Disclaimer: Do you really need to be told again that Susan is not mine? If you haven't figured that out by now, you never will.
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Susan stepped out of the pool and looked around. This time she was prepared for the sudden drowsiness of the Wood between the Worlds and did not forget where she was going. She did not forget where she had been, either, and left her handkerchief, partly underneath a tree root, to mark the pool she had come out of. Just in case...
Susan would not try a different pool. Narnia was gone, and she did not want to see any other worlds. Perhaps, someday, someone else, someone younger, would come. Perhaps they would even meet the butterfly people. She put on her green ring and went to the pool she knew led home.
But was it home? Somehow, she didn't think so any longer. Home is where the heart is, and half of Susan's heart was in Narnia. She did not know where the other half was. Certainly not in the silent, empty house she had left behind in America.
Susan had a strange, fleeting desire to go back to Flora and the giant daffodil, but that would not help her. She must go back to her own world, although she did not know what she would do there. As she waded into the pool, she glanced at the books Flora had given her, which she still held clutched in one arm. 'The Chronicles of Narnia' was all she could read before she felt herself whirling downward.
Her bedroom was dark and dreary, compared to the places she had just visited. The curtains were shut, the lamp was dim, and the whole atmosphere seemed oppressive. The first thing Susan did was open the curtains. The sunlight streaming in made the room more inviting, but it did not lift her spirits.
She sat down on her bed, and, for lack of anything else to do, opened one of her books.
"This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began."
This was about Narnia. 'Why should I read about it, if I can't get there?' thought Susan. She kept reading anyway. Perhaps it would help her unexplainable feeling of homesickness.
Susan read about a little boy named Digory, and a girl called Polly. She had heard those names before. Who were they? She realized with a shock that those were the first names of Professor Kirke and Miss Plummer. This was their story. She read about the Wood between the Worlds, and had a sudden, dreadful thought. She had been there alone, and had nearly gone to sleep. If not for the guinea pig, she might be there still. Susan shuddered and read on.
She read about Charn, and was horrified. She read about the Empress Jadis, and was frightened. She read about the creation of Narnia, and was thrilled. She discovered the origins of the lamp-post and the wardrobe.
When Susan had finished with the book, she started the next. The story was very familiar.
"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids..."
She read about Edmund and the White Witch and shivered. She read about the Stone Table and cried. She read about the years she had spent as a queen of Narnia, and what Aslan had told them at their coronation.
"Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen. Bear it well, Sons of Adam! Bear it well, Daughters of Eve!"
She had not borne it well; she had forgotten. And how could she be queen of a place that no longer existed? It existed in these books, though, so she continued to read.
When Susan finished each book, she set it down and picked up the next. She learned all the tales she had refused to listen to from Edmund and Lucy and Eustace. She read about the Dawn Treader, and the search for Prince Rilian, and then she opened the very last book.
"In the last days of Narnia, far up to the west beyond Lantern Waste and close beside the great waterfall, there lived an Ape..."
"And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
Susan dropped the book, stunned. So that was what had happened to them all, and to Narnia. At that moment, she would have given absolutely anything to have been there.
Suddenly, her alarm clock rang. Susan suddenly realized that she had read all afternoon and all night, and now it was morning. She had no appointments today, so she would sleep. First, though, she would put away the books, and the magic rings. She placed them in a cardboard box, taped it closed, and wrote on the lid, "To my beloved grandchildren, Peter and Martha." Susan would give it to them next Christmas; they were sure to appreciate it.
Susan lifted the box to the top shelf of her closet, and then went to lie down. She fell asleep thinking of her brothers and sister, and her friends from Narnia.
She dreamed that she was following a huge, golden lion through a field of yellow oxeye daisies.
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Further Disclaimer: I don't even own all the writing. Huge portions of it are straight out of the Narnia books: practically everything in quotation marks.