When she gets the phone call, Susan is brushing her hair. Not as long as it had been when she was Queen Susan the Gentle, when princes fell at her feet and countries warred for her hand, but Susan does not think of that anymore.
Perhaps, when the phone rings, she has a momentary flash of annoyance at the interruption of her task; perhaps she wonders if she could just leave it (for surely it can't be that important), but in the end, she picks it up, and says, Hello. Yes, I am Susan Pevensie.
What do you mean, there's been an accident?
It all seemed so neat, when they were all in that golden country; but no one had remembered Susan, for she had not remembered them. She had forgotten (or she had chosen not to remember – and why? Because she thought she could never go back? Because the alternative was to remember, and to live in painful longing?) – and now, no longer a friend of Narnia, what did it matter that she was not there? What did it matter that she would be left behind, alone, to live and die whilst they, eternally alive, ran free in Aslan's country?
Perhaps she doesn't believe them, when they tell her. Her parents, brothers, her baby sister; how could they all be gone? Perhaps she stares at the letter she received from Peter not two days ago, handwriting messy and rushed as if the pen was too slow for him to express all he wanted to say. Perhaps she remembers that the last time she had picked up the phone, the line had crackled with the joy of Lucy's laughter. Perhaps she looks across the room at the bookshelf, lined with gifts from Professor Kirk.
Perhaps it takes her a while to believe, and as she walks around in a daze, planning funerals and filling in forms, reading wills and settling accounts, it still doesn't seem real to her. As if she is living in a dream, or the dream of a dream.
Perhaps it sinks in whilst she clears out Edmund's flat. Packing her stubborn, righteous little brother into brown cardboard boxes, perhaps the enormity of the tragedy finally hits her, and she sinks down, down, and rests her head on the ottoman and cries until she can cry no more.
She will never see them again, she thinks.
Perhaps, though, after she has dried her tears, she straightens her dress and just gets on with it, fumbling with tape and cardboard, and continues her task until the whole flat is cleared.
Perhaps, when she gets home, her fingers are trembling so badly that she breaks a glass. Perhaps, when she goes to bed, she just sits there, unable to sleep, and so perhaps then she gives up, and cries hopeless sobs that wrack her body as her heart breaks for the family she loved so fiercely.
But perhaps, just perhaps, in the midst of despair so black, there is a glimmer of light. A memory, of golden mane and solemn eyes, and perhaps, not quite knowing why, she cries out, Aslan! Oh, Aslan, they loved you so! Please, please…
Perhaps, though she doesn't know what it is she asks for, she half-hopes to hear a lion's roar echoing through the worlds, to feel a lion's kiss on her forehead and to know that all shall be well.
And, although this does not happen, perhaps the room feels less empty than it did; perhaps her heart feels quieter and her sorrow more muted, and perhaps, although she thinks she should feel silly for crying out to an imaginary lion, perhaps she does not.
Perhaps she does feel silly in the morning, when bright lights streams through the cracks in the curtains and casts cold common sense on her actions. Perhaps she sighs, a little uncomfortably, and supposes that she should be thankful that no one heard her.
Perhaps she doesn't know why that makes her so sad.
Perhaps, as she walks to work, she passes the wooden doors of a church, and perhaps it is a trick of the light, but perhaps she sees the lion's head on the door knocker blink.
Perhaps this is why she puts on a nice dress that Sunday, and does her hair, and steps through the church doors at five to ten (and she could almost swear that the lion's mane had moved as she passed, as if a breeze were blowing through it).
Perhaps, although she does not linger long after the service, something about it clings to her and makes her return, the pale, pretty woman who sits at the back and does not speak. Perhaps there is something there that starts to heal the cracks in her heart, that fills an ache and a longing she did not know was there. Perhaps there is something familiar in the texts that are read (although at first, she cannot put her finger on what – for she has forgotten much, and remembering hurts) and that familiarity feels like home.
Perhaps one night, she cracks the spine of her leather-bound Bible for the first time in years, and reads the Gospel of St Matthew, of how the women stood and watched from a distance as Christ died most horribly and humbly, and perhaps something wrenches within her soul.
Perhaps she remembers a cold, sleepless night, and a whisper from Lucy, and the softness of a golden mane under frozen fingers; and a stone knife and a stone table and blood and ropes and how the coldest part of the night is always before the dawn.
Perhaps Susan looks up, and calls His name again, and says, Aslan, oh, Aslan, you used to love me too – why have you left me here?
And perhaps a breeze flutters the pages so that she looks down and sees the last line written, And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
And, perhaps, Susan starts to believe.