And the Air Smelled So Sweet
Peter disappeared first.
The four Pevensie children had just come back from the country, back to the small house that felt even smaller now that their home had once been a castle, back to the mother who was a stranger to them, back to the artificially imposed curfew of a child's bedtime, and all of them were having trouble sleeping. Their mother thought it was because of worry about the bombs and their father, but really it was because they'd spent fifteen years staying awake till midnight for work and entertaining, and the Professor had let them continue that routine after they'd returned from Narnia. Now their mother would tuck them in at seven and they'd spend so long trying to fall asleep that by the time they nodded off it was far later than it would have been if they'd been able to only go to bed at midnight like they were used to. Peter and Edmund had talked quietly in their room for the first few nights before their mother said that they were disturbing her and they really should be sleeping. The boys looked at the girls and Susan looked at their mother and said they would try.
Peter was trying to sleep when he rolled over and saw a door that he'd never seen before. It was right next to his bed in the place of a window that he was sure had been there when he'd turned his head to whisper to Edmund. He should have been looking at blackout curtains shut tight against the non-existent light in their room, not towering wood that seemed to give off its own light, beckoning him to look closer.
His bare feet touched the cold floor before he'd even decided to get out of bed. He stood and closed the short distance between himself and the door, reaching out one hand to touch the wood grain. There was something carved into the wood. He traced it with his fingers and squinted in the dim light.
"Be sure," he read aloud. Well, there were many things Peter was sure of. He was sure that his siblings loved him. He was sure that he could pick up a sword and best most men who had trained as long as he had. He was sure that without him Edmund would get into as much trouble as he did when the Princess of Misora came to Cair Paravel to court him. He was sure that he was High King Peter the Magnificent. But most of all, Peter was sure that he didn't belong here, that this wasn't his world.
Edmund was brought out of the half-sleep that had fallen over him by his brother's voice. He rolled over just in time to see a flash of Peter's pale blue nightclothes as a door swung shut behind him and disappeared, leaving the window that had always been there in its place.
"But why didn't he take us with him?" Lucy wailed while Susan saw to their mother, who had fainted in the siting room upon finding that one of her children had disappeared in the middle of the night. "Why did he go without us?"
Edmund hugged his crying sister. "I don't think he went to Narnia, Lu. I think he went somewhere else." The space behind the door was too dark and the door was all wrong. The land where Peter was now was not Narnia.
"But Narnia is home," Lucy sobbed. "Why would he go anywhere else?"
Edmund patted her back and said nothing.
There was a search for Peter, one that the remaining Pevensie children knew was pointless but also knew was something that their mother needed. After a week the conclusion was drawn that Peter had done what most boys his age talked about and run away to go fight in the war, and been quite successful by the looks of it. The search was called off. Helen Pevensie mourned her eldest son and Lucy cried for days at the injustice of it all. Edmund did his best to cheer them up and got tearful praise about being such a good son while Susan kept the house running and let their mother fall apart for as long as she needed to.
A few weeks after Peter disappeared, a few days before Edmund, Susan and Lucy were to go back to school, Edmund suggested that they go to a river that they used to frequent when they were younger, before the war when their father was around to shepherd them on such adventures. The girls agreed and their mother sent them off with a watery smile and the order to be home for dinner.
When they arrived at the river, Lucy smiled for the first time since Peter left. "It's like home."
It was very like Narnia by the river, warm and idyllic, like the war couldn't touch them there between the trees and the rushing water.
Edmund kicked off his shoes and rolled up his trousers. "Last one in cooks for centaurs!"
"No fair!" Susan and Lucy laughed and hurried to strip off their shoes and socks.
Edmund ran into the river ahead of his sisters. At its deepest point the water would come up to his shoulders, but he stuck to the shallows so that their mother and Susan wouldn't be able to complain about him ruining his clothing. While the idea was good in principle, it failed miserably when Lucy waded into the river and engaged him in a battle of splashing water that left both of them drenched.
"I'm going to make you wash those clothes," Susan threatened with a smile on her face.
Edmund and Lucy laughed. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Edmund saw something odd. He turned to get a better look. Bubbles were rising in the water next to him, popping at the surface and leaving behind a silver sheen like a mirror. Instead of the sky and the trees, this floating mirror was reflecting the stone and stalactites of some far away cavern. Edmund reached out. The surface bent under his fingers, then broke. He felt himself falling, falling, falling, far and away and towards.
Susan stared as her brother turned to water and disappeared.
There were whispers in the neighbourhood about the Pevensie brothers. How could they do that to their poor mother? It was one thing for the eldest to run off, but the younger brother was only eleven. What did he think he was doing going to go fight in the war? Helen Pevensie put on a smile that was so brittle it could have been broken by a feather. Susan helped their mother at home and organized school supplies for her and Lucy. Lucy cried and screamed until she was hoarse and shut herself in their room, emerging the day before they were to take the train to school with bloodshot eyes and a smile that matched their mother's. The three Pevensie women hugged and held each other together, and Susan worried for their mother having to send them off the next day.
Susan checked their luggage one last time before going to change into her nightgown. Lucy was already asleep, worn out from her hours of crying. Susan tried to be as quiet as she could so that she wouldn't wake her sister. As she pulled her socks off she lost her balance and quickly put her free hand out to catch herself on the wall. What her hand met instead was smooth, cool metal. Susan looked up with surprise and saw that she was holding on to a doorknob that was attached to a door that she had never seen before, not in England and not in Narnia. She stood up straight and did what anyone with their hand on a doorknob would do. She turned the doorknob.
The door opened a crack. Susan hesitated for a moment before pulling it wide open and beholding the grove of trees on the other side. She took one step forward, then another, and another. Her bare feet sank into the lush grass and the door swung softly closed behind her.
It was the dark of early evening on the other side of the door. The trees were tall and thick. Their dark green canopy was broken apart by shining red fruit. Susan reached up and touched one of the fruits. It was so ripe that it fell into her hand and broke open, revealing the dozens of ruby seeds inside. Pomegranates. She was in a grove of pomegranate trees.
Susan walked through the grove, running her fingers along the trunk of every tree she passed. The grass under her feet was wet with dew. The canopy above her thinned and when she looked up she couldn't help but gasp. She was standing beneath a black velvet sky sprinkled with stars that wasn't a sky at all but the high ceiling of some great hall so large that Cair Paravel could have fit inside it hundreds upon hundreds of times. And the air, the air smelled so sweet. Not like England, not like Narnia, better than Narnia.
Tears ran down Susan's cheeks as she stared up at the sky that was not a sky, at the shining stars that formed constellations she felt like she had known all her life, and she didn't wipe those tears away. They were tears not of sadness but of joy. Susan Pevensie was finally, finally home.
A/n: This was inspired by the idea I read somewhere on the internet that Narnia was Lucy's door and her siblings just followed her through. Since Peter, Edmund and Susan have experience with doors to other worlds, I decided to write about them finding their own doors. I think that Peter may have gone to a Netherworld, Edmund to a Lake or Drowned World, and Susan obviously went to an Underworld (the Halls of the Dead). I've no idea where Peter and Edmund's worlds fall on the compass, though I think it's likely that Peter's is a Logic world. (For those of you with no idea what I'm talking about, there's an article called "A Travel Guide to the Worlds of Seanan McGurie's Wayward Children Series" on the Tor Books website that explains it, but it does have spoilers for the first four Wayward Children books so proceed with caution.)
This story may get a sequel. I've got thoughts about what Prince Caspian would be like with Peter, Edmund and Susan having lived in other worlds.
-Cynder2013