Autumn Nights - A Narnia Oneshot Challenge

We Shall Leave the Light On

Prompt: Pumpkin Patch

Author's Note: Hi friends! We are jumping straight into midterms this week, so my life is about to be really hectic. As a result, the oneshots this coming week will likely be 1) very, very short and 2) of lower quality than I would normally be aiming for. But alas! Such is the nature of a challenge. Anyway, I hope you still enjoy whatever I can produce! Thanks for sticking it out this long. 

Love, Judith

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Growing up, the Pevensies had gone to the pumpkin patch every autumn. Father and Mother would set aside a Saturday afternoon to go out to the countryside, intent on picking the best pumpkins they could find. They'd done it as long as Lucy could remember—some of her earliest memories were the pumpkin patch. She could imagine no safer feeling than toddling happily between Peter and Susan, chubby hands held tightly on both sides, wrapped snuggly in her plaid woolen coat and warm little bonnet. Edmund would dash ahead, inspecting each pumpkin, then report to Father what grade they ought to be given, according to the county fair judge's book. Only the finest pumpkin would bear the name of Edmund John Pevensie as its carver.

After everyone had found their pumpkins (Father carried Lucy's, as it was almost always too big for her), they would go up to the homestead, to visit with the farmer and his wife and drink warm apple cider from old tin mugs. Lucy's feet would dangle off her bench, kicking at the air as she happily sipped away at her treat while the big kids and the grownups talked. She never really knew what they were talking about, but that didn't bother her. She liked to listen.

Finished with their drinks, the children would beg for a hayride. They didn't know that begging was unnecessary—the old farmer's heart was won with the first "may we" that Peter lisped as a toddler—but the game was a treasured play for all those involved. When the day was finally over, pumpkins, cider, hayride, and all, Mr. Pevensie carried Lucy back to the car, her sleepy head resting on his shoulder, wind-kissed cheeks pink.

Upon learning that Narnians didn't carve pumpkins ("think of all the poor, poor little fauns and nymphs and centaurs missing out on such a quintessential experience of childhood"), Lucy had cried so hard that Peter suggested they make pumpkin carving a kingdom-wide holiday. That cheered her immensely. For all fifteen years of their reign, the second Saturday of October was dedicated to such activities.

And when they had left, their absence aching in the hearts of their people, October crept in with the bitter twang of reality. On the second Saturday, outside each door a jack-o-latern gleamed, even though Queen Lucy wasn't there to see it. Year after year, the tradition carried on, the once jolly spirit cultivated from giving into the whims of a nine-year-old fading into a melancholy reminder, a heart-cry: We Shall Leave the Light On.