"There may be two views about humans, but there's no two views about things that look like humans and aren't...when you meet anything that's going to be human and isn't yet, or used to be human once and isn't now, or ought to be human and isn't, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet."-Mr. Beaver, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

One afternoon, as on so many other afternoons, Susan was heading home from her job as a secretary. Following her well-known route back to the home she had grown up in, though, she saw something new.

At first glance, the police call box looked ordinary, but it had not been there yesterday. No one else seemed to notice the new call box, but long years of ruling a nation, however peaceful, had taught Susan to be alert and to take notice of her surroundings. She glanced at her watch and decided she had time to investigate. There was no reason to think the call box suspicious, but it was a change, and a queen should always know her realm.

Susan walked around it, looking at it closely. She began to be suspicious; there was something about this that seemed off somehow. She tried to open it, but it was locked! Why would a police call box be locked? Suddenly, though, she was distracted from her musings as a flustered-looking young man ran up and began fiddling around trying to open the door.

"Ah, hello! Mind if I just go in that call box there..."

"It's locked," replied Susan.

"Oh, that's not a problem, I have a key!"

"You don't look like a policeman."

"And you don't look like you need one, so why did you check the door of the call box?"

"It's different."

"Oh, good answer."

At this, the Doctor looked up at the strange girl for the first time. She wore her practical dress as if it were a royal robe, and she seemed regal from head to foot. She looked steadily at him, and when he finally met her eyes, he stopped fiddling. "Oh," he said, "You're old."

"Thanks," she replied with a wry grin.

"Oh, no, no, no, not like that! You're older than you look! You're, what, early 20s, but..."

"I don't know what you mean," she replied, cold and still regal.

"Well, look in here," he said as he opened the door to the TARDIS. He expected her to gasp and he happily awaited his favorite part: "It's bigger on the inside!"

But instead, she asked, "Are you from Narnia?"

"Bigger on the-wait, what?" he replied.

"Narnia," she said again, and though she kept her regal tone, she said the word as if it were music.

"No..." he replied, confused, "Where is that?"

"Oh, over in Italy," she said calmly, covering her slip, "I just wondered if you were from Italy, and I spent a lot of time there growing up." She remembered what she had once learned in another world, where the fate of a nation rested on her and her siblings' shoulders: that an important rule was to tell as much as the truth as possible. It was true that she had spent a lot of time in Narnia growing up, and there really was a place in Italy called Narni.

"No, no, Narnia isn't in Italy," the Doctor replied, watching her closely, "but maybe I can help you get back there, wherever it is. You don't belong here, do you?"

"Why would you ever say that?"

"Stop pretending! You don't look like a 20-something-year-old British secretary from 1954; you act like a queen and your eyes look thirty years older than the rest of you. So come in here: this is my TARDIS-transport to all of time and space. We can get you back home."

"No, you can't," she said with finality. "I was told I could never go back."

"We can still try. At least tell me what happened."

"First, though, are you human?"

"No, are you?"

"Yes. And a very dear friend once told me never to trust things that look like humans but aren't."

"Well, he was a wise man," said the Doctor with a grin, "But can we at least go somewhere else if you won't come in here? It really is a bit odd standing around on the street talking about not being human. I might get arrested for madness or something, you know."

"All right. I know a place."

Susan led the strange man off in the direction of a park she and her siblings had discovered after they first returned from Narnia. In the deepest part of it, surrounded by pines, they could almost imagine they were still Kings and Queens and that a faun might invite them to tea at any moment. She was always the practical one, though, and when Aslan told her that she could never return to Narnia, she had refused to think about it ever again. She knew it would break her, and she was a Queen. Queen Susan the Gentle, one of the four ancient sovereigns of all Narnia. She could never break. But, when everyone had died in the train wreck all those years later, she remembered. She remembered Narnia, she remembered Aslan, and she knew that she had lied to herself for years.

She now did her best to follow Aslan as He was in this world, but sometimes she still felt so alone and longed for her home.

The Doctor followed this strange girl, wondering what would happen. He loved a mystery! She did not belong, just like him; she was older than she looked, just like him; she could not go home, just like him: but he would try to help her.

When they arrived, the girl sat on one of four crumbling tree stumps, arranged curiously, almost as though they were four thrones at the head of a Great Hall. She certainly sat as though she were on a royal throne.

As the Doctor sat down beside the girl, she spoke: "He wasn't a man, you know."

"Who wasn't?" the Doctor replied.

"The one who told me not to trust things that look like humans but aren't."

"What was he then?"

"A Beaver." she replied, then stared at him, daring him to disbelieve her.

"I believe you," he said, "but I imagine no one else has for a long time."

"Yes," she replied, and began to tell him her whole story in a style learned in different world. "Long ago, ten years ago or forty years ago or thousands of years ago, I had two brothers, Peter and Edmund, and a sister, Lucy. We were sent away from London because of the blitz to live in an old house in the country. When we were there, we found a wardrobe...

"...Aslan told Peter and me that we could never come back to Narnia. I told myself it never happened. I never spoke to the others about Narnia. Still, they told me that our cousin Eustace had gotten back to Narnia with Edmund and Lucy, and then that Eustace and his friend Jill had gone. Later, they told me that they planned on using the magic rings to get back to Narnia. But then, the very next day, they all died in a train wreck. Every last one. Every Friend of Narnia-except me." she paused for a while, staring into the distance.

The Doctor broke the silence, "Why did you trust me?"

"Because not trusting left me alone. Because Aslan told me not to listen to my fears."

"Susan, if Aslan told you you would never return to Narnia, you probably won't, or certainly not to Narnia as you knew it. I had thought that you might be a stranded alien, blending into London life. I could take you home then, anywhere and anywhen. But my TARDIS isn't magic. She's science. She only works in this universe. Still, I can show you all of time and space. Would you like to come?"

Susan looked at him, considering. "I don't belong here," she said, "but I don't belong anywhere else anymore, either. Still, maybe I'll find a place. I'll come with you."