Susan Pevensie felt a sense of unreality as she stared at the five caskets at the front of the chapel. Father. Mother. Peter. Edmund. Lucy. They couldn't really all be gone forever, could they? Certainly this was only a dream, the worst dream she'd ever had in her life, and she'd awaken any minute to find all her family members healthy and whole.
King George was dead, and his elder daughter was now Queen Elizabeth II. She'd sent letters of condolence to all the family members of the casualties. It had been one of the worst train wrecks in the history of the country. Susan had received one at the London flat where she'd been living and working as a secretary since she'd finished university a few months previously.
Out of the corner of her eye, Susan thought she saw something move and turned her head to look. It couldn't be. But it was. Aslan was walking straight toward her.
Susan's eyes quickly scanned the room. Surely the sight of a lion walking down the aisle of a chapel, especially during a funeral, would cause quite a stir. Yet Susan's fellow congregants seemed not to notice Aslan's presence at all. Susan concluded that he must be visible only to herself.
"Susan." Her old friend spoke her name.
"Aslan!" Susan threw her arms around his neck and held tightly to him while she sobbed heavily into his mane. "They were all I had! How can I ever go on living without them?"
"Dear Susan." His voice was gently chiding. "Don't you know? They're with me now!"
She stopped crying and looked at him in wonder. "So is it true, after all, then? Is Narnia really real?"
"Of course it's real." If a lion could smile, she was sure he'd be smiling right now. "That's where they are now, and that's where they'll be for all of eternity. You'll see them all again someday, if you'll only believe."
"I used to believe, but then I stopped. I thought I was too old for it, that it was only child's play. Oh, Aslan, I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"
"Susan, my child, you may have stopped believing in me, but I never stopped believing in you. You may have stopped loving me, but I never stopped loving you."
"And I'll see them all again someday?" A ray of hope penetrated Susan's shattered, grief-stricken soul.
"Only believe," Aslan repeated. He turned and was gone. But Susan knew she'd see him again.