Aslan the Puppetmaster (Summer 1946)


"This is it," Edmund said, stopping.

Susan looked up at the dilapidated apartment building. "I won't be long."

"Take your time. I'm going to duck into that café we passed. I'll be back in an hour."

"Be careful."

"Same to you. Wait for me behind that glass door if you're done before I am. I don't want you standing on the street."

She nodded. With an encouraging pat to his sister's arm, Edmund turned and strode down the uneven sidewalk. She watched his long strides for a second, marveling at how much he had grown up in the past year while she'd been away at university. He was sixteen, taller than she was…but still innocent…

The sound of the apartment building's front door opening shook her out of her thoughts. Acting quickly, she rushed up the steps, smiled kindly at the old man leaving, and caught the door before it closed behind him.

The staircase had a stale smell.

Number four, she thought, scanning the doors on the first landing. The black numbers on the doors were either missing or the plaques were broken. One had the faint dusted outline of a "4" where the plaque should have been.

Inhaling nervously, she knocked. A moment later the door cracked open, and a hesitant female peeked through. "Yes?"

"Millie?"

The girl opened the door wider, her eyes lighting up in surprise. "Yes?"

Susan should have been surprised at Millie's appearance, but she wasn't; she had...wondered...

Millie had large, dark eyes, brunette hair, and tan skin. She was no beauty like Saedra, but she was definitely attractive. With bitter irony Susan thought, Peter definitely has a type.

"I'm Susan. Peter's sister."

"Oh my! Please, do come in! Peter isn't here at the moment, but he should be back from work any minute now."

"Thank you."

Susan stepped into the cramped, dirty apartment carefully. It had a tiny kitchen, a small living room with one dirty couch that looked like it had been salvaged, and two doors that must have led to the bathroom and bedroom. The kitchen had a small table with two stools under it.

"Do sit down." Millie pulled out a stool for Susan shakily, then sat herself on the other one.

"Thank you," Susan said. She hadn't anticipated being alone with Millie. This was awkward.

Millie shyly avoided Susan's gaze. In the middle of the table was a thick, half-melted candle. In what Susan took to be a nervous habit, Millie leaned over and started picking at the wax. Susan knew that it was up to her to make conversation.

"Millie, I'm pleased to get a chance to get to know you. Peter…Peter has told us very little about you."

Understatement of the century.

"I suspected as much," Millie said in a low voice that betrayed how much she was hurting that Peter had not made her part of the Pevensie family. "When he asked me to live with him, I thought maybe…But now I see…"

Susan understood what Millie couldn't say. If Peter hadn't asked her to marry him by now, he never would. Millie was just an unwitting placeholder for someone else that Peter was still hurting for.

"Tell me about yourself, Millie. How did you and Peter meet?"

Millie's pretty eyes rested on Susan's. "In the restaurant." She shrugged. "It's not the most glamorous occupation in the world, being a waitress, but it puts food in my mouth. I never finished my education, so there's not much I'm good for."

"Why didn't you finish school?"

"It's a long story…" she sighed. "My father was a government worker for the British consulate in India, where he met my mother. Despite him being English and her Indian, they were very much in love. I was the youngest of my siblings. We moved back to England not long before the War, and when the bombing started, they were going to send us children to the countryside to be safe."

"We did that as well," Susan nodded.

"Well, we never made it," Millie said in a cracked voice. "The day before we were to leave, I decided to disobey my parents and visit my friend down the block. Then the bombs fell while I was at her house…And when it stopped, my house was nothing more than a pile of debris."

Susan stared at her, aghast. "I'm sorry" didn't seem like an adequate response.

"They were all dead. All of them. My father was wealthy, but he had made investments using the house as collateral. And the war started, and the investments turned sour…and there was no house anymore… I couldn't stand accepting the help of my wealthy neighbors, so I ran away. I went from job to job until I ended up where I work now, and met Peter." She exhaled. "So that's my story."

After a moment of awkward silence, they heard a key in the door. Millie jumped to her feet and greeted Peter when he entered in his waiter uniform. He looked five years older than he had last year, with dark circles under his eyes and unkempt, greasy hair. He didn't notice Susan at first.

"Peter, we have a guest!" Millie said with exaggerated cheerfulness.

His eyes fell on his sister. "Susan."

"Peter."

"Sit down, dear, and I'll get you a drink!" Millie said, rushing to the cupboard.

Peter slouched onto the stool that Millie had recently vacated. Only the sounds of glassware could be heard as Millie poured Peter's drink. From the smell of it, it was quite strong. She set it in front of him, and he took a long swig before fishing in his pockets for a cigarette. He lit it and took a pull. Millie stood above them, hands wringing nervously behind her back.

"Mil," Peter said, "Susan and I need to speak alone."

"Of course! Um, I'll just be…in the bedroom…"

When Millie had left, Peter stared at Susan. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in America."

"I was. School's out for the summer."

"Oh."

Silence. So, Peter wasn't going to make an attempt at small talk. Susan decided to get right to the point.

"Peter, home isn't the same without you. It's tense. Mum and Dad are stressed. Lucy misses you fiercely. Edmund too." Peter's eyes flashed at the mention of his brother's name, but she ignored it. "You're the oldest child, Peter, and no matter what you think, what you do sets the tone for the rest of the family. You doing this," she gestured around, "doesn't just affect Millie, it affects us."

He frowned and took another swallow of his liquor.

"What are you trying to do, Peter? What is your goal in all of this? Are you trying to hurt Millie and us? Do you think that by breaking her heart you'll ease your own pain?"

He banged the cup on the table. "Don't you dare judge me, Susan Pevensie! You have no right do so!"

"I am suffering like you are, Peter! I live with this wrench in my heart every day, longing to be with my husband and son. I don't feel like I belong in this world! But at least I am moving on with my life! I am going to school, I am studying, I am making friends, I'm learning! But you're—what are you doing? Working as a waiter and living in sin when you could be doing so much more with yourself!"

"It's not the same for you!" he bellowed. "You lived this perfect sanctimonious life in Narnia. Peridan worshipped the ground you trod upon. While you and he were living this idealistic life with your healthy baby son, I was struggling to find a reason to get out of bed every day. I would look over—every morning—and see that my wife wasn't next to me, and that she would never be again. And when I remembered whose bed she was in, I had to resist the urge to throw myself upon Rhindon, the sword that she had helped me name!

"I couldn't escape her, Su! The castle reeked of her! I saw the decorations she had added to the Great Hall. I saw the friends she had made. I saw Caulitha, our baby, and felt guilt that our daughter wouldn't ever know her mother because I had banished her from Narnia! While you and Peridan were fawning over Ethan, I was thinking of Talia, the delight of my days, wondering how she was doing in Harden and worrying that she hated me. I wondered if Talia would still think of me as her father, or would just see me as that man that her mother had been married to for a few years. After all, it wasn't me that rescued her from Tashbaan! Would Talia come and visit me for Christmas, or would she start to think of my traitorous brother as her father? Even now I think of Caulitha and Talia and wonder what has become of them! Did they grow up happily?

"You have no idea what I have suffered, Susan! You have no right to look at me with those judging eyes and expect me to pretend to be all right as you seem so apt to."

Susan gaped at him, horrified. "Peter, why did you never say anything about this back then? I could have told you that Talia adored you—you were her idol, the only real father she had known. Edmund could never take your place that way!"

"I didn't want to talk to you about it!" he roared. "If I did, I would have to endure your dazzling smile and contented looks and see your perfect marriage. Why do you think I avoided you for so long?"

"You could have talked to Lucy!" she countered. "She didn't commit the crime of having a happy home like that of which you accuse me! She and Tumnus were always struggling with the peculiarity of their relationship: how the public would react to their love, how they could never have biological children, how Tumnus would outlive her...She was the iconic little girl that stumbled into Narnia—how would people react to her falling in love with a being from another species that was a century older than her? She struggled, Peter, and I dread the day that Lucy remembers that she never married Tumnus before it was too late. The regret will kill her!"

He stared at her with shock—heavens, males could be so clueless!—and Susan continued raging. How dare he play the victim here and try to make Susan guilty for having been happy with Peridan?

She continued: "You were always good at avoiding when things got the least bit uncomfortable for you, weren't you? You avoided Saedra, I recall, whenever something went wrong between you two. No wonder she ran into Edmund's arms!"

"I told you not to say her name!" He jumped to his feet, knocking the stool back to the floor.

"Saedrasaedrasaedrasaedra!" Susan yelled obnoxiously. "I will keep saying her name until you climb out of this hole and get a grip on yourself so we can figure how to deal with this mess instead of allowing it to overcome us! I need you, Peter, to help me so that when Ed and Lu start remembering, we can fix this instead of falling apart. We need each other—all of us! Think of Aslan! What would he think if he saw us right now, the great rulers of Narnia?"

"Aslan?" Peter spat on the floor. "To hell with Aslan! This mess is his whole damn fault! He never cared about us! He took advantage of scared, impressionable children and made us do work that he should have done! He gave us a country to rule when we were barely old enough to know the difference between a monarchy and a republic. He allowed us to fall in love and get married, and then he takes us from Narnia before we got a chance to fix the mess we'd made! Then he throws us back into these child-like bodies that would never feel quite right, even if we couldn't remember exactly why they didn't feel right!

"And was that enough for him? NO! He sends us back into Narnia with these child bodies blindfolded, running around trying to help Prince Caspian, thinking ourselves all noble when we'd been the laughingstock of history! And then he sends Lu and Ed again! And Eustace and Jill! Sending all these children into danger, into a world that is so much better than our own even at its worst, allowing us to grow attached to it just enough that it breaks our hearts when we are told that we can never go back!"

Susan backed away from the table as he spoke, shaking her head. "You're forgetting all of the good Aslan did for us! He saved Edmund from the Witch. He introduced Narnia to us! He brought Saedra back from the dead—do you remember how torn up you were about losing her? Aslan did that for you! While she was dying, you pleaded with him for mercy!"

"That's the worst of it! I didn't know what I was asking for, but he did! Aslan sent Saedra back, fully knowing what she would do! What kind of sick monster does something like that?"

She couldn't think of anything to counter that. Nothing. Deep down, she knew that Peter was making excellent points. Was Aslan the great comfort she had always wanted to see him as? Or was he a manipulative puppetmaster who used them when he needed them and abandoned them to a lifetime of misery when he didn't?

Millie's head peeked around the corner. "Are you all right?" she asked timidly.

Susan realized that she had backed up to the front door. "Er, yes. I was just going to, um, leave. Thank you for your hospitality, Millie. It was really great meeting you."

Without daring a glance at Peter, Susan ducked out of the apartment and started down the stairs. Despairing sobs built up within her at every step, until she sank down and wept bitterly in the middle of the filthy staircase.

She had wanted to be strong, to counter everything Peter said, but he had been right about everything! Aslan had seemed to be there for them only when it suited him; what kind of loving person would do that: take advantage of those who loved him?

Her futile efforts to "move on with her life" seemed pointless now. She was, deep down, just as miserable as Peter, longing to return to Narnia even with all of the inevitable pain it would bring. Susan didn't belong on Earth. No matter how hard she studied, no matter how many friends she made, no matter how important she became, she would always feel like an alien. And so she would always be as miserable as Peter was, even if he was just a waiter and she was "a proper young woman." She despaired at the futility of her efforts. They were ultimately for nothing.

She wept and wept and wept, praying that no one would use the staircase and pass her. She wanted to disappear and go somewhere where she could wallow in her misery without having to put up appearances at college or try to salvage her disintegrating family. She was exhausted.


"I want things to be different, Su," Peter said not long after Susan's son Ethan had been born. "I've held on to my pain this whole summer. It can go on no longer. Narnia needs a ruler, and our children need parents they can respect." Peter still looked worn and weary, but there was a new determination in his eyes.

Susan smiled up at her twenty-nine-year-old brother. "From whence came this revelation?"

"I came across Peridan talking to baby Ethan, even though Ethan understands nothing he is being told. Per was telling him about us, about the Four. He said I was the greatest ruler Narnia had ever had, the King above all Kings. And it hit me that I may have had a setback…a rather large setback…but we still have our whole lives before us. And Narnia may be unstable right now, but we've fixed worse. Aslan wouldn't give us something we couldn't handle. And maybe one day…one day…"

"…We might have our brother back?" Susan ventured.

"One day. Maybe. We can take it one step at a time."

Susan hugged her brother. "Welcome back, High King Peter. We've missed you."


They had resolved to make things right. And the very next day, Aslan had ejected them from that world.

Susan hated herself for thinking it, but she now knew had been wrong trying to "save" her family. There was no salvation for them. Aslan had abandoned them. Rejected them.

There was no comfort in that realization. Without her family, without faith in a trustworthy Aslan, what was there to live for?