Helena Pevensie (Caspian Love Story)

8. The First Sign

"Now," Eustace said the moment the king had departed, but he couldn't say anymore because, at that moment, an impossibly large owl approached them. He was a large, snowy owl that stood at least three feet high.

"Tu-whoo, tu-whoo," the owl hooted. "Who are you?"

"My name's Scrubb, this is Pole, and this is Helena," Eustace said. "Would you mind telling us where we are?"

"In the land of Narnia," the owl replied. "At the King's castle of Cair Paravel."

"Is that the king who's just taken ship?" Helena asked.

"Too true, too true," the owl replied sorrowfully. "But who are you? There's something magical about you. I saw you arrive: you flew. Everyone else was so busy seeing the king off that nobody knew. Except me. I happened to notice you, you flew."

"We were sent here by Aslan," Eustace explained in a low voice.

"Tu-whoo! Tu-whoo!" the owl hooted again. "This is almost too much for me so early in the evening. I'm not quite myself until the sun's down."

"And we've been sent to find the lost prince," Jill added.

"We have?" Helena said in surprise at the same time as Eustace said, "It's the first I've heard about it. What prince?"

"You had better come and speak to the Lord Regent at once," the owl said. "That's him, over there in the donkey carriage. Trumpkin the Dwarf."

"What's the king's name?" Helena asked, thinking back to her sibling's stories of how it had been thousands of years sometimes in Narnia between their going and coming.

"Caspian the Tenth," the owl replied. Eustace and Helena instantly stopped short, staring at each other with such shocked expressions that Jill came to a stop as well. They rushed to catch up to the owl as he approached the dwarf. "Tu-whoo! Ahem! Lord Regent," the owl hooted, stopping down a little to hold his beak to the dwarf's ear.

"Heh? What's that?" the old dwarf replied.

"Two strangers, my lord," the owl explained.

"Rangers!" the dwarf cried. "What d'ye mean? I see two uncommonly grubby man-clubs and a dishevelled woman. What do they want?"

"My name's Jill," Jill said, stepping forward slightly.

"The girl's called Jill," the owl hooted as loudly as he could.

"What's that?" the dwarf said. "The girls are all killed! I don't believe a word of it. What girls? Who killed them?" The owl tried again to no avail, causing the dwarf to say, "Speak up, speak up. Don't stand there buzzing and twittering in my ear. Who's been killed?"

"Nobody's been killed," the owl tried.

"Who?"

"NOBODY!" the owl bellowed.

"All right all right you needn't shout," the dwarf said. "I'm not as deaf as all that. What do you mean by coming here to tell me nobody's been killed. Why should anybody have been killed?"

"Better tell him I'm Eustace," Eustace said.

"The boy's called Eustace," the owl said.

"Useless?" the dwarf grumbled. "I dare say he is! Is that any reason to bring him to court, hey?"

"Not useless, EUSTACE!" the owl cried.

"Used to it, is he? I don't know what you're talking about, I'm sure," the dwarf said. "Urnus, my trumpet please."

While the dwarf was getting the ear trumpet settled, the owl turned back to them and said, "My brain's a little clearer now. Don't say anything about the lost prince. I'll explain later. It wouldn't do, wouldn't do. Tu-whoo! Oh, what a to-do!"

"Now," said the dwarf irritably. "If you have anything sensible to say, Master Glimfeather, try and say it. Take a deep breath and try not to speak so quickly." With some help from the newcomers, the owl got the dwarf to understand that the three of them had been sent by Aslan to the court of Narnia.

After a few arrangements had been made, Helena found herself in a private room and soon was washed and dried and given fresh clothes. They were the sort of clothes she had longed for back home. They were a pair of pants that billowed around her and looked almost like a skirt when she stood still. These were vibrant turquoise and the top she had been given was a brilliant silver colour and looked almost like moonlight itself. She had just finished dressing when there was a knock on the door.

Eustace and Jill entered and Helena could tell that they had been bickering.

"Oh, here you are at last," Eustace said, coming in and instantly taking a seat in one of the chairs. Helena sat in another with her legs crossed under her while Jill took another seat.

"I say, isn't this all too fabulous for words?" Jill said excitedly.

"Oh! That's what you think, is it?" Eustace said irritably. "I wish to goodness we'd never come."

Helena sighed as Jill exclaimed, "Why on earth?"

"Caspian," she said finally. There was a question in her tone as she looked at Eustace. He nodded. When Jill's confused expression finally hit her, Helena said, "Time works differently, here, Jill. You could spend years upon years here and come back just as you were when you left. But on the flip side, a year back home can be a thousand years here. When we were here last...well Caspian was no more than twenty-five or so. It must have been seventy years or so since then."

Jill, who had suddenly gone very white, said, "Then...the king was an old friend of yours?"

"I should jolly well think he was," Eustace lamented. "If not to me then certainly to Helena." Helena averted her gaze.

"Oh, shut up!" Jill cried. "It's far worse than you think. We've muffed the first sign!"