WHAT HAPPENED TO SUSAN

By KaleidescopeCat

Not being satisfied with Neil Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan" (although it is an excellent story) or any other answer I found regarding Susan's absence at the end of The Last Battle, I wrote my own. In particular, I found myself thinking of the story of the prodigal son and how he was welcomed back even though he had strayed. That is the only Christian theme I consciously used; perhaps readers will find others.

All characters, locations, and ideas regarding Narnia belong to C.S. Lewis.

Gleaming golden in the light of the afternoon sun, the lion paced back and forth in his cage. With a rather bored expression he watched the children go past him, exclaiming in delighted fear. A glint in his eye hinted if the door should be opened then they would have something to fear.

One might have almost imagined him saying, "After all, I am not a tame lion," but this was not a place where lions could speak.

Past the throngs of shouting schoolchildren, one young woman sat silently on a bench, her chin resting on her knees. Her feet were bare; beneath the bench, a discarded pair of sandals lay next to a brown purse and a crumpled sweater. Black hair fell in a tangled mess around her face. Some of the children, glancing away from the relentlessly pacing lion, wondered if she had been crying. Her cheeks had that flushed look about them, and her eyes were rather red. But so strange was the look on her face as she stared at the lion in his pen, they could not decide if she was sad or furious and went on to the next exhibit whispering fantastic tales about the lady on the bench. Had they only known, the truth was quite a bit more fantastic and terrible than anything they might have imagined.

The lion flopped down with a long whooshing sigh that held a hint of a growl. Golden eyes met her own, while she willed him silently to become a different lion and explain what had happened yesterday at the railway station. A new crowd approached the lion's pen, and some of the adults sent curious glances her way. Susan caught one mother's eye, whose expression said it all, disgust and pity and anger that someone might dare to be openly upset in public where the children could see her.

Disgusted, Susan launched herself from the bench and shouted, "WHAT?" at the mother. The lion stood up and roared; shocked parents and children scattered off in both directions.

With a last long look at the lion, Susan picked up her belongings and stalked off, still barefoot.

Of course the house was silent when she got home. But it was better than the hesitant words of comfort and the things people said when they didn't really know what to say at all. Even when they said nothing at all because they knew there wasn't anything to say, their looks of pity were too much for her. Only yesterday she had gotten the telegram at university, after her last class of the afternoon, and scant hours later everyone seemed to know. Susan had left without a word to anyone, spending a rather extravagant sum of money on a taxi home.

The trains were not running, of course, but that was on the list of things she could not face just yet.

A note in Peter's handwriting sat on the table in the front hallway. Gone to London for the day, back tomorrow, it said, and Susan felt sick. She knew the reason for their trip because Edmund, alone of the others, felt she must know what they spoke of in those now-and-again meetings of the "Friends of Narnia," even if she herself would prefer not to. He wrote her letters with precise, detailed summaries of the conversations, and sent them to her university address, careful always to include a time and date for the next should she change her mind.

She hadn't, but he kept writing them, and she hadn't the heart to tell him to stop. Peter and Lucy might look at her askance when she came home, thinking her silly and vain and shallow, but Edmund, with that sense of fairness that was so very Edmund, looked past the façade she put up in front of them. He alone sensed that there might be other reasons in her mind for denying the truth of their other lives, for calling their adventures in Narnia nothing more than silly old games. But even when she refused to let herself believe it, she knew it had never been a game at all.

Perhaps that was why she never could simply throw Edmund's letters away without reading them, as much as she wanted to forget everything. And the others, who said it was better to remember—well, those old games had gotten them all killed, hadn't they? Wasn't that reason enough to forget them?

She picked up the note and crumpled it into a ball, throwing it down the hallway. It landed with the word Gone showing at the top, and Susan turned away before the tears could fall again.

One very large funeral was held a week later, Eustace's parents arranging all of the terrible details. She had gladly left them to it. Afterwards she never could remember very much of that week. Conversations passed her ears unheeded, details slipped her mind, and she went to bed each day with memories of nothing at all.

It was not until the day after the funeral that a parcel arrived on the doorstep. Opening it, she found an inventory of the contents: personal belongings found on her brothers and sister and parents after the accident. Vaguely she wondered what had become of the belongings of Professor Kirke and Miss Plummer, or of Jill, and for the first time thought perhaps she should have made some effort to go to their funerals as well.

Everything was rather dirty and battered, and in some cases unreadable, like her mother's familiar old appointment book. Susan read and reread the battered pages, trying to find what appointment had taken her parents on that train, but she could make nothing out. Her father's pocket watch was smashed in, the initials engraved on the back completely distorted. But a little gold pin Susan recognized as Lucy's came clean with only a little effort, a tiny thing shaped like a lion Peter had found in some shop one day.

At the very bottom of the box she found Edmund's old school satchel, remarkably undamaged aside from being filthy. She could not imagine why he had been carrying it around, when he had been out of school for years. Inside, wrapped in a blue workman's shirt, she found a crumpled little matchbox and a battered magazine with a folded piece of paper stuck inside it.

Opening it, Susan saw the beginning of a letter with her own name at the top.

Dear Susan (said the letter),

We've found the rings. Pete and I are off to meet Eustace and Jill in the morning to hand them over. It was rather jolly getting the rings, I tell you, like play-acting at spies. We were afraid the whole time someone would come along and catch us out before we could get at them. But luck was on our side and we dug them up without any trouble (though I expect the real drains people might get some interesting calls when the people who live there figure out we didn't really do anything).

I've told you about the Narnian ghost that appeared to us, of course, in my last letter, so beyond that there's really nothing much else to report. I suppose we must leave it to Eustace and Jill and see what happens. With the usual muddle about times I expect it won't be long at all. I'll post this tomorrow and with luck I'll add some more about their adventures in Narnia.

Here the letter ended, forever unfinished.

What a waste it had all been. They had not, of course, gotten into Narnia. The train had smashed itself up before they ever managed to hand off the rings. The thought had not occurred to her until now that nothing had even come of their efforts, efforts for which they had given their lives. She had only been furious at the thought that once again, Narnia had interrupted them living their lives here, leading them all to their doom.
Angry, she cast aside the letter and picked up the matchbox from Edmund's satchel. At once she heard a strange low hum, like a Hoover being used many floors off. After a moment she realized the sound was coming from the box in her hand, and it grew louder as she slid it open.

There, nestled in bits of cotton batting, were four rings, two green and two yellow, completely undamaged. In that moment Susan knew what she must do.
Narnia had called for help; she was the only one now left to answer.

Half an hour later, she stood in the front hallway, carrying Edmund's satchel filled with food and water, and a bow from her archery days at school. Over her shoulder was a quiver of arrows and at her hip was a long fencing foil that had once belonged to Peter. Edmund's letter was tucked into her pocket; Lucy's pin glittered on her collar. With a deep breath she picked up the Rings and slid the box open. Her fingers brushed the smooth metal of one of the yellow rings.

Immediately the hall vanished. For a moment everything was muddled; then she felt herself swimming upward and stepped, quite dry, from a pool of water into a magnificent wood.

She gazed around, feeling quite peaceful. The trees stretched high above her head, and grew so thickly that no light could be seen through the canopy. Yet the forest was not dark; a warm golden light, like a lamp at dusk, chased away the shadows around her. The moss on the banks of the pool looked very soft and inviting, and Susan sat down, leaning back against the roots of the nearest tree. On the other side of the pool someone had cut a long strip into the moss, exposing thick red soil—and Susan leapt to her feet, stricken, for she had forgotten until that moment her errand in this place. Professor Kirke's mark—for of course it was his, made years and years ago—brought everything rushing back, and Susan began to look around wildly for the nearest pool. One of them, as she knew from Polly and Digory's story, was the Narnian pool, and the other, now nothing more than a dried-up hollow in the grass, was the world Charn, whence came the Witch.

But to her dismay not one but two grassy hollows were nearby. Horror swelled in her chest; was she too late?

On the bank of one hollow she found splinters of wood, with bits of black paint on them, and faint hoof- and footprints, and knew beyond a doubt this was the pool that had once been Narnia. Hadn't she heard the story, and read it in Edmund's letters, a hundred times? The cab had been smashed to bits—the Professor had caught the Witch's heel—Uncle Andrew and the cabby and Polly and the horse, they had all been here too, and gone into Narnia at the very dawn of that world.

And now, it was simply gone.

Susan sank to her knees in the midst of the empty pool and wept bitterly. "Aslan!" she cried. It had been years since she had spoken his name, and it came strangely to her tongue now. "Aslan, why?" she shouted, and as if in response a terrible wind came howling around her like a lion's roar. She huddled close to the ground, shivering in terror. A great voice roared, "QUEEN OF NARNIA!" and there could be no doubt that she had been answered after all. Susan bent her head into the wind and began to run towards the voice, scrambling to keep her feet against the onslaught. She had no idea how far she had run, or for how long, when the torrent suddenly stopped. Susan, startled by the abrupt change, tumbled headlong into a bright clearing and landed quite out-of-breath in front of Aslan himself. Susan saw the golden paws, the rich fur, and knelt, shaking, before him, head bowed.

"Daughter of Eve, I wish it were in happiness that you once more spoke my name," said the Lion, and touched his velveted paw to her shoulder. "It has been a very long time, has it not?"

"I wanted to forget it all," said Susan bitterly. She could not meet his eyes. "We did not remember our own world when we were Kings and Queens, Aslan, but when we came back we remembered everything about Narnia. We were grown up there, and yet when we came back we were children again, and no one thought of us as anything else. But we knew so much more than before. We were so different."

Aslan said nothing. On her neck she felt the tickle of his mane, soft and thick, but still she could not look up, and the words seemed to burst out of her like a flood, completely out of her control. "And then we were in Narnia once more and you told us it was the last time, told us we must be a part of our own world now, and it seems so difficult and so complicated to be grown up, where in Narnia it was so very easy and right and simple!"

"Daughter of Eve, you have done well, though it has been hard," said Aslan.

"Have I?" said Susan in a low voice. "I know what the others think—thought—of me, that I thought of nothing but parties and invitations and friends and the silliest grown-up things. I suppose it is true—I am silly, and I mocked them and called Narnia a childish game, though that was childish of me—but they did not know the whole story. I couldn't bear to tell them, for they never seemed frightened of anything at all."

"Why were you frightened, dear one?" said Aslan, and at last Susan found she was able to look up. Deep as the night sky, Aslan's gaze was both wondrous and terrible at once, full of kindness and sorrow alike as he met her eyes.

"I grew up once, Aslan," said Susan, very softly, "and I knew exactly who I was. When it came time to grow up again I never knew whether I should be Susan Pevensie of England or Queen Susan of Narnia. I thought in being Susan Pevensie I needed to forget Queen Susan. But really, I ended up being neither, I think. I don't know how you say I can have done well, Aslan, for it was never so hard for the others, and I feel as if I have been lost."

"For the others it was no less difficult," said Aslan gently, "but for each of them it was different. As you have said, they did not know your whole story, and so too you did not know theirs. No-one is ever told any story but their own." He bent his head, and Susan buried her face in his mane.

"Dear one," Aslan went on, "I say you have done well because though you have strayed from remembering Narnia herself, you nevertheless have not forgotten its lessons. You may think of friends, and invitations—but each friend you have is proud to count you as such because you are kind and gentle to them, and each invitation you receive is because the senders truly value your company, and you theirs. In this I could ask no better of you."

"What would have happened, Aslan, if I had gone with the others?" Susan asked. "Would I have died too? Would Narnia still be there?"

"No-one may ever know what would have happened, child," he replied. "What is done is done, and cannot be undone."

"Then may I ask this?" said Susan, and drew back, meeting his eyes once more. "What did happen? To Mother and Father, and Peter and Lucy and Edmund, and all the rest? And Narnia! What happened to Narnia? Did we not reach it in time?"

"I may not answer that for you," said Aslan. "But climb on my back, and I shall show you."

As she had done before, long ago, Susan twined her hands into the golden mane and held tight as the great Lion leapt forth out of the clearing, over the trees and into the sky itself. They landed with a flutter of leaves in their wake and bounded wildly through the Wood Between the Worlds, dodging pool after pool and tree after tree, until they came to the edge where a little stream flowed and beyond that the land dropped off in a mighty cliff. Here Aslan halted, so close that Susan felt her stomach quiver, and yet she was not afraid.
"Look down," said the Lion, and there below she saw the familiar shape of the coastline of Narnia, and beyond that the mountains of Archenland and the deserts of Calormen, and in another direction there was London and the Channel and France and even, very distant, the gleaming towers of New York City in America, where she had first begun to want to forget Narnia because no one there could speak of it with her.

"This is the true land," said Aslan, "and though the shadow-land of Narnia may have reached its time, as will all lands someday, it lives on in my Country forever."

And below, as small as ants, Susan saw her brothers and sister, and mother and father, and all the Friends of Narnia, and everyone they had known when they were Kings and Queens and after. "They are here too," said Susan, and a great rush of relief swept through her. "Did they make it to Narnia at all, before it ended, Aslan?"

"Jill and Eustace did, and they helped Narnia a great deal at the very end," said Aslan. "And when in your world there were none left who utterly believed in Narnia, that country ended, and all its denizens came to my country."

"I believed," said Susan, but she regretted it as soon as the words left her mouth.

"But you did not want to," said Aslan gently. "And that is not the same. What is to come will be very hard, dear one, harder than what has come before. You have done well in some things; now, you must remember what you have tried to forget. Be neither Susan Pevensie of England or Queen Susan of Narnia; be both. Be Susan, just Susan, and all that Susan is."

"Then I am to go back, aren't I," whispered Susan. "And this time there really is no one to speak of it with."

"No," Aslan replied. "And that is why it will be more difficult. The others had only a short time to be a part of their world. You will have a much longer chance, and you must do as well as you can and be what they could not."

"May I go down and see them, just once more?" she asked, but Aslan shook his head.

"When you come to my Country again you will stay forever," he said. "But it is not yet that time."

And with that the brilliant sky and the towering cliff and the green grass all vanished away, replaced by the dim hallway in her house in England. But Aslan remained, quite a bit too large for the little house, and she slid from his back and knelt before him once more. "Be as a lioness," he said, and at once she felt warmth rise in her. And then he was gone, and she was alone once more.

The lion at the zoo paced back and forth in his cage, just as before, and screaming schoolchildren still flocked about him, pointing and whooping. Anxious parents tried to keep their young from going too close, and herded them quickly past towards safer, less terrifying animals. Susan pushed her way through the crowds towards the lion's cage. This time, tidy and well-dressed for the train back to university, no one even spared her a second thought. When she reached the edge of the pen, the lion met her eyes, and the merest hint of a growl left his lips. Children jumped backwards, frightfully excited.

"I just wanted to say thank you," said Susan, ignoring the looks of the scandalized mothers around her. They twittered and covered their children's ears, horrified to hear someone actually talking to a lion. "And goodbye. For now."

With that, she stepped away from the pen, and could have sworn the lion winked at her, one last time.

Reviews are most welcome, especially suggestions for improvement. Thank you for reading.