Chapter Nineteen: Eustace

//The water, is calling out your name,
No you’re not insane,
It's whispering your name//

To say that every person - who mattered - was delighted over Buffy and Peter’s engagement was unquestionably an understatement. In the two months since they had announced it *officially* to the family, Peter’s mother had been in full on preparation mode. It did not make a difference how far in the future the actual wedding might be, Helen Pevensie was going to be organized.

Everytime she managed to catch Buffy and/or Peter unaccompanied – or together - she started talking about dresses, guests, churches and menus. Fortuitously for Peter he was away at university and only home for a number of weekends and holidays, poor Buffy had to live with the wedding planner extraordinaire. So she had taken to spending copious amounts of time in the small room she shared with Lucy to circumvent unintentionally offending her future mother-in-law by tearing up her planning book.

So as you would expect it came as a bit of a blow for Helen when Peter’s father – Daniel – announced that he had been offered a lecture tour of America, he had accepted on their behalf and that they would be gone for at least three months. Buff was for a short time relived at the unanticipated reprieve. At least that was until Helen made it her undertaking to convince her to join them, telling her it would give them an abundance of planning time.

It took a quantity of convincing, but in due course Buffy managed to persuade her that it would be a much improved alternative for her to stay behind and take care of the house and Lucy and Edmund. In fact, even though Daniel had unhesitatingly agreed with her Helen did not, until Peter pointed out he could be at home spending time preparing for his exams rather than going to the professor’s for tutoring.

The night before they were scheduled to leave, Helen took Buffy to the side and went over all of her instructions for while she was away – all that she had all ready written out and left for Buffy in enormous detail. Then she decided to give her a good talking too, one that was to mortify a certain vampire slayer for all of eternity.

Buffy understood that it was not everyday that your future mother-in-law gave you the birds and the bees conversation, complete with the words ‘although it is not always the most pleasant experience, you just need to lie there and let them do what is necessary.’ If that speech wasn’t bad enough it was followed by the insinuation that she should make an effort to seduce Peter because otherwise – if he was anything like his father – it may be years until the wedding occurs.

Unfortunately all the *talk* did for Buffy was give her an inopportune insight into Peter’s conception, more than ever since all the rest was a moot point as they were by now fairly active in that way. Also Buffy was the one with plans to make Peter wait for the wedding to take place and not the other way around, if it had been up to him they would have been married without more ado following his first proposal on her eighteenth birthday.

After dinner that night, Peter and Buffy went for a stroll. During this Buffy did not carry out a full patrol, it in actual fact wasn’t worth her time or exertion since she had done her weekly one the night before. So she simply enjoyed her time alone with her fiancé and was knocked for six when he pulled her into the bushes for some clandestine smooches.

They were very nearly back at home when Buffy at long last told Peter about the enthralling conversation she’d had beforehand with his mother. As she made known certain details, she watched him become ashen and tried to feel a little remorse over shocking the poor boy over his mother’s insinuations – plus another fact or two.

The house was in darkness when they arrived back there; no more than one small lamp had been left burning for them. Rather than hastening the twosome on to their separate beds, it sanctioned them a few additional minutes – to safely – exchange a few more kisses and caresses before separating for the night.

Early on the next morning Buffy was receiving one last cooking lesson from Helen, when ultimately the Pevensie siblings and Daniel came down the stairs. Buffy bashfully served them her for the most part successful – as expected there was a few mistakes – pancakes and joined the family, taking the unfilled seat next to Peter.

The group of them ate breakfast in comparative stillness – with Peter squeezing Buffy’s knee under the table – until Eustace’s parents showed up to take Helen and Daniel away. There were hugs and tears as the parents left them to go off on their own journey, but as you would expect after it was over things returned for the most part to normal. An inopportune side-effect saw Eustace left with the remaining Pevensies and Buffy until his parents returned – which if they had any sense would be years.

All of the Pevensie’s hated their cousin Eustace, but Buffy had no difficulty with him – well little difficulty with him anyway. He was at all times well behaved, well-mannered and amiable with her. Of course that was because he had a little crush on her and had even suggested that if anything were to happen to Peter that he would be happy to step into his shoes – which was creepy coming from someone his age.

However as soon as his parents had headed off, Eustace placed himself at her side and persistently glared at Peter. It was not a comfortable state of affairs for anyone and she at long last had to implore Lucy to take Eustace somewhere before either she or Peter was required to exterminate him.

Providentially for Eustace, Lucy was a compassionate character. Lucy and Edmund took him upstairs to show him some of Lucy’s most recent creations. Since returning from Narnia the last time, Lucy had been infatuated with drawing and painting, everything she did was a scene or person from Narnia. There was – in Buffy’s estimation – some tremendously excellent ones of Aslan, Trumpkin, some faun called Tumnus and one of Susan and Caspian together.

Nevertheless the harmony and silence were not to continue... Just as she and Peter were unwinding, her head resting her head on his shoulder, the screaming and shouting occurred. Buffy sighed and checked the time and realised it had come to pass in record time; it customarily took a bit longer than ten minutes for them to declare war on each other. She and Peter exchanged looks of acquiescence before they headed up the stairs to see what the matter was this time.

Knocking on the door of the room that she and Lucy were at this time sharing, she could still hear the hullabaloo going on at the rear the door. Giving up the deception of good manners, she threw open the door and found Eustace and Edmond more or less at blows and Lucy in tears.

Buffy rushed over to Lucy, as Peter glared at Eustace. “What is going on here? What did you do, Scrubb?”

“Why is it always me?”

Hugging the young girl soothingly, she asked Lucy what had happened, but instead Edmund answered. “*He* told Lucy that she was rubbish at art and should give attention to learning to be a lady or she would end up an old maid. So I was about to hit to him…”

“Well… it is true,” Eustace argued.

Buffy turned her full-force slayer glower on the young boy, “That was despicable and uncalled for.”

“Eustace…” Peter began furiously, but in true King fashion paused for a moment and shook it off to speak in a composed tone. “You need to learn to think before you speak and take into account other people’s feelings. It is a incredulity that you have not been beaten to a pulp by now…”

“I’ll do it,” Edmund volunteered. “I will make the sacrifice.”

It was then that Buffy experienced it. It was something familiar, yet she could not quite place the sensation, nipping at the periphery of her senses and teasing her. Shaking it off, she endeavoured to return her concentration back to the circumstances in the room, before the boys resorted to violent behaviour instead of diplomacy to settle it.

“I do not see what the big deal is. It is an ugly picture done by a…”

“Eustace, you do not want to finish that sentence,” Buffy told him. “And here I thought that you were a nice, polite boy…”

“I’m sorry, Buffy.”

She looked at him, “The apology goes to Lucy.”

“Sorry…”

Lucy sighed, “He doesn’t mean it.”

Eustace actually for once looked ashamed, but Buffy was fairly certain that it was an act. However Lucy accepted it, “Okay.”

Buffy looked at the painting in question and to her it looked quite good, almost realistic. It was of the sea off the coast of Cair Paravel and had a good-sized boat sailing across the waves. Looking closer she could see that Lucy had even painted in a tiny crew – a good mixture of Telmarines and Narnians – and had also included Caspian, Trumpkin and Reepicheep.

It was at that moment that she thought she was hallucinating. She just about could have avowed that she saw the painting move; the waves go up and down, the crew hustle and bustle about the deck and an extra person walking into view – Susan…  As this occurred the feeling returned, flushing over her.

“Peter… come over here,” she called.

“What?” he asked coming up behind her.

“Look at the painting.”

Peter looked and saw what she had seen, “What is that?”

Inquisitive, the other three moved over to them – for the time being forgetting their disagreement – and looked at Lucy’s painting. Magic filled the air and Peter looked stricken, realising that Lucy and Edmund were being returned to Narnia in front of him.

Buffy grabbed his hand just as the pinching started, trying to offer consolation to him and to herself. Then they both felt the pinching, just as they both had two years previous on the Underground platform. She saw a massive smile break out on Peter’s face as the five of them were sucked into the painting.

The water was sub-zero – a great deal like the Finchley nights, only colder – sucking the air from her lungs and warmth from her skin. Endeavouring to remain composed; she took in her surroundings and saw nothing but ocean and four limp figures a short distance away from her.

Forcing her arms and legs to move she swam slowly over to them and noticed that Peter had gathered them all in close, huddling to keep warm. A futile fight, but the only option the five of them had. So she added her own dwindling body heat to the group and prayed for a miracle to transpire.

Combating off the inclination to just close her eyes and sleep, she kept watch. Before long she swore she could hear voices, recognizable voices and felt something or someone heave her from the cold death grasp of the water. Looking up she saw Caspian and Trumpkin standing there, helping the others out of the ocean, but she passed out before she could find out what was going on.

End Part

Lyrics:

Vanessa Amorosi – Sun’s Up