Prince Caspian: Chapter 9: What Lucy Saw Summary & Analysis

Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Trumpkin are exhausted when the boat finally rounds the final headland and pulls into the mouth of the creek. After a quick meal of cold apples, they huddle together on a mossy patch of ground and all but Lucy quickly fall asleep. She races her favorite Narnian constellations and listens to nightingales in the trees. Then she stands up and walks into the wood, her eyes growing accustomed to the dark. She remembers dryads, the human forms each tree used to take, and she finds herself begging them to wake up. Leaves rustle all around her, even though there is no breeze. The nightingale falls silent as if waiting for the trees to speak. But the moment passes, and the wood resumes its ordinary look. Suddenly, Lucy feels tired, so she returns to the camp and snuggles down between Peter and Susan.

In the morning, the forest seems damp and dirty. The children bicker about the best way to proceed. Susan wants to turn back, but Peter and Edmund feel confident that they can navigate through the woods with their compass. Luckily, they know not to assume the gaps between the trees are paths and wander off. They trudge on and on until Trumpkin calls a halt and whispers that he hears something following them. He and Susan hold their bows at the ready. They come near to a dense thicket and a giant gray bear bursts out of it in a shower of broken branches. It knocks Lucy down just as Trumpkin kills it with a single arrow. Susan hesitated too long, afraid to kill a talking bear accidentally.

Trumpkin grimly notes that the bear’s meat will provide welcome food in Prince Caspian’s camp and asks Peter and Edmund to help him butcher it. While they wait, Lucy has a horrid thought: what if one day in their own world people begin to forget their humanity and turn wild, just like the once-civilized animals in Narnia have done? There’s enough to worry about right now, Susan insists, without considering things like that. After the boys butcher the bear, all five wrap up as much meat as they can carry in leaves. It’s not a pleasant job, but they know they’ll be grateful later, when they get a chance to eat a good meal.

As the sun rises and the stiffness from the previous day’s boat ride wears off, everyone’s mood improves. At least until they haven’t reached the Rush River by the time Peter and Edmund expect. Then they start to worry that they’ve lost their way. Suddenly, the reach the lip of a deep gorge with a river in its bed. The children begin to bicker about what to do, believing themselves to be hopelessly lost. But Trumpkin points out that this could very well be the Rush River; they all know how much the country has changed since the children’s day. At any rate, the river flows north. If they just follow it, it will take them to the Great River and they can navigate back to Aslan’s How from there.

Just as the party turns downstream, Lucy cries out, “Look! Look! Look!” She saw Aslan himself, a little way up the mountain on their side of the gorge. She’s certain he wants them to go that way. Trumpkin says that he’s heard reports of lions in the woods, and none of them are reportedly talking beasts. He and Lucy argue util he asks how she knows that Aslan himself couldn’t have reverted into a wild animal over all these years. Lucy turns red with rage, but Peter lays a hand on her shoulder. Their D.L.F. just doesn’t understand Aslan, he says. But he isn’t sure he believes her, either.

Edmund suggests they vote on going upriver or down. As the oldest, Trumpkin gets the first vote. Dubious of Aslan’s existence, he wants to go downstream. Susan agrees. Edmund recalls that when they stumbled into Narnia, it was Lucy who got there first. None of the others believed her then, either, but she was proven right again and again. He votes with her for going upriver. Peter, after a moment’s thought, breaks the tie by voting downriver; he acknowledges that Lucy may be right but he can’t bring himself to follow what he fears may be wishful, or mistaken, thinking.