Disclaimer: I don't own Narnia or any of its characters.
I admit I started out not liking Susan whatsoever, but after a while she began to grow on me. And so after four years, I throw myself back into this fandom. :p
Suddenly, It All Seems Like a Blurry Dream
...but I was there, wide awake, I lived it all
1. Their mother is sick.
It does not hit suddenly, but it is a gradual change in how the household is – the halls are quieter, the air is colder. When they return from Narnia they stay at the Professor's house, shadowing its halls as if ghosts. (the professor does not ask, for he knows all too well.) Susan is heartbroken – so, so heartbroken that she cries in her pillows for several nights afterwards, sending poor Lucy into a fright – but she knows, in the deepest place of her heart – no matter how much she refuses to see it – that nothing would have ever worked between the young King and her. King Caspian's Narnia is not – never – her Narnia, and she cradles her memories close to her.
Then the year turns and their mother falls ill.
2. Mother says, "Don't worry, Susan. Just enjoy life as it comes," but Susan can hear her coughing in her bedroom in the dead of night, her father's soothing voice breaking amidst the noise. She can see the signs of age creeping up onto her body; once, she passes by Lucy's room, heading to nowhere (just walking, walking) and catches a glimpse of her sister crying into her younger brother's arms.
"I wish I had my cordial," Lucy sobs – no longer Valiant, no longer strong, for her tears are free for everyone to see now – and Susan flees from the figures beyond the faint light, ashamed, and buries her body in her sheets. She trembles, pressed against the cold bed, and remembers a mighty voice telling her that she has been listening to the fears of her mind. The voice is faint but strong, so she closes her eyes and prays in her dreams. To whom, for what, she is unsure. She is only aware of the absence gnawing deep at her heart.
3. Peter is never in the house. She catches him with the Professor she remembers meeting in her youth, studying, discussing, playing of Narnia and of castles and of creatures. Tears blur her visions of mighty ruins and stretching plains and Susan bursts in on him, screaming – "Enough with these games, Peter! Enough!" – and when he just stares (she remembers he was older once, magnificent once, but doesn't quite know where) she runs out of the room and to her mother's study. Their father never steps foot in here so she sits at the desk, brushes away the dust, and begins to write. The scritch-scratch of the pen soothes her mind as she pens a letter to their relatives, and knows with finality that someone in this house needs to grow up.
4. Edmund and Lucy stop whispering in her presence. She knows that they are talking of their Narnia and laughs, saying to them, "Oh, that childish game we played when we were young." There's pity in their eyes and she feels she doesn't really understand why.
5. When the invitation to America comes, she takes it with Mother's encouragement. She tells her that her father and Peter will take care of her just fine, that there is no need to worry, Susan, darling so she packs her bags and leaves without a proper send-off. Lucy waits at the door and watches her with such eyes that for a moment Susan doubts, but the slam of Edmund's door upstairs is enough to snap her out of it. She smiles and kisses her sister's cheek; "Good-bye, Lucy," she says, and can hear faintly as she closes the front door,
"Good-bye, Susan."
Edmund watches her from his bedroom window and there is a brief flash of yellow beside him; Susan averts her eyes as she gets in the cab, and wonders when she forgot how to cry.
6. Her parents send her many letters during her stay. Lucy chips in sometimes, too, but Susan knows she has nothing to say. She visits many theatres and parties and meets many wonderful, wonderful people – her life in America is grand, and she finds that she misses her family less and less with each passing day. For her twenty-first birthday she finds a package waiting from Peter and Edmund – "For the Gentle Queen," the note reads. She frowns at their words, annoyed by the ever-lasting make-belief jokes, and hides the small fur coat at the back of her closet.
A messenger stands at her doorstep a week later.
7. She doesn't pray. She doesn't believe. She doesn't do anything, just cries for all those years she couldn't.
8. At age seventy-three, she is unmarried. She has no children. There is a woman who comes and helps her in her old age, for she is dying. She sleeps, but she dreams when she is awake. A small memory strays in her mind, of churches back in England and of long mornings spent there, just sitting, wondering where her next party would be held (she leaves the listening to her siblings). A guttural voice, half-animal half-man speaks to her as she wakes, and the voice brings familiar comfort.
There is an old coat hanging at the back of her closet; a long-ago gift from a dead brother. She asks the woman at her bedside to bring it to her, and her voice is calm – she cradles it close to her, pressing the soft fur against her old body.
She closes her eyes and smells snowy pine and sunlight.