I didn't know the four kids I was swimming with, but I felt like I could trust them.
According to them, I was their neighbor. There was World War II currently going on, and a year ago I was sent away with them to Professor Kirk's mansion in the countryside of England. We were originally from Finchley, of all places, but were destined to become queens and kings of Narnia.
I was apparently Queen Anastasia the Loyal. Suiting title. Susan, Edmund, Lucy, and I ruled Narnia under Peter, who ruled under Aslan, who ruled over everything.
And why I became 16 again and lost all memories as soon as the Pevensies went back through the wardrobe into England, none of us know.
Suddenly Edmund stopped and looked up at the rocks I had seen earlier. "What is it?" I asked.
"Where do you suppose we are?" he asked, still looked towards the ruins.
"Where do you think?" Peter laughed.
"Well... I don't remember any ruins in Narnia."
"I don't remember anything from Narnia," I sighed and walked onto the sand.
•••
"I wonder who lived here," I thought out loud as we walked around exploring the ruins.
Susan bend down and picked up some golden piece. "I think we did."
"Hey, that's from my chess set," Edmund observed as he walked over. He took the piece from his older sister to examine it.
"Which chess set?" Peter asked.
"Well, I didn't exactly have a solid gold chess set in Finchley, did I?" Edmund asked, making me burst out laughing.
"Can't be..." Lucy said quietly and spun around. "Don't you see?"
"What?" Peter and I asked in sync. He looked at me and blushed, then looked back to his sister.
"Imagine walls," she instructed, positioning Susan and I to where we could see what she saw. I still didn't. "And columns, there." She pointed ahead of her. She motioned to the sky. "And a glass roof."
"Cair Paravel," Peter mumbled.
I continued to walk around, trying to remember anything I possible could about this palace, Cair Paravel.
I knelt down and picked a piece of rock out of the grass. It was irregularly smooth on one side. It was once a large circle. "Catapults," I observed quietly.
"What?" Edmund asked as he walked over and knelt beside me.
"This didn't just happen," I explained to the other three as Edmund picked up a piece himself. "Cair Paravel was attacked."
A silence fell.
•••
I helped Peter to push away a concrete wall, which revealed another wooden door. Peter punched a whole in the door, which wasn't that impressive considering the wood was rotted, and opened it.
He tore off a piece of his shirt to create a make-shift torch. Edmund and I held back laughs, because we knew something he didn't.
"I don't suppose you have any matches, do you?" he asked, looking around at us all.
"No," Edmund said sadly, then pulled out his electric torch from his bag. "But would this help?"
"You might've mentioned that a bit sooner!" Peter exclaimed angrily, and the other four of us began to laugh uncontrollably.
Edmund lead us down the dark, spider infested stairwell with his electric torch, me following closely behind.
"I can't believe it," Susan exclaimed as we reached the bottom. "It's all still here!"
There were four chests, each with a statue of each of us. We all rushed over to our chests and opened them eagerly.
"I was so tall," Lucy observed and pulled out a dress, holding it up to her.
"Well, you were older then," Susan reminder her, and I nodded as I pulled out my own dress which went a foot below my ankles.
"As opposed to hundreds of years later," Edmund said, and I already giggled. "When you're younger."
Susan tried to glare at him, but she had a smile on her face. It soon faded. She frantically began to dig through her chest as if she was looking for something.
"What is it?" I asked.
"My horn," she told me sadly. "I must've left it on my saddle, the day we went back."
Peter drew his sword, and along the sides of the blade were encrusted words. He began to read, and I soon realized those words were the same as the ones in my dream. "When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets it death-"
"—when he shakes his mane, she shall have spring again," I finished, getting a weird look from every Pevensie but Lucy.
She broke the silence. "Everyone we knew... Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers..." I could tell she was fighting back sobs, and I wish I could remember. "They're all gone."
"I think it's time we found out what's going on," Susan demanded.
