Though his Mother always called him by his full name (he could sometimes still hear her distant voice shout, "Christopher Robin! You come here at once!" he had always been just plain "Chris" to Charlie and James. The three had always shared a special bond, and a special place where they were as they had always been.
They would meet from time to time whenever one of them felt the need, or for no reason at all. It often seemed that they all sensed the need to get together at the same time, no matter where they might be in the world. Sometimes they would meet at James' stone house in New York, some times at the Corners, but more often than not they met here at the Factory as there was room to move about and, while none of them were adverse to the occasional guest, when they did get together they were happy a bit of together time free from those outside their little company.
All of them had always sensed that there was something always afoot in the world when they had these urges to visit, and there were whole months when they would hunker down at the Factory. But it was something that none of them dared speak aloud of, especially not to anyone outside their triad. They would have argued that any notion of extra sensory perception or the like was rubbish, but they all had that feeling deep in the pit of their stomach that they could do what no one else could.
Chris had called Charlie yesterday when he had that shivery feeling down his spine and the sudden notion that something had happened to Pooh (though Lottie arrived moments later.) Turned out that James was already on the line; something about LadyBug in a twist over the weather or some such. James hopped a jet that afternoon and Chris had picked him up at the airport. Together they had driven to the factory in silence.
And now they were all seated together, quietly appreciating that should anyone turn to them and ask, "Who are you?" the answer would be more than their individual identities. The strength from that bond and from the synthesis that derived from it filled each of them, and had Chris' Mom been there she would have emarked how they were each, "Positively radiant!"
Charlie cracked a smile. Charlie had always been the clever one and Chris thought he knew more about things then he wold ever let on. But that was fine as there were things that neither James nor he needed or even wanted to know. The important bit was that they were here, and he could already sense that like some awesome cosmic lock, tumblers were already moving into alignment.
