I stare out the window of the bus as it climbs the hill, skidding a bit and then regaining ground. I run my fingers along the frosty condensation my breath leaves on the glass and think about yesterday evening in the library, how Padraig’s eyes have a blue rim around the green.
I push aside these images and think through what I want to ask Mr. Lewis. The questions run through my brain like locomotives, one after the other, coupled together, until we arrive at Mr. Lewis’s street. After a wave for the friendly driver, I exit the bus, trodding toward the Kilns and leaving footprints in the pristine snow.
The routine is unaltered: the hedges glistening with ice, a slippery walk over the bricks, the green door, the friendly greetings, the strong tea in the common room, Mr. Lewis asking after my studies, my family, and my brother. Then there is a pause, and Mr. Lewis stands and walks toward the house’s entryway.
Is he leaving? Will I get no story today?
“Come outside with Warnie and me,” he says in his jolly voice. “This story might best be told while walking about.”
“It’s freezing,” I say with a hopeful smile that might convince him to stay by the roaring fire.
“All the better.” His grin spreads to his eyes, and I follow him into the hallway with Warnie, watching as he dons hat, coat, gloves, and scarf. “This is a tale worth telling in nature.”
Warnie nods. “I agree, brother, even as this fire beckons me to stay. But let us go.”
I had just removed my coat and hat, and here I am again putting them on. I pull my scarf tightly, and we exit the green door and take a left. Neither of the men speak as their smokey exhalations puff out. They know where they’re going, and the brothers’ silent language leaves me outside their realm.
I realize we are headed to the lake and the wood behind the house, where Warnie had found me the first time only two weeks ago. Has it truly only been two weeks? I feel I know them so well that I almost reach out my hand to hold Mr. Lewis’s in mine. But I don’t.
Silently, we reach the edge of the icy pathway and they stop to wait for me. Warnie stares off into the hushed forest. “What are your favorite books, Megs? Tell me what you love to read.”
“I’m not sure I can say, sir. I’ve not been a big . . . reader. I know that seems opposite to everything you’ve both based your lives upon. But this whole expedition isn’t about me. It’s about Narnia. And where it came from. And your brother doesn’t seem to want to tell me.” I smile to let them know I’m aiming for levity.
“Oh, but I am now and have been.” Jack pauses and stomps his feet before walking again. He seems to carefully consider his next words. “After a book is written, it is hard to know where it came from. Can anyone—can you—say exactly how things are made up? How one of your physicists comes up with a new theory? How imagination rises up to make meaning? When you have an idea, can you tell George or your friend exactly how you thought of it? Its genesis is very mysterious.”
“I can’t, no. Sometimes I think things and I don’t even know why I’m thinking them. Like the thoughts are thinking themselves.”
“Exactly.” Mr. Lewis lifts a hand for emphasis.
“Is that why reading is so important to you?” I ask.
“Have you not been listening?”
“Oh so carefully. I have. I promise.”
Warnie walks ahead as if he has somewhere to be, while Jack continues chatting. “Every life should be guided and enriched by one book or another, don’t you agree? Certainly, every formative moment in my life has been enriched or informed by a book. You must be very careful about what you choose to read—unless you want to stay stuck in your opinions and hard-boiled thoughts, you must be very careful.” His light voice lets me know a story is coming.
For half of a breath, I think of telling him that I’ve read most of Phantastes, that I spent the night wondering about it, that I am ready to return to it as soon as possible, but I don’t speak. Not yet. I want to finish the book first and think more about it before daring to speak to him of it.
Instead I ask, “This may sound silly, but do you think you choose these life-changing books, or do they choose you?” I am muddling my words, mixing up what I mean. “Maybe you choose what is already interesting to you or . . .”
His laugh echoes through the forest. A flock of black birds fly overhead, cawing disapproval at being disturbed. Warnie turns and smiles, waits for us now. “A good question!” he says, and somehow I know he won’t answer. Indeed, he moves on. “Now where we were last?” he asks.
“You told me all about Norse mythology and George MacDonald and stories; you were still living with the Knock and—”
Warnie’s laugh interrupts. “Ah, then shall she know about your exams?”
Mr. Lewis playfully ignores his brother. “Ah, yes, then university is next.” Mr. Lewis keeps talking, his walking stick making small holes in the snow. “I took the exams and the lion of mathematics came for me. I failed algebra—devil take it.”
I take in a sharp breath. He failed? He didn’t attend Oxford as a student? Where had he gone? I had assumed . . .
“Isn’t it odd?” he says and stops in his tracks. “If it wasn’t for the war, I might not have been admitted at all. Yet here in Oxfordshire, my entire life has unfolded. And you, you are here for math.” He shakes his head with a chuckle. “So differently we are created. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Warnie laughs, meeting my backward gaze with a lifted eyebrow. “And don’t you know—they almost didn’t admit Jack for his poor math score, and then he went and graduated with a rare Triple First.” Warnie paused with a bragging grin. “The highest honors in three areas of study: in Greek and Latin literature, in philosophy, and in English.”
“Oh,” I say. “So many . . .” I acknowledge this fact with a smile, but my thoughts have already taken off toward Mr. Lewis’s mention of the war. “And you were in the war?” I ask. “How . . . awful.”
Mr. Lewis nods and looks at Warnie. Something passes between them, something I guess will never be in a story or possibly even be formed into words.
I persist. “Where did they send you in the war, Mr. Lewis?”
He takes a few breaths and regards me. “France.”
Fifteen
Being Brave
Exams are finished, and my brain feels as if it is made of soft pudding. My pack is heavier than usual as I’m carrying my things home for holiday. So this time I will take the shorter way home instead of the path I prefer on the Severn Way running alongside the river. From the railway station I trudge along the Foregate Road and see Worcester Cathedral’s tower grasping for the low clouds. I hoist my pack and head toward the London Road and home. It does not escape me that the London Road in Oxford is the one that leads toward Mr. Lewis’s house, and this one to mine.
Beneath the fatigue, I’m slightly annoyed. Mother said she would pick me up with the car and she didn’t show, perhaps mistaking my arrival time. But the air is light and cold, and the walk isn’t so bad; the sky is deep blue, without a cloud to be seen. Neighbors along the mile wave at me as I pass: Mrs. McReady, standing with her broom on the front stoop pretending to sweep but in truth watching for any impropriety she can report at teatime to her friends. And Mr. Litton, coming home from a trip to market and opening his front door.