AN: I know I have not updated in a year (yiykes!), but I really hope you can forgive me. I've had the busiest year of my life so far, and I was having total writer's block with this chapter. However, since today is a holiday when one must repent for one's sins and ask forgiveness (in my religion anyway), I beg that you forgive my sins to you, my readers, when I didn't update, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
The song for this chapter describes Peter's feelings on Susan's, um, situation, I guess. It's Save You by Simple Plan. (I really couldn't find anything that fit this chapter.)
9. A Return, Stolen Innocence and Night Terrors
Peter sat in the car and stared at the all too familiar house. It was just as it had been when he left; two-storied, the red-brown bricks all still in place despite the bombing, and the small porch and steps still intact at the front of the house.
A movement in one of the second story windows caught his eye. He stared at the window and saw a hand pulling the curtain closed, but he couldn't recognize in which room.
"Are you coming lad?" His father's voice pulled him from his day-dreams.
"Yes, Father, I apologize," Peter answered hurriedly and jumped out of the car.
With his father's help, Peter pulled his case out of the car's trunk, and hauled it up to the porch.
Peter's heart drummed in his ears as his father reached for the doorknob. He did not know why, but he felt that this movement held great significance, and that the way the next few minutes would enfold would determine the course of things for a long time.
The doorknob turned easily in Mr. Pevensie's hand, and the door swung open wide, allowing Peter to enter with his luggage. He stood at the entrance, trunk at his feet, and listened to the sounds of the house. To his great surprise, Peter could only hear the clinking of metal and rush of water. Other than that, the house was completely silent.
Peter watched as his father walked to the kitchen, and assumed their mum would be in there. Remembering his father's words, Peter decided to postpone his encounter with his mother, and headed upstairs, carrying his trunk up as silently as he could. Once he reached the room he and Edmund shared, he put the trunk next to his bed, and began unpacking it.
"Peter!" a joyful cry sounded behind him several minutes later, and Peter soon found himself wrapped in his mother's arms.
At first he was tense, for he had not foreseen this reaction, but the warm embrace caused him to melt, and he hugged the small lady back.
"Hello Mum," he whispered to her.
She broke the hug and held him at arm's length. Tears shone in her eyes and fell to her cheeks. She smiled and wiped them away quickly.
"It's so good to have you back with us," she whispered, her voice breaking here and there.
"I'm glad to be here too," he answered and kissed her cheek.
A moment of silence fell between them.
"Well, I'm sure you must be tired from your trip. We have already eaten our lunch, but there is plenty enough for you and your brother and sister when they come home." Mrs. Pevensie explained with a smile.
"What about-"
His mother cut Peter's words off. "Your belongings will be here later as well, but you are a growing boy, and must eat in order to grow properly. Come, eat, and later I will help you unpack if you wish for it."
Peter contemplated his mother's offer. His mother did not answer what he'd been wondering about, but something stopped him from further inquiring about Susan—for the time being. Since he could not come up with a good excuse not to do as his mother instructed, Peter agreed, but resolved to ask about Susan the first chance he got.
That chance presented itself when he sat at the kitchen table and ate lunch. His mother had been cleaning up some remaining dishes in the sink, but finished, and sat across from him at the table. There was a moment of deep silence before Peter put down his utensils, and looked into his mother's eyes.
"I came back because Edmund and Lucy said I was needed, immediately. Mother, what is going on with Susan?"
The profound sadness that shone in his mother's eyes struck Peter.
"I wish I knew what to tell you." Her sigh was as deep as the ocean, filled with anguish as it was with water. "She was so lively and vibrant. She was the life of every party and had many suitors… But she began pushing them away. We didn't notice at first, until we realized she refused them all. She stopped going to parties and paying visits to her friends. Not long after I managed to get us the tickets to come back home and she seemed to be doing better, for a while she really was. When we returned to England things seemed to go bad again. Only then did I realize she'd been eating less and less, sleeping at odd hours and amounts… She's detached herself and I don't know what to do." Her voice broke on the last words, and Peter was astounded at the sight of tears shining in his mother's eyes. So much so, that he got up from his chair and hugged her as best as he could.
Her tears did not fall, but the ordeal unsettled Peter all the same. Though he'd been a grown man in Narnia, he'd never been a parent, thus the childish belief that a parent is godly had never been fully broken. In his heart, he'd always seen his mother and father as the strongest, bravest, best people he knew. This vision of his father was disrupted when he went to war, and Peter felt the consequences of it harshly. When he'd been in wars himself in Narnia, he'd become more upset at his father for leaving. But the image of his mother had never been tainted. She continued to care for them even when Father was gone, and even assisted the neighbors when she could. She kept the house running, the kids fed, and had made the incredibly tough decision of sending them to the Professor's house for their safety. Mother had always been an angel in Peter's mind. But angels didn't cry; they do not show weakness. Peter had a sense of loss, but it would be a while yet before he realized what he was losing.
"How is she now?" He whispered.
"It is an effort to make her eat… She won't come down except to sit in the library and stare out the window, but she spends most of her time behind a closed door in her room." She hesitated. "I hear her sometimes…walking around at night… or whispering, as if talking to someone, but I can never hear an answer. Lucy claimed Susan has been talking in her sleep for years now and that I should not worry, but she didn't seem so convinced of it herself."
Peter felt lost, confused. His lovely sister had turned into a ghost of what she'd been and he knew not how to help her. More than anything he wished to cure her ails.
But when he saw her later that afternoon, and watched as Lucy tried to coax her into eating a broth, he realized he didn't know how. A soft, nagging voice in the back of his mind whispered he could not.
On a cold afternoon at the end of October, Peter entered the house after a visit to the library. A doctor had come to their house to examine Susan. It was not the first time, but Peter still felt too anxious to stay at home. That is why he left the house and wandered the streets of London, until he ended up on the tube and got off at the station closest to the library.
The books he found there proved a great distraction, and his mind filled with longing memories as he read about medieval fighting and the customs of those times. More than once he marveled in the idea that he and his siblings had not only lived in two worlds, but in two times, and were practiced in the customs of old.
He missed those dear old days in Narnia; they were so happy back then. He'd sighed wistfully and turned to go home.
Fire blazed everywhere. Sweltering heat enveloped and suffocated her. There was a cacophony of voices, howls, roars, grunts, and snarls. They all screamed murder. Blood.
The realization dawned on her hard and heavy like stone. She was in Aslan's place; the same spot all those years ago. But instead of watching him being killed, her arms were suddenly nearly ripped out of her sockets as she was pulled harshly and thrown onto the Stone Table. Her head bashed against the solid stone, her vision blurred and within moments she could feel warm liquid trickling through her hair.
"Tie her up!"
She'd expected to hear the witch's voice, as she had that awful night so long ago, but the voice was not female at all. It was a deep, male voice; one she knew well.
Paws gripped her wrists and bound them in ropes as she struggled against their tenacious grip. Her wrists burned from the ropes, but she did not care.
A chant for death began rising through the crowd. Louder and louder it grew, becoming deafening. The shrieks pierced at Susan's ears, tore through them and clawed at her throbbing brain. She struggled to cover her ears with her hands, but to no use. Her struggles only caused blood to draw from her hands and wrists.
"SILENCE!"
Silence fell at the command. Susan blessed it for a moment before she saw who stood above her. Her hands and feet were tied to the table, and above her now lurked the form of none other than Caspian. But this was not the Caspian she knew. No, this man was evil, and his eyes shone black, soulless.
"May I present to you, Queen Susan the Gentle," he sneered and spat at her feet. Laughter rose around them. "You do not deserve the title, for you have abandoned your land, traitor."
"No, please, Caspian! You know I was made to do so! It was not my choice to leave!" Susan cried.
"Silence tramp!" he seethed. "You have betrayed your land and abandoned it. You have left it in heart and memory, and for that you shall be punished!" Cheers erupted from the crowd.
"Kill her!"
"Slit her throat!"
"Gauge her eyes out!"
A foreboding, evil sneer spread on Caspian's face. "I have a better idea, Your Highness." The cheers continued, but the expression on Caspian's face caused her such fear, that the cacophony around them was dimmed in her ears, and was only low background noise to the snarling of Caspian. "I have a friend here, whom you know. He's fancied you for quite some time, but you refused him. We thought we could let him have his way with you before we kill you."
The dark form of Rabadash appeared just then, smirking maliciously.
"No! No! Let me go! Unbind me! You can't do this! No! NO!" Susan shrieked and begged.
"Gag her," Rabadash ordered, seemingly bored, as the queen wriggled and begged for mercy at his feet.
She begged and cried, for no use. The sounds barely escaped her mouth with the cloth gag in it.
As Rabadash began pulling at her dress tears leaked from her eyes and she whimpered.
"Let go of me! Get off you piece of filth!" she screamed to no avail.
She tried to scurry back, flee, and punched at the same time, kicking her assailant as best as she could while being tied down.
"Susan! Su! It's alright, you're safe!" a strange voice sounded. "Please, Susan, it's only a night terror."
Slowly, the terrifying visions before her melted away and she saw her older brother crouched before her. He was kneeling some feet away. The floor below him was wood, and there was no trace of a forest around her, only white walls.
Peter had come into the house and made it as far as the kitchen, before a scream and crash sounded from the floor above him. Seized by panic, he ran up the stairs. The door to Susan's room stood ajar, but the sight before him froze him to the spot.
Lucy was standing at one edge of the room, at the foot of the bed. At her feet were shattered pieces of what was once a china bowl. Her shoes were soaked in liquid—soup, Peter supposed. She stood petrified, two hands held up as if surrendering to some unseen enemy.
Across from her, between the bed and the wardrobe, Susan sat on the floor. She scurried back into the wall as far as she could and closed in on herself; her legs were bent at the knees and pulled to her torso, and she held her hands in front of her face as if to protect herself. Her head was turned away from the room, her face hidden.
It took Peter a moment to realize what he was seeing before him. When he did, he was flushed with horror. Susan's hands were raised to protect from Lucy, and she must have been the one who screamed. Lucy's hands were not raised to protect, but to show she means no harm.
"I-I just came in here t-to give her s-supper. I-I didn't mean to scare her," Lucy sobbed. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "She looked like she was having a night terror, so I tried to wake her. She screamed and fled. The tray was on the bed and fell."
Peter was torn in his sympathy for his two sisters. He nearly cried with anguish that his youngest sister's innocence was being stolen, and he could do nothing about it. He wanted to tear out his hair and scream at the older sister's illness, and her senselessness in the entire ordeal. While he prayed and hoped she was not to blame for her own sickness, he had a nagging suspicion it was not so. Either way, he regretted her pain and loss.
Whimpers emerged from Susan's lips, and Peter turned to her. In a slight second that her face was revealed to him, Peter saw that though her eyes opened, they were completely unfocused and unseeing. She was not awake, he realized. She was still trapped in whatever vile dream her mind had succumbed to. His heart clenched in his chest.
Peter motioned to Lucy to be still and silent, and then got down on his two knees. This way, he was closer to Susan's height. On hands and knees, he crawled slowly across the room. But something in Susan's dream caused her to startle again, and she began writhing and shrieking. She kicked at the air and punched it. Had Peter been any closer, he would have been hit.
"Su, calm down, it's alright," he began coaxing. "Please, there's nothing and no one here that would hurt you. Stop fighting."
"Let go of me! Get off you piece of filth!" Susan screamed. "No! No!" She tore at her wrists and banged them violently against the floor.
"Susan stop! Stop! You'll hurt yourself!" Peter cried in alarm. He lurched forward and grabbed Susan's wrists, restraining her. She continued to writhe and struggle.
"Susan! Su! It's alright, you're safe! Please, Susan, it's only a night terror," Peter pleaded.
Susan's yelling subsided into whimpering and moaning. Her eyes were closed, but she relaxed considerably. Moments later her eyes opened once again. This time, they were filled with recognition.
"Peter? What are you doing here?" Susan's voice was soft and raspy from disuse.
Peter sighed in relief. "You were having a bad dream, so I came to comfort you."
Susan's large pale blue eyes rose to Lucy. "Did I do that?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Lucy I'm sorry if I scared you. And I'm sorry about the tray."
Lucy ran to her two older siblings and fell on her sister's neck, crying, sobbing, and hugging her fiercely. Peter hugged the two and held them all together.
Susan didn't say what her night terror was about, and Peter and Lucy feared to ask. The three of them sat on the floor, in the corner of the room, hugging each other for a long time. And in those long, silent moments, it seemed as if everything would be alright.
AN: What do you think? Reviews? Any suggestions for more suitable songs for this chapter? By the way, the next chapter is the last one in the first part of this story.