Chapter Thirteen
Susan wandered out into the garden with shears, a small knife, and a basket. Nearly all the preparations were completed for the ambassador of Galma, who would arrive on the morrow. She made her way to the fountain in the northern corner; her favorite roses grew there, bred for her by Rosa. They were of a rich, deep purple, and she had named them Royal Velvet.
She took out her shears and clipped the last autumn blooms that still lingered for a while.
"Oh."
Susan turned at the exclamation and saw Kylee. She smiled, a bit tightly. Mrs. Crabapple had told her of the girl's outburst earlier.
"I thought … Edmund was over here," said Kylee. She seemed very subdued, almost thoughtful. "Never mind." She turned to go.
"Wait, child." Susan beckoned to her. "Edmund and Lucy have gone riding."
Kylee stood there, staring at her as if trying to determine something.
"I think I got everything wrong," Kylee said at last. "But I don't know what it is. But everything that I did since coming here turned out bad, even the stuff that should have worked."
"What do you mean?" asked Susan, eyeing the girl curiously.
"Well, in fanfiction if you fall into Narnia and meet Peter or Edmund, they fall in love with you instantly. Usually, I mean, at least sometimes you have to rescue them or something and then they see that you were meant to be together. And then they fight over you until finally you stop them and choose who you really want to be with. And it's a really hard choice, and whoever you don't choose is crushed. You know?"
Susan shook her head. "You mean that in your world, stories are written about my brothers in which girls, such as yourself, come to Narnia regularly and marry them?"
"Yeah!" Some of her old enthusiasm came back. "It's stuff written by people who like the movies, and have crushes on Peter or Edmund. Or sometimes Caspian …" she trailed off. "Never mind about him. I wrote some, too. I never thought I'd actually come to Narnia. It was just a sort of game, I guess. I wanted to come, so I wrote about it instead. And then it happened."
Susan smiled. "We often find that expectation does not match reality." She held out the cut roses to Kylee. "Would you like to make the flower arrangements with me?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
They spent the next half hour choosing flowers. Susan watched Kylee closely. Something about her had certainly changed; for one thing, she did not seem interested in talking about Edmund or Peter more than anything else. She soon became engaged in the work of finding flowers which complemented each other. She seemed to have an eye for it, but had obviously never done it before.
"Lovely," Susan said when they had filled the basket full. They went to the kitchen and Susan showed her how to carefully trim the thorns off of the roses. "Now we shall arrange them in the vases. You make one first, and see how you do."
Kylee seemed hesitant at first, even nervous, but she set to work and filled the vase with flowers. It was fairly good for a first attempt; Susan told her what could be improved, and Kylee's eyes filled with tears.
"Come now," Susan said briskly. "Go on to the next one. I think you will see that you have improved. We never learn without an equal measure of encouragement and criticism. Surely you have failed at something in life, and been made to do it over?"
"Yeah, at school," said Kylee. "But I hate school."
"I am somewhat of the same mind," Susan said, laughing as memories of her own boarding school came back to her. "But I think it is often the teacher, and not the subject, which is the real trouble. There, that is done very nicely. I think the stems might be cut a bit shorter on the roses here, so that they do not stand so tall above the rest of the flowers." She smiled. "Go on to the next."