“You’re not crying, are you, Mom?” Clara asked quietly as she stepped next to me. “Mom?” She paused. “MOM. PEOPLE ARE WATCHING,” she whispered loudly.
“I’m not crying,” I said with a sniffle. “It’s just, it’s…it’s…LEWIS.” We both chuckled and sniffed, trying to look like we were not, indeed, crying. I blew my nose and shoved the tissue back in my pocket. Then we meandered through the rest of the churchyard. It was a perfect Oxford summer day, the temperature a breezy 25 degrees…Celsius…as my phone had decided to go metric on me.
Clara and I had fled the brutal Texas heat for a week in London, and we had set this day aside for a pilgrimage to the home of our favorite author. To sit where Lewis sat…to walk where Lewis walked…to touch the doorknob Lewis touched…to squeal over the typewriter which Lewis’ brother Warnie had use to type the Narnia books. To try the wardrobe, of course. (We were disappointed to find only coats). The final stage of the tour of the Kilns was to visit the churchyard where Lewis and his brother were buried next to their mother. And I tried, again, not to cry.
The cabbie who had driven us to the Kilns met us at the Six Bells pub and drove us back to the center of town (it was only four miles…6.5 kilometers, thank you) but we would be on our feet the rest of the day and enjoyed the drive. Plus, we drove by a house where Tolkein had once lived, just for some extra nerd cred.
Clara absolutely insisted on eating lunch at the Eagle and Child, Lewis’s favorite pub in town. She didn’t have to twist my arm to convince me to indulge in fish and chips, as well a pint. Honestly, did we have any other choice? The pub was crowded as rain was threatening, but we managed to grab barstools and counter space in the sacred Rabbit Room.
“What’s the plan after lunch?” I asked Clara as she wrestled the Rick Steves guidebook out of her backpack.
Clara flipped to the sticky notes she had in the book for Oxford. “I’d like to see the Radcliffe Camera if we can, and then I think we can get tickets to the Bodleian Library and the Divinity School. After that we can…wander around Hogwarts, I guess.”
“Wandering sounds fantastic. Oxford is the place where so many adventures have begun!”
“Oh, I know. Lewis and Tolkein, obviously, as well as so many other great minds who studied here. Plus, the Divinity School is literally Hogwarts.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, they filmed parts of several of the movies there.”
“Oh fun! Will totally have to see it today. Are you about ready to go?”
“Oh, yes. What do we do with our rubbish?”
We tossed our rubbish in the bin and stepped out of the pub into the cool, cloudy afternoon. Clara pulled the map out of my backpack and we walked up to the Radcliffe Camera, but sadly there were no tours that day. “Oh, you have to be a special reader to get in,” she said.
“Well, kiddo, I think you’re pretty special, and you are definitely a reader.”
“Ha ha mom, I don’t thing that counts.”
“Well, their loss. Selfies anyway!”
We got our tickets for the tours and found we had 30 minutes before the Divinity School visit. My shoe was untied, so I sat down on a bench facing Radcliffe Square.
Clara knelt down to but her book back in her bag. “Wait…what’s that?” she asked, reaching under the bench.
“What’s what?” I knelt down too, and saw that she was prying something small and square out of the dirt under the bench. She unearthed a dark brown wooden box, brushing dirt off the sides and the lid. The box rattled and rang when she turned it over.
“Can you get it open?” She handed me the box and I pushed and pulled on what seemed to be the top. Then I noticed a ridge on one side. I pushed on the ridge with my thumb and the center third of that side of the box slid down.
“Oh! It’s a puzzle box!” I was finally able to slide the top of the box open and I gasped at what I saw inside. Four simple rings rattled around in the box, two of them obviously gold and two of them with a greenish tint.
Clara gasped too and we stared at each other, mouths and eyes wide open.
I recovered first. “Nope. No way. I have read too many books…no way am I putting on these rings.”
Clara’s eyes were shining with delight and the prospect of adventure. “Ha. I’ve read all of those same books. Hand ‘em over.”
I slid the pieces of the box together and wrapped my hands around the box, then looked around the square to make sure no one had seen us. My mind was whirling. How could we have found THESE RINGS? And yet, it was Oxford, the place where the best adventures began. I took a deep breath and made a decision.
“Fine. We’ll do it. But not out here. The muggles are watching. Come with me.”
Clara followed me to the nearest bookstore where I picked up a copy of “The Magician’s Nephew.” “I can’t believe we’re going to try this,” Clara said, giggling.
“Me either. Now, where can we get supplies? We need snackage if we’re actually going on an adventure.”
We found bottled water, a wedge of cheese, a small loaf of bread, some dried fruit, and a package of beef jerky at a shop across the square. “Where’s the loo, please?” I asked as we paid for the food, and we found our way back to the bathroom. We divided up the food between our backpacks and then pulled out the box again, setting it on the bathroom counter. I slid the side down and the top across and carefully tipped the four rings onto a paper towel.
“Don’t touch them yet! I don’t remember which is which!” I cautioned her. I flipped through the novel to check which ring was which, then wrapped each green ring in a piece of paper towel. “Here, put this in your pocket, and be careful with it!” I took a deep breath and put the ring in Clara’s hand, and she shoved it in her pocket. I did the same with my green ring. Then we stared at the yellow rings.
“Twenty minutes ago we were buying tickets to go the Bodleian library,” Clara said. “I think this is going to be more fun.”
“Yeah. Me too.” We grinned at each other. Clara took my hand, and together we reached out and touched the yellow rings.
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