Is this fairy you’ve been talking about?”
“How did you know-“ started Elsie.
“Yes,” said Frances. “One of them.”
* * *
There were more, according to the girls, and more than that, according to the woman from the stream, who allowed them to call her Jenny Greenteeth. Whether she was the actual Jenny from folklore, Digory had no idea, but she certainly had some affinity for water; she never stopped dripping. (Frances, on the other hand, did eventually stop, but Rosebud, who had unravelled most of her sweater by this point, would only leap back and forth between Digory and Elsie until Frances was dry.)
Jenny led the four of them through the wood to Gilstead Crags. Elsie, having grown up in Cottingley, was the only one of them there that knew the name of where they were. The sun had set and a bright full moon had risen by the time they got there, and surrounding the Crags were lights and mirrors, flashing and reflecting the moon, and white streamers, blowing in the breeze around lanterns and the effect was that of floating ghostly lights. A soft glow emerged from a wide crack in the rock face, and Jenny motioned for them to follow her through it.
The cavern inside was too large to actually be in the physical location it occupied, Digory saw immediately. This was magic. The other thing he noticed was the multitude of people similar to Jenny: tall, with greenish skin stretched tightly over their bones; scattered here and there were other people, looking as if they had various degrees of human in them. The banners and tapestries adorning the walls were the same bright silk he had seen in his dream.
The similarities were disconcerting. His vision blurred and went dark for a moment, and then cleared, leaving him briefly dizzy.
“Look at the food!” Elsie whispered to Frances.
“Don’t touch it,” Digory said sharply. There were tables around the cavern, covered in plates of bread, bowls of fruit, platters of meat, and all of it looked delicious. His stomach gurgled noisily, and suddenly the idea of having worked up an appetite didn’t seem as good as it did before. “Traditionally,” he clarified, “in folklore from all over the world, fairy food has a bad reputation. We should stay away from it until we know more.”
Jenny led them through the fairy hall, which was more subdued and quiet than such a place should be. Digory was unsure if that was just how it was --he had the impression of a deep grief from Jenny's people-- or if it was all for the intruders. Polly and Digory traded glances; Frances and Elsie were silent.
There was a man in the farthest corner of the cavern; he might not be a king, and was not wearing a crown, but it was clear that everyone else revolved around him. He sat with only a drink in hand, while everyone around him ate. Digory removed his hat, feeling that it was only polite.
"I see your attempts failed, Jenny," the man remarked to the fairy woman. She nodded. "But why did you bring them back?"
"We were curious," said Digory, "to see the fairies. And to see if we could help, without harming any kittens."
Rosebud agreed loudly, and then jumped on a table to fiercely attack some grilled fish.
"We've travelled between worlds, too, sir," Polly added.
He looked down at her. "A long time ago.”
"Y-yes. A very long time ago.”
“But you came home,” the fairy king said, and seemed sad. “You had a home to go back to.”
His people had lost that, he told Polly and Digory. They could always walk in the places between the worlds, peering through the hidden doorways at places they passed and perhaps bringing things home with them, but never able to stay. But then there was a war in their world, one that kept spreading.
There was always a war, Digory thought.
The fairies had fled. When they returned, their entire world was gone.
“My people are tired of drifting,” the man concluded. “Whenever we try to settle in a new world, we cannot stay. Not unless someone from that world stays here. It seems a balance must be preserved.” He fixed his eyes on Jenny. “Though usually the trade is done willingly.”
“Sir,” Digory said, “have you ever gone to a world called Narnia?”
The fairy king considered. “There have been so many that I can’t remember,” he confessed. “But it sounds familiar.”
“It has lots of talking animals,” Polly prompted.
The king waved a hand at the table by him. “You could find it for yourself, you know. The food will keep you here, and let my people stay in your world. If you wished to see Narnia again.”
Digory looked from the king, to Polly, to the food and wine close enough to reach for. Nearly thirty years had passed since they had been in Narnia; by now King Frank and Queen Helen would be old, and their children would have spread out over Narnia and Archenland and perhaps further south into that unnamed land Digory still wondered about.
Many years of peace, Aslan had promised that world. There were no newspapers there, or full hospitals, or trenches scratched across barren earth, or towns empty of young men.
The opportunity was all he had been waiting for, and so Digory didn’t know why his mouth was full of the terrible metallic taste that he had had upon waking from his nightmare.
“The girls can’t stay,” Polly said abruptly, interrupting Digory’s thoughts. “They should have gone home already. It’s late.”
Digory wondered when Polly had become a responsible adult.
The fairy king nodded. “You are free to leave, of course; no one will stop you. You are also free to come back.”
It was just the dangerous sort of thing, Digory thought, that you expected fairies to say. He could tell it bothered Polly, too; she hustled him quite unmercifully as they took their leave.
* * *
“I left my hat,” Digory said.
“What?” Polly looked back at him. The girls were already farther ahead, discussing nervously but loudly how angry Mr. Wright was going to be at them returning so late. “Does it matter?”
“I like that hat,” he said. “Why don’t you take the girls home and I’ll meet you at the cottage after I go back for it.”
He thought he could see Polly frowning through the dark. “Fine,” she said, “do you know your way back?”
“I think I can find it.”
He had left his hat, yes, and he did very much want it back. But there was something else in that cavern for him. It was that feeling that there would be something better just around the corner, that if he just kept going a little while longer he would find some better world. It was a feeling that had sustained him through three months in hospital and had kept alive memories that he thought were too good to be true.
One sip of fairy wine, and he could be back in the Wood between the worlds, letting its peace drive all memories of the trenches from his head. He smiled at Polly. “I’ll be fine. Go.”
She sighed, but nodded. They were nearly all the way back to Cottingley.
Digory turned, and walked back down the way they had come. Light clouds had drifted over the full moon, and the breeze carried a slightly damp chill, as if to spite the summer. There was a fairly regular trail of pink yarn pieces to follow back to the Crags; Rosebud had shed most of the sweater on the way. Digory felt his face; his cheek was tender, where the kitten had raked her claws while springing upwards, and he was somewhat grateful that his evening was not going to be spent dodging it any longer.
Somehow, the walk back to the fairy hall seemed to take less time than it had to leave. When he returned to the Crags, he heard fiddle music drifting through the woods, and the sounds of dancing. Jenny Greenteeth sat cross-legged on a boulder outside the cavern, wearing his hat and smoking a long pipe. In the dark, she looked almost human, perhaps one who had been sick recently.
“You forgot something,” she said.
He climbed up to sit beside her. “That happens to me a lot,” he agreed.
They were silent a moment, and Jenny passed him her pipe. When he hesitated, she said, “There’s nothing magic about it. Not like the food and the wine.” He thought she might be lying, since she had after all recently tried to pull a girl into the river to bring her to the space between worlds by force. He drew deeply on the pipe anyway, and handed it back.
“There’s a war in this world too, you know,” he said. “Like in yours. Staying here won’t change that.”
“I’m not looking for safety,” she said. “There’s a farmhouse near here, just like the one I grew up in with my sister.” She drew her knees up to her chest. “I could live there. I could have a home again, instead of spending my life only looking in windows. I’ve been in hundreds of worlds, and none of them are free of conflict or things needing fixing. But they’re still places to be a part of.” She sighed. “I think we’ll find a world someday. New ones begin as often as old ones end. Waiting for things to get better takes so very long, though.”
“It does,” Digory replied. “It seems like I’ve waited too long already, most days.” He took a deep breath. “But we could trade places. Instead of waiting anymore.”
The argument he was waiting for didn’t come. He thought about the stories he had read. Fairy bargains were never difficult; that was why they sometimes ended in someone sleeping for twenty years. He just wasn’t sure that, if everything went wrong, he minded the idea of sleeping for twenty years and waking up when the world was a different place.
Jenny knocked the embers out of her pipe, and he followed her inside to sit down at a table. There was no lack of food, and Jenny reached for an empty glass, then filled it with a white wine. The way it swirled in the cup made Digory think it might be honey wine. He took it when she handed it to him, and added some cheese and what appeared to be mushrooms to his plate. Jenny sat at the next table over, looking out across the hall and poking at the bowl of clams (though whether this was for eating or for sport, Digory was not sure).
“Digory!” Polly’s voice rang through the cavern.
He sighed, and looked down at the amber liquid in the goblet. It smelled like summer turning into fall, the hot smell of crisping grass and ripe fruit and nearby water swirling around mossy stones. It was much nicer than green and yellow rings.
“Digory, you… you can’t do this,” she said, slowly descending the steps, as if now that she had run all the way to the Crags, she didn’t know what to do anymore. “I don’t have a reason. But I think we would know, absolutely, if it was time for us to go back to Narnia. I think we’d be there before we even knew how to go. And I think that any way you might leave this world without me-“ here she faltered, just for a moment, “-can’t be right.” She frowned. “You’re not enchanted this time, are you?”
The corner of Digory’s mouth turned up briefly. “No. I’m not enchanted.” He set the goblet down on the table in front of him, ignoring the small sharp intake of breath from Jenny.
“I’m… I’m tired, Polly. The world has changed. I thought… I thought that war would be like something out of Shakespeare, or Tennyson. That I could fight bravely for a glorious victory and then go back to teaching and writing. But Polly, it isn’t like that at all. Nothing will ever be the same. The sun rises over the trenches like the sun in Charn.” He traced the cup’s pattern with his fingers. “How can this world be one that I’m supposed to stay in?”
Polly had made her way across the cavern to him. “It hasn’t ended yet,” she said softly. “We’re still here. We’re still holding the little things together, even if the rest of the world is falling apart.” She put a hand on his shoulder, and sat beside him. “When we were children, we flew over half the world to get the seeds of a tree that would guard against injustice and domination in Narnia. How can we leave this world without defending it first?” Her grip tightened. “How can you think of leaving me here to defend it by myself?”
He laid a hand over hers. “Come with me. We could go together.”
Polly let out a short laugh, and looked down. “If you go, of course I’m coming with you. Obviously. Someone has to keep you from ringing strange bells. But we shouldn’t leave, and you know it.”
He didn’t answer, but looked at Polly. She was heading rapidly for middle age, as he was, and showed the effects of too much sun, too little exposure to fashion or ladylike manners to perhaps be considered pretty by most people, but she was the most beautiful and fierce woman he had ever known. She had no regard for anyone who tried to stop her doing what was right, and no interest in censoring herself to make people in power feel comfortable. Digory felt as if he could see the future in her face, wherein she was a delightfully terrifying old woman who skipped over living with an abundance of incontinent cats, and instead went straight for keeping tigers.
And with one sip of wine, he could lead her out of the world that needed her to keep being that woman.
He closed his eyes. Everything was too bright, and he wanted a moment to pause before letting that hope of golden goodness that the lion had given him all those years ago slip through his fingers.
Somehow, with his eyes closed, it hurt less than he thought it would to push the wine away.
He opened his eyes when Polly took his hands, intertwining her long, strong fingers with his. “It will be better, one day,” she said. “We’ll be in the world we should be. But it takes a different kind of magic.”
“I know,” he said, and was surprised to find that he did. The hope was still there, and it convinced him of something else. He turned around, to face Jenny. “I think there will be a world for you,” he said, cautiously. “A new place. I saw a world born once in a day, but… I think that some take longer.”
“Probably,” said Jenny. “But I was never very good at patience. And a girl on another riverbank hit me with a frying pan a few days ago. I’d like a place to settle down and not startle people in rivers anymore.”
“I wish you the best of luck with that?” Digory said. “Thank you. For everything, even if it isn’t what I need.”
It wasn’t the most tidy of goodbyes, but Digory did not know what else could be said. So he accepted his hat back from Jenny, nodded to the fairy king, and, still holding Polly’s hand, let her lead him back out into the woods.
* * *
“We can’t tell anyone about this,” Polly decided, as they sat outside her cottage later, watching the moon move toward the horizon as the eastern sky showed the faint greyness of approaching dawn. “There are probably people that would go, just to escape their lives. But if they care enough to leave, they care enough to change things here. Maybe that’s why we don’t have the ability to visit other worlds already, because we need to make this one worth living in, first.”
“That’s a very thoughtful and articulate sentiment, Pol,” said Digory. “Do you spend a lot of time wanting to see Narnia again too?”
She smiled wryly at him. “Rioting in London doesn’t keep me busy every hour of the day,” she replied. “I decided a long time ago, though, that if we weren’t supposed to be doing something here, we would never have come back to England. And if we were supposed to be in Narnia, we’d walk through a door and find ourselves there. Taking control of that magic would just make us like Uncle Andrew.” She sighed. “And, strangely, I’m just too busy to corner houseguests to tell them about Jadis, or take off all my clothes in public.”
Digory shrugged. “I’m still an invalid. I might have that sort of time.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “Of course, the rumors about the fairies have already spread. You won’t be the only one up here asking about them. Since you have so much time, maybe you can stop them.”
“Does anyone in town have a camera?” Digory asked. “I brought a book of Rackham illustrations. If Elsie and Frances took pictures with the paper fairies, everyone would think it was all just a bad fake.”
“We can try that.” Polly yawned. “I’ve been up all night, you didn’t sleep last night, now that it’s nearly daylight I say we go to bed.” She stood, stretching, and turned towards the door.
“Polly,” Digory said, unsure of what he was saying next. “You… you really would have given up everything here, to come with me?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation.
“I know we’re not getting married. We’re not going to ask each other for that, again. But I thought that was why we weren’t-because we were no good at giving up everything for each other.” It was more than he meant to say. But he had thought going somewhere else would help him find peace. Maybe that wasn’t the only idea that needed to be set right.
She walked back over to where he still sat, and leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead. “We aren’t the sorts to be husband and wife. We aren’t married because neither of us really wants to be married, to be together like that. That’s all it ever was.” She reached out a hand and pulled him up. “Let’s go to bed. We’ll make fairy pictures in the morning.”
* * *
Who of us
But has, deep down in the heart and deep in the brain
The memory of odd moments: memories
Of huge assemblies chanting in the night
At palace gates: of drafts going off in the rain
To shaken music: or the silken flutter
Of silent, ceremonial parades
In the sunlight, when you stand so stiff to attention,
That you never see but only know they are there-
The regimental colours-silken, a-flutter
Azure and gold and vermilion against the sky:
The sacred finery of banded hearts
Of generations…
--Ford Madox Ford, “Footslogger”
Original Prompt that we sent you:
What I want: Hi! I love stories that happen outside what we actually see, so just a couple of ideas:
1. gritty crime story set during the Long Winter starring Maugrim and the Secret Police
2. Lucy and Tumnus's second meeting in LWW (bookverse or movieverse, I don't care), the one that takes place at the same time that Edmund meets the White Witch
3. so why do people join up with the White Witch, anyway? (no absolute evil, please)
4. surely other people have wandered into the greater Narnian world aside from Our Heroes. It would be really cool to see, mmm, missing people from our world (Amelia Earhart, the Roanoke colonists, and so on) end up in that world (maybe not in Narnia proper, but, you know, we've got Calormen, Archenland, Telmar, the various islands, the north...). Crossovers are fine if you feel so inclined. (Chrestomance! That would be awesome.)
5. what did Polly and Digory (and Uncle Andrew if you like) think of the Cottingley Fairies?
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: believe, disaster, discovery, tea and cookies
What I definitely don't want in my fic: I'd prefer not to have anything very shippy with any of the canon characters. I'm fine with movieverse or bookverse, although I wasn't very fond of the VotDT movie.