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They step out of the wardrobe and tumble into a pile on the floor in front of it. Before their very eyes, the Pevensies’ limbs shorten and their clothes change, and their bodies become exactly like they were that very first terrifying day in Narnia. Lucy’s freckles and long dark curls are gone, both Edmund and Peter’s jaws and shoulders are too soft, too round, and the long scar that had graced Susan’s beautiful face is no more. Each of them, with faces too young and skin too unblemished, look at the others in disbelief as the memories of their old world, their first world, come flooding back into their heads.
Susan tries to stand first, but she stumbles and ends up on her knees. Her siblings move over to her and Peter wraps her in a hug, but it's all wrong. His shoulders are not wide enough for him to envelop her, and the warmth he picked up from so many hours in the Narnian sun can not comfort her because it isn’t there. The only thing right is his body language, but his actual body can not back it up.
Edmund, always one to try and fix, turns around to the wardrobe and tries something that he knows in his too old soul will not work. He shuffles back inside and hits solid wood. He knew that it was going to happen, that they would not be allowed back, but it still dashes his last hope of ever returning to their kingdom, to their bodies, to the lives that they lived. He curls up in the wardrobe and begins to cry. Not the loud whining cries of the child that he is now, but the silent, defeated tears that stream down the face of a man who knows that there is nothing to be done.
That is where they end up eventually. Sitting together, squished into the wardrobe which is somehow too small and too big. Tears well up in their eyes and they mourn the lives they have lost, and the friends that they will never see again. That is how Mrs. MacReady finds them, huddled together like a litter of puppies, whimpering and sniffling. She looks Peter dead in the eyes and for a moment she sees a flash of the eyes of a lion, ferocious and ready to pounce if anything comes to hurt his pride, his family. She closes the door. Hours later, when the siblings have had a bit of discussion and several breaks to get back to crying or to sit in silence against the wooden board keeping them from their home, they open the door to see the professor sitting on the floor in front of them.
“So. You’re back, and by the looks of it, you were gone for a very long time,” the man says softly. Peter, as always, is the first to speak up. “Twenty years. We’ve been gone for twenty years, and now we’re back here.” That silence reigns for a while, everyone shifting with the weight of that sentence, feeling crushed by it. Edmund slouches like he hasn’t in nineteen years, or in a few minutes, depending on how you look at it.
Lucy hates silence. She always has, so from her curled up position, she asks the question that all of them want to know. “The wardrobe won’t let us in. Can we ever get back?” To her siblings, she sounded too young, her voice squeaky and soft, holding none of the weight it usually did. The weight of a queen, Narnia’s favourite. However, to the professor, she seems much too old. The way she carries herself, and the cadence of her voice, back straight and level-toned, was too strong for an eight year old girl, but he could only shrug back at her apolagetically. “I really don’t know. I haven’t been back, but you lot are still young. Trust in the lion that brought you here in the first place. If Narnia needs you, you will be back.”
This was the answer that the children had been expecting. They were intelligent, especially after Narnia, and had learned long ago that the only thing they could ever expect from Aslan is that he wouldn’t do what they expected. “Well,” the professor said as he stood up and stretched lightly, the popping of the joints loud in the silent room. “My old bones don’t do well sitting on the floor. I’m going to return to my study. You may follow me if you want, but I suspect you want a few moments alone.” He pauses, waiting for a response, but he doesn’t get one. Professor Digory Kirke nods solemnly at the royalty of Narnia and turns his back on four English children. He leaves the room and closes the door behind him. He knows how it feels, to be so connected to a place, to Narnia, and then being forced to leave abruptly. A deep sigh escapes him as he walks through the halls of his home.
As he does this, the Pevensie children begin to put themselves back together. The four of them lean on one another and eventually, on shaky knees, force themselves to stand with all of their former regal might that they can muster. They are standing, and they are wobbling, and it takes all that they have not to collapse against one another and melt back into the wardrobe forever. They want to, they yearn for Narnian air, but they don’t. Restraint was a trait learned in Narnia with their wise advisors and on rare occasions, Aslan himself. Together, they force themselves to think that everything will be okay. It takes a long while, with it being almost dark by the time they are ready, but together, one by one, oldest to youngest, with only the smallest bit of hesitation, they step out of the spare room with their heads held high and their backs straight, for now, all is well.