Disclaimer: Yes, I invented the concept of danger, the physical and metaphorical meaning of doors, and also Narnia. Sure.

"It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world."
~ Mary Oliver

Snow blanketed the ground the next morning; the reflected sunlight woke Susan early. A part of her—a larger part than she liked—felt like laying in bed and ruminating over all the reasons why it wasn't fair that she was alone, that love hurt—but she knew if she began, she would slip easily back into running away from life.

And it was time, and past time, Edmund would say, to put a stop to that.

Susan paused, just to see if Edmund's voice would say something—

Nothing.

So she threw the covers back and went to make breakfast. Easy breakfast, just a poached egg and toast, but still, she ate something. And then, realising how early it was and that she didn't have a reason not to go to church, she dressed and went.

Slipping in and out before anyone could greet her or ask questions, but something in the service itself, the music, reminded her of moments in Narnia. Perhaps it was her memories reawakening, now that she didn't push them back. But inside her head she was suddenly in the dark, stone under her feet, starlight above, and the sound of Narnian voices singing thanks to Aslan for the freedom from the long winter and its cruel creator.

Or the time she passed a Badger giving a lesson to all the young kids and kittens of Cair Paravel about the character of Aslan, of how He was not a tame lion…

Not a tame Lion, Susan thought as she walked home. How well I know that now. I have enough power to create doors in my neighbourhood, but not enough to open them; a heart for Narnia but no home in it. The universe is not aligned with my will, but His. And Peter would tell me that's good, Su. And that He abides by His own laws, because they show who He is, they're a part of Him.

There was less resentment in that thought then there had been. But Susan still sighed as she opened the gate to her garden.

Only to pause. The corner of a white envelope stuck out the mailbox, and there was no post on Sundays.* Perhaps something magical had—

No, Susan reminded herself. I just didn't check the mail yesterday. Apathetically, she took that letter and four others from the box. Two were bills, she saw as she walked into the house, and she set them to the side to do later in the week. She'd made it to church; that was all she could do today. The third was a plea for money that Susan didn't have, from a society her mother had helped, and the fourth—the fourth had Jack Lewis written across the front.

Her fingers were tearing open the envelope before Susan had her hat off; the white paper blocked out the rest of the world as she unfolded it. Sitting in her chair in the living room, she began reading the bold, school-boy letters:

Mrs. was crossed out, and then Ms. Pevensie,

I'm not allowed to call you Susan and still write to you, because the Headmaster who is far too strict thinks writing to girls leads to romance. But I want to talk about lions.

I had heard the story of going to Narnia, but Eustace your cousin you know wasn't a good storyteller and your letter was. Was a good story. So I was glad to read it again. And when Eustace your cousin would tell stories Jill would also interrupt him and your letter also didn't have that. I liked that too.

I'm not going to be at this school much longer because Dad is sending me to Old Knock I think his name is spelled that way. My brother went there. Maybe when I go I will have more stories, but right now I just want to hear yours. Right now I want to hear about lions and dragons.

Lucy your sister but you know that (also crossed out) talked a little bit about dragons but Eustace talked about them more, and Jill didn't interrupt much then, but did you meet a dragon? Were you scared? I think my new teacher and my brother says he is called the Great Knock, not the Old Knock, but my brother shouldn't be reading over my shoulder (and here there was a great blot on the page, as if two boys had jostled each other and the pen). And I am not to go to him for at least another few years.**

My brother is gone now and I can talk about the Lion. I think a lot of people need to hear about him. I can't forget him. I want to tell them all, but no one listens to little boys so I will tell them when I grow up. I like to talk. But I haven't written many letters and I hope you like this one.

I hope this letter finds you well. My brother says people end their letters like that. And then they sign their names.

Jack Lewis

Letting the paper fall into her lap, Susan closed her eyes. The Lion.

Aslan.

She'd forgotten, that when the word wasn't a plea falling from her lips, it was a name. And the name—the scent of wild and sweet summers, the sound of all the merriment on earth and beyond, and the feeling of being loved—Heaven was held in His name.

Are you braver now? He'd asked her that once, and she'd told Him: a little. That had been enough. She remembered that now, that a little had been enough, more than enough, when He was near. Would a little be enough now?

She would have to trust it would be. And having Jack, and Nancy, and all the rest in England—that might be the little that would be enough. It would not be anything like what she'd lost, she'd have the hole and pain till she saw her family again, even if it changed over time—but it might be enough to root her in the place where Aslan wanted her.

And so she should encourage the relationships. Forgetting lunch, she set the paper to the side and got up to get a pen and paper, putting her hat, gloves, and scarf away as she did. She kept her coat on, for she didn't want to take the time to light a fire. Sitting back down in the living room, leaning over the paper, she began,

Dear Mr. Jack,

I did like your letter. Thank you for sending it. Please send them as often as you can, though I know from Peter and Edmund that often boys write letters because the people elsewhere want them, not necessarily because the author feels like writing. But I definitely enjoyed getting your letter.

People don't often listen to adults, either; most people walk around with their ears closed. May yours always be open!

Tonight I remembered a time when my brothers, my sister, myself, and a Dwarf friend we called D.L.F. were looking for a king. He was just a boy, and had a little army made up of very few fighters, and we had been called back to Narnia the second time to help him.

We were still kids back then, and there was so much to do, and everything had changed—just like things will change when you go to your new tutor—and I was so afraid. People shot arrows at us—have you heard the sound? And we had to crawl under bushes and up hills, hoping they wouldn't find us amid the trees, just to get to a boy and a small army that was losing a war. We'd left it when it was so happy and doing so well, and it hurt to come back and find everything so horrible. I was afraid.

And then the Lion came.

Everything tends to change when He comes. Just like when He came to your school. Jill and Eustace (my cousin) told me about that.

It didn't change the way I thought it would. We didn't win the instant He showed up. He had tasks for all of us; that's why He called us back. But before we started doing anything, He told me I had listened to fears. He breathed on me—did you get to feel His breath?—and asked if I was braver.

I was thinking about that tonight because I have listened to fears again. Which is not a sensible thing to do, your headmaster would probably tell both of us. Though he might be distracted by tales of Lions changing things. But I've been remembering that tonight. He is the kind of Person who, when He is there and tells you not to fear, I can let all the fear go. Or a lot of it.

And I think it's because…oh, you'll find the answer to that yourself, when you see Him. He is the answer that banishes fear.

Shall I tell you the rest of the story? You may have heard it from the others. But Peter, Edmund, and the DLF were sent to find Caspian, but my sister and I got to stay with Aslan. We got to ride on His back…

It was nearly dark when Susan lifted her head from the page. The glory of that ride, the dancing of the girls, the freedom of all those poor enslaved trees, had spun through her head while she wrote the words on paper. She felt again Aslan's muscles ripple under her, saw the bridge fall into the water at Beruna, and saw her battling brothers rush out of the woods. Both of them, safe, returned to her—

Not anymore.

A few tears fell on the paper, and Susan hastily pushed herself up, wiping her cheeks. But it did not seem a bad thing to mourn. At the same time her stomach rumbled, reminding her she hadn't eaten in hours. Folding up the letter and addressing it took little time; she put it on the entrance, next to the bills. She would do those after food, and get them done, to make Monday easier.

After all of that was done, she went to bed.

When she woke the next morning, it was an effort to get herself out of bed to work, but the world didn't seem quite so grim as she ate and dressed. Not coloured, but not dark, either; and that was a great deal easier to bear.

Till work began. Working in this shop had a way of emptying the world of all meaning and all glory. When Susan finally wrapped up and closed the shop door behind her, she knew she had another choice. She could go home, where it would be very hard to do anything but see the grey world, or she could do a little something tonight—but what? Her tired, practical side asked. Do grow up. It's not like YOU can do magic.

Except the calling of the doors…

But she remembered something she'd heard an Owl say, once: When I'm not sure where to fly, I listen. And sometimes it's the wind, sometimes it's the squeaking of bats, and sometimes it's the silence itself, bless me, that tells me where I should fly!

So Susan listened. And she did not hear the wind—or bats, for which she was thankful, but she did hear the soft wish of her own heart, to go back to the gravestones.

It will be cold, she argued with herself. A few flurries were falling around her.

So will home.

Oh, very well. But I don't know why—

Yes, I do, and I recognise the tone I was using, I used to use with my siblings. All right. I'll go, and try to go with a good heart.

A brave heart. Though I don't know what I'll need courage for.

Lucy, I miss your brave heart.

A few flakes of snow had settled on the stones; she brushed them off with mittened fingers. "Hello," she said softly. "I'm—I don't think I've told you this, but I'm grounded in England, at least for a while. So I don't have many new stories for you. Though I wrote to Jack again. But you know all those stories." She looked at the ground in front of the gravestones. "You'll pardon me if I don't sit down?" she asked in her most winning tones. "Sorry," she added a moment later, to the listening silence. "I just—wanted to make you laugh." She sighed, looking from one stone to the other. She couldn't look at their names and say the next thing; she looked at the frozen ground instead. "It's been hard, being here. I keep arguing about things, trying to find things to live for here, but my heart—oh, it's a habit now, to gripe at things. To laugh at the things that aren't funny, and to see the wonder in nothing, because wonder makes me pause, and pausing means thinking and feeling and hearing, and just—the set is changing. Oh, Peter, I wish you were here. It needs a better King than Robert. Only—Edmund, I can see you questioning me, without a single word, about that. All right. Robert has a little something in him, and Aslan has turned little into much before, I was just thinking about that, but…I think it has to be given to Him first. And Robert hasn't."

She looked back up at that, at the dark Edmund carved into the stone. "I have," she told him softly. "I know you'd be thrilled to hear that, smiling that slow smile that just gets wider and wider. I miss your smile, Edmund." She whispered her words now, just for him, the weight of them clogging her throat. "I miss all of you."

"Susan?" The voice came from behind her, feminine, subdued, and a little uncertain. "I thought—I might find you here."

Wiping her cheeks—how familiar that gesture was now—Susan turned and saw Carol.

Not dressed for a full party; this was her second-best coat, light brown but with a black stain on the hem under her right arm, but with a hat to match and a red scarf.

"You came to find me?" Susan asked, also uncertain. "I'm—not really up for a party."

"No, no, not for partying—I thought I'd go to one, but I'm…can we walk?"

Susan felt the weariness suddenly pulling at her again; the tiredness that made it so hard to care. But she also knew her calling as a Walker was for this world as well. "If you'd like."

"I want to ask you something," Carol asked as they turned down the path. "And it's going to sound odd."

"Ask."

"How does one go about being sad?"

You are asking ME that? The question was odd enough that Susan stopped, looking at Carol. The bright hair under the brown hat moved forward a few steps before Carol turned. The slightly desperate look on her face stopped Susan's bitter answers and helped gentle her tone.

"Why are you asking this?"

Carol took two steps closer. "May I, can I, please—keep this a secret?"

Susan nodded.

"I thought—I thought you could keep secrets. There's this family—I knew the daughter first, I met her at a party. She didn't stay with our set long, she didn't fit in. I don't think you met her at all. The father lost two limbs, both his legs, and it made him—unpleasant. The mother stays home to care for him, but the two daughters hired themselves out to work as soon as possible, to get themselves out of that house."

"And you try to listen to them and help them?" That, Susan could certainly give advice on.

"No!" Carol looked down at her hands, fidgeting, and Susan realised she should perhaps treat this a little more seriously. "I am not—not the kind of person to help with that. I do it very poorly."

"Okay." Susan get the word gentle, inviting.

"They have an older brother," Carol blurted. "And he's—Susan, I wish I could show him to you. Without him meeting you, because everyone falls in love with you, but just—he cares for them. He cares for them all. He makes most of the money, he dropped out of college to take a job to provide for them before his sisters got older, he screens all the boys who come and makes sure they won't marry anyone like their dad, he comes home from really hard days at work and sits his mom down at the table. He lets her rest, while he does things in the kitchen. His dad—his dad even lightens up a bit, when he comes home. You can see the little bit of pride in his eyes, the only pride he has left, Harry—Harry is the son—Harry is his pride, Harry has said. So dinners aren't awful, and evenings can be quiet and safe, and it's all because of Harry. He sits in the front of the fire in the evening and listens to all his sisters' stories, and his mom's, and he's so gentle. But—" Susan knew that noise, the choking off of words when they don't say enough, when pain interrupts meaning.

"Did something happen to Harry?"

"No? Why would you think that?"

"Then why are you hurting?"

"Because he doesn't love me!" Carol burst out. "I go to their house every evening there isn't a party, Henrietta asked me to, she said their father behaves better with company. And Harry is always so amazing, and I loved being there, even with everything awkward, and Harry took me aside one night and said I made his sisters laugh, and even his mother—twice now—and he thanked me for that. And I thought—I thought it meant something. But I asked, later, and…and he doesn't feel that way for me. He told me I'm like a candle flame, bright and pretty, but the darkness in his life would put it out. I don't understand sorrow enough to understand him. He said—those were the two things that really hurt. And I thought, you understand sorrow. You could teach me. I could become—become someone he falls in love with." Something dropped from Carol's face; Susan just caught a glimpse of it, falling to the ground. Her friend was crying. "And I've never made him laugh," she whispered.

Susan took her hand, mittened fingers slipping around Carol's palm and squeezing. "Love doesn't always work that way. You can't become someone he loves, Carol; you are already you."

"But I could learn—"

"You could. That does not mean he will fall for you." Deliberately keeping her tone gentle, even, and cajoling, she added, "I'm not arguing against making yourself a better person, mind. But that won't guarantee you'll win his heart. Especially—speaking after…everything, Carol, something about sorrow makes it hard to open one's heart to someone new to love. I cling very fiercely to the old," (and to the new especially sent for me to love), "but a hurting heart isn't going to want to be vulnerable. And love is very vulnerable."

"Then I will be someone he can trust," Carol stated firmly, squeezing Susan's hand back. "That's my purpose."

"I will not stop you from trying, but Carol—"

"It doesn't mean he'll love me. I know. But teach me about sorrow."

If the others had been alive, they would have smiled, quite wryly, at the cheerful tone in which those words were uttered. Susan sighed. "I'm not sure where to begin."

"Tell me about yours."

"No." That came out more sharply than Susan meant it to, and she tried again. "That is not something I am ready to discuss. But it sounds like their sorrow is from losing the person their father was, and in how hard life is now. And Carol, you can relate to that, a little at least. Already."

"I can?"

"Think about how it feels to lose your dream of Harry, and how hard it is, every day, to go and see him and know he isn't yours."

Carol turned her head away. "I don't want to."

"Sorrow is almost never something people choose. But if you want to learn about it, start with your own."

"How will that help me know him? Or get his attention?"

A part of Susan—a part steadily growing larger—felt like banging her head against the nearest tombstone. "This is to make you a better person. And the thing about sorrow—" she heard the waver in the word, and steadied her tone, "there are many universal things about how it feels."

Carol was silent for a moment. "I suppose."

"Then think about how yours feels, what it teaches you, and what you do about it."

The next part of the path they walked in silence. "Thanks," Carol said suddenly. "I'll tell you how it goes. But don't tell anyone else!"

"I won't." Susan had no inclination to discuss this situation with others—excepting Nancy, if she thought it would help something, and she could ask Carol for permission if that came up. "Why don't you want people to know, though?"

"They live—they live in a horrible place, it's practically a poorhouse. And they're quite respectable, but people might think—"

"People often think the wrong thing."

"Exactly. Oh, Susan, I do miss having you around. I'll be heading home now."

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye!" Watching Carol walk away, Susan felt like shaking her head. Life was more complicated than she remembered it being.

Or perhaps only complicated for different reasons. She thought she'd managed most of her suitors in Narnia better than this.

She thought about going back to the gravestones, but didn't, it was too cold. She walked home instead. On the way, she kept thinking about that family again. In Narnia, she'd seen how poverty and poor surroundings often made tempers worse.

She wondered if there was something she could do for Carol's broken family. She thought there was. But she wasn't sure it was a wise idea. If only the Professor was around to ask!

*Something I know is also a thing in Britain mainly thanks to Harry Potter.

**Lewis went when he was fifteen, and he's younger than that here. He sounds even younger than he is in the letter, because he hasn't written many.