I just want to say a quick thank you to those who've added this story to their favorites. I know it's not the most original setting/plot, but I'd like to think my version is at least a little bit unique; please let me know if I'm wrong on that.
So far I've been pretty good about updating, so hopefully that'll continue as a trend.
Now, without further ado...
Aunt Alberta was there to meet her when she disembarked. Even now, months after the accident, Susan could tell her aunt was grieving. Neither of them said much to each other, but they hugged, and Susan felt as though she could drown in it. It was so good to feel connected to another person again.
They went immediately to the cemetery, and Aunt Alberta walked purposefully to the grave of her only son. 'The headstones were only just finished,' she muttered, her voice cracking as she started to cry yet again.
Susan watched her for a moment. Stared at her as though she were afraid to look away. She knew exactly what was beside her. Knew that if she turned around, she would see her family's graves, and it would all come crashing down on her again. The careful mask of solemnity she had constructed for herself would fall away, and she would break down like her Aunt.
Alberta fell to her knees and threw her arms around the grave marker. Now it was painful to watch her, and Susan looked away at last, closing her eyes, ashamed, as though she'd intruded on something private.
Susan!
Her eyes snapped open. She was staring right at Lucy's headstone.
Her little sister.
The tears fell, as she'd known they would, and she let her gaze glance over the other markers. In the row behind Lucy's, there was a big one for their parents, their names carved next to each other just as Susan had imagined them. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy were all in a row, their gravestones identical. They seemed so plain. Especially Lucy's. Someone so full of life and hope couldn't possibly be remembered by something so dark and gloomy.
Carefully, not at all sure she wanted to, Susan brushed a finger over the smooth stone of Lucy's marker, and jerked it back. The stone had felt so much warmer than she'd expected. She glanced at the sky, but the sun was hiding. Finally. The wind blew, cool against her skin, and slowly, she laid her palm flat against the stone.
Definitely warmer than it should be. Like Lucy's smile, it made Susan feel hopeful despite it all. Despite the fact that Lucy had died months ago.
'Susan, do you not love us anymore?'
'Don't be silly, Lu, of course I do.'
'Then why are you going so far away?'
Susan looked at her sister without seeing her. Lucy frowned at her, ever the most patient person. 'It's better this way.'
'Is it because of Peter?'
'I've been offered a wonderful opportunity, Lucy. I'll still write, though.'
Lucy looked like she doubted this. 'Promise?'
Susan smiled and pulled her sister to her in a warm hug. 'Of course. Every week. I promise.'
At least she had done that much. She'd even written to Peter, but he'd never written back. Not once. Susan wondered if he'd even tried to explain their falling out to mother and father.
Why would they all be there? What would bring all seven of them to the same place?
It was a silly question. One that had gone through her head at least once a day since Uncle Harold's call, and though the answer to it hovered just outside her thoughts, she knew what it was. There was only one thing that would bring all three of her siblings, her cousin Eustace, the Professor, and the two other women Susan had only met once or twice together in the same place. It was the thing that had brought them all together in the first place.
Narnia.
It all circled back to Narnia. Everything had begun there, and now, it seemed, it had ended.
'I'll leave you alone for a few moments.'
Susan nodded, though she barely heard her Aunt's words. She was aware, however, of the silence once the sound of Alberta's sobs and sniffles had died away.
The wind rustled the trees, blew stray leaves over the grave plots. Susan closed her eyes and imagined she was elsewhere. In a place where the trees grew tall and wild, and danced through their forests. A place where the rivers were brilliant blue, and the skies were never smothered by smog. Where the ocean was wild and full of life. Where life was free and the only expectation was that people were good to each other.
How could it be that life as Queen of Narnia was easier than life as simple Susan Pevensie?
'I'm sorry I didn't bring you anything, Lu,' Susan whispered, her eyes still closed. 'Maybe next time I'll bring flowers. Little white ones, like you used to wear in your hair.'