Echoes of Tomorrow
O0O0O
"The books don't tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having by then turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there's plenty of time for her to mend and perhaps she will get to Aslan's country in the end."
From CS Lewis's Letters to Children, 22 January 1957, to Martin
O0O0O
Dear one.
It was always Lucy who was his dear one.
The thought came to her unbidden; unexpected, and surprising in its bitterness. She sat up, startled at herself, disoriented in the early-morning darkness of her room. Where had the thought come from? All the girls around her slept soundly, worn out by the first round of classes after the holiday. They had not offered the thought, and yet there it was. She examined it cautiously; a young woman, still possessing some small amount of sense, always treats the unexpected with caution. Yet the thought remained
Lucy was his dear one.
Whose?
His.
She could hear it in her head; the rich, deep voice, the rumbling benediction that she herself had never dared to admit she craved.
Dear one.
Her shoulders shook, remembering the look of unrestrained joy on her sister's face every time she met with the speaker of those words.
At the thought of her little sister, she fought back tears. She would not cry. She had cried all her tears months before. When the telegram came, she had wept unreservedly. At the funeral she had gone through four handkerchiefs before she had dragged herself back home, the wretched, shaking survivor of what had been their family, to sit in a house that she hated having as hers.
She would sell that house. She had to. It would just take her some time.
She had packed their clothes up only this week-end past. Their parents' clothes and the boys' outfits had all gone to the jumble sale, but Lucy's skirts and jumpers had gone into a trunk, which she had sent into the attic for storing. Lucy she could not let go of; not yet. Not her sister.
Dear one.
There it was again. Not so much a reward this time as it was the soft, gentle purr of a pleased parent. Well, she should recognise that, at least; she had heard it often enough. Her mother's smile of pride had so often accompanied similar words of praise when she'd brought home her marks from school. Lucy's papers had always been so smudged in contrast that the teachers had scored her low out of sheer spite for having had to read the mess to begin with.
But Lucy had always laughed and tossed the paper aside; it hadn't bothered her the way it would have bothered Susan. So any satisfaction she might have derived from her mother's praise had been dulled as a result.
Dear one.
Why did it keep coming back? Why did she hate it so? The simple love; the reward for unswerving devotion. Devotion that defied all logic, that she had fought so hard to offer, only to have Lucy make it look so easy. Her sweet little sister, with a child's perfect faith, had never been overburdened with logic.
Maybe that was how one received the favour.
Dear one.
Her shoulders shook and a frightened moan escaped.
"I will not cry. Not again. I will not."
Again she heard it; the echo growing stronger now, and sadder.
Dear one . . .
She had longed to be, but that wasn't her. It had never been her. She had tried so hard; she had always loved so much the very nicest and simplest of things, and it seemed that those words of affirmation were the very nicest and simplest of all. What could be nicer than a love that lasted forever? What could be simpler than those two words that conveyed so much more than a thousand other words – a thousand books, holding thousands of words each - ever could?
Dear one, why do you mourn?
She doesn't. Only I do. Lucy doesn't mourn. Not any more. Lucy is beyond mourning (oh, please, let it have been quick. I couldn't bear it if I thought they'd known . . .) But why do you ask, since she can't mourn anything any more?
She waited, breathless, terrified to remember it again. For a moment, too, there was only the relief of silence, but gradually sounds crept in. Deep, sorrowful sounds; the moans of somebody whose heart has been rent in two.
It took her some time to realise the sounds came from her.
Tears were pouring down her face, the sweet, salty release that she had thought she was finally beyond. Try though she might to hold them back, they kept on coming until her shoulders shook from the force of her grief. Bowing her head, she wept unashamedly for the sister that had been the light of her life and the brothers who had been the noblest men she'd ever known.
"They didn't deserve it," she sobbed into her quilt. "They were too good. It ought to have been me. Not them. What did they ever do to deserve that?"
But there was no answer, and the lack of sound mocked her in a way the dream-voice couldn't. It shouted back silence and she suddenly ached to hear the words, even though she knew they had never been meant for her . . .
Then, from the silence, came the laugh- oh, that wonderful laugh. Deep, gentle and loving. The laugh knew not how to mock; it was love itself, that laugh, and it felt like a hug that went on forever.
Dear one.
She shuddered. But again it came, gentle and persistent.
My own dear one.
She stiffened, hating herself for still hoping . . .
Again, the laugh, but sad now. How could a laugh be sad? He was laughing at her, the dream-voice, but his heart was breaking for her, too.
Dear girl, if you only knew . . .
What? She shivered, looking around. If she only knew . . . what?
How close I still am . . .
Hope, wild, unrestrained; almost violent, and certainly unbidden. She was almost revolted at how fast it sprang up within her breast, and yet the feeling was so achingly familiar she hated to deny herself the chance to feel it again.
It had been too long since she had hoped.
The past days' events filled her head; a bright, plastic, cheap rendition of everything she had enjoyed those few short months ago. Everything she had thought of so highly was dulled by the death of the family that had always loved her, even when she had called them foolish.
"Why do you always have to be so grown up, anyway, Su?"
Lucy's laughing, teasing voice; those irrepressible dimples, those brilliant, dancing eyes.
Nobody would ever tell Lucy to grow up; all of her charm lay in her childishness.
That was why she had always been his-
No, dear one.
She stopped; stiffened. Hated the hope . . .
The laugh.
It's you, Susan. The dream-voice addressed her, and she shook; trembled.
It couldn't be her. She wasn't-
Oh, dear girl, why do you find it so difficult to believe that you do not have to try so hard to be good? Is it so impossible that I could be good enough for both of us?
The question itself was what was impossible; she couldn't answer it. She wanted to, but it was beyond her, so she gave up, and the sweet release that came from that simple act of surrender gave her more peace than she had felt in years.
You don't have to answer every question, Susan. Sometimes, I am answer enough.
The Presence was there; the sweet weight of power, strength and unending love that she remembered vaguely, as if from a dream; as a great, golden glow that she longed to reach out and touch.
Lucy was his dear one.
But so am I.
The laugh . . . oh, the beauty of the love behind that laugh.
Someday . . . the dream voice was ending the conversation; she felt it, fought it, knew it wouldn't help. Someday, soon, you will learn. Then you will reach for me, and it will be better than it ever was before.
It was truth, the way it had always been when He spoke; truth, made no less truthful by being only a voice in the darkness. The peace that came from knowing it sent her sliding back down, under the covers, glowing softly in the warmth of the promise.
Someday. Someday soon, she'd hear it. She knew she would. She could almost hear it even now as she closed her eyes and sleep crept in . . .
My dear one. Welcome home.
O0O0O
AN: First off, I'll say that yes, I know that in text Aslan only called Lucy his dear one once, and Susan wasn't there to hear it, but if he did it once I like to think he'd done it other times. Now I'll get right to point and say that what happened to Susan in the 7th book always hurt me; it's made it quite impossible for me to read The Last Battle Again, and it's made the books in general a pretty sore subject for me as well, especially considering that I always identified most closely with Susan. It was just last night, though, that I decided to do a bit more in-depth research, and I learned that apparently CS Lewis later expressed regret at not clarifying the ending of The Last Battle. He had not intended for Peter's judgment on Susan to be the final judgment on her, and when I learned this, I realised I'd done her a bit of an injustice myself by turning away so completely. This is, in effect, my apology, and I think –I hope– it is in some small part a fitting one.
The books and characters themselves, of course, owe their creation to Lewis alone, and not to me, though there were many times I wished it could be otherwise!