London

London is the boundary between the newly created Narnia and the children’s ordinary world: when the adventure returns to the pavement outside the Ketterleys’ front door, the Witch, the horse, and the Cabby are gone, but the damaged street and its bewildered crowd remain. The abrupt return makes the extraordinary journey seem to have occupied almost no time in London, while its warning and consequences follow the children home.

The return to the street

Aslan’s words to the children culminate in a warning about their own world: a person might discover a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word, and great nations would soon be ruled by tyrants indifferent to joy, justice, and mercy. He then gives them a practical command: take Uncle Andrew’s magic Rings and bury them so that no one can use them again. The children receive this warning and instruction in Narnia, but the next moment brings them back to London.

The return is a physical and emotional reversal. The children have just felt Aslan’s goodness as a sweetness and power that seemed to enter them, a memory that would sustain them in later sadness, fear, or anger. Then they tumble into London’s noise, heat, and smell. The contrast sets the lasting inward assurance of that encounter against the unchanged public confusion of the street.

The damaged pavement and its crowd

The children find themselves on the pavement outside the Ketterleys’ front door. The scene retains the marks of the Witch’s arrival: the lamp-post has one arm missing, and the hansom cab is wrecked. Nearby, people attend to the injured policeman, who is coming round while they wait for an ambulance. The damage remains visible even though the Witch, the horse, and the Cabby have disappeared.

Most of the crowd are looking around for the Witch and the horse, but no one notices the children, since no one had seen them leave or return. Uncle Andrew is also difficult to recognize, with his clothes in disarray and honey on his face. The open front door and the housemaid watching the commotion give the children an immediate way to bustle him indoors before anyone can question them.

Time, concealment, and what follows

London appears to have barely registered the duration of the adventure. Seeing the street as it was left, Digory concludes that the whole journey may have taken no time at all. That apparent pause in ordinary time sharpens the difference between the children’s extraordinary passage through other worlds and the Londoners’ limited view of the commotion: the crowd searches for the missing Witch and horse, unaware of the children’s departure and return.

Once inside, Uncle Andrew races upstairs. The children briefly fear that he is going to hide his remaining Rings, but he is thinking instead of the bottle in his wardrobe. He shuts himself in his bedroom for a long time, then emerges in a dressing gown and goes straight to the bathroom. Digory, meanwhile, asks Polly to help him get the other Rings because he wants to go to his mother. The return to London therefore does not end the adventure’s practical demands: Aslan’s command to secure the Rings and Digory’s wish to reach his mother immediately shape what happens next.