This sequel was written for Adventures in Narnia 2023, Amnesty 5: The Friends of Narnia meet to make music, for music often evokes memory.
The second time Susan hears the song, she is fourteen, and has stayed up too late celebrating on the last day of the year, so that it has become the first. Climbing the castle stairs, she looks out from her bedroom window on the hush of the snow-blanketed world, so different than the joyous revelry below.
A faint silvery singing drifts down from high above. She gazes up at the stars in wonder. The next morning, she tries to recall the tune, but it has faded away.
The third time Susan hears the song, she is sixteen, and it is the morning of Lithesekin, and she is standing at the Table as the sun rises.
She closes her eyes and commits what she can to memory.
The fourth time Susan hears the song, she is seventeen, and she is sitting on the battlement, playing alone to accompany the nighttime wind as it swirls in the autumn trees and her hair. She plucks the strings, trying yet again to reproduce that elusive melody, and suddenly she cries out as the song rings out loud and seems to fall from the sky to land before her in the form of a shining silver woman.
"It has been long since I have heard a mortal attempt an echo of the First Song," says the star.
"The First Song? Is that the tune's name? I have only heard it twice, yet it was the loveliest thing I had ever heard."
"That it is, young queen, for it is that song by which the Lion called the world into existence, and that song which the oldest of we stars still sing in praise on the great feasts. Faint echoes of it run yet through the world."
"Oh," says Susan with her mouth open. "I didn't know. Should...should I stop? I only thought it wonderful, and wished to learn it. Is it disrespectful?"
"Nay. The song belongs to all in this world, and to you four no less than others. But have a care that you treat it with honor, and not as simply one dance among many."
"Would you teach me?"
The star laughs, and the laugh is the chime of crystal bells. "I might sit with you a score of hours, gentle one, and yet leave you no better for it. The Song is not the sort of thing that can be learned only by rote. It must be lived as well, and there are many different stanzas. Seek it in the goodness given you, the creatures whom the Lion has set under you, and the world in which you live."
So Susan does.
She takes a small harp with her always, and sits beside waterfalls kept by naiads, rippling her fingers across the strings of the harp until the arpeggios and the water burble in harmony, and something inside her falls into place. She stands on the tower at sunset, listening to the light, and the strings trill out the most delicate of chords. She sits in council with her subjects, and hears the harmony in the working out of wrongs. She dances at jubilant feasts, and listens for the song behind the music. She sees the light in Lucy's eyes, the strength in Peter's voice, the compassion in Edmund's touch, and feels the joy of four working as one. She visits the dwarves, and the dryads, and the sheep and horses and geese and turtles and mermaids and leopards and centaurs and fauns and bears and ravens and elephants and—
Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, she finds bits of truth, and the melody grows.
The first time Susan plays the song, she is twenty-two, and it is the evening of Lucy's eighteenth birthday, and she can think of no better gift than the song yet unfinished. She has practiced it in pieces, but never quite strung the pieces together.
Sitting with her back to the open balcony doors, she chooses the first stanza, the one that she has learned from starlit nights. There has been a pleasant buzz of background conversation at the party, but before she has played half a minute, a hush falls over the room, every face turned toward her.
Half a minute more, and there are cries of shock as a man lands on the balcony, with hair of burning silver and carrying a spear as brightly white as though it has just left the furnace. He is followed by two women of like appearance, all three aglow with a light that outshines the lamps of the party as the sun outshines the moon. They add their voices to the harp, voices so high as to be shrill were they not so pure. In and around the plucking of the strings they weave the notes, harmonizing now with one and now with another, running up and down the scale, a layered cascade of beauty that thrills sharply through every heart.
Susan cannot see through tears, but her fingers know the way.
Together the four finish the stanza, and she rises to face the visitors. "Children of Light," she says shakily—Lucy darts forward to stand beside her—"you are most welcome to us, though I know neither your names nor your purpose here."
"I am Hastrin, Lord of the North," says the man. "You know me as the Spear-Head that guides your paths. My companions are Aravir, Lady of Morning, and Alambil, Lady of Peace."
"We came to honor your majesties," says Aravir, "and to join in that song which is first of all things, and is sung still at times by those in the halls of high heaven."
"Yet we must depart once more, for the great dance may pause only briefly," says Alambil. "There are still many hours before the sun is raised and we take our rest. Farewell, small ones, and may he who sang the Song keep you ever within its notes."
They shoot upwards together. The sisters rush onto the balcony, and see the silver streaking to the north and east and south.
"Thank you," Lucy says quietly. Her voice is full of wonder. "That was beautiful. But oh, Susan...it's so big. So much greater than other songs, and so joyful yet solemn in its meaning. I would never tell you to cease pursuing it; that would be like saying we should stop caring about Aslan. But I think...I think we ought to save it for some equally great occasion."
Susan cannot disagree, for her sister is right—and this greatness must be the reason why, before now, she has unconsciously shied from playing all the strains together.
"Then I shall continue pursuing it, and you shall tell me when that moment arrives."
The second time Susan plays the song, she is twenty-seven, and it is once more the morning of Lithesekin, fifteen years since the morning when the Table broke and Lithe forever became a feast of more than merely midsummer. They have decreed a special holiday for it.
She stands on the brow of the hill, looking out to sea, with her siblings at the right and the court behind. As the sun begins to peek out of the ocean and wash them all in light, she reaches for the strings and plays the stanza she has learned from that light, from sunrise to sunset and every hour between. And this is how she knows she has learned it aright, for Lucy closes her eyes and from her lips pours a wordless melody, the song lived and known without study, and they are in perfect harmony.
Peter and Edmund do not sing, but they are brought into the song as Lucy, standing between, clasps their hands in hers. Edmund presses his other hand to his heart and bows his head, while Peter raises his chin and looks steadfastly into the east.
Thus do they serenade the sunrise and the one of whom it speaks, in honor of what was done to him and by him in this place. Memory of night brings tears, and Lucy's voice is the more powerful for the way it catches, until the memory of dawn breaks through and transforms the delicacy of light into the strength of glory, and Susan is afraid she will break the strings by plucking with such force.
They finish with one clear note and an arpeggio that rushes brightly up the harp's full range. In the silence that follows, a murmur ripples out from the court behind, and the four turn.
"Well done," says the Lion, shining in the sunlight.
It needs but a moment to fly across to him. Susan buries her face in the golden mane and weeps for joy past, and joy present, and joy foreseen.
The third time Susan plays the song, she is twelve, and it has been nine days since the hunting of the Stag. They have been talking of Narnia, as they often do when they are by themselves.
This night has been especially hard. Edmund has suggested they tell the professor of their adventure, and why four of his coats are missing—"since he believed Pete and Su before"—but all four children feel that doing so would somehow mean they have at last given up the hope of return, that the adventure really is over for good, and the sadness weighs heavy on them.
"Play the First," says Peter suddenly. The conversation, already slow, dies completely. "We're none of us well tonight, and it might not be a very great occasion, but...just for a little while, Susan? I think we need it, now that the professor's let you use the harp."
Susan throws a glance at the instrument in the corner. "Would it even mean anything here?"
"Aslan brought Queen Helen to Narnia at the beginning, and sent the two children back. I suppose he must have some kind of power even in England."
"Yes," says Edmund. "And surely there's no harm in giving it a go."
Susan bites her lip.
A small hand is laid on her shoulder. "It's all right, Su," Lucy says quietly. The hand moves down to take Susan's, and the little girl—so much shorter, so much younger than she was a mere fortnight ago—gently tugs her across the room. "Just try."
Susan stands behind the harp, metal where she is used to wood. She sorts through the stanzas, choosing the one she learned from Narnia's green hills and trees, and sets her fingers to the strings. But she has not played more than thirty seconds before she knows it is no good. Her hands fall limply back to her sides.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, Peter, it's not right," she says helplessly. "The notes are correct, I know that much, but it just isn't right somehow. Like the harp is out of tune, except I can tell it isn't. Something's missing." She covers her face. They have weathered so many storms together, and now she cannot even do this for them.
Lucy hugs her. "That's all right. We only asked if you'd try."
Suddenly Edmund straightens in his seat. "Apologies, Professor. We didn't mean to disturb you." The other three turn, and find that their host is standing in the doorway. There are tears running down his cheeks and into his shaggy beard.
"Oh!" Susan takes a hurried step back from the harp, and Lucy goes with her. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—oh dear. Are...are you all right, sir?"
"Ah, child, do not worry yourself over an old man's weeping. It will pass. It is only that in all my life, I never thought to hear that song again."
The last word flies into all the sober stillness and shatters it as a well-thrown rock shatters a pane of glass. Susan claps one hand to her mouth. Lucy's arms tighten around her waist, and Edmund gives a little gasp. Peter leaps up from the armchair as if it has been electrified.
"What! Do you know this song too, sir?"
The professor smiles, a little sadly. "Know it? My dear boy, I was there when it first was sung."
He hums, and it is the next few bars of the strain—only they are right in the way that Susan cannot describe, right in the way that her playing was wrong.
"I believe I understand now why you have all been downcast this past week or so. I do not doubt you played the Great Song most excellently in Narnia, Miss Pevensie. But every world has its own...incarnation, shall we say, of that song, and I suspect you must learn the particular timbre of Earth before you can expect to play it truly here."
There is a moment of silence, and then the room explodes with four children all shouting excitedly at once.
None of the five sleeps a wink that night. They are too busy speaking of another world.
The fifth time Susan hears the song, she is fourteen nearing fifteen, and she has gotten the times mixed up. Today she was meant to play before a requiem at St. Cecelia's, but instead she arrives an hour late. A set of bells rings as she steps across the threshold of the outer door, and she instantly realizes her mistake and nearly turns on her heel. But she has never stayed for a liturgy after playing prelude, and so for a minute she wrestles with curiosity and the desire to see what exactly goes on.
It is only a minute—but it is enough. The bells ring out again, three times in succession, and in that ring is the same song she has known in Narnia, only pitched in a different key.
And then Susan really does flee, for she must talk to her siblings at once.
The fourth time Susan plays the song, she is sixteen, and it is the first time the eight Narnian sojourners have been together at once, now that Mary Plummer has come home to roost and the younger ones are all on school holiday. It is also the first time Eustace and his friend Jill have met the merry-faced woman his cousins already cheerfully call Aunt Polly.
It is, in other words, a uniquely auspicious moment. She does not find it surprising when, as the fire dies down and their gathering draws toward its end, the professor asks if he might prevail upon her to play the song she once attempted in his parlor.
It has been long since she last played it, for it is of Narnia and the songs she plays now are of Earth, but she casts her mind back. The memory rises again, that green strain of hills and valleys and trees and flowers. She knows, now, what the professor once referred to as Earth's timbre, and how to shift the Narnian incarnation ever so slightly into accord with the Terran, so that the outworld melody rings just as true in an English sitting room, and transports two back in time and six along with them.
"Ah," sighs the professor. "The heather on the hills, and the fir-topped ridge. Primroses and daisies scattered all around, lifting their heads to the newborn sun."
"Willow and beech along the riverbank, with wild masses of roses and lilacs opposite," says Aunt Polly dreamily. "Ivy twining up the trunks of the great oaks, and holly berries shining bright against the green bush."
So their words and Susan's music meld together into a vivid image of things that happened so very long ago by one reckoning, and not so long ago by another, and yet in fullest truth are still as present as they ever were.
The first time Susan hears the song, she is twelve, and she does not realize it, for all her attention is wrapped up in the Lion standing once more alive before them.
There is no last time Susan hears the song, for "last" implies a cessation, and in the place where it is sung full-voiced by myriad infinity, it has no end.