The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The woman asks Edmund “what” he is as he stammers, she chastises him for not speaking more eloquently to the Queen of Narnia. Soon, a large sleigh bearing an elegant woman in a crown stops in front of him. Edmund follows Lucy through the back of the wardrobe to Narnia, where he is amazed but disoriented. On the next rainy afternoon, during a game of hide-and-seek, Lucy and Edmund both hide in the wardrobe. When she opens the wardrobe again, though, it is just an ordinary wardrobe, and her siblings tease her terribly. Lucy tells them about the enchanted world she found inside the wardrobe and beckons her siblings to come with her and see it for themselves. Her siblings are confused, though, and insist that Lucy just went into the wardrobe room a moment ago.

Lucy finds her siblings in the hall-she assures them she is all right though she has been gone for some time. She walks back through the wood until she finds herself in the wardrobe again. Tumnus brings Lucy back to the lamp-post and bids her goodbye. Tumnus, who is kind and good, says he could never turn Lucy in, though he is afraid of what the Witch will do to him if she finds out he has gone against her-she has a habit of turning dissenters to stone.

Tumnus not to turn her over to the Witch. Tumnus reveals that the White Witch has installed herself as Queen of the realm and made it so that it is “always winter and never Christmas” in Narnia. He confesses that he is in the unwitting service of the despotic White Witch, the pretender to the throne of Narnia-she has charged him to bring to her any human he encounters. Tumnus attempts to stop her from leaving, and when Lucy asks why he doesn’t want her to go, Mr. Tumnus entertains Lucy with tales of Narnia’s history, but, realizing that it must be growing late, Lucy decides to head home. Tumnus invites Lucy to come back to his cave to get warm and have some tea Lucy accepts. Tumnus tells her that she is in a land called Narnia where humans have rarely been seen. As he picks them up, he asks her if she is a “Daughter of Eve,” or a human. Tumnus, is so excited to see Lucy that he drops all of his parcels. She soon comes upon a Faun wearing a scarf, carrying an umbrella, and holding packages in his arms. The wardrobe goes back farther than she thought, and as she climbs deeper and deeper into it, she soon finds herself walking on freshly fallen snow when she looks up, she is deep in a snowy wood, and in front of her there is an old lamp-post. She opens it to see what’s inside, and, after finding a row of fur coats, climbs up into it to rub her face into the furs.

They arrive at the countryside house of a kind but eccentric Professor, and as the children explore the house, Lucy winds up in a room which is empty except for a large wardrobe. Siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have been sent away from London during the air-raids at the height of World War II.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis