the summer i was ten again

[deepest_magic]

Isabella falls from her horse first, caught by a low branch she didn't see. She's a better rider than that, she ought to have - ow - she reaches for Jamie, grabs her hand, but while they clasp hands Isabella's got too much momentum and Jamie falls too -

Something snags Isabella's cloak, something snags her bag, she's got a heap of pine needles prickling her face and can't see. She flails a leg but only loses her shoe for her trouble, and the other slips off when she twists, trying to find 'up' before her horse steps on her - when did it get this dim, the sun was only just setting a moment ago - she can't see anything - "Jamie -"

The next time she inhales it's not the smell of pine needles, it's old fur. Not the hay-sweet shallow pile of having somehow planted her nose in her horse's flank; like a coat. Smell jogs memory. Coats - and wood, not the pines but old treated planks -

She's lost Jamie's hand somewhere along the line. She was wearing gloves against the cold and her hand's bare on fur, on wood.

She feels dizzy and small and something's gone wrong with her clothes and she can't hear the horse breathing or feel the wind anymore.

She fumbles around in the dark, looking for Jamie, the horse, a tree, anything.

She finds a shoulder, too small and skinny to be Jamie's, and then with her other hand she finds a door and blinding light and tumbles out of the wardrobe onto the floor.

Comments

[queensidecastle]

"Sure, then. Although I think I'll leave the actual chess set at home."

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah, for physical proof the notebook should suffice."

[queensidecastle]

Drive drive drive.

[deepest_magic]

And there's Charlie's house. It gives Isabella the oddest little pang, but she does recognize it.

She doesn't have her key any more, and has to knock.

[sundayfish]

Charlie takes a minute to answer the door. "Hey, Bells," he says. "Elizabeth, Chris."

[deepest_magic]

"Hi Dad."

[queensidecastle]

"Hi," says Chris. She looks at Isabella, seeking cues about whether she should be the one to start explaining.

[neverbeatme]

James had to stop holding Isabella's hand to get out of the car and is now not quite sure whether to start again.

[sundayfish]

"Something wrong?"

[deepest_magic]

"It's complicated. And hard to believe. You may want to sit down."

[sundayfish]

So Charlie sits.

[deepest_magic]

"Elizabeth and I went to explore the abandoned house by the edge of town and in it we found a portal to another world where time runs differently. We were there a decade and a half. We grew up. Then it spat us out back into our previous bodies later the same day we left."

[queensidecastle]

"I believe them," volunteers Chris. "Bella has a magic notebook, there are pictures, it was very convincing. And I already knew magic existed; I have a useless and inexplicable magic chess set."

[sundayfish]

[deepest_magic]

Bella looks for a comparable set of pictures of her, over time, the way the knightings make a good sequence for James. She comes up with a series of photos of her on Queensday, hands the notebook to Charlie.

[sundayfish]

He looks them over. "Are these - photos -?"

[deepest_magic]

"Magic ones. I had a thing that took pictures and would transfer them to paper. I don't have any of my stuff except the notebook now."

[sundayfish]

"You've got a crown on."

[deepest_magic]

"We helped overthrow the witch who was ruling the country and we took over in her place."

[neverbeatme]

(James smiles, wistfully. They were such a good King and Queen of Narnia.)

[deepest_magic]

"...oh, and I go by Isabella now."

[sundayfish]

"Yeah?"

[deepest_magic]

"...if you want to call me Bells you can, just, introduce me as Isabella."

[neverbeatme]

James decides not to introduce any of her own name-related complications to this conversation at this time.

[deepest_magic]

"We couldn't get back," Isabella goes on, "so here we are, but I'm not really ten, anymore."