the first occasion

[deepest_magic]

The house just northeast of Forks proper is very big, quite abandoned, and really easy to just walk right in if you're of a mind to. There are signs that people have been camping in it while hiking, but currently it is unoccupied by visitors, squatters, or any animals larger than a squirrel. There's been a fair amount of furniture but fewer small possessions left behind: couch, piano, dining table, wardrobe, armchair, kingsized bed. It's in extremely variable states of repair.

Comments

[neverbeatme]

"Oh. She doesn't sound very nice," says Elizabeth. "What does she have against Christmas?"

[alicornucopia]

"I have never, er, asked."

Tumnus is looking increasingly depressed.

[neverbeatme]

"...Is everything okay?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, I'm a terrible Faun," exclaims Tumnus, bursting into tears.

[neverbeatme]

"What is it, what do you mean?" she asks, leaning forward concernedly and putting a hand on his shoulder.

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, you wouldn't be a bit worried over me if you knew," sniffs Tumnus. "I am certainly the worst Faun since the world began."

[neverbeatme]

"It's okay, you can tell me," she says. "What's wrong?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, my old father would never have done a thing like this, he'd be terribly ashamed of me. I'm in the pay of the White Witch, that's what I've gone and done."

[neverbeatme]

"See, look," she says, "you told me and I'm still worried about you. What did you do that you're this upset about?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, just look at me, would you think to look at me that I'm the sort of Faun who'd find a Daughter of Eve wandering the woods, a harmless child who'd never done me any ill, and pretend to be friendly and invite her to my cave meaning all the while to occupy her until she asked to sleep there for the night all for the sake of turning her in to the White Witch?"

[neverbeatme]

"No, I didn't think any such thing when I met you," she says. "But look - you didn't go through with it, did you? Here we are, I'm okay and you're okay and nobody's turned anybody in to anybody."

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, of course I've lost my nerve now, but if she finds out I found a human and then let it go, she's sure to have my tail cut off and my horns sawn off and she'll wave her wand over my hooves till they've turned into wretched horse hooves of all things, and if she is in a specially bad mood perhaps after all that I will be turned into a statue until the thrones at Cair Paravel are filled and who knows when that shall happen, or whether it ever shall at all?"

[neverbeatme]

"Well, you're not going to tell her, and I'm not going to tell her, and I don't see anybody else around here," says Elizabeth. "Do you want a hug?"

[alicornucopia]

He hugs her, but says, "It would be best if you were back where you came from at once, I think, I can see you as far as the lamppost. Can you get to your own country again from there?"

[neverbeatme]

Hug.

"I think so. I'll try."

[alicornucopia]

"We must go quietly," advises Tumnus, sighing and getting to his hooves. "The whole wood is full of her spies. Even some of the trees are on her side."

He picks up his umbrella again and leads Elizabeth back as far as the lamp post.

[neverbeatme]

Elizabeth goes very, very quietly.

And at the lamp post, she turns back the way she first came, and proceeds through the trees...

[alicornucopia]

Trees trees coats coats coats door.

[neverbeatme]

Open door, still wedged that way by the chair.

She turns around.

She reaches, standing outside the wardrobe, into the wardrobe... and touches wood at the back, behind the coats.

She stands, staring at it meditatively, for a few seconds. Then she steps away, because she'd better hurry home, it's been—

—not even long enough for the angle of the shadows under the window to change.

So either not long at all, or very long indeed.

Elizabeth goes home in a hurry. She checks the clock. She looks in on Chris in her office and gets an absent-minded 'hi', from which she deduces that she has in fact been gone for just about long enough to bike to the abandoned house and back, and not to have had tea with a Faun and listen to his stories for hours in between, nor the day or days on top of that it would have taken for the sun to be at the same angle coming as going.

It's all right there in her mind palace, every detail she could store away, a whole new room tucked behind a wardrobe with notes about Fauns and winter and Christmas and the White Witch and the thrones at Cair Paravel. She doesn't think it was a dream. She doesn't think she imagined it. But all the evidence outside her head points to her having walked into that wardrobe, taken a very short nap with very vivid dreams, and then walked out again not five minutes later.

The problem continues occupying her mind for quite a while.

[deepest_magic]

Bella comes over the following afternoon. She has brought a deck of cards, because Charlie has just taught her to play cassino and she wants to see if maybe Elizabeth won't beat her one hundred percent of the time.

"Elizabeeeeth?" she calls, knocking on the door.

[neverbeatme]

Shortly, Elizabeth opens it.

"Bella! Hi."

[deepest_magic]

"Hi! What's up?"

[neverbeatme]

"Not very much," she says. "How about you? You brought cards. Do you want to play cards? I bet you want to play cards."

[deepest_magic]

"Learned a new game. It's good for two people, not like euchre."

[neverbeatme]

"Cool, c'mon in and teach me!"