Basically, Lewis’ rule is that only the kids we knew about went to Narnia. But he didn’t say anything about coming back.
Disclaimer: It’s all DC Comics and CS Lewis
Rating: Kid Friendly
Summary: When he was a boy, he dreamed of paved streets and electric lights. When he was a young man he dreamed of bats and vengeance. And when he was an old man, he dreamt of apple trees and lions.
------
Alfred The Great
All his life, Alfred dreamed of things that weren’t there. When he was a boy, he dreamed of paved streets and electric lights. When he was a young man he dreamed of bats and vengeance. And when he was an old man, he dreamt of apple trees and lions.
Alfred was twelve years old when The Apple was stolen. His mother worried and his father paced and his older siblings talked for hours and hours about what could be done, where The Thief had gone, but Alfred didn’t worry. He saw in his dreams a city of tall buildings and dark alleys and tiny spots of light and knew that The Apple had been used. It had gone beyond the reach of King Frank and his knights, and it had gone beyond the ken of wise Queen Helen and her ladies.
But it had not gone beyond the power of Aslan.
When Alfred was nineteen, a dwarf named Malnairn came to Cair Paravel. He carried with him two rings, one green and one yellow, and King Frank dismissed everyone from the throne room when the dwarf presented himself at court.
Alfred was too old to listen at keyholes, so he retired to the gardens to wait. His brothers and sisters milled around in the antechamber muttering about how they had every right to hear the news until the eldest told them to shape up and go about their business. The sun rose high in the sky, and still the King and Queen spoke with the Dwarf in secrecy. As the sun was setting, Malnairn left the throne room and quit the palace, never to be seen again. King Frank never mentioned the day again, deflecting all questions. Sometimes Queen Helen looked at her youngest son like she was surprised to see him still there.
The wedding was the social event of the season, possibly even the decade. Even then, at the beginnings of the empire, the Waynes lacked for nothing. Alfred saw it all, the multi-tiered cake, whole gardens worth of flowers and a ring that, while beautiful, paled in comparison with the dwarf-work with which he was familiar. The ceremony was beautiful, linking together two young people Alfred somehow knew and somehow didn’t. When the reverend declared them man and wife, a lion roared in triumph.
Young Master Wayne brought his bride home to the house outside of Gotham, the richest, fastest growing city in the world. It was a massive house, but it didn’t intrude upon the country that surrounded it. Instead, the house seemed almost to spring up from the very rock and grow as naturally as the trees. He carried her across the door, both of them laughing so hard they could barely stand, and then showed her each and every room of their home.
“I suppose we shall need a butler.”
Alfred was summoned to his father’s study late one night, just a month before his 25 birthday. He knocked politely on the door and nodded to the faun who opened it before stepping inside.
Frank sat in a chair by the fireplace, looking fondly at a worn picture of a vaguely familiar horse. Helen stood in the window looking at the stars, but turned when her son entered the room. Her eyes were sad, but her face was full of determination and courage. For the first time in his life, Alfred began to worry.
“My dear son, come in.” Frank said, gesturing to the other chair. Alfred waited for his mother to sit and then joined his parents near the hearth.
“Yes, father.” Alfred said. “May I ask why I am here?”
“You may, my son,” Frank allowed. “I had hoped that time would slow down and prevent this day from coming, but it seems that some things are inescapable.”
“Father?”
“Frank, you worry the boy,” Helen chastised her husband gently. “Alfred, more than ten years ago, something was stolen from Narnia, do you remember?”
“Yes,” Alfred replied. “The Apple.”
“Aslan has told us where it is.”
A strange feeling flowed through Alfred at the mention of the name. He felt suddenly rich, more rich than he could possibly need to be, and an overwhelming capacity to help.
“I know, Father. It is in Gotham City. And I must go there.”
When Bruce Wayne turned five, Alfred gave him a stuffed lion. It didn’t sing or dance like some of his other presents, nor did it have great value, but Bruce never went anywhere without it. Alfred replaced it three times before the boy turned nine and declared that stuffed animals were for children. Alfred put the lion up on a shelf with other long abandoned toys and never said anything when sometimes it was under Bruce’s bed on cleaning days.
After the murders, Alfred worried that he had failed. The elder Waynes had done so much for Gotham and their contributions would now cease. Bruce was just a little boy, but even in his short life, Gotham had changed a great deal. There was still a thin veneer of civility on the surface of the city, but the underside boiled over with crime and corruption. But Alfred dreamt of bats and darkness and knew that, somehow, that darkness was powered by light beyond his imagining.
When Bruce realized the dream of the bat, Alfred felt a thrill deep inside his soul that was quite unlike anything he had ever felt, and all at once very similar to that which he had felt the first time his father said the name of Aslan.
“I think, Master Bruce, that you should buy this house.”
“Alfred, why would I possibly want a house in England?”
“The war is over, Master Bruce. Perhaps sometime you might be persuaded to take a vacation.”
“What am I supposed to do with it in the meantime?”
Alfred hesitated. He had always walked a rather interesting line in his service to the Waynes. Where possible, he tried to guide obtusely instead of making direct suggestions, but this time he feared that it would not be possible.
“The former owner is an old family friend,” Alfred said delicately. “He has fallen on some rather hard times and was forced to sell the house to people who planned to knock it down. If you bought it, he could live there and take care of it for you when you weren’t using it.”
Bruce looked at him strangely. Alfred never spoke of his family and only very rarely asked for things. To have him do both at once, and on such a scale, was rather a surprise.
“Very well, Alfred,” Bruce agreed. “Why don’t you go to England see and about it.”
The Professor had known who he was as soon as the door had opened. Alfred could see it too, something about the eyes. Over tea, Alfred explained about the Waynes and the stolen Apple that kept him so occupied on the other side of the Atlantic. The Professor winced slightly as Alfred spoke of the Apple and what it had done to Gotham.
When Alfred told the Professor about the house, the old man nearly cried. It was not the house itself, the Professor explained, but rather something that had happened in it a few years ago.
“They went back, you see.” The Professor’s eyes shone. “I never could, but somehow they managed it. It had been hundreds of years since your parents had ruled and the Witch Queen was in power. They stopped her and brought the spring back.”
“Hundreds of years?” Alfred exclaimed, “How is that possible?”
“I think that, perhaps, Narnia exists when we need it to.”
“Or we exist when it needs us too.” Alfred said.
“I see then that they do have adequate teachers in Narnian schools.” The Professor smiled at a memory Alfred didn’t share, but his joy was infectious.
“Aye, they do.” Alfred finished his tea. “Now, shall we discuss your moving plans?”
The first time Alfred saw the Wardrobe was when it was restored to all its glory in the Spare Room at the Professors house. The room was empty and the bluebottle was long dead and the time for games of hide and seek had passed, but Alfred felt a deep kinship with four young people he hadn’t met yet and a deep longing to get to know them.
He walked slowly toward the wooden panels. He knew not to try the door, Aslan had told him since he was a child that his trip between the worlds would be one way, but he reached out a hand to touch the carving of the lion’s head that held the handles.
He smelled a sweetness on the air, like worrying and sorrow were gone forever, and heard a lion roaring. Tears ran silently down his face as for the first time in decades he was close enough to home to touch it, and still impossibly far away from it at the same time.
A shriek rang out from down the hall. Alfred was running towards it almost before he knew it. For a moment, he was angry that someone had disturbed his communion, but then one of the cleaners ran into him babbling about there being a bat nest in one of the studies, and Alfred smiled.
------
fin
GravityNotIncluded, January 10, 2008