It was the Horn that called us out of our world. It was the Horn, or some magic within the Horn, that continually ripped us out of our lives that – by that time – had finally begun to settle down. It was the Horn that brought us home.
Of course, it wasn't the Horn the very first time that drew Lucy into the Wardrobe. On that day, the Horn was still in the possession of Father Christmas as he tried – in vain – to breach the Witch's security on the Narnian border.
But the same magic that lived in the Horn resided deep within the Wardrobe that was truly Narnian at heart. It was Deep Magic, the kind that was pure and simple enough to ask for help, to have the power to draw children of our world – pure and simple children – into a pure and simple land in its times of distress.
Is there a reason why Aslan himself chose four simple children like us to fulfill a prophecy meant for kings and queens? It took me many years of pondering to finally find the answer: all of us are kings and queens at heart. In Narnia, a pure and simple land, one truly learned that the best way to learn this basic principle of childhood and innocence is from a land that is childlike at its core.
Narnia was structured around children. If one grew up and realized that such a place was figment of their imagination – like dear, sweet Susan – the doorway to Paradise was barred to them until they learned to repent their maturity. One needed to be strong, but kind, to find their way to Narnia.
Of course, magic was the real reason that we returned time after time. However, I like to believe that a deeper magic than even that, magic that only Aslan himself and his great father, the Emperor-over-the-Sea, knew truly of. It is my belief that we returned to our kingdom because of love, because it was our true home.
We were called back time and time again because we were needed. Children from our world are often the only hope for Narnia in times of great need. Our unusual traditions and ways of seeing the world offered diversity among the sovereignty, and – in the end – it has been us that has always saved the Narnian people.
The Horn – my dear sister Susan's own Horn – was a symbol of how our return was determined by those who needed us most. A doorway would not open unless it was time for it to on the other side. The Horn was a simple item that elaborated the fact that we were at Aslan's beck-and-call.
In the days after I left Narnia for the last time, I often wondered what ever had happened to that Horn, who would use it next, and if it would only call back those of us who hadn't gotten too old to return. "We left it with Caspian," Susan would tell me in the beginning, before she lost her way. "Hopefully he will hand it down for generations, so that whoever needs us can call us when the situation arises."
I wondered for a very long time about the Horn in the eternal period after the train wreck. I missed Susan terribly for a very long while, and Aslan once told me, "Son of Adam, you are restless. I know what you seek. Listen, my King: you will find what you need at the place where it all began."
And of course I pondered this statement for a while, before I came to a very sudden realization. For the next half day, I ran as fast as my legs would carry me (which was fast, and no one got tired or hot in this place) along the ridges that connected the mountains of Aslan's country, until I reached the one that was the true England. The Professor's house appeared in the sunshine, looking the same as it had so long ago, when I was a younger boy. I threw open the door and raced up the stairs, finding almost immediately the room that had haunted my dreams for so long when I was still alive. The Wardrobe was in the same place and looked identical to the one in the Shadowlands.
I swiftly opened the majestic wooden door, searching the bottom of the Wardrobe for it. And there it was: the white Horn, resting untouched on the wood, gleaming as though it had just been polished. I pulled it to my lips and blew, and suddenly the room was filled with the sweetest call in the world.
In another place, and under another sky and another sun, the thirty-five year old Susan Pevensie stirred in her sleep, awaking to light streaming out from under her doorway. She got up and padded softly to the door, pulling it open slowly. She at once heard soft rustles in the air of disturbed ghosts, and the deep, rumbling growl of a Lion, and, somewhere, far off in the distance, she thought she could hear the sound of a hunting Horn being blown. And against all odds, and her past, Susan stepped forward into the light.