Once there were four children whose names were =Peter, =Susan, =Edmund, and =Lucy.
This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from
=London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of
an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest
railway station and two miles from the nearest post office. He had no wife and he
lived in a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs =Macready and three
servants. (Their names were =Ivy, =Margaret and =Betty, but they do not come into
the story much.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair, which grew
over most of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him almost at once;
but on the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was so
odd-looking that =Lucy (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, and
=Edmund (who was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending
he was blowing his nose to hide it.


=Lucy ran out of the empty room into the passage and found the other three.
"It's all right," she repeated, "I've come back."
"What on earth are you talking about, =Lucy," asked =Susan?
"Why," said Lucy in amazement? "haven't you all been wondering where I was?"
"So you've been hiding, have you," said Peter? "Poor old =Lu, hiding and
nobody noticed! You'll have to hide longer than that if you want people to
start looking for you."
"But I've been away for hours and hours," said =Lucy.
The others stared at one another.
"Batty," said =Edmund tapping his head! "Quite batty."


Because the game of hide-and-seek was still going on, it took =Edmund and =Lucy
some time to find the others. But when at last they were all together (which
happened in the long room, where the suit of armor was) =Lucy burst out, "=Peter!
=Susan! It's all true. Edmund has seen it too. There is a country you can get to
through the wardrobe. Edmund and I both got in. We met one another in there,
in the wood. Go on =Edmund; tell them all about it."
"What's this all about, Ed," said Peter?
And now we come to one of the nastiest things in the story. Up to that moment
=Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky, and annoyed with =Lucy for being right,
but he hadn't made up his mind what to do. When =Peter suddenly asked him the
question he decided all at once to do the meanest and most spiteful thing he could
think of. He decided to let =Lucy down.



While the two boys were whispering behind, both the girls suddenly cried "Oh" and
stopped!  "The robin," cried =Lucy, "the robin! It's flown away!" And so it had --
right out of sight.
"And now what are we to do," said =Edmund, giving =Peter a look which was as much
as to say, "What did I tell you?"
"Sh! Look," said =Susan!
"What," said =Peter?
"There's something moving among the trees -- over there to the left."
They all stared as hard as they could, and no one felt very comfortable.
"There it goes again," said =Susan presently.


And now of course you want to know what had happened to =Edmund.
He had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it
because he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight -- and there's
nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the
memory of bad magic food.
And the had heard the conversation and hadn't enjoyed it much either,
because he kept on thinking that the others were taking no notice of him
and trying to give him the cold shoulder. They weren't, but he imagined it.
And then he had listened until Mr =Beaver told them about =Aslan and until
he had heard the whole arrangement for meeting =Aslan at the Stone Table.
It was then that he began very quietly to edge himself under the curtain which
hung over the door. For the mention of =Aslan gave his a mysterious and
horrible feeling just as it gave the others a mysterious and lovely feeling.



=Edmund meanwhile had been having a most disappointing time. When the Dwarf had
gone to get the sledge ready he expected that the Witch would start being nice
to him, as she had been at their last meeting. But she said nothing at all. And when
at last =Edmund plucked up his courage to say, "Please, your Majesty, could I have
some Turkish Delight? You -- you -- said." she answered, "Silence, fool!" Then
she appeared to change her mind and said, as if to herself, "And yet it will not
do to have the brat fainting on the way," and once more clapped her hands.
Another dwarf appeared.



Now we must go back to =Edmund. When he had been made to walk far further than he had
ever known that anybody could walk, the Witch at last halted in a dark valley all
overshadowed with fir trees and yew trees. =Edmund simply sank down and lay on his
face, doing nothing at all and not even caring what was going to happen next provided
they would let him lie still. He was too tired even to notice how hungry and thirsty
he was. The Witch and the Dwarf were talking close beside him in low tones.
"No," said the Dwarf, "it is no use now, O Queen. They must have reached the Stone
Table by now."
"Perhaps the Wolf will smell us our and bring us news," said the Witch.


While the two girls still crouched in the bushes with their hands over their faces, they
heard the voice of the Witch calling out.
"Now! Follow me all and we will set about what remains of this war! It will not take us
long to crush the human vermin and the traitors now that the great Fool, the great Cat, 
lies dead."
At this moment the children were for a few seconds in very great danger. For with wild
cries and a noise of skirling pipes and shrill horns blowing, the whole of that vile
rabble came sweeping off the hill-top and down the slope right past their hiding-place.
They felt the Spectres go by them like a cold wind and they felt the ground shake
beneath them under the galloping feet of the Minotaurs; and overhead there went a flurry
of foul wings and a blackness of vultures and giant bats. At any other time they would
have trembled with fear; but now the sadness and shame and horror of =Aslan's death so
filled their minds that they hardly thought of it.