Songs of Winter

A Chronicles of Narnia Songfic Collection

Chapter Four

Clocks

Lights go out and I can't be saved;
Tides that I tried to swim against,
You've put me down upon my knees,
Oh I beg, I beg and plead.

Come out of things unsaid,
Shoot an apple off my head.
Trouble that can't be named,
Tigers waiting to be tamed.

You are, you are…

Susan had a love/hate relationship with time.

It had been two months since they had left Narnia, but to her, it seemed an eternity. And the fifteen years they had spent there had been undone in one moment. Why, oh why, did time have to be so cruel and fickle?

Sometimes she couldn't bear to look at the clock. It was a reminder of how long they had been away. If fifteen years in Narnia was a single moment elapsed here, how much could have gone awry there in the time of two months? And, what would it be like, when they went back? If they went back? It was at times like these that Susan hated the clock. The only way she could hide from its glare was to turn out the lights. So she would sit on the corner of her bed and weep in the darkness.

And yet, there where moments where she studied the clock. She stared at it for minutes at a time, watching the hands intently, waiting for a sign. Waiting to go back to her real home. The clock was her one of her only reminders that there had been a Narnia, for though she had never been very good in school, she could very carefully calculate the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes it had been since they had gone. If only she could find an equation that would tell her when they could go back.

If she was still like she had used to be (and she most surely hoped she wasn't, for the ways in which Narnia had changed her were innumerable) she would have tried to "be logical". But there was no logic in this. That is, there had been logic, in Narnia – it was where they lived, where they ruled, where they thrived. Everybody in Narnia had loved Narnia, and they had loved their rulers, had loved Aslan, too. But nobody here would believe in Narnia, or in Aslan. There was no way to be logical about this, for, in reality, the things she had lost were essentially nonexistent in the opinions of everyone here. It was true, there was nothing like them anywhere else, anywhere other than Narnia. (How could she have once wanted to be like them, been like them, these small-minded bigots who believed only they were right, and would not dare to think for one moment that there might be something out there beyond themselves!) Though the loss may not have been tangible, here, it still managed to bring her to her knees, a tide of emotions flooding over her like a wave at the seaside. She tried to resist, but the sea was always stronger. Swimming away would only drown her. Her own salty wetness came in numbers as great as that of the ocean itself when she finally gave in to her emotions.

She had used to be so strong. She had been a queen, one the entire Narnian kingdom had loved and admired. But that hadn't mattered, not really. It had been what here brothers and sister thought of her that mattered. What Aslan thought of her. Once a king or queen of Narnia, always a king or queen of Narnia, He had said. Oh, if only! An always sounded so wonderful right now, as long as it wasn't in the same sentence as "in England". She had tried to be strong, for Edmund, for Lucy, even for Peter. But was it helping? It seemed as if she was only making things worse. She always made things worse.

Every night, she prayed. She didn't even know if there was an Aslan here, but she prayed anyway. Or perhaps more of a pleading than a praying. She begged to go back to Narnia. She poured her heart out, there on the floor in front of something she couldn't see. What was left unsaid hurt her the most, for there was never a reply. At least, not one that she could hear.

Confusion never stops,

Closing walls and ticking clocks,

Come back and take you home,

I could not stop what you know.

Come out upon my seas,

Curse missed opportunities.

Am I a part of the cure,

Or a part of the disease?

You are…

She couldn't name this feeling, couldn't get rid of it. There was a perpetual confusion, a desire to belong and a knowing that she couldn't, not anymore. She didn't belong in England, certainly – there was no place for more than one Queen here, even though there had been four monarchs that had ruled quite well… before. She thought she might be mad at Aslan for sending them away, or at least for allowing them to go away. But she couldn't be mad, not at Him, not really, for she wanted to go back to Him so badly it hurt.

Finchley wasn't home. The Professor's house in the countryside was not home, either. Where was home? In the wardrobe? In Narnia? Her conscience nagged at her to say where her family was, but in truth, not even they could buoy her spirits these days. There was only one being that could have been defined as home, and that would be Him. So, no, she couldn't be mad at Him. He was all she wanted. And she could no longer have Him. At least, not for now.

It almost killed her, the waiting. For of all the virtues Susan possessed, patience was most certainly not one them. But hope was. So she clung to the fact that they must, must return.

And so she waited, and watched the clocks.

And nothing else compares,

No nothing else compares…

You are…

Home, home,

Where I wanted to go…

Home, home,

Where I wanted to go…