First post to ! Also, I do not own the character of Susan, the land of Narnia, or anything written by C.S. Lewis, or anything written by John Milton. I just like to puppet his creations and make them dance to a tune of my own making. Reviews are MUCH appreciated, particularly concerning if the letter is too long.
Inspired by Paradise Lost and the C o N: The Last Battle.
The night they all died, Susan Pevensie had been out dancing.
With two beaus on each arm, American students that both answered to the name Johnny, Susan had jitterbugged her way into the Lindy Hop jazzed on by the yellow blare of trumpets. Even the air was yellow, a haze of citrine cigarette smoke that suspended light above their heads. Saxophones sung winged melodies that soared into her bloodstream, and both Johnny's had whispered doll, goddess, I've never seen anything as beautiful as you, pressing sloshing glasses of firewater into her hands until she could not tell their faces apart. And then they had danced some more, laughing and twirling, mistaking partners and steps, until they stumbled through the exit of the Ace of Clubs and into the night that was slowly creaming into dawn. Still, there were evening stars bare and clear and less like diamonds than flares, and when looking at them Susan felt unease; she smiled through it until her lipstick wore off on cigarette butts and shirt collars and she forgot what had affected her so.
She awoke in the morning, alone, sloshed, and at her flat, to a knock that rumbled like a train. Keenly aware of her stale perfume and loose stockings, she stumbled to the door, opening it with a drowsy cheekiness. A constable solemnly stood, eyes gray at the corners but still widening as he took her in, lingering at the dip in her throat, the corner of her smile. With nothing in her mind but impudence, Susan lounged against the doorway. "Wotcher, Bobby-Peeler," she said, grinning with tongue-between-teeth.
The constable's face changed, lengthened. "Please, miss. We need you to come down to the Bow Road railway station."
At the Bow Road railway station, the train had lain on its side, black and skeletal. Steam rose off it in torrents, hot to inhale, fetid and foul and cloying. An accident, the constable said, conflagration. Please, he said, look; identify.
The bodies were laid in rows like seed-plantings, charred through the bone and poorly concealed underneath white tarps. The constable lifted the tarp off each one, and Susan numbly clenched her coat around her ribs and moved down the rows. Ears and noses had melted into the skull, and Susan tried vainly to match Lucy's eyes over vacant sockets, or Peter's chin over a scorched jaw. She walked up the row, up another, before tracing back to the third body in the last row, because what if it was Edmund? What if it was Father? She found Edmund by the Christmas pocket-watch on his chest, Father by the twisted spectacles with the glass blown out of them. She could only identify Lucy by how small she was, though the corpse looked more small, more fragile than she remembered Lucy being. There were two women in the same train car that Susan supposed could be Mother. They both had the remnants of flattering heels; each wore plain wedding bands. Susan stared at the steam that still rose off of the finger-bones and tried to envision Mother's hand on each corpse, the fingernails freshly painted, but when she looked at each twisted wrist, all she could picture was her own fingers, longer than Mother's; pianist's hands, Mother had always said, lovely hands—the beauty of the family, isn't she marvelous?
Her legs had turned bloodless, and she collapsed to her knees, head stuttering with horror and the wispy-cloud remnants of whiskey. She could feel the pressure of tears building within her throat, but no wetness appeared on her cheeks; she cried tearless, hiccupping sobs. She pretended that she knew the body on the left was Mother, and lay beside it, watching the steam on the flesh slowly dissolve, save for a few vapors that still coiled near the ribcage.
When the steam had completely evaporated, a man clutching the blackened tatters of a briefcase crouched beside her. There were initials on it, he said, two intertwining P's; they think they found Peter in another section of the train, would she care to come identify him?
Susan stared at him. No, she said, no she would not care to come identify her brother. Her brother is blond and blue-eyed—and alive, a small part of her hissed—and there are no blond, blue-eyed corpses here!
The man stared at her too, eyes so very sad. We believe there were two males with the man we believe is Peter—one rather small, and one larger. Would she care to come identify them?
No, Susan said, she would not.
Please, the man said, we cannot reach the families; the small one wore a school-pin—the Experiment House—
—Eustace, Susan cried, my little cousin Eustace, Eustace Scrubbs.
Eustace Scrubbs, the man said, rolling out the name in his mouth, the small one is Eustace Scrubbs.
She hated the man then, hated him for labeling name to corpse like one would label pickles.
The larger man, the man said, the larger man had a box that survived the fire, a box full of green and yellow rings—
—The Professor!
And Susan felt that pressure well within her again, as she remembered the stories of green and yellow rings told by the kindly old Professor Diggory , the Professor who sheltered four children from the bombs that rained like hail, who took them into his home and let them play hide-and-seek and traipse through wardrobes—her breath hitched and she halted the thought.
She can identify the larger man as Professor Kirke, Susan said, and she is going home now.
Alone, she arrived at her flat, though she does not remember leaving the wreckage site or even the long walk across the streets of London. She paused before her door, realizing that she had wanted to go home but that this is not where she wanted to go. Her face felt feverish but the rest of her felt so very, very cold—her hands, her toes, her chest. For a quarter of an hour she stared at the entrance of her apartment, her breasts feeling as heavy as stones, before she realized she couldn't think of where else home would be. With resignation, she walked up the steps to her flat and locked herself inside her bedroom, watching the clock and repeating to herself every hour that Father, Mother, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and the Professor were dead, with God-knows who many other people on that train.
Susan did not emerge from her room until the morning of the funeral, when friends of her father's, whom she recognized by the name but not by the voice, called to her through her keyhole to get ready for the funeral, only to have Susan meet them at the door coat in hand, greeting them only with a smile. Her hair was carefully rolled into curls, her mouth berry-red, her dress ironed, her rose hat precisely pinned. The dress was gray lace over pink taffeta, far too lively for a funeral, but when her father's friends protested, Susan waved them off, taking only a minute to lock up before exiting the flat.
The funeral was a private, mass funeral in a London graveyard that she didn't recognize, with friends gathered to remember the lives of the "seven friends"—Susan found out a friend of the Professor's, Polly, and a friend of Eustace's, Jill, had also been on the train—and the lives of Father and Mother. Each coffin was a closed ebony casket, and next to each casket was a perfectly-shaped grave, amounting to nine in total—one for Peter, one for Edmund, one for Lucy, one for Eustace, one for Jill, one for the Professor, one for Polly, one for Father, and one for Mother. Susan remained perfectly poised throughout the entire ceremony, listening to students from Peter's university bemoan how much potential he had, how he would have been a truly great leader; how Eustace surprised everyone by changing overnight into a very pleasant boy that one was proud to call English; how Susan must now be in their prayers, poor little lamb, left so alone.
Not one crying student or crying neighbor or crying friend mentioned how Peter struggled with authority and was expelled once, or how Edmund was socially shunned because of his strict morals, or how Lucy was bullied because she flouted stories of Father Christmas and naiads and dryads; how they all nattered on and on about a magical land found in a wardrobe and how they all longed to be there, with the Aslan who always saved them but then abandoned them into the world not contained by wardrobes, where there was no Aslan to place crowns on your heads when you were good, or even to save you from a derailed train. No one mentioned that at all, or that even a good many people here knew that Susan had cut off contact from her siblings weeks before the crash. Instead there was the transparent tiptoeing around subjects deemed "delicate". A constant flutter of neighbors hovered near Susan, attempting to comfort her through their fussing, but most were afraid to touch her stone-coldness, though the pastor drew close enough to her to press a bible into her hands much like the Johnnys had given her alcohol. She smiled politely at the pastor, pushing away his bible, before focusing her attention on arranging her dress.
This action caught attention, and whispers slipped their way past gloved hands and wine glasses, before wafting to the peaks of Susan's aloofness—
—What is she wearing? Pink? To a funeral?
—All of the family at once! The odds, really, the odds!
—She has some family left, an aunt and uncle, but they didn't even come to their own son's funeral, so I doubt they'd take an active interest in her wellbeing.
—Alberta says she wasn't even on speaking terms with Lucy or Edmund, though she received an occasional letter from the eldest boy, Peter. Can you imagine? She lost her siblings before the accident, she did.
—Tafetta! I heard she was vain, but to her own mother's funeral?
The whispers pierced through her ear canal like a needle. The dress is for Mother, she wanted to say; I was the beauty of the family. Now I am just the beauty.
Susan remained as each coffin was placed in the ground, never losing track of whose coffin was whose. She did not stay to toss a handful of soil into the grave, nor did she stay to see the coffins fully buried. Instead, she abruptly stood during the ceremony and walked out of the graveyard until she reached the city block, hailing a cab with one fluid movement. No one stopped her. She returned to her flat through the back alley, unlocked, and then relocked, before she moved to the bathroom and removed hat, dress, lipstick, hairpins, stockings, and undergarments before the mirror. For the rest of the night, she stared at and analyzed the image confronting her, wondering who she really was before all this, and who she was now; daughter or sister or Queen or child or woman or orphan.
She found no answers.
When dawn came, Susan found herself in a dormant position on the bathroom tile. She glanced once more in the mirror to find that the tile's diamond-pattern was imprinted on her cheek. Groaning, Susan grabbed a dressing-gown, a hand-me-down from Mother, and headed for her mattress. She glanced once more at the door to ensure that it was locked; yes, it was, but there was now two letters in her post slot.
She hoped that they were invitations from her many beaus to go to a party, to a vacation, to a celebration, to somewhere, anywhere, other than here; though if the envelopes sheltered well-wishing cards, she might just burn them. She bent down and picked up the envelopes. One was gilded, and the other looked as if it was written cheaply, with an aged hand that scrawled in shifting ribbons. She opened the gilded envelope first.
It was a letter from the executor of Professor Kirk's will: Prof. Diggory Kirk, upon his recent demise, though recently experiencing a great loss of his material wealth, bequeathed unto you, Susan Pevensie, something that he deemed to be a great treasure, an antiquated wardrobe, believed to in his family for generations. It was delivered to your flat, though the dimensions are too wide to fit through your doorway. It is currently residing in front of your flat; if you wish it to be moved to a new location, please call upon me and I will see it done. Those at Johnson & Aarons will miss him. Condolences for your loss.
Susan clenched the letter so tightly between forefinger and thumb that it started to tear. She opened her front door, poking her head out of her flat, and peered down the street. There, sitting like a gigantic hatbox underneath a a very large Walnut tree, was the Wardrobe; Lucy's Wardrobe. Susan ran down the steps of her flat, though with each step her movements slowed until she was standing, still, before the Wardrobe.
The Wardrobe looked just as she remembered it, plain, with panels of inlaid looking-glass. Once, then twice, Susan reached for the handle, before, the third time, quickly grasping it. It creaked open like ancient violins, and two mothballs dropped to her feet. She almost laughed. The long, fur coats were still there, too. Susan pressed her face against the fur, feeling the tickle and the itch on her cheeks, before reaching further, past more layers of ermine and mink, and then further, and then further, before her fingertip popped against wood. And then Susan did laugh, an absurd, watery laugh that one laughs when they have dreamed an incredible, ludicrous dream.
She turned her attention to the second letter, taking no care not to shred the envelope. It was signed the Professor. Dearest Susan, it read: if you are receiving this, than I have passed on—as well as your brothers and sister and young cousin—to Narnia. Please, Susan, continue reading. This is our third and final attempt to communicate with you, as we have made plans to leave this world, for Aslan calls us home. He calls you, too, Susan, though you may choose not to believe it. That is your right, of course, to believe as you wish based on logic that is faulty; it is what they teach in school these days.
In these our last days on this world, it is curious that our attention has turned to you, the once-friend of Narnia. Your Valiant sister, Lucy, says that you have forgotten even Aslan, and that you do not speak to her at all. She also says to tell you that she loves you and that she will see you again soon, in Aslan's time.
I will not see you again in this life, so I must tell you that I have watched you turn from a girl into a Queen and then into a girl again; a very vain, very scared girl. Aslan has shown me a dream, in terms that I could I understand, and though I understood quite well, it might require some translating on my part to share this dream with you.
You may never have known what I am a professor of. One of my subjects of interest was the Poet of Poets, Milton. I teach Paradise Lost, among other things, and last night I had a dream of Milton's Eve in the Garden, and of you, and Aslan narrated, so great and so terrible, your entwined stories.
This is the speech of man soon to be lost to your world, so I must be frank. As the Mother of All Living and the Gentle Queen, you are quite similar. You are both beautiful and terribly vain. I have heard tales from Narnia how your beauty bewitched princes; Eve's bewitched Adam, and even momentarily stupefied Satan. But Eve was also bewitched by her own beauty; caution, caution.
Most importantly, I feel that both you and Eve share the same desire for freedom, the freedom to live and thrive and prove oneself. Although Satan lurked in the Garden, Eve desired to separate herself from Adam in order to prove her faithfulness and equality; over Adam's protests, she said, "As we, capable of death or pain/ Can either not receive or can repel./ His fraud is then thy fear, which plain infers/ Thy equal fear that my firm faith and love/ Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced!" Whereas Eve is not a child, she is childlike, and is even scolded by her husband. O Gentle Queen, your dear sister, the Valiant tells me you share this same desire. Do not be angry, for she is careful and precise when judging the heart. In your final adventure to Narnia, you did not believe your sister when she saw a vision of Aslan leading the way to safety, and you even called her a naughty child. Instead, you choose a path of your own making and direction, that lost critical time for both yourself and others. You grew lost. Your desire to grow up regressed you to a child. When Aslan later showed himself to you, you are one of the last ones to see Him. The cause is fear, dear one, fear of not being worth Aslan's love; or, fear of not loving Him. You are brilliant my Queen, but you are not yet wise. He knows your every fear—he has seen mine, and he has seen my every shame, yet He makes us Kings and Queens. For your sake, remember, remember.
Lastly, Susan, you feel you were banished from Narnia. In my dream, you wandered around the tree of Knowledge, bewailing your banishment from Eden, though I could see that you were clearly inside the Garden. Your tears could have moved mountains my dear, could change the face of the earth, but it could not have changed you. Eve was too banished, but she finds redemption in the Christ. I find no greater parallel to Aslan than the Christ. Perhaps they are even one in the same. Find him, dear one, find him in any shape or form you choose be it lion or lamb or Son of God, but find him.
The rings will carry us to Narnia—to Aslan. I must leave, but I have included in this envelope two rings that would take you to Narnia as well. Alas, dear one, you are not to join, for all must be done in Aslan's time, and I have a feeling that he has a plan for you yet. But you must desire to seek out Aslan, or both Narnia and your world will forever hold bitterness for you. In my dream the voice of the Lion, Aslan Himself, cried a passage from Book IV of Paradise Lost: "The mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n" (75).
Forgive my ramblings, but I am writing this quickly before we must depart to meet our dear friends at the station; you must seek for the meaning behind the metaphor, the roar of the Lion behind the whisper.
Gentle Queen, once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia. We pray you find your way home to Aslan, be it through Narnia or your world.
In Aslan's name, I bid thee adieu.
Susan turned the envelope over and caught the small, colorful rings of yellow and green. She twisted them between her fingers, feeling rage and pain and grief; feeling fear. Subconsciously, one hand had reached up to stroke the panel of the wardrobe, and the action was so surprising that Susan twisted her head to look at the hand that was so casually resting on the looking-glass pane; Susan saw her reflection, dark eyes weak from sleeplessness, the same tired smile, but there was a flickering of the morning light in her reflection that hovered over her head, like a wreath or a halo or a crown, and then the image caught the light and flashed, changing to reveal the golden mane of a lion, and Susan's breath caught in her throat, and she turned her head towards the sun.
The sun had boiled low within its morning cauldron, a hot and red mass that melted in thick waxy streaks. Its light overpowered the gray of London, coloring it in bars of mild violet, a mystical, magical light, that made Susan laugh again, but the laugh was less absurd than before. Her fingers clenched around the tiny rings, and Susan held them close to her warm chest, before digging with her fingers in the slowly warming earth, soft holes that too looked like graves, and she dropped each ring into the holes, before smoothing earth over its tops. And then from the Wardrobe and the tree, the Gentle Queen took her solitary way.