“A cider, please. Warm.”
“Just the night for it,” he says.
I sit and glance around the room and see others, students who haven’t gone home yet or are local, talking to each other as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, being witty and gabbing about as if they are in a movie.
I will never be able to be like that.
Then I see him: Padraig is across the room, in a thick Irish fisherman’s sweater. It is the first time I’ve seen him without his school uniform. He’s with a crowd, and the blonde girl—the one who giggles as if it’s an art form—is hanging on his arm. Turning away, I quickly pull my notebook and pen out of my satchel and begin writing as furiously as I can, thinking about Mr. Lewis in his campus rooms, writing with an ink nib and mumbling his words out loud. My cider appears and I take a long swig, my pen moving fast.
Connections are coming to me: Mr. Lewis’s voice, his laughter, and his hints. Lucy is his goddaughter. The lion might be from dreams or from Mr. Williams’s stories. Or somewhere else. The idea had come with a picture of a faun when he was sixteen. He talked about the firmament of stars and planets.
These things begin to turn into a catalog of facts.
I am scribbling as though the world is held together by these very notes, as if the planets spin according to the correct order of all that could have contributed to the universe that is Narnia. As if I can unravel the beginnings of this world the way Einstein tries to unravel the beginning of our universe.
Padraig’s voice startles me from the writing frenzy.
“Stop!”
I come back to myself and the pub and the crowd.
Padraig swipes the notebook out from under me and begins reading it. I have made lines that connect one event or idea to another, attempting to make sense of it all: a web of scribbles and circles to show where one thing came from and how it might turn into another, proof that Mr. Lewis’s story is logical and connected to the pieces of his life and his favorite myths. This diagram of interconnectedness would make sense to no one but me.
Padraig’s gaze still on the paper, he speaks too loudly. “Lucy might be his godchild. Peter is Peter Rabbit? Edmund is Edmund Spenser?” Now he looks at me. Is it disappointment that paints his eyes? “The lions of Trafalgar Square and the Maid of the Alder?” He sighs. “Oh, Megs.”
“Give me that back,” I say as fear crawls up my neck. I am on the verge of understanding, of figuring it all out, and he will spoil my efforts.
Can I solve it?
I must!
I jump up and reach for my notebook, but Padraig is holding it over his head while still reading. Seeing how he’s five inches taller than I am, there’s not much I can do except hop off the barstool and jump up and down, looking the fool.
I stop my jumping. Take a breath. Stare at him and use my sternest voice. “Give me that. Now.”
Padraig lowers his arm and sets the notebook on the bar next to my empty cider glass. Disapproval is set hard on his face and in his green eyes. “Why do you want to ruin it all with a chart and a list? Meaning and knowledge cannot be measured or calculated like this! Mr. Lewis didn’t give you a list. He gave you these beautiful slices of his life.”
“I know all that, but it helps me think.” I want to back away from Padraig, but the bar is behind me, its edge digging into my spine through my thick green sweater.
Padraig’s full lips flatten to a thin line and his brows bend in a V. The scolding expression on his face is more powerful than any words on paper.
My brain clicks back to defiance. Of course Mr. Lewis didn’t give me the stories to make a list! But there I am, wanting to make a list. “I thought it might help George.”
“Oh, did you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You might want to rethink that.” He looks down at me, his hands on his hips.
Anger rises in a defensive heat that hurtles me off the stool. I shove my notebook into my satchel and grab my coat, squeeze past Padraig, past the students in their black turtlenecks and the girls in their red lipstick, past the wobbly Christmas tree and the wreath with the loosened red bow that hangs pitifully by a thread. I rush out the pub door into the snow and freezing air.
Anger warms me.
“Megs!” Padraig’s voice chases me, dampened and softened by the snow.
I ignore him and walk faster. I’m too frustrated to be kind; I can’t find the answers I want, and Padraig is teasing me. I do not want to be teased. At the same time, I know my anger is unrighteous, parceled out to a sweet boy who doesn’t deserve it.
I hear him slogging behind me. He reaches my side, slipping and stumbling to keep up. He grasps my arm just as we both step onto hidden ice.
Together our feet fly from beneath us. We tumble to the ground in a heap, landing in a snowdrift that had been cleared from the sidewalk.
I’m still angry. I pound my fist on his arm, my legs tangle with his, and my neck burns cold.
He grabs both my hands. “Why are you so mad with me?”
“I’m not mad at you. I’m mad. Just flaming mad.”
“Then why are you taking it out on me?”
I pull out of his grasp and slam my fist into the bank and attempt to sit, sliding and falling back into his chest. He laughs. I don’t.
“I’m not taking it out on you. I’m just trying to get away from you.” I wiggle until I sit up straight. Ice is melting through my wool tights, seeping cold onto my thighs.
Padraig finds his way to sitting and there we are, covered in snow. With a gloved hand, he brushes some from my cheek.
I shiver, not with the cold so much as his touch. But I will not show emotion. I have other more important matters to attend to.
“Why are you trying to get away from me?” He claps his gloves together, then takes my hands in his, easing me closer. “I’m trying to talk to you.”
“You were making fun of me. Making light of what I’m trying to do.”
“I wasn’t. What you’re trying to do is as noble a thing as any sister can do. I only meant for you to slow down and look at why you need a list. Or why you don’t need a list.”
“I was making connections—”
“You think turning imagination into logic will help George? Will that answer his most important questions? In my opinion, lists never answer the biggest questions.”
“Padraig, I don’t know. I can’t give him what he wants for Christmas. I wanted something solid. I can’t give him that either.”
“And what’s that?”
“To see Dunluce Castle.” Hearing the words come from my mouth, I want to cry. The impossibility of it all. And then Padraig, here, now, confusing me even more. I have wasted too much time and need to get home, but I tell him, “He thinks the castle is Cair Paravel in the Narnia book.”
“Let’s go!” Padraig says, his voice strong and a laugh hidden within. “I have my father’s car and I know how to get there. Let me take you both.”
“What will your girlfriend say?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“She’s just a girl you let hang all about you?”
“Are you jealous?” He winks at me, joking when I am serious. I am furious and elated. There are too many feelings at once.