Disclaimer: I still don't own Narnia. Why? Well, I am still not an deceased Englishman, and really, my imagination is not all that good. So don't sue me. I'm just trying to exorcise my own demons.
We all need a bit of forgiveness, after all.
Remembering the Wardrobe
The first time she saw it was in the back of her favorite antiques and refineries store. It was old and weathered and needed a new stain, but the grand designs on the cheery wood made her smile. It was like something from a half-forgotten childhood memory, just itching to be recalled.
The price was not much, but what would a lady such as she do with an old, beaten-about wardrobe? Her late-husband's house was full of furniture – fine furniture from Italy and France; all polished and perfect. Completely unlike the tired, haggard thing in the back of the store.
She did not buy it the first visit. Nor the second. Not even the third. Yet every visit to the shop brought her back to it. She found a deep longing burned her each and every time she looked at it. It was taller than she and wider than she, with carved trees and leaves that at times, to her, seemed alive. She longed for the wardrobe and on her fourth visit, at last purchased it.
Her nephew (for she had no children) came to fix it up for her the following week. He was no carpenter, but he did enjoy restoration as a hobby. She told him to stain it dark; which vexed him a bit, as it still retained much of the light stain it had been coated in before. Yet she would not cave and soon enough he'd sanded it and begun to stain it the color she'd chosen. He repaired the broken left, front leg and fixed the latch on the door soon after. Two months after buying it, it sat in one of the spare bedrooms, totally at odds with her very light furniture.
She stood before it, pulling her fur shawl around her shoulders, scowling at it. What had possessed her to stain it dark? She looked at the light bedroom set and sighed. Well, it was dark now and for some reason, it pleased her.
She reached out and brushed her gloved fingers over the golden, oval knob. For a moment, she saw an old dusty room, empty but for a wardrobe sitting in a corner.
This wardrobe. Her eyes widened and fingers wrapped around the knob, turning it ever so slowly. It clicked and opened, revealing the full length mirror on the inside of the door. She glanced at it briefly, then glanced again when she saw herself.
She was no longer an old, hunched woman in clothes too rich for someone her age. What she saw there was a girl barely in her teens, with loose hair and gentle eyes, wearing a cotton dress and shoes that had been fashionable in her youth. She blinked, and the image was gone, replaced by her old, withered reflection. She reached up and touched the cropped, gray hair upon her head and scowled.
Something in the wardrobe squeaked. She was sure she heard laughter – far away laughter. In fact, she could hear wind, and the delicate moan of tree limbs shifting in the breeze. Her brow furrowed as she leaned her head in, pushing aside the old clothes she had her maid hang in there the day before. She heard the laughter again, brought in on a warm breeze that suddenly blasted her face.
Her eyes widened and she she stepped inside, compelled to move by forces far stronger than her common sense. Her knees; which had pained her for years; suddenly felt young and lifted her into the wardrobe with ease. Her heart raced as she shuffled towards the back, pushing the clothes and coat away, gasping as her thin fingers wrapped around a branch instead of a sleeve.
She stepped out into the blinding, Narnian sun, staring up at the bluest sky she'd ever seen.
"Susan! Come on Susan! The stag will get away if we don't hurry!"
She blinked against the sun and looked towards the voice. Upon three, beautiful horses were her long dead siblings. But they were not as she recalled them – they were grown up, with clothes befitting royalty and golden crowns upon their heads. She gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth, finding her cheeks young again and without wrinkle. She looked at the her hands, tears springing to her eyes, for they too were young and firm. She touched her hair and found she wore a crown as well. She let out a happy sob and ran towards her sister, who had dismounted and was standing with open arms to her.
She woke to the creakings of her old house. Susan was sitting inside the wardrobe, leaning against the very solid wood backing, the old clothes swaying gently above her.
She was old again. She looked at her trembling hands and her vision blurred. She touched her head and found it crownless.
Susan huddled as close to herself as her body would allow, sobbing into her bony hands.
"Oh what a foolish old woman I am!" she gasped, shivering hard as she sobbed, the grief of losing her siblings returning full force.
"Lost, perhaps, but never foolish, Daughter of Eve."
Susan looked up from her hands, her eyes wide and full of hope. Standing outside the wardrobe, staring at her with his great golden eyes, his great mane glowing like fire, was the lion Aslan. His look was gentle for her, and without reproach.
"Oh Aslan," she breathed, her voice cracking slightly. "I have been a fool. I have denied you for so long – so long!"
"And yet you found the wardrobe and remembered," the lion reminded her, moving closer to the open door, pushing his glowing face into the darkness with her. "You remembered."
"Aslan," she whispered, her hand trembling as she reached out and brushed her fingers over his nose.
"Daughter of Eve, you are forgiven."
Susan cried and shouted and laughed all at once, and was young again. She launched out of the wardrobe and hugged Aslan around his neck, pressing adoring kisses upon his face and in his mane. He laughed gently and nudged her shoulder affectionately. She squeezed her eyes shut and wept.
The maid found her sometime later. She was still in the back of wardrobe, slumped against one of the walls, smiling gently as if in some lovely dream.
None of her surviving family – that is to say, her late-husband's family – could quite figure out what could have driven Susan to crawl into the wardrobe.
Nor could they explain the lock of coarse, golden hair found clutched in her palm.
A/N: Thanks to reset panda for catching some mistakes when I posted on my LJ! If ya'll see anything else, do let me know. I wrote this rather early this morning (2AM, actually) so I didn't get a beta read. Too lazy to find someone.