Chapter 7

The days unrolled before him, and Peter was less sure than ever what to do with himself. Still, since that night he had stayed by Lucy's bedside, he had begun to feel like he was standing on a beach just before the turn of the tide. Something was about to change.

The restless feeling of this moment left him irritable and edgy. He paced far more often than usual, talked less. The only time he got any peace was when he was with Edmund and Lucy. At least they understood.

And Lucy…he had fallen asleep by her bedside that night. She had woken up from a dream with a sudden gasp, and this woke him. "Peter!" she exclaimed softly. "What are you doing here?"

Peter had lifted his head and looked full into her eyes and Lucy understood his pain. "Oh, Peter," she said, her eyes filling. She clasped his folded hands.

That was all she had said, but in truth it was all she had to say. She cared. She cared for him and she held true to Narnia, and that was enough. He took great comfort in the fact that Lucy was as steadfast as Susan was fickle.

Lucy declared she was going to knit him a blanket, and so in the evenings when Susan was getting ready to go out and their parents were watching television he would sit beside her and hold the yarn separate while she spun old stories of Narnia. Then the restless feeling would subside for a moment and he would rest in dreams of the battles of Beruna or days in the remote green of the Lone Islands or feasts in Archenland. Sometimes Edmund would join them, and the boys would relive old battles remembering the strategies that earned them remembrance for generations. They would get up and duel with Mother's long candlesticks, and Lucy would laugh at what a pair of boys they were.

On one of these more jovial nights, Edmund had stopped the parry mid-swing to remember the exact move Peter had been trying to recreate. "No, you've got it wrong," he said thoughtfully, his candlestick crossed with Peter's. "You're footing's wrong."

"I fought the duel," Peter laughed. He did not notice, as Lucy and Edmund did, that his laughter was rather higher and tighter than usual. "How would you know?"

"I watched. I was judging with the King of Terabinthia, remember?" Edmund smiled.

Peter yielded his brother's point and was changing his footing when Susan came in the room. At first she didn't even notice her brothers.

"Lucy did you borrow my cream hair ribbon yesterday? I can't find it anywhere?" Only when she saw that Lucy was laughing at something entirely different did she turn and see Peter and Edmund.

Now it was Edmund's turn to laugh at her aghast face. "Sharp, aren't you? We've been standing like this since you came in."

"What are you doing?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Polishing mum's candlesticks," Edmund retorted. Lucy snickered, but Peter felt he ought to restrain Edmund's sharp tongue.

"Ed," he warned halfheartedly.

"We were talking about the tournament Peter won on the Lone Islands," Lucy explained from her chair. "Don't you remember? There was that duke who was so keen on you that he spilled mead all over himself…and then you met that Galmian prince—what was his name, Su?"

Lucy's chatty reminiscences were clever reminders of one of Susan's favorite times. Peter could see the change steal over her sister, the flush that was creeping up into her cheeks, the quick glimmer of memory in her eyes. He also saw that Lucy pressed her advantage, and he stepped away from Edmund and watched as hard as he could, as if staring could make Susan's redemption happen.

"I don't remember," Susan whispered.

"You know what I remember best about that trip? The morning you all came back on the Splendour Hyaline. I was always on that ship; I never saw it pull into harbor. But I was watching from the terrace at Cair Paravel and I saw the ship come in with her white sails full and the sun behind her. It was so regal. And then I heard the clear trumpet sound to announce your return and I went running down to the harbor and you all came off the boat looking so tall and proud and royal. Hearing your stories that night was almost better than having gone myself. Do you remember how late we talked? The boys heard us laughing and they came in and then we went down to the kitchens and made ourselves a snack and when the servants heard Edmund drop a pot they all came in and chided us for not having waked them. Don't you remember, Susan?"

Susan was at her breaking point. Her eyes were full of tears; all her cool resolve to forget Narnia was gone. Peter saw this, and he stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder. "It doesn't have to be like this, Susan. You can remember with us."

She shook him off fiercely. "Remember and what? Be like you?" she spat. "Wallow in my own self-pity? Alas, once I was Queen of Narnia, now I'm nothing! What's the point of that when I can actually have a nice life? Maybe I won't be a queen, but at least I'll be happy once in awhile. Believe me, Peter, the last thing I want is to remember with you."

"Where do you get off?" Edmund demanded, and his cheeks were blotched in anger. This fierce, almost sick-looking expression was his most dangerous. "You can't talk to Peter like that!"

"Why not? Because he's 'High King'? Not here! Not anymore!"

Peter reeled back as if Susan had actually slapped him. She had said the thing that had been gnawing at him. Perhaps then, it was true after all and Narnia was a dream. Maybe this was the change…the tide was going out. He was on the point of giving in when Lucy spoke.

"That's not true," she said quietly.

When Susan reeled on Lucy, she had all the look of a cornered cat. "What?"

"It's not true. Maybe he doesn't have the title, but Peter is still everything that made him king. He kept it all with him. It was you who decided to throw it away in favor of lipstick and stockings."

Susan went very pale. "I did what I had to do to grow up. Apparently I was the only one who understood that we can't play pretend forever. Do you know what I had to endure at school because of you? You and your daydreams and your running up to me in the halls. And then I had to explain to all my friends that you were actually my sister. It was mortifying to see the looks on their faces. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you are? Do you have any idea how ridiculous all of this is? Real or not, and I sometimes think not, it happened when we were children. Ages ago. Are we supposed to carry on like this forever, with Peter moping about and you mooning? Ridiculous." She turned away from Lucy's tear-filled eyes.

There was a huge clang as Edmund dropped his candlestick. "You beast!" he growled in a strangled voice. "You filthy, heartless beast! How dare you speak to her like that?"

Susan tossed her head in defiance.

Peter saw Edmund leap out of the corner of his eye, and he tried to grab his brother, but he wasn't fast enough. Edmund bowled Susan over, and in spite of all the chivalry drilled into him, he was hitting her with all his might while Susan fought him tooth and nail. Peter jumped in to pull them apart and wound up part of the melee somehow. Eventually he managed to secure Edmund by the waist and pull him away from Susan. Susan scrambled to her feet and stood panting and staring at her brothers with wide eyes. Peter was still holding Edmund, and both of them were breathing hard as well. Edmund made an attempt to struggle, but Peter held him fast.

"Lucy's the best of us all!" Edmund growled. "How can you say that about her?"

Susan glared at her brother, apparently searching for a reply. Then, before Peter found something to say, she tossed her head again and declared in a cool voice "Fine. Have it your way. But I'm not going to be a part of this anymore. Not anymore. Don't talk to me about your fool's paradise. I don't care about lions, or swords, or strange wardrobes."

"Susan," Peter implored.

"I said don't talk to me!" Susan turned on her heel and stalked out. Peter didn't have the strength to hold Edmund back anymore, so Edmund broke free and bolted after Susan. Peter stood in the center of the room feeling as though he had just been socked in the stomach. He might be sick, he didn't know. Edmund's betrayal was a thousand years ago in Narnia, but it didn't matter now anyway. He had been saved. But if Susan refused to believe in the Lion, how could He save her?

"I always thought she would want it back," he muttered in a dumbstruck voice. He expected to hear Lucy say something from her chair, but when he turned to look at her, he found she had gone.