Topsy Turvy

EveningStar

EveningStar

Mage Scribe
Staff member
Knight of the Noble Order
Royal Guard
TOPSY TURVY

1​

TWO SIDES TO ONE COIN​



Ruddy Hedgely led a double life. Not that kind of double life, for he was born as innocent into both of his lives as you were into your one.

Ruddy Hedgely was a fox, and he was a blacksmith. That wasn’t his double life, for in Narnia many foxes were blacksmiths.

Each evening after he went home from the forge, he would eat supper, kiss his younglings good night, embrace his good vixen tenderly, and settle down upon his bed to close his eyes.

His would feel a sleepy sensation, a few moments where perception and imagination blended into a gentle doorway, yet that doorway led not to slumber but to awakening at 44 Kensington Avenue, London, England, the home of William Harcourt Bradshaw, his other life.

As Bill he would arise from his own torpor, stumble out of bed, go to the sink, and splash cold water on his face. Then he would head to the kitchen to heat the tea kettle. Bill had never slept once, neither had Ruddy. His entire life…or lives, if you prefer…was one endless day of Ruddy and Bill.

For some listeners who don’t think there are enough hours in a day, this may sound like a dream. For Ruddy, it was more of a nightmare.

When Bill was a human boy, his teacher once asked him to draw his favorite dream. He replied truthfully…for he was always honest…that he wondered what dreams were like. He had only read about them in books.

“Everyone dreams,” the teacher insisted. “Perhaps you don’t you remember what happens when you’re asleep.” To which Bill explained that he remembered everything, and spoke at length about playing tag with his brother and sister by the river.

“I thought you were an only child, and you lived in the city.”

“I am…and I do…in this world. I’m talking about my life as a fox.”

The resulting teacher’s conference with his parents convinced Bill not to ever reveal any details of his second life ever again. Ever. He lied, saying it was all a dream, a game, a jolly lark. The lie tasted bitter in his honest mouth, yet he stuck by it. If a fox was good at anything, it was stealth, and boys who believed that they were talking fox cubs got locked away for their own good.

He didn’t have much better luck with his fox parents…at first. Explaining that he was a Son of Adam and lived at a boarding school, he earned himself a trip to the vicar to tell those stories again from scratch. Vicar Bertie, a young badger, listened to the lad patiently. Then he leaned forward and said, “Think hard, son. Think very hard. What happened in 1066?”

Without hesitation, Ruddy said, “The Battle of Hastings, of course.”

“And who fought in the Battle of Hastings?”

“William the Conqueror. He killed Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king.”

Vicar Bertie took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Correct…the lad is who he claims to be.”

***​

By and by, Ruddy Hedgely went from a cub to an adult, and in the way of things he fell in love. Desperately, madly, longingly. And to his great relief and joy, Iris was just as besotted with him.

There was only one obstacle left before treading the aisle into wedded bliss, and that was to let Iris into his secret. His bedtime routine was inviolable, sacred, and non-negotiable. And for the first time in years he spoke the truth—the full truth—the truth about everything. She listened carefully, and after he finished she sat still for a long time.

“Do you understand what I told you?”

“I understand that I love you.”

She would come to understand more than that. People in worlds where magic is real and Santa actually comes into homes on Christmas Eve are more open minded about such things. Yet Iris would note with some concern at how her husband fell into a deep trance in which he barely breathed and never stirred. He never twitched or talked in what he called his sleep and it seemed more like a mild form of death. Ruddy explained that this was nothing to be concerned about, and he was used to it after years of experience. She was not so sure of that. She only knew one thing for certain. Under no circumstances must she or the younglings wake him until he stirred on his own. The result could be fatal, and the only way to know for sure was too frightening to consider.

***​

The morning our story begins, Bill groggily looked at his face in the mirror and saw the beginnings of a fledgling beard, something that inconveniently grew back each night and required a skim of the razor unlike his fox fur. He wondered what his fox face would look like clean shaven, and if he would have to shave his ears as well. And he bet running a razor across his stout black whiskers would be agony. He laughed and shrugged it off.

Bill wanted to be well groomed and tidy, but had no interest in appealing to women, for his heart belonged to his dear wife Iris who bore him three lovely kits.

This lack of interest in women was disappointing to his human mother who knew little about foxes and nothing about Narnia. She wondered why he never settled down. “I want to enjoy my grandchildren, Willie. I also want to know you’ll be well taken care of when I’m gone.” Little did she know that she had three lovely grandchildren, Fleetfoot, Briar, and Zephyr! Keeping the two lives apart was best, since no one would understand a life he didn’t even understand himself.
 
2​

THE PROBLEM

​

It was October in 1938. Hitler had just annexed the Sudetenland and the Jan Masaryk the Czechoslovakian ambassador was loudly rebutting Chamberlain’s assurances that there would be peace in our time. Jan was right…it was only a matter of time until the world would be dragged into war, but for Kensworth, Peters, and Brock advertising agency, the major battle was in shoring up the bottom line. Money was scarce, and so for that matter were manufactured goods as the nation prepared for peace through strength. Prying loose pocket change from folk down on their luck was like pulling teeth.

Bill had an important potential client coming in to see him at the ad agency, someone pushing kiwi flavored soda under the name Tropic Kick. And Bill had worked long and hard to venture beyond the obvious “I get a kick out of kiwi” and put together a pitch that would make people buy some concoction that tasted like white grape juice mixed with seltzer.

The advertising business was tough. A misbegotten phrase like “Stay Safe, Take the Titanic” could make you the laughing stock of the industry and bring down your house of cards in an instant. And that nearly happened with “Phantastic Powder,” the drink mix that became the butt of a lot of drug-related jokes. Kensworth, Peters, and Brock needed another hit to avoid bottoming out, and Ed Kensworth himself had made it quite clear that Tropic Kick was a make-or-break proposition. As a relatively young man, being given the helm of a major project, he relished the opportunity yet balked at the challenge.

“Maybe a salesman holds up a glass,” Bill thought to himself, with a bit of a smile. “There are worse ways to die! Why go elsewhere for bilge water when you can come here??”

Bill wished he could remain Ruddy all the time and sleep like normal folk do. He disliked riding the omnibus, and he hated convincing people to buy things they neither want nor need. But his human mother had lost her husband to swine flu in ’19 and knew the importance of steady income, So she pushed him to advance in a career with a future, a future she paid for with the sweat of her brow and had to believe in its value, and for her it was doctor, barrister, or advertising executive. The choice was not a hard one, for Bill lacked the courage to face human suffering and the stomach to face human crime. He wanted to see the best in people, not the worst, and once he seriously considered the ministry, though that was a mixed bag of the best and worst. In a world where some people called Hitler the economic miracle Germany was waiting for and others Satan’s lap dog to scourge the free world, Bill was afraid to listen to confessions. He didn’t want to know which outwardly happy couples were considering divorce, and which smiling faces were masks hiding dark thoughts. He didn’t want to know who secretly thought Ol’ Adolf was right including, some whispered, the Duke of Windsor, who dropped in on him in ‘37.

And so he prayed for his broken world…a lot…and kept searching for elusive advertising gold. And he waited for 9 pm when he could shed this kabuki theater of supply and demand, challenge and opportunity, and go back to the simple, honest life that waited for him in Narnia.

It was tough for him coming up with pitches. For he was deprived of sleep. And while he never felt sleep deprived, he was dream deprived and it affected his imagination. His mind never had a nightly window to sort out the memories and longings of the day and store them neatly in dossiers. Often the peace of simple, hard work at the forge was buckling under the pressure of coming up with a clever turn of phrase, a catchy logo, a way to separate a fool and his money. He would hammer out strap hinges to the tune of jingles for Bronson’s Bitters. Only now, with Tropic Kick, he wasn’t a team player, he was team leader. He couldn’t sit safely in the backwaters of associates and staffers. In the advertising game, sometimes the ball gets kicked to you, and the game gets down and dirty. “Must score…must score. Oh, but there you have it! Point, game, and match…TROPIC KICK!” Except the kick is the tang of the beverage, and folk don’t play football on the beach in Tahiti, they play volleyball…”

That said, it would be unfair to say that humanity didn’t have its good points. He enjoyed picking up the phone to call his human mother and hear her voice on the other end of the line. She loved him, even as her relentlessly pragmatic side pushed him and shoved him into “real” work where success is measured in pounds sterling. He loved her too, even as he felt crushed under by the demands of “practical” life in the industrial age. Secretly he wished she could meet the vixen who bore him and taught him to pray to the Emperor Across the Sea. Would Emily Bradshaw and Hyacinth Hedgely love one another and swap motherhood stories over tea and biscuits? Would Emily even understand how life without electricity and wireless could be sweet balm to her son’s soul? Would she think less of him for politely turning three times before sitting down? How could he bear to have her gaze upon his wife and rather than seeing a lovely and alluring vixen see a novelty talking animal?

Was Bill a man trapped in a fox’s body or was Ruddy a fox trapped in a man’s body? That all depended on what was meant by “trapped.” Ruddy had found love and contentment as a dog fox with his own blacksmith’s shop. The straightforward and leisurely pace of Narnian life agreed with him and he felt comfortable there. Could Bill have found contentment as a man if he had he spent his days painting in the north country or writing novels in the 19th century? Possibly. Yet he was lonely, for as a married fox he had no gentle human voice to ask him about his day. There were no human children to sit on his knee. He had a life of love and a life of loneliness, a career of service and a career of servitude.

Bill pushed those thoughts aside and struggled with his tie. There was a sales pitch to finish, a reputation to cement or sink.
 
3​

TROPIC KICK​



The mood in the boardroom was tense as Colin Musselman, a diminutive ferret of a man with a beak of a nose, came in expecting Gone With the Wind on a newsreel budget. His reticence was not entirely his fault. The economy was still sluggishly trying to bounce back from the dark days of 29. Even those who skirted past better than most—service professions are always in demand—did not have patience with throwing money at problems that demanded cleverness and thrift.

Colin was placing a morbid bet against Chamberlain, that Hitler would continue to gobble up territories and find the British pie too sweet to be missed. That would mean a naval blockade, a break in shipments of Coca Cola syrup, and an excellent opportunity for a home-grown beverage to fill the gap.

Bill wasn’t sure if Colin was more like a ferret or a vulture. And given that some of his best friends were ferrets from Narnia, “Ol Beaky” was growing more and more birdlike. Bill hated people who used misery to sell products, and he had to force a smile for the meeting.

Rising from his chair to do the presentation was like a trudge to the gallows. There is an old saying in advertising, “If you would buy it, you could sell it.” Bill had tried Tropic Kick and it was more kick than tropical. Even if he had liked it—and it made him gag—he suffered from a lack of concentration caused by the lack of dream sleep. From what he had read, he shouldn’t even be alive.

Random thoughts from his human life intruded on his time in the forge, but by pounding a little harder and concentrating a bit more, he could deal with it. What he couldn’t handle is struggling at the drafting table trying to assemble a mockup for a client and seeing Iris’ sweet face nosing him and saying, “make time for me, tiger.” And while Handy Tandy Wipes sat half-finished on Bristol board, he would chase her panting and giddy through the fields of flax and flowers, cresting the hill and rolling down the other side through scented clover. Ah, to run his paws through her fiery red fur, gaze into her liquid hazel eyes and fill himself with her wild sweet fragrance!

“Bill??” Ed said sharply. “The presentation??”

“Sorry sir. I have something on my mind.”

“So do I. Tropic Kick. Focus, man!”

Bill stepped to the easel and put a picture of a palm tree next to the shore. “We are selling exotic here. I think we should go all out. Join the Rave! Catch the Wave…Tropic Kick will do the Trick…and help you save!”

Colin stared blankly. “Get to the main bit.”

“That was the main bit. Your product is based on exotic novelty. The spokesperson will wear a Hawaiian shirt and lei, and the drink will be in an ice-cold glass frosty under the tropical sun.”

“But we are concentrating on a wireless jingle and text adverts! We were clear about that when we approached you. All this Wicki-Wacki stuff comes later when we’re ready to ramp up. Or did I not make myself clear?”

Ol Beaky was looking browned off and Kensworth, Peters, and Brock all gave each other side-eye. A cricket could have been heard.

“This conference was free,” Colin said. “And worth every penny. Even I could have written that! It sounds like a bender…or an orgy!”

It was Phantastic Powder all over again. Ed Kensworth’s face was unreadable as a sphinx, but his tapping of his fountain pen on his pad betrayed him. He was ready to blow his wig.

“It was just preliminary,” Peters said, eyes locked with Bill. “Isn’t it, Bradshaw?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Well, when you have something else to show me, you have my number.”

The vulture flew out. Ed watched the door close, then shot an icy stare at Bill. “Bradshaw, my office. Now.”
 
4​

DEALING WITH FATE

​

Ruddy Hedgely sat up in bed. He looked around at the reassuring walls of his bedroom and over at his lovely vixen. Getting there was rough because Bill required a heavy sleeping draft just to leave England…and Tropic Kick…behind.

“Rough day at the office, dear?”

“The worst.”

“Then why do you go there?”

“I go there the way the sun goes west. Because I must. Or at least I did…”

Iris knew precisely what an office was. She had to. As his wife, she would see his odd sleeping arrangements, and Ruddy levelled with her before they walked the aisle.

“Are you going to get the sack?”

He scratched behind his ear with a foot. “I did, actually. I’ve never seen Ed so steamed.”

“How do you feel?”

“Uncertain. It’s actually a relief knowing I won’t be back in that office on Monday. I hated it. But a Son of Adam can’t live off the land. I must have a job.”

“How will this affect us?”

Ruddy sighed. He had been thinking about that a lot lately. “It’s clear I won’t get a good letter of recommendation. All I know is advertising. I…Bill…thought about it so much that I…he…couldn’t settle down for the night without a mickey. Maybe I could commit a crime. Not hurt anyone, just rob a bank or somesuch.”

“Why on earth, dear? You’re the most honest person I know!”

“Yes, love, I try to be. But desperate times call for desperate measures. If I go to the Old Bailey at least I’ll get three square meals, and nights I’ll have my life with you. Darling, no matter what they do to me in prison, it’s worth it.”

“Won’t you at least see the vicar?”

Ruddy’s ears went back. “And tell him what, exactly? How to replace lost income during the depression when all you know is advertising? Do you have any idea what Ed would write if I asked him for a letter of recommendation?”

Iris could at least surmise what a letter of recommendation might be, and it chilled her. “But love, you’re a blacksmith and a good one! I’ve seen your work!”

“And give them what as a reference? That I came up with the Rinso Soap Jingle? That world is not like this one…at all. There was a time when making horseshoes would turn a profit, but along came the horseless carriage. Dear, England is firmly in the grip of the machine age. And we’re just getting out of the depression.”

Her head tilted in puzzlement. Ruddy kissed her and wanly smiled.

“Perhaps it is best you not try to understand the human world. I’m not even sure humans do. It was such a hopeful place before the Great War. We had flying machines, steam trains, and electricity. Now we’re heading for another war, and Aslan only knows how much worse that will be. But I have you and the younglings. I’ll do what I have to do to be there for you. Besides, what’s more immoral? Robbing a bank when I don’t plan to keep the money or banking on Hitler to wreak havoc on Atlantic shipping? I hate, despise, abominate, and even DISLIKE Tropic Kick and I pray it lands on the rubbish heap of bad notions along with Ol’ Beaky! I didn’t ask for two lives! I want what I have here, even if we don’t have electric lights and gas stoves!”

Ruddy was angry but he was also sad. He fought tears as he tried yet again to focus on what honest work he might be able to do. Alas, depression-stricken Britain was full of people looking for menial jobs and sadly lacking in positions. He could either rest on the pinnacle of middle-class contentment or plunge to the depths of homelessness and poverty.

He could see himself showing up in a suit and tie at the Salvation Army soup kitchen, listening to sermons about a God he had already found and worshipped before eating bread and thin soup. The idea horrified him beyond words.

He bowed his head. “I never asked for this, Aslan. The burden is almost too great for me to bear, and now it is heavier. Show me the way…please!”

He thought about small crimes he might commit to earn short sentences. Perhaps breaking a shop window and refusing to pay? Vagrancy? Alas, even those positions—if they might be called that—were already filled by people who wanted their three squares a day. No, it would have to be something major.

It would have to be bank robbery.
 
5​

A GAME OF COPS AND ROBBERS

​

The next morning…human morning…Bill walked down the sidewalk on Keller Street. It was a walk he had made many times from his office. His office was no longer his and his reason for making the walk was no longer the same.

In his jacket pocket was a Webley revolver fully loaded and ready to help him make one last withdrawal from Jacquard Savings and Trust.

As the bank neared on his right, he savored his last few minutes as a free man. It had occurred to him to visit the public park first and enjoy a few moments of peace, but he knew if he did he would lose his nerve. He had lost everything else, but he had to hold on to his nerve.

He stepped into the bank. Every sense was operating at full intensity. His footfalls on the marble floor were concussive. The air smelled like business suits and copper. And most importantly the old guard that usually sat by the door…the one that knew him…had been replaced by a young man.

***​

Patiently, Bill waited for the customers ahead of him in the queue to finish their business and leave. Despite going over the logic of his plan for hours, some remnant of common sense…or was it timidity…cried out for him to forget this and go home.

Finally when it was his turn and he stood before Malcolm.

“Good morning, Mr. Bradshaw. What can I do for you?”

“It’s all in the note,” Bill said, shoving a piece of paper across the counter.

Malcolm took one look at it, then said, “What’s this, Bill? A jape?”

“It’s not a Jape, Malcolm. And it’s nothing personal. Put the money in the bag, and be quick about it.”

Bill reached in his jacket and pulled out the revolver, then cocked the hammer.

“Oh my… Don’t do anything rash, Bill. So many people here know you. You can’t get away with this, you know.”

“Sometimes desperation is all that’s left, Malcolm. I’m at my wit’s end.”

“Can we talk about this?”

“There’s nothing to discuss. Just give me the money and be quick about it.”

With both hands Colin filled the bag. But his knee pressed the silent alarm. That started an unfortunate chain of circumstances.

The young, inexperienced guard rushed over, gun drawn. “Drop it and put your hands up!”

Bill turned about, the gun still in his hand.

There was a flash, a bang, and an impact that felt like a slug to the gut from a fighter. It took Bill a moment to realize what had happened, but by then he was already collapsing onto the marble floor of the bank.

“No, please!” Bill was not speaking to the guard. “I did it for the family! Wasn’t going to keep…”

He tried to crawl but was stopped by the guard’s trousers and the tip of a gun barrel in his face.

“Help me, God! I wasn’t going to kill…”

He heard the gun being kicked away across the marble floor. He saw other feet standing around him. The room began to get dark.

“Aslan…save me!”

He had an ironic moment where the pain hurt so badly that it hurt less. His conscious mind retreated from the pain, the fear, and the shame and he lost consciousness.
 
6​

A RUDE AWAKENING​



Ruddy sprang out of bed in the middle of the night. That was something he had never done before.

“Dear, what’s wrong??”

“I’ve been shot!”

He searched himself for the bullet hole and was temporarily relieved not to find one. There was no more pain, and no blood on the bed. Yet Bill was definitely shot, and Ruddy was unsure what would happen if Bill died.

The kits came in.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?”

He thought for a moment of dismissing them back to bed with a quick kiss and reassurance that it was only a bad dream. It was in fact a nightmare and Ruddy hugged and kissed the three of them with trembling paws.

“Oh I could just eat you up, you little blighters! Daddy loves you. Never forget as long as you live how much Daddy loves you—no matter what happens to me.”

“What’s wrong, daddy?”

“Nothing,” Iris said, the tears streaming down her cheeks mocking her attempts at calm. “Now you three get back to bed and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“What can I do??” Ruddy asked.

“We’ll see the vicar,” Iris said.

“At this hour?”

“Especially at this hour…”

***​

Ruddy and Iris showed up at the vicarage at midnight. They laid into the door knocker, banging hysterically.

An old Badger came to the door. “What is all this hullabaloo??”

Ruddy said, “You won’t believe this Bertie, but I am two, soon to be one, and perhaps none at all.”

The vicar nodded. “Sounds like a poser. Come on in.”

***​

Vicar Bertie listened patiently to the entire story. Then he shook his head in puzzlement.

“You must think I’m crazy,“ Ruddy said.

“No, it’s rare, but it’s happened before. Don’t you remember seeing me when you were a little cub? I asked you what happened in 1066 and you knew. Every English schoolboy knows that. Only folk who read Edmund Pevensie’s book Worlds Within Worlds know about the Battle of Hastings.”

“Mama thought I was not right in the head. I remember” Ruddy scratched his cheek ruff. “Those other cases…how did they turn out?”

“Not sure. I’ve never heard of someone with a double life getting killed before. You should have seen me earlier. We all have our stone to drag, but Aslan won’t let us be bound to a rock we cannot move. So let me get this straight. You committed a crime, a serious crime, and you need to repent.”

“Repent? I may be dying! Please! Do something!”

“If you die, that will make repentance doubly important.”

“I repent, I do repent! But I was owed more than this in life. I was hard working and clean living and paid my taxes!”

“And what was owed Aslan? Have you worked harder and lived a better life than he? And what happened to him at the Stone Table? Of course you regret what you did, but do you repent? Do you even know the difference between regret and repentance??”

The vicar got the silver bowl and poured water into it from a crystal ewer. “I taught you that myself when you were just a youngling. How quickly we forget.”

Ruddy’s head bowed with shame. “But my family?”

“You were more ashamed of dining with the poor and destitute than you were of committing a crime. That much is clear. Did you not think of how that would affect your family? Or were you so afraid of disappointing your mother as a failure that you would disappoint her as a criminal? How can you spare your wife and younglings if you can’t even spare your own mother the sight of you in a casket??”

“No!! By Aslan’s mane, I love my mother! I would die for her!” His paws went to his face. “I would die for her!”

“You may yet die for her,” the vicar said, eyes narrowed. “There are worse things than death. Take care that you avoid them while there’s still time.”

That had never occurred to him. Mum would be devastated. She had undertaken to raise him right after daddy died, being both mother and father to him, and while he struggled with advertising, it was her that put him through college by sacrificial giving. It was her that took menial work when the market collapsed to hold his body and soul together, and this is how he repaid her…

Suddenly remorse was not just a duty, it was the natural result of the hard light of truth streaming through the windows of his soul.

Ruddy dipped his paws in the water poured into the silver basin. “I know what I did was wrong. There is no excuse for my crime. Help me, Lord, not because my sin was small or because of what I was owed. But because you were merciful to Edmund and I pray you will be merciful to me.”

“That’s more like it.”

The vicar likewise dipped his paws into the water, then took Ruddy’s paws in his own. “As you repent in true faith, Aslan forgives in true love. May the burden of your soul be cast down.”

Tears ran down Ruddy’s cheeks, badges of his true repentance. The vicar wept too and embraced him.
 
7​

THE PASSAGE​



There is such a thing as the tired, those folk who having spent a day in worthy toil and care bed down to hand the tiller to the Great Captain of all Sailors. Then there is the restless tired, folk who have something on their mind or who suffer some pain or need that deprives them of sleep. Lastly, there is the constrained to be tired, those folk who desire sleep but must not have it. That state was known to soldiers who drew the short straw for the night watch, trudging drowsily to and fro at their position while their comrades shed their burdens to dream of hearth and home. That was the tiredness of Ruddy Hedgely, standing guard against an enemy that lulled him toward sleep and, quite possibly, the grave.

What if Bill Bradshaw lay cold on a slab in the morgue? What if his eyes were closed by the cold paw of death? There would be no trip to the bathroom to throw cold water on his face, no hot tea to rouse his senses, and no omnibus to catch. What would happen to his spirit? Would he die one death or two?

The vicar saw Ruddy’s eyes start to droop. “Ho there, lad, shall we pray?”

“Only if I don’t have to close my eyes,” the fox said, groggily. “I don’t trust myself.”

“Aslan hears us anyhow so…” The badger brightened. “I can get my flageolet and pipe you a rousing tune.”

“No thanks. Cheerful music would mock me, and sad music would crush me.”

“Well, stand up, lad! Move about!”

Iris kissed her husband. “Is there anything I can do?”

Ruddy looked at her sadly. “Everything I’ve done, from the wisest to the most foolish, I did for you. The best decision in my life was to marry you. And the worst…well…we shan’t go into that until we see how this turns out.”

***​

It wasn’t just Ruddy that had to face the night awake. Iris was also struggling with lack of sleep as was the vicar. Ruddy couldn’t be left alone for a moment so they moved about and made an attempt at interesting conversation.

“You say there are other cases like my husband?”

“Oh yes. One of the most interesting ones was about a beaver who’s night sleep was spent awake as a sailor during wartime. His ship got attacked in the middle of the night in his human life. He found his ship sinking and all hands having to jump overboard. As I recall that turned out alright. Thing is, he wasn’t responsible for his cause of death. We must see what Aslan decides to do with Ruddy, and prayer is always…”

“Hold on, I hear something…”

It was snoring!

“Oh dear Aslan, no!” Iris started to wake her husband, but the vicar grabbed her arm.

“Not yet, dear. He’s asleep, not dead. At least I think so. Patience, Iris, I know it’s hard.” Bertie held the back of his paw in front of Ruddy’s nose. “I can feel his wind.”

“Thank Aslan,” Iris murmured. “His paw just twitched. Maybe he’s dreaming.”
 
8​

PERCHANCE TO DREAM​



Ruddy Hedgely had never dreamt before. It was an odd sensation, and he had no words to describe it. He found himself in a small flowery meadow surrounded by trees. Somehow, he knew it wasn’t a place, it was the place, a small cozy world that felt like a meadow someone might pack for a journey in case they needed one later.

There was no wind, no sound. There were no birds, no squirrels. The only other life besides himself was the one that filled all of time and space.

“It is I,” Aslan said, simply.

Ruddy felt weak in the knees, yet he was irresistibly drawn toward his deepest love and greatest fear.

Aslan looked at him. He did not threaten and his teeth were not bared. Yet his wise hazel eyes pierced him to the core. Nothing could be hidden from those eyes, and Ruddy had never felt so bare and vulnerable. He dreaded that moment ten times more than facing Ed Kensworth.

“They shamed you,” Ruddy said, barely above a whisper. “You were bound and shaved for Edmund’s sake, and you took the knife meant for him. I didn’t even stoop to accept help from the Salvation Army and sit among the poor.”

Aslan did not deny it, nor did he speak. Nor would he be flattered.

“Help me, please! Give me another chance! Not because I love my family, but because they love me!”

The lion continued to look at him in what seemed like a wordless “and?” It was clear from the lion’s gaze that he should have thought of that earlier.

Tears streamed down the foxes’ face. “Not because I am sorry enough but because you are kind enough! Please help me! Have pity on me!”

The lion drew near, his firmness a bit softened. In a deep but surprisingly gentle voice, he said, “I will not let your mother be destroyed by what you have done. You have my word.”

The full magnitude of Aslan’s gracious gift dawned upon him, and Ruddy fell at the lion’s feet and worshipped him. Ruddy let go of his impulsive and stubborn will and said, “Have your own way, Lord. Do as you will. I’m sure you know what’s best.”

***​

Ruddy woke up. He felt of his face with its cold wet nose and tickly whiskers. He also felt refreshed by sleep for the first time in his life. He muttered, “I bless your holy name!”

William Harcourt Bradshaw, lately of Kensworth, Peters, and Brock was dead at 29. The story about his desperate robbery after his sacking would make the newspapers. Fortunately, Emily Bradshaw had Aslan on her side.

Just as the thoughts were starting to overwhelm Ruddy, the morning sun streamed in the windows of the vicarage. It was a new day for them in every sense of the word.

Vicar Bertie embraced him. “Did you learn something from all this?”

“Did I ever!”

“Tell me everything. I must write this up and send it to Cair Paravel, you know.”

***​

Ruddy studied hard with the vicar and when time came for the badger to retire, he wore the vicar’s key about his own neck. At first, it was driven by guilt and the need to make restitution for the way he let down his human mother and…on some level…failed to do his duty to his clients out of personal qualms while still accepting the money. But then he discovered joy. His life as a human, which was once burdensome, became for him a richer and deeper layer of experience to help the hurting and lonely.

As for Emily, Kensworth, Peters, Brock, and even Ol’ Beaky, the same God that had mercy on Ruddy Hedgely also cared for them. And thus, the third happiest moment in Ruddy’s memory behind his marriage and the birth of the younglings was the day he forgave Colin Musselman and Ed Kensworth and took responsibility for his own actions.

Thus one story ended, another continued. Ruddy Hedgely found one life quite enough to keep him busy.

THE END: TOPSY TURVY
 
Back
Top