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“No Octavia tonight?” an old woman questioned the quartet as they sat down together for supper at her son’s estate.
“My sister,” answered a deep voice short and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”
“Sadly,” a young woman’s soft voice echoed, “we’ve tried to get her to come with us or even talk about Narnia, but she acts like she has no idea what we’re going on about!”
“Oh!” the voice of a second woman. “She's always too busy to even sit still like she’s running from something. And she’s only interested in stirring up trouble, listening to that rock ‘n roll, and painting her face so brazenly.”
“She was so young,” the older woman mused. “when you went and then when you came back, you know. Imagine how difficult it must be for her to understand.” The others whispered gently in agreement with her.
The fourth of the group said nothing but set out chess pieces on a board in the middle of the table. The shapes of the pieces were unusual, pawns like dwarfs, knights like animals, and trees that appeared to be frozen in a dance. They protected the two queens and the two kings on either side. They were gilded and onyx, matching the hands that placed them there, while the air that clung around them seemed to shimmer vibrantly.
“Let’s not discuss it anymore,” the man at the head of the table spoke up, “Look at the feast before us my mother has created! It could rival all the coronation feasts in Narnia!”
As the six began to eat, play, and reminisce into the night, the air in the room glistened more feverishly. It tasted damp and sweet on their tongues, an almost-mystic flavor that would remind them of long ago. Before anyone could mention it, though, the golden light finally grew until it was too bright for them not to notice. The call of a voice from beyond was the only thing that echoed louder than their panicked questions.
—•—•—•—•—
Now, this is a story you may know...
There were four children who went through a magical wardrobe and became kings and queens of a magical land.
To the glistening eastern sea, I give you Queen Raven the Resourceful. To the great western woods, King Wells the Wise. To the radiant southern sun, Queen Clarke the Commanding. And to the clear northern skies, I give you King Bellamy the Benevolent. Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia.
...but this is not the story to be told. This story is of a fifth child, who was hidden and forgotten.
To the holder of the compass, Octavia the Osleya , I give you the Champion of Narnia.
—•—•—•—•—
She had dirt under her fingernails the day we met. I had just arrived on campus that morning for freshman orientation and she was in our dorm room unpacking. The knees of her jeans were stained emerald and a black crop top hung loosely on her shoulders. Her hair was greasy and long, a crown neglected but hiding a striking face from view. When she looked up at me in the doorway, her eyeliner was smeared thickly around two bloodshot dark eyes. Were they smeared from crying or a week worth of wear, I would never know? And her lips were blood-red.
She didn’t speak to me, so I moved into the room and sat my bags down slowly. She looked like a wild animal, ready to bare her teeth or raise her hackles at me, as a sign to back off, if I got too close.
I tried to introduce myself, asked for her name, and was given one letter—O.
She eyed the cross hanging around my neck and asked if I was religious. My mother’s faith , I told her and rubbed the gold reverently.
“You?” I nodded to the Bible on her bed, tucked in between her sheets and band tees and red lipsticks. I went to pick it up at the same time she went to hide it. The thick text tumbled to the floor and a note fell out. We both scrambled to the floor to retrieve it, but my hand hovered over it as the signature caught my eye.
From Bellamy.
“Bellamy? I’ve only heard that name one time. It’s like that guy from that train...and you said your name started with an— oh .”
It had been three years since the accident. Everyone knew of it. Arkadia wasn’t that big of a place. A high rail train went off the tracks killing dozens. I could hardly believe that this was the girl from the newspapers. Six deaths, leaving her the lone survivor of her family.
Octavia Blake.
She was only fifteen, which made her eighteen now, same as me, and in that short amount of time she had aged; roughly, painfully, by the looks of it.
I stood back up as she did. The note was clutched in her hands so tightly her knuckles were turning white and her back teeth scraped together.
“I’m sorry—,” I tried to say, not very good with feelings, but not wanting to get any closer to her.
“I’ve never opened it. I don’t know what it says.” Her voice was so soft, small like a child’s, and she passed the note to me with her eyes closed.
I read it aloud since she couldn’t bear the sight of it.
My Dear Sister,
I write to you in hopes that you will remember. I had not realized that girls grow quicker than boys. And now you are too old to believe in make-believe and fairy tales, and by the time you read this, you will be older still. But one day you will be old enough to recall the memories that feel more like dreams with every passing year. One day you will call on Aslan and remember how your family fought for him in Narnia. I hope you tell me when you do. I might probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand a word you say but I shall still be...
Your Brother Always
I folded the letter and watched Octavia crumble to the floor, like a statue worn away by the elements, a once strong force knocked down by a single blow. As she sunk, she was transported, unbeknownst to me, back to the graves she had just visited. Her fingernails dug into the carpet like the way they had into the hard dirt that covered their bodies. Her knees rocked on the dorm floor and bruised her kneecaps like they had in the grass.
She had been holding in her grief for such a long time. The grief of time repeated and loss abound on a scale I could never comprehend. The cross around my neck felt heavy all of a sudden, as she wailed out a name I had never heard before, but felt deep in my bones.
Aslan. Aslan. Aslan! Aslan, why did you forsake me?!
Octavia felt like a compass that had lost its bearing, spinning aimlessly. She needed all four points—north, south, east, and west—to anchor her. But she was broken and had no sense of direction to point her way anymore, even though she had always fought hard against their pull.
The one thing she didn't know was that a compass didn’t give directions but merely reflected them. With or without all its pieces, she would soon learn.
As her sobs turned into merely a trail of tear-tracks down her cheeks, the room began to spin. I felt it. She felt it. We shared a look of terror. Octavia was the one being called now, demanding an answer, and I was answering right along with her. But for this next part of the story, I will let her tell you in her own words...
—•—•—•—•—
Octavia didn’t know how a place, she couldn’t remember all her life, could feel so familiar.
How could your footsteps follow the path to the sea you have never swam in before? How could your legs carry you up the mountains to the castle you had never slept in? How could your lungs fill with such sweet winds that you had never breathed in before? How could she be in Narnia, when Narnia wasn’t real?
“Who are you?” a young man stepped from behind a tree. He wore a navy tunic and a golden crown on top of his head. “I didn’t see you in my dream. There were four like the kings and queens of old. And two elderly. But neither of you.”
She didn’t spare a glance at her roommate who was absolutely stunned in place, but she did feel offense at his comment. Heat rose.
“I’m Octavia, the king’s little sister. Nice to meet you. Sorry, they couldn’t be here but you see they died—three years ago.”
“I had only awoken from my dream ten minutes ago!”
“And I was barely five years old!” Her voice was hoarse as she screamed back at him. “I don’t know anything about Narnia. My brother was the leader with Clarke right by his side. Raven was the smartest and Wells was the negotiator.
And I was left behind in Aslan’s den. Tucked away to be kept safe. But they ruled for ten years!
Do you know what it was like to go back through the wardrobe?” She doesn’t wait for him to answer, the floodgate open now. “I couldn’t speak because my mind was collapsing in on itself. All the things I had seen slipped right through my hands.
And then we went back! To help Prince Lincoln reclaim his Telmarine throne. It was brief.
But it’s been fifteen years! We weren’t allowed to go back. But I didn’t remember what had happened as they all did! I didn’t have any hope to hold on to when the memories faded. And that makes me so, so angry.” The rawness in her voice trembled and she wiped hot tears from her face with the back of her hand.
“Who are you?” she finally thought to ask.
“King Gabriel the Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Protector of Narnia. My great-grandfather’s great-great-grandfather was King Lincoln.
“What are we doing here?”
“I need your help to defeat a shepherd. A wolf in sheep’s clothing...an ass hiding in a lion’s skin. Bill the shapeshifter has tricked the Narnians into believing he is Aslan. Come with me, you will see. But I must warn you, that Narnia is a much darker place than you may remember.”
“I don’t remember anything, but I’m not a child anymore so I am not afraid.”
They walked through the forest, the trees swayed out of the way, and the wind danced in Octavia’s hair brushing it out until it was smooth and shiny. She felt her footsteps becoming more sure with each step. Her back straightened and her head held high. Her fingers gripped onto nothing, searching for a weapon. Her blood buzzed under lips that would bleed red from her enemies' blood. She was Narnia’s warrior, a hidden treasure m from a forgotten time. But she had a lion’s roar in her heart and she would be the last hero before the final war.
Suddenly the sun shifted into her eyes as the trees broke over a valley, and then she gasped with amazement, for there she saw leaning against one another, a tall man with dark hair that looked like molten bronze in the sunset and shoulders so broad that an entire world could fit on them, a crown of gold rested into his side, it was braided down her back, and a tall, tan woman with raven hair, and the last of their band with steady hands holding onto them all. They were waving at her across the great, deep valley. It was like when you see people waving at you from the deck of a big ship when you are waiting on the dock to meet them.
“We must go further up and further in,” said Gabriel. Octavia looked up at the smiling faces, feeling a pull so strong that she didn’t need to look where she was going because she knew. She waved a hand out and up toward the steep golden hills.
“Then lead the way.”
2555. Gaia, Narnia Historían. Part 1.