This world and its inhabitants belong to C.S. Lewis. I am borrowing them for my own amusement and will return them unharmed.
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PETER
The last time. Very last time. That's what he said, and yet—there was a promise, of a kind, behind the words, and somehow I believe that Aslan will make it right someday. But still the sting is there. I feel it the sideways glances Ed shoots me when I'm not looking, in the bitterness of Susan's brief letters, in the memories of my most beloved country. So short a time that we spent there, and yet what would we have done, if we had stayed? It is Caspian's land now, and he will rule it well—he has Aslan's confidence, as well as mine.
It is easier, this time, I think. I had not quite fallen into my old habits and tricks of speech, but I did catch myself using the royal We the other day. Perhaps it's because I'm older, or because we didn't stay as long...or perhaps it's the promise that we can find Aslan in this world as well. I find myself picking up the pace whenever I see a glimmer of gold breaking through the grey of a London afternoon.
Professor Kirke—or Uncle Digory, as he's asked us to call him privately, has helped me understand a little more about waiting. It still amazes me that he and Aunt Polly were at the very Creation, and I know he, too, longs for the day when he will breathe the sweet, free air of Narnia again. Studying with him is perhaps the only distraction that I could manage, and I am learning what it means to be a good man here in England.
SUSAN
It isn't fair. I know I sound childish, but it truly isn't fair! To bring us back for so short a time, and send us away forever... I cannot bear it. Is it punishment for not having believed Lucy that day in the woods? Punishment for somehow having failed him? But Aslan knows best, Lucy says, trying to help me understand it. Aslan knows what he is doing. It will work out.
I'm sorry, Lucy, but I think you're wrong. It won't work out. Mother and Father are taking me to America for holidays—maybe there I will find some peace, some distraction from this constant nagging ache of memory. Don't write to me as if we were Queens still! You may be, but I am not. Maybe I never really was. Maybe it was all, somehow, just a dream... the fancies of children playing make-believe.
EDMUND
I told Peter that the only reason Aslan was letting me return was because he knew Aunt Alberta would kill me when she found out I'd lost my new torch. He's doing better—he actually laughed at that one. Easy for him to laugh, he's not going to stay with her this summer. I think it's been good for him, going to study with the Professor, though I wish I could go to, by Jove! It's going to be bad enough being with bloody Eustace all summer, but if he doesn't treat Lu with respect...
I was going to say I'd challenge him. Hah. Because I can do that, here. Maybe I could, if we were both grown... or if Eustace wasn't such a nancy. I suppose that's unfair. After all, he has lived with Alberta and Harold his entire life. I was an ass myself, and at least he's never sold anyone out to their worst enemy.
Peter says I need to think of myself, rather than worrying about him and Lucy and Susan. I told him not be a ninny, I wasn't worrying about Susan. But I know what he means. I think I'm really all right. I feel as if we accomplished what we were meant to do with Caspian. He's on the throne now, and he will rule well. We couldn't have hung around, a group of Kings and Queens right out of history, ruling the kingdom for him.
If and when Lu and I go back, I think it will be the last time for us as well... and it will be all right.
LUCY
I've dreaded going away to school for years, but I barely noticed it now that it's happened, I've been so caught up with Narnia. There's been so much to process that it's occupied all my brain-space. Although I like it here, I'm rather looking forward to going home, so that I can sit, and think, and talk with Peter and Edmund. I would talk with Susan, but Susan... she doesn't talk anymore.
Well, that's not entirely true. She talks a good deal really, but she doesn't say much. It's very odd. And she runs around a good bit with the other girls—the silly ones, who roll their waistbands up to shorten their skirts, and wear lipstick after school. Sometimes she will sit and talk with me, but it isn't very often, and never when her friends are there. Mother says that Susan is just becoming a lady, but I remember when Susan began to "become a lady" last time, and it was nothing like this!
I get up every morning to greet the sun, though I can't play my flute here to welcome the sunrise. Our dorm has an eastern window, and I imagine, for a moment, that I am standing on the eastern balcony of Cair Paravel. I can pretend that I am gazing out over my seas, watching for the gold that tints the sky... and then, as the sun breaks through, for an instant I can almost see the face of Aslan smiling at me.
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