I stayed up most of the night reading Phantastes instead of working on my equations and preparing for exams. The snowfall persisted through the following day and only stopped an hour ago. Oxford is hushed and secretive, hidden beneath inches of new fallen snow. It is evening now and I’m standing at the bus stop in front of the Bodleian Library.
The bus trails down the street’s untracked snow to where I wait on the corner in coat, mittens, and hat. I am as bundled as a package ready to be mailed. The bus’s tire marks dent the soft blanket of white as it comes to a stop, and I climb aboard.
I’m the only passenger. The bus driver with his black hat and broad shoulders smiles at me. “Out on an evening like this? Most are at the pubs, if I’m a betting man.” He winks. “Which I am.”
“I have an appointment, so no waggling about for me.” I smile in return and feel it holds some pride. I am proud of my appointment. How many people get invitations to the Kilns?
I climb into my seat and stare out the dusty window as he drives. The world is covered in white, hushed and looking brand-new. The mounds of snow change the trees’ shape, and the pavement and road blur so I can’t tell where one starts and another begins. The driver is careful on the icy roads.
I can tell myself that I keep visiting Mr. Lewis out of obligation to my brother, or I can also admit I’m enjoying the time and his stories. He seems to have answers he isn’t revealing, and there I am, slowly realizing I have questions of my own. Those questions had been lurking below, hidden beneath the snow of my own certainty, and now I find myself wanting some answers. There has been born in me a hope that one day Mr. Lewis will say something that will have me understanding all the pain and death and joy that seem to bump into each other in my life.
Mr. Lewis doesn’t talk about love, not yet at least, but I also want to understand the peculiar grip that Padraig has on me. The way I feel when I see him is both fuzzy and clear, as is the way I think about him when he’s not around. Padraig is obviously a fantasy; my wondering about and longing for him is powerful and false. It does not add to my life—I have no doubt about that.
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.”