Once Upon a December

(Susan remembers other Decembers)

Disclaimer: Susan, mermaids, A Christmas Carol, Christmas itself, "Once Upon a December" or any other Disney things...words...the alphabet...any large amount of money...any sense of balance or the ability to stay on my feet...just so, the list of things I don't know could go on and on. I have been given some rather fabulous Christmas presents though (my family usually gives them early...months early, if you're my mother, because she gets so excited about them she has to), and I own a library, and God gave me an imagination, and I'm rather happy with the riches I have.

A/N: Please be warned, this is not exactly a story of cheer, but of regret, and grief finally becoming tears. It was inspired by my getting "Once Upon a December" stuck in my head one morning for no rational reason my brain can figure out. It also does not include all three ghosts...partly for lack of time, and partly because though I thought of doing a giant and then a Marshwiggle, I wasn't sure where the story would go from here. Maybe next year I'll rewrite it with a different ending, and all three ghosts.

OOOOO

It was Christmas, it was cold, and Susan Pevensie was in bed.

Her house wasn't decorated. No lights hung from a tree. The house was cold, and it was empty. Susan wanted it that way.

Susan did not want living, colorful reminders of a season in a world that no longer held her loved ones. Susan hated the smiles, the excitement, the joy - they were blows, reminders to her grief that all she had this year were gravestones buried in snow, and memories buried even deeper. She had not cried. She did not cry. She went about life instead, and when she could not distract herself with life, she shut life away from herself. She had gone to bed early, so that Christmas would be over earlier, too. She almost hoped not to wake to it.

But wake she did, and that to the stroke of midnight, and a feeling of small, snow-cold hand patting her leg as its owner laughed. "Susan!" a merry voice cried. "Susan!"

Susan opened her eyes. The voice - the voice was one she knew. Or knew of; had known. She looked and saw a glowing white face, a female face, surrounded by flowing, shining hair. The voice and face were laughing. It shown as if the softest light of the moon had been gathered into this stranger's body. "Susan!" the lilting voice called again, and Susan sat up and rubbed her eyes. For the body was that of a mermaid, floating in the air, shining white, her tale undulating with currents of air Susan could not see.

The way she moved - Susan had seen that before.

"Are you a dream?" Susan gasped.

"No," the merghost sang, eyes merry. "I am a gift!" She held out the hand she had used to wake the sleeping mourner. "Come! I am here to bring you cheer!"

Susan stopped short, the hand she had begun to hold out instantly withdrawn. "I have no wish to be cheered," she said coldly. ""Nor shall I go with you; you are merely a phantom, given form by the grief I have held in, during this season of cheer. Thou art a throwback to childish games, to long-forgotten memories of my mind. Be gone! I seek thee no more."

"Didst not seek me to begin with," the merghost said with a light laugh. "But if all are games, and not true memories, then why, former queen, dost thou speak so? Didst thy games teach thee so much? Then why wouldst thou forget them?" With a gentle flip of her tail she pushed herself higher, her eyes at level with Susan's.

Susan had no answer. She had forgotten those games for a reason, she knew she had; after the funeral of her siblings, she had found herself trying to forget them as well, to erase that pain. She glanced at the shining mermaid, slender fingers still held out, white arm glowing, and hair moving as if the water currents still flowed through it.

"Come!" the mermaid cried again. "I come for your reclamation!" She moved forward, her hand grasping Susan's and pulling her irresistibly to stand on the floor, the woman gasping with shock at the cold floor. "Come with me!"

Together, the merghost's hand still on her arm, the pair headed towards the window, Susan balking at the mysteriously open frame. "I cannot!" she exclaimed, seeing her companion beginning to swim through it. "I do not float on air! I am human, I will fall!"

"Bear but the touch of my hand," her companion replied softly. Susan reached up to take it, but the merghost shook her head, her hair floating across her face at the movement. "No, not to bear the touch on thy hand, Gentle - one. But here," she explained, reaching forward, but stopping just short of touching Susan's heart. "Will you bear my touch here?"

Susan looked to the window, then back to the white face floating before her, and nodded once. The white fingertips reached forward, and the merghost shuddered. "So cold," she gasped, but Susan froze before she could reply, seeing something far over the merghost's floating hair.

They were no longer at the window.

OOOOO

They were in a forest, still in the night. Their surroundings were dimly lit by stars of different constellations.

"Do you know this place?" the sweet, high voice inquired. Susan, wildly looked around at the trees, the snow, and the clear stars singing overhead, drew in a breath.

"Know it!" she cried. "I know it! I know it as well as I know my bedroom; I could dance down this path with my eyes closed." She paused. "I know it," she said more uncertainly. "Don't I?"

"Strange, that you forgot what you once knew so well," the mermaid murmured, floating beside Susan at waist height, her glowing light illuminating the trees.

"I...it was game," Susan muttered. "And this - this is a dream."

"Listen!" the mermaid commanded, rising up at the waist.

Susan listened and heard a strange, heartbreaking song. No, the tune in her ears merely brought the memory of a different song; she could hear it. One that began with her name; one she could almost remember.