She stared at the wreckage. Twisted metal and shrapnel littered the walkway. Inside the station, she could hear the moaning and screaming of those that were trapped.
Her family was inside. It scared her, and she wanted with everything in her to see them again. The last time she'd spoken with them, it hadn't ended well…
"I wish you would stop talking about that ridiculous game. That was ages ago, and it wasn't real. It was just a story we made up as kids!"
Her younger sister had frozen, tears welling up in her eyes, "Susan, you don't mean that! You know it was real. You were there!"
"Oh, come now. The three of you need to just grow up! This is foolishness, and you know it. Narnia was just a game. There isn't a way for you to 'go back' if it never existed."
Her older brother stood, anger flashing in his clear, blue eyes, "Susan, even Professor Kirke said he'd been there. How can you even begin to say that what was there wasn't real?"
Susan set her jaw, her perfectly painted porcelain face and bright red lips twisted into a grimace, "Peter, the Professor is getting on in years. Even when we were at his home in the countryside, I could tell he was a bit…"
"What, Susan? Mad?" her younger brother stood and spoke in a quiet voice. He'd been trying to hold back, promising himself he would keep his anger in check. "So much for Queen Susan the Gentle."
Everyone froze, staring at Susan to see her reaction. "In that case," she spoke carefully and slowly, venom seeping in to every word, "If what you say is true, then Edmund betrayed each and every one of us for a few sweets."
Lucy's breathing hitched, "Susan!" She started to walk towards her sister, but Edmund held her back.
"No, Lucy, she's right. I did," his voice was still quiet and controlled, "But I was forgiven and changed by the Lion himself and there is nothing she can say that will change that. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to the train station. We're supposed to meet the rest of the Seven Friends there." He directed the last sentence at Peter and Lucy, his eyes asking if they were coming as well.
Susan received mixed stares from her siblings as they passed her. Edmund gave her a look of sadness. Peter shot her a glare of contempt and anger. Lucy wouldn't even look at her.
It was the last time she saw them alive…
Susan sat on the pavement and sobbed; a friend of hers who worked at the railway station had been on break and come back to find this. He'd confirmed the deaths of her sister and brothers and then walked away to help with the rest. Her heart was breaking. She couldn't breathe. She had to get away, so she ran all the way to her home.
Once inside, she stumbled to the kitchen table, clutching her side. She very nearly started to make a cup of tea, but a still, small voice in her head told her not to. Instead, she went to Lucy's room, almost hoping that her little sister would pop out from behind her bed and say, "Surprise! We were just joking!"
There was only silence.
Susan was about to leave when something on Lucy's bed caught her eye. It was a bible. She walked over to it and picked it up, running her hand over the leather cover. The voice in her head was back, telling her to open it. When she flipped it open to the first page, a note fell out and fluttered to the floor.
Susan sank to the ground beside it and leaned her head against the bed frame. She glanced at the note and choked back a sob when she saw her younger brother's writing on it. "Oh, Aslan, forgive me," she whispered quietly.
She could have sworn she heard his deep voice whisper back, "You are always forgiven, my child…"
The note, tucked away in the beginning pages of the bible, read:
To my dearest sister, Queen Lucy the Valiant of Narnia,
He was right. He is in our world. I found his other name.
Your brother,
King Edmund the Just
