Chapter 5:

There was pain with each step. Not from the rough terrain, but from the memories that resurfaced with each moment spent in Narnia.

One minute she saw a tiny mouse that reminded her of a great warrior she once knew, and the next it was like she had never been here before. She would hike into a clearing only to have a sudden image of a bonfire once ignited and a party forming around it, only to leave and feel like a stranger in an alien forest.

But, as Susan had noticed with Timothy the sparrow, while what she saw brought back memories, what she experienced in the past felt far more real than what she was experiencing now.

Hiking through Narnia felt like a slideshow of faded memories. Some long gone, some still faint.

While figuring out where Christopher was kept her going, she was starting to wonder…where was she?

Susan had walked along the river for some time now. Luckily, her memories for surviving in the woods had not faded.

At this time of year, there were still berries on the branch, but the water was chill to the touch. It made for a perfect way to keep her sated and quench her thirst.

But she couldn't stay here forever. And neither could her son.

Following the river inevitably reached where Susan's adventures began: a beaver dam. It of course couldn't be the same one from her youth, but it looked eerily similar.

Susan, compelled by both the desire to find clues as to her son's whereabouts and to understand more of this strange Narnia, knocked on the front door. Normally, one would indeed expect a door to open after knocking on it, but when this door opened it startled Susan. Like an abandoned building having someone home.

A stout beaver stepped out with a smile.

"Good morning," he said as cherrily as one could to a stranger, "May I help you?"

Susan paused for a minute, taken aback by how similar this beaver's voice was to her long gone friend. She felt a tug in her heart remembering him, and all those she met on that first trip into the professor's wardrobe.

"Oh, uh, yes, you may be able to help me," she finally answered, "Would you have happened to see a human boy, a son of adam, come through here by chance?"

"Oh yes, one stopped by my home some time ago."

"Really? What did he look like? Did he have brown hair? What color were his eyes? Did he tell you his name?"

"Oh my. Do you know this child?"

"Yes. He is my son. I've lost him."

"That's strange. He didn't seem lost to me," the beaver stopped and sat in thought for the briefest of seconds, "Why don't you come in?"

"No, thank you, but I have to be moving on. Which way did he go from here?"

"He continued to follow the river eastward. I tried to get him to stay here. A young thing like that shouldn't be heading towards the coast."

"Thank you," Susan said but before she stepped away, what was said finally hit her mind, "Why shouldn't he head towards the coast?"

The coast was once the heart of Narnia. Where the capital was, where they held gatherings, where they traded with the islands to the east. The line of the coast had always been a lifeline for the people of Narnia.

"The sea belongs to the three sirens and the Lord of the Coast now," the beaver said.

"Who are they?" As faded as Susan's memory was, she was certain that title didn't exist when she was on the throne. Sirens had existed, but the closest thing to a Lord of the Coast were the Pevensies themselves.

"No one knows much. The last festival on the coast was a foolish idea, if you ask me. It may be tradition, but ever since they made that land their domain, it's been a scary place to visit. I dared not attend, and you shouldn't go out there either."

"I don't care who is waiting for me there. If that is where Christopher went, then that is where I'm going."

As it had been since Christopher was lost, Susan had no time to spare. Without so much as a polite goodbye, Susan ran away, leaving the beaver dam behind her. She traveled as fast as she could the rest of the way down the river. Through the night, and all day, whatever pain she felt faded away.

And finally she arrived. Where her feet instinctively took her.

Broken trees, roots cutting through stone. The remains of rocky pavement ran around it.

It was unmistakable. The ruins of Cair Paravel. Where Susan had spent some of the best years of her life.

"But, that can't be…" Susan said, interrupting the memories before they flooded into her mind, "These ruins look as they did when I was here last."

The ruined form of the castle looked in exactly the same condition as when Susan and her siblings had come to Narnia last. When they had been called to save Prince Caspian and restore the true line of kings.

Should it not be degraded further, or perhaps rebuilt? How could it look exactly as it did before? With the same orchard, the same fir cones littering the floor, and the same lack of usable firewood. It was exactly as she remembered it.

But there was one part of the ruins that she did not remember. It looked like something she had never seen before in her life. Until just recently.

In the center, where once there had been a throne room built for four thrones, was something different. But familiar.

Almost identical to the one she saw when entering Narnia, in the castle ruins was a pile of broken arrows. But unlike the small island in the woods she passed by to get here, this pile was massive. Nearly ten times as large. Maybe even more, as Susan could not even see the top of it, even when standing on the tips of her toes.

"What are these things?" she asked, hoping someone would answer her.

But no one was there. It looked as though no one had been here in ages. Except for one, subtle clue. Something only a trained tracker could spot.

Someone like Queen Susan.

To her right, where once a great gate stood, were footprints and large lines in the sand that led along the coast.

Trained eyes like Susan's, which had spent years tracking in the woods of Narnia, could tell immediately how these tracks were made. At least three individuals were dragging large bags from the center of Cair Paravel along the coast to…somewhere.

Just as Susan was about to ask herself what they had been carrying, the answer became obvious. The only thing here were the broken arrows. Someone was coming here to take arrows and bring them somewhere else.

Though none of the footprints could possibly match Christopher's, this was the first sign of life she had seen on the coast. If Christopher wasn't with these people, perhaps they had seen him.

The choice was made for her. Susan left the ruins and walked along the coast.

To her left was the Narnian Sea, to her right the Narnian Woods, and behind her…what had once been her Narnian home.

But who were these people that lay ahead of her?

Were they these three sirens and this so-called Lord of the Coast?

Whoever they were, if they knew where Christopher was, then they were exactly the people Susan needed to see.