To my literary agent, Meg Ruley—our partnership has been one of the greatest joys of this year, and I am sure it will be for many more years to come. Thank you for believing in me and in my work, for loving England as much as I do, and for understanding the power in this story. To the entire team at Jane Rotrosen Agency: to Chris Prestia, Sabrina Prestia, Hannah Rody-Wright, and to Jessica Errera, Andrea Cirillo, Jane Berkey, and the entire crew who have welcomed me into a family—and a damn fine one at that.
For the team at Harper Muse—you are the dream team of the wardrobe. I am so thankful for you and for your patience, curiosity, creativity, and commitment to the written word. To Nekasha Pratt, Margaret Kercher, Laura Wheeler, Matt Bray, Marcee Wardell, and Kerri Potts. To Latasha Estelle and the sales team—without you we are just a finished book; with you we are a book on the shelf!
To the readers and librarians and booksellers—you inspire me and spur me on; you make me want to become a better writer and a better person, and I hope you love this book.
For Douglas Gresham—Joy Davidman’s son, C. S. Lewis’s stepson, and my friend—I will never find enough words to thank you for your wisdom, thoughtfulness, and kind words. In writing about your mother, I found a friend in you. I think she’d be happy about that! And to the C. S. Lewis Company, including Melvin Adams and Rachel Churchill, as always you are the keepers of a legacy, and I am always honored and humbled to work with you.
To the C. S. Lewis community far and wide, I am full of deep gratitude—including the astounding work of the C. S. Lewis Foundation, who have welcomed me and helped me along in my understanding of Lewis’s work and life. To Steven Elmore who keeps the fire burning, and to Stanley Mattson who founded the extraordinary foundation.
Always last and never least, for my family—Pat, Thomas, and Rusk, for Meagan, Evan, and to Bridgette Kea Rock, to whom this book is dedicated. For my parents, Bonnie and George, who introduced me to Lewis and let me dwell in novels such as Narnia for as long as I wanted or needed. For Barbi Burris and Jeannie Cunnion and to their extraordinary families. To Serena Vann, and Stella and Sadie who always listen to me talk about stories. To all the Henrys—I love you all fully and irrevocably.
An Excerpt from Becoming Mrs. Lewis
Prologue
1926
Bronx, New York
From the very beginning it was the Great Lion who brought us together. I see that now. The fierce and tender beast drew us to each other, slowly, inexorably, across time, beyond an ocean, and against the obdurate bulwarks of our lives. He wouldn’t make it easy for us—that’s not his way.
It was the summer of 1926. My little brother, Howie, was seven years old and I was eleven. I knelt next to his bed and gently shook his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” I whispered. “They’re asleep now.”
That day I’d come home with my report card, and among the long column of As there was the indelible stamp of a single B denting the cotton paper.
“Father.” I’d tapped his shoulder, and he’d glanced away from the papers he was grading, his red pencil marking students’ work. “Here’s my report card.”
His eyes scanned the card, the glasses perched on the end of his nose an echo of the photos of his Ukranian ancestors. He’d arrived in America as a child, and at Ellis Island his name was changed from Yosef to Joseph. He stood now to face me and lifted his hand. I could have backed away; I knew what came next in a family where assimilation and achievement were the priorities.
His open palm flew across the space between us—a space brimful with my shimmering expectation of acceptance and praise—and slapped my left cheek with the clap of skin on skin, a sound I knew well. My face jolted to the right. The sting lasted as it always did, long enough to stand for the verbal lashing that came after. “There is no place for slipshod work in this family.”
No, there was no place for it at all. By the time I was eleven I was a sophomore in high school. I must try harder, be better, abide all disgrace until I found a way to succeed and prove my worth.
But at night Howie and I had our secrets. In the darkness of his bedroom he rose, his little sneakers tangling in the sheet. He smiled at me. “I’ve already got my shoes on. I’m ready.”
I suppressed a laugh and took his hand. We stood stone-still and listened for any breaths but our own. Nothing.
“Let’s go,” I said, and he laid his small hand in mine: a trust.
We crept from the brownstone and onto the empty Bronx streets, the wet garbage odor of the city as pungent as the inside of the subway. The sidewalks dark rivers, the streetlights small moons, and the looming buildings protection from the outside world. The city was silent and deceptively safe in the midnight hours. Howie and I were on a quest to visit other animals caged and forced to act civil in a world they didn’t understand: the residents of the Bronx Zoo.
Within minutes we arrived at the Fordham Road gate and paused, as we always did, to stare silently at the Rockefeller Fountain—three tiers of carved marble children sitting in seashells, mermaids supporting them on raised arms or sturdy heads, the great snake trailing up the center pillar, his mouth open to devour. The water slipped down with a rainfall-din that subdued our footfalls and whispers. We reached the small hole in the far side of the fence and slipped through.
We cherished our secret journeys to the midnight zoo—the parrot house with the multicolored creatures inside; the hippo, Peter the Great; a flying fox; the reptile house slithering with creatures both unnatural and frightening. Sneaking out was both our reward for enduring family life and our invisible rebellion. The Bronx River flowed right through the zoo’s land; the snake of dark water seemed another living animal, brought from the outside to divide the acreage in half and then escape, as the water knew its way out.
And then there was the lions’ den, a dark caged and forested area. I was drawn there as if those beasts belonged to me, or I to them.
“Sultan.” My voice was resonant in the night. “Boudin Maid.”
The pair of Barbary lions ambled forward, placing their great paws on the earth, muscles dangerous and rippling beneath their fur as they approached the bars. A great grace surrounded them, as if they had come to understand their fate and accept it with roaring dignity. Their manes were deep and tangled as a forest. I fell into the endless universe of their large amber eyes as they allowed, even invited, me to reach through the iron and wind my fingers into their fur. They’d been tamed beyond their wild nature, and I felt a kinship with them that caused a trembling in my chest.
They indulged me with a return gaze, their warm weight pressed into my palm, and I knew that capture had damaged their souls.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered every time. “We were meant to be free.”
About the Author
Photo by Bud Johnson Photography
Patti Callahan is the New York Times, USA TODAY, and Globe and Mail bestselling novelist of fifteen novels, including Becoming Mrs. Lewis, Surviving Savannah, and Once Upon a Wardrobe. A recipient of the Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year, the Christy Book of the Year, and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year, Patti is the cofounder and cohost of the popular web series and podcast Friends & Fiction.