Lucy Danced in Sunshine

By MkofGod

Lucy danced in sunshine, her footsteps light across the grass.

"We miss you." She whispered, distant giggling overlapping her words. She spun in circles, arms lifted over her head. "We're waiting…" One arm swooped down like a ribbon falling on the waves of gravity. Leaves twirled around her, catching the light of the sun on their slick sides. Lucy's hair was spun silk catching shadows. "When are you coming home?"

And suddenly she was standing still with blood in her mouth. Her face was crushed, mangled beyond recognition. One dark blue eye stared out from a bloody wreck of bone and muscle. If it hadn't been for the wrecked silver lion clip in her hair, a gift from Peter years ago, Susan would never have been able to identify her.

"We're waiting."

And the Lion roared.

Susan jerked erect in her bed.

Her breath was caught in her chest, her heart hammered against her breastbone. She sat in the bed, the sheets bunched up around her waist, until her chest finally stopped heaving. Slowly she slipped her feet out of the bed and let her toes strike the cold floor. She paused to look at the clock – 3:19 A.M – and left the bed.

Her nightgown rippled across her leg as she walked.

Pale silver light illuminated the designs on her walls, easing the edges of the ancient armor that lined her walls. Half way down the hall she paused in the shadows. Her large bay window let in a moonbeam that illuminated the beautiful painting.

The light elucidated the gold in her hair, the sun in her smile. She was dressed in crimson and gold, her hair pulled back from her face by a silver clip. Flowers of blue and purple lay limply against her lap, and she sat passively in the cage of her picture.

It was wrong.

Lucy would never have consented to sitting for a painter. In Nar…

…In that place, Lucy had to be distracted by puppies, or the dancing of fawns, or a good conversation about the mating habits of bumblebees.

Susan stepped into the light. Lucy's smile was frozen at thirteen, but the image Susan pictured was older. Much older, with grace in long lanky limbs and an arching brow lifted in teasing laughter. The painted ghostly white skin was replaced by brazen brown, darkened from hours in the sun.

Pain hit Susan suddenly and with a scream she ripped the painting off the wall. With another cry she hurled the picture out the window. The shattering glass caught the canvas and ripped it through Lucy's face. The painted landed with a heavy thud on the soft ground outside. It was heavy and didn't go far, but Susan felt better. She huffed in vicious satisfaction, still hunched from the exertion.

Slowly Susan's heaving shoulders slowed and she realized what she had done.

Her face crumpled. Susan stumbled through the broken glass to the windowsill. She cut her hands on the glass shards still in their frame as she sprang through the window; her silk nightgown caught and tore.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she chanted, pulling the picture from the shards. She hugged it to her chest, sobbing and rocking back and forth. Grey hair stuck to the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I'm sorry. Please, please, I am so sorry. Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy."

At her back she could feel the silent glare of a bloody specter. She huddled shivering over the shredded painting. Bile rose in the back of her throat to choke her and she clenched a hand over her mouth.

"I'm sorry."

I can't join you yet.