To Be Under Ground (Summer 1946)


Edmund didn't say a word on the way back home on the Underground. Good. Susan didn't want to talk.

Her nose was raw and her eyes watery. Edmund put his arm around her as the train clacked on the rails, and she nearly wept again at the comforting gesture.

They got home late; a train was delayed for mechanical reasons. They had timed it so they would be back before their parents got home from work, but Lucy was already setting the table for dinner when they went through the back door. The food was simmering on the stove.

Lucy looked up, taking in Susan's bleary face. Lucy opened her mouth to speak, but Edmund quickly shook his head to silence her curiosity.

"Mum's upstairs changing," Lucy said instead. "Dad's been trying to fix the clogged bathroom sink. He's in a bad mood again, so watch out. I don't think they believed me when I told them you two went to see Eustace, so you better have a good story about what you did with him."

Susan nodded, wiping her eyes. She and Edmund slipped off their shoes and went to help Lucy finish getting ready for supper.

Dinner was quiet, an edgy kind of quiet. No one spoke, and they picked at their food uneasily. Susan still showed the tell-tale signs of crying, and Helen kept glancing at her with worry. Jack glared at his cup with his now-usual frustration. Lucy bit her lip as she glanced at her siblings.

Edmund ventured, "Eustace says hello."

Jack studied his younger son with the exact same piercing look which Susan had received from Peter that day. "Does he, Ed? So, he came back from camp early, did he?"

"Uh, camp?"

"Alberta told me they were sending him to Nature Camp this week," Jack said. "Or had that slipped your mind when you were coming up with an excuse to hide that you were blatantly disobeying me by visiting Peter?"

Edmund gulped.

"It's not his fault," Susan said in a low voice, eyes on her plate. Her dark hair was like a curtain, blocking her face from view. "It was my idea. I wanted to see Peter for myself. I asked Ed to take me there."

"Susan," Helen chided, "you know how we feel about that part of town…"

Susan jerked her head up to meet her mother's brown eyes. "I know how you feel about that part of town—or how you feel about Peter?"

"What are you insinuating?" Jack growled.

"I'm insinuating nothing! I am saying outright that you are pretending that you disapprove of Peter's neighborhood, but really, you just disapprove of Peter!"

Jack opened his mouth to retort, but Helen put her hand on his arm and said, "Su, we don't disapprove of Peter, we disapprove of what he's doing."

"There's really no difference, now, is there? You've ostracized him from the family. You've made it clear to Ed and Lu that they can never see their brother again."

"That's outrageous!" Jack exclaimed. "They can see him again—when he comes to his senses! Until he does, I will not reward his behavior by allowing him to have normal interactions with us! He needs to know that we disapprove of his lifestyle, and when he rights his wrongs, he will be welcomed back with open arms."

Susan jumped to her feet. "You disgust me! Peter is hurting, can't you see that? He is struggling to live day to day. And what do you do to him? You treat him like he is a leper! How is that love?"

"He is struggling by choice!" Jack came back, also on his feet. "He brought whatever is troubling him upon himself. He didn't even see war, so he doesn't even have that excuse for his conduct!"

"Hasn't seen war?" Susan screeched. "Brought this upon himself? Are you crazy?" She looked at her siblings incredulously. "Do you hear this hogwash?"

Helen was on her feet. "Susan! Don't speak to your father that way!"

"Well, someone has to!" she retorted. "I'm sick of you sitting here and judging Peter when you have no clue what he is going through!"

"Then, please, do enlighten us," Jack said sarcastically, waving his arms. "Tell us the great trials of poor Peter Pevensie, if you can."

"He's trying to cope, Father! He's trying to cope! He's trying to survive in a world that isn't his home, with a head full of memories that he can't control!"

Silence fell. Edmund and Lucy were frowning at her, confused and worried. Her parents stared at her like she was insane.

"What in the world are you talking about?" Jack demanded.

"I'm talking about how Peter is doing all this because he can't do otherwise, just like I can't do otherwise. His way of coping is to embrace the pain, to revel in it, while I have been trying to ignore it by making you proud!"

"What does this have to do with you...?" Helen asked.

"We're going through the same thing!" Susan cried. "We're drowning in our nightmares! We remember things that haunt us day and night…"

Her family was staring at her as if she had gone mad. Perhaps she had.

Susan implored her siblings with a cracked voice. "Don't you remember? I'm not crazy. Peter isn't crazy! Somewhere, deep down, you have to remember!"

"Remember what?" Helen asked with a frightened expression. "Susan...were you...abused...?"

"No, we weren't abused! We did it to ourselves!"

"Su," Lucy hazarded, "are you talking about, you know, Narnia?"

"Yes, I'm talking about Narnia!"

Jack and Helen now stared at Lucy with wide, troubled, and perplexed eyes.

"Su, nothing bad happened there," Edmund said gently as if he were speaking to a child. Susan recalled him using that same tone of voice when Talia was young... "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how we ruined the good thing we had! That's why we were sent back here!"

"We didn't ruin anything!" Edmund half-laughed, half-whispered, glancing nervously at their parents. "Aslan took us away because we'd finished our job."

"No, he didn't! You have more sense than that, Ed! If Aslan is so good, why would he allow us to fall in love with Narnia only to take us away without a chance to say goodbye or make preparations for our absence?"

Jack attempted to interrupt with a question, but Lucy said, "We have to trust Aslan, Su! He always has a reason."

"No, he doesn't! And if he does, I don't want to know it, because I hate him. I hate him as much as Peter does!"

Lucy gasped with horror as if she'd been punched.

"What is all this nonsense?" Jack demanded.

They ignored him.

"Don't be like that, Su!" Lucy implored. "Aslan—"

Susan swore loudly. "Stop looking at me with your innocent eyes! I can't take it! You, Lucy: do you remember those drawings in Aslan's How? About you and Tumnus? They were true—you and he did love each other! And remember the ones about the dark woman? Those were true too! Peter did marry her—but Ed ran away with her!"

Red splotches appeared on Edmund's face, and Lucy's eyes flashed.

"How dare you desecrate our memories of Narnia with lies?" Lucy demanded. "How dare you?"

"You'll remember soon, Lu," Susan said. "And then you won't be so goddamn judgmental of me and Peter!"

Their parents were ashen-faced. Edmund was shell-shocked. Lucy was furious.

Susan stared from one to the other. She swore again—at least that felt good, temporarily—and stormed out of the room. She ran out the front door, not even bothering to close it behind her. She raced down the dark street, not paying attention to where she was going. When she ran out of breath blocks away, she slowed to a walk.

There. She had told them. She had blurted out to Lucy and Edmund the very thing she had been trying to hide from them. The ironic thing was that they didn't even believe her! They thought her crazy!

She never wanted to go home again. She couldn't bear another second of their pitying, incredulous faces. She didn't want to go back to school where she had to pretend to be normal; she couldn't afford travelling to America without her parents' money anyway. She couldn't go to see Peter; being with him would only exponentially worsen her self-loathing.

Susan didn't know where she was going. But she knew she wanted it to end.


"Come, Susan!" Lucy dragged her sister out of Cair Paravel toward the stables. "It's our chance to fix it all!"

"This is crazy—how can a stag fix anything?"

"It's the White Stag, Su! You know the legend: he'll grant us any wish. What if we could wish that everything becomes right again? It's a small chance, but it's a chance! It was Peter's idea—he's getting the horses ready—"


Susan found herself approaching a construction site. A bridge was being built across a new motorway that wasn't open yet. The bridge was half-done, with the center missing. It was dark, for the streetlights hadn't been installed yet.

Susan walked across the bridge, one step at a time. She ignored the equipment and raw materials lying around her. She stared at the jagged, unfinished end of the bridge. A warm breeze stirred up the dust and made her eyes water. She didn't stop until she was on the very edge.

She looked down. A tear dripped off the end of her nose and fell, fell, fell to the ground many meters below the bridge.

She inhaled, preparing herself. In seconds, it would all be over.

Tomorrow the workers would find the twisted body of a teenage girl in the middle of the new motorway. In a few days they would figure out who the poor girl was; her family would be notified. They would mourn, of course. But they would also be relieved...

Susan exhaled. She lifted a foot—

"Stop!"

Startled, Susan looked up. On the other side of the bridge, across the chasm, stood a figure. The voice had been female, but it was too dark to make out her features, which were hidden under a hood. She seemed to flicker, as if she wasn't quite real...

"Don't do it, Susan. Not like this."

"Who are you?" Susan demanded. "How do you know who I am?"

The figure walked—no, glided!—forward. "Step away from the edge."

"Tell me who you are first!"

The figure hesitated before pulling back the hood over her head. The moonlight fell upon her hair and face. It couldn't be...

Susan felt woozy. The air around her seemed to blur...She stepped out to steady herself, but instead of ground, there was air.

And then she fell...

Fell...

Fell.