Disclaimer: I am following in the footsteps of those who went before, and cannot claim to own the path.
"God takes more care of us than we take of ourselves. You never heard of a man who numbered the hairs of his head."
~ Charles Spurgeon
Another week of work passed. Nancy came by twice, and they talked about Robert, Donna, Harriet (who was still causing trouble, but wanted to belong), and the others. Susan spoke of Carol as little as possible. She was still thinking about that broken family, and how often Cair Paravel had been opened to others—and how much room there was in this empty house.
But she also knew it would become more of a place of work and less of a haven, if she invited a broken family in.
But it would have a family again…
"Susan, are you even listening?"
No, Susan hadn't been. "I'm sorry, Nancy."
"Don't be. I should be able to tell by now when you're done. Sorry, I was rattling on—thinking out loud. It's easy to do that here."
"It's Edmund's influence," left Susan's lips before she thought, and she saw Nancy pause, cup in midair. So Susan smiled—a horrible smile, probably, but she tried—and added, "he said between his books, Lucy's clean windows and tall trees, and Mom's welcoming influence, this feels like a place anyone can talk."
"It really does. You kept that magic alive." A flush painted Nancy's cheeks a deeper pink. "I'm not sure I should say things like that—I'm never sure how you'll take them. But all of that, yes. Edmund was quite right. I wish Robert could come here and feel this. Maybe he'd talk…"
"Less charmingly and with more substance?" Susan asked dryly. But Nancy's cheeks flushed even deeper. "I'm sorry."
"It's not like it isn't true."
"But you also already know it."
Setting her cup down, Nancy stared at the brown tea-water.
"Are you still going to stay with him?" Susan asked gently.
"I don't know what else to do. We're together now. He hasn't given me any reason to leave."
"Other than not being enough to win your heart? Nancy, you two haven't made any promises. You don't have to stay."
"I know, but…when I think about going back to being alone, to being lonely, I don't want to. I think I'm waiting for someone else to come along, someone better."
It did not take Edmund's intelligence to see the problem with that. "That's not fair to Robert."
Startled, Nancy laughed. "I suppose I wasn't thinking of that. Since Robert wants to be with me, but doesn't want any promises for the future, I thought it's not un-fair. But it isn't right, is it? To use him to fill a gap?"
Something in the words silenced Susan's reply. Nancy picked her cup back up and took a drink. Setting it down again, she asked, "Susan?"
"I was just—thinking about your words. About using other things to fill the gap." Susan sighed. "Even when it's not wrong for me, it'd still be unfair to them."
"You've met someone?" Nancy breathed, eyes sparkling. "Susan, that's just what you need to have an interest in life again! Who is he? Where did you meet him? He's reputable, isn't he? Not someone shady?"
Susan laughed, the sound a surprise. Who was she to tell Nancy about? The Doorkeeper? Reputable, yes, but hardly what Nancy was picturing. Huan? Beth? A thief in a dungeon who would become a king? "Nothing like that! I've just been…helping people. It helps me, to help others." She took a sip of her own tea, the orange flavour warm on her tongue. When she set her cup down, she realised that Nancy had a tear on her cheek. "Nancy?"
"You laughed." The catch in Nancy's voice stopped her; she cleared her throat. "It's been so long since I've heard that laugh. And it's not anything to say sorry for," she hastened to add. "I just…am glad to hear it today."
Susan smiled—her Queen smile this time, a covering for all the emotions she felt stirring in her. "Is there a dance tonight?"
"Yes, there is. Do you want to come?"
"A little. Just for an excursion. But I think that would also be…something to fill the gap."
"Well, come anytime you wish. I'll be leaving now. Thank you for the tea."
"Nancy," Susan said, almost a whisper—but Nancy stopped and turned back. "Thank you. For being the friend you are."
"I'm glad to be it. Oh, Susan, I'm a much better friend for being a friends with you." A warm arm swept around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly before letting her go. "I'll keep coming."
The rest of the evening felt very cold.
Work was a little better the next day. But Susan felt very tired by the end of it. She thought about going the graveyard; she'd tried to make it a habit, on Fridays. But it was so cold and she was very tired.
What she wanted, she realised as she peeled her scarf off in her cold house, was two things. She wanted someone to take care of her, a warm hand on her shoulder and someone handing her tea. And she wanted someone to talk to about the things she felt called to take care of, but couldn't.
Like the family Carol told her about.
And that meant, Susan realised, the ghosts of her past—but it was too cold tonight—or Huan and the Doorkeeper.
She thought, perhaps, that she was rooted enough now she could at least talk to them. But how? They hadn't shown up…in too long.
She could go put herself in danger again. That sounded appealing in a way that alarmed her; perhaps she was longing for one of Peter and Edmund's rescues, and the warmth that surrounded her afterwards. But it wouldn't have been wise, and it certainly wouldn't have led to the conversation she wanted to have, about perhaps working as a Walker again. And what to do to help in England.
But she wanted this.
She spent all of dinner, the cooking, the eating, and the washing up, thinking about ways to call the Doorkeeper. But it wasn't like he had a phone or a posting address.
Sitting in the living room, she thought back to the opening of the doors; the Doorkeeper accusing her of creating them everywhere; could she open one now? She stretched out her hand, waiving it in the air in front of her—she felt nothing.
But wait. She did have one memory—Heather. Heather had called the Doorkeeper. What had she said?
"I seek the door that opens—" Susan remembered that phrase, because what use was a door that didn't open? But what—there had been a second, hadn't there? Something about a way beyond worlds? "A way to…beyond worlds." Feeling a little foolish, she looked around the room, searching for white light.
It remained a plain living room, and Susan sat back in disappointment. She should have known better than to expect magic.
But magic had been hers twice before. Perhaps she'd gotten the words wrong?
She thought about Hester. People were easier to remember than words. She thought about Hester's voice, the Thou art not alone, and could see her, the scarlet letter on her dark dress, odd attire—the strong hands moving with every word. Susan suddenly got to her feet, nearly running to her bedroom. She sat back on the bed—she could see Hester now, the tall, straight back silhouetted in front of her. I seek the door that opens, the way that leads to a…something…beyond worlds.
No, that wasn't quite right. It wasn't way; that was stuck in her head from church, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This had been a similar word; not road, not path—wait. It had been path.
"I seek the door that opens, the path that leads to a…dwelling beyond worlds." Hands out, Susan held her breath.
White light sparkled in her doorway. Flickers of starlight like sparks, spinning more and more, growing into a rectangle—Susan scrambled off the bed and towards the light. Hester's hands had been held out—Susan had seen them, and she held her own out. When the rectangle of light reached just above her head, she let her hands fall.
The white light continued swirling, and Susan felt a moment of panic—had she done something wrong?
Then the white turned black. That wind swept across her face, moving her hair, and Susan took a step back.
"I don't know where the door leads, and it's always so cold, and oh, this was a bad idea!" But the door was here—could she even close it? Did she have to go through it to close it? She inched a little closer.
Wind slammed into her back, bending her knees, sending her stumbling forward. Something dark as a shadow, an arm with three claws, extended out of the door and grabbed her arm, dragging her forward. All the coldness Susan had ever felt, in any of the doors, burned in her arm where the claw touched. She heard her own scream even as she twisted, trying to get her arm away—the numbness was spreading to her shoulder—her other foot was already in the door, the cold creeping through it as well, as if another clawed hand grasped her booted toes.
"Let me go!" she screamed, grabbing her caught arm with her other hand and pulling for all she was worth. "Let me go! What are you? Where are you taking me?"
Whispers filled her ears, as indistinct as the rustle of leaves, as cruel as Jadis' laughter. The grip on her wrist grew tighter.
Then a snarl echoed from behind her, another door had opened. Huan bounded past her, mouth open. He closed his teeth around the shadowed arm, biting down; the three fingers fell off her arm and towards the floor. They vanished before they hit.
"Stand back!" a sharp voice barked, and Huan was pushing her backwards, away from the door she had opened. A hand reached around her shoulder, pushing forward; the darkness vanished. Susan stood in her normal bedroom, panting, Huan in front of her and a hand over her shoulder.
"Doorkeeper?" she panted.
"Who else do you think could close that door? Idiot question. Think, why don't you? I'm closing doors that you had no business opening—"
The fussy, sharp tones—his worried tones—he was fussing. He wouldn't be fussing if there was still danger. Susan let herself fall forward, onto Huan's back, grabbing him in her arms and hugging him. He was so warm—so very, very warm. Her arm still felt like a block of ice, and she couldn't feel her right toes.
A hand touched her right shoulder. "What hurts?"
"What?" Susan asked, her voice clogged. She hadn't realised she was crying.
"What hurts? It touched you, did you feel it touch you?"
"I can't feel my left arm. Or my toes."
"Balance and working," the Doorkeeper muttered. His hand left her right shoulder and felt her arm from the elbow down. Not that she could feel it. "Stop whining at me, dog-friend, I'm doing what I can. It's—heavens. It gripped her."
A sharp growl came from Huan's throat.
"Now stop that, stop that, let me think—yes, I know having a charge to protect is good for you, but it won't be good for her if you're not steady and quiet right now…cold, cold, who can warm the cold? No, no, not warm it, banish it—who controls the cold? Think, think, think—oh, of course! The Cailleach! Here, dog-friend, pick her up—let her ride, actually, she shouldn't be walking on those toes—now, Aslan's Queen, swing up. I need to open the door." Swinging up on Huan's back was harder than Susan thought, with no left arm and toes that felt like ice blocks on one foot. But the Doorkeeper boosted her up and laid her arm in place before going over to the wall. "I'll open the door here—you'll just have to get used to have the wall different, there's no help for it. Where would she be? Right now she's awake, it's winter, and she won't want to be bothered. We'll have to waken her from stone in summer. What year, what year? When wasn't she busy? Before a mild winter…six years ago? Let me check the notebook—" and with stunned eyes Susan saw him draw a tiny book out of his pocket—no bigger than the palm of his hand, with a plain dark cover that was soft enough to bend, open it up, and began unfolding the one piece of parchment paper attached at the back.
And unfold it more.
And more.
And more.
Some squares were blank, some had one line written in flowing cursive, some were full of cramped tiny letters, and some were only half full.
It was the size of her bed, falling to the floor, and he was still unfolding it, muttering "six years, six years ago, nothing happened, of course, so it will be impossible to find—six years ago, opening up that door—here we are—yes, a mild winter. None of the hinges needed warming. So that summer—no, no, Puck started so much trouble in April—May it is. She'll hate the flowers and sneeze but she'll get over it. All right." Folding the paper back into the book should have taken forever, but somehow it was done in fifteen seconds, and he tucked the book away. Then he pulled his spike out, put it against the wall, took a mallet out of the inside of his suit jacket, and put the spike through the wall. The entire wall bent outwards, like the curve of a contact lense. The Doorkeeper pulled the spike out, muttered, "poorly crafted," put the spike away, put both hands together, and moved them as if he were twisting a globe.
The wall turned black. The Doorkeeper strode through, and beneath Susan Huan's muscles bunched and released as he followed. This door wasn't cold at all—or if it was, Susan didn't feel it. Sudden light blinded her; after she blinked, she found herself on a knoll, even on all sides, and covered in dandilions. Beside her stood the Doorkeeper; beside him stood a stone statue of an old, veiled woman, wrinkled hands carrying a basket in one hand and a staff in the other. The Doorkeeper knocked on the top of her veil as if he were knocking on a door.
"Old Woman Winter, wake, if you please! We need your help!"
The stone head shifted a little. First to the left, then the right, as the shoulders began to roll. "Is it time already?" an old, wavering voice asked. The sound made Susan's arm ache even further.
"No, no, not for winter! Up, if you please! All the way awake!"
"Whatever for?" The voice was a little stronger now, a bite to it. Susan, her mind beginning to cloud from the pain, realised the veil was now cloth, and the arms flesh.
"We need your help!"
"Oh, ho, ho, you do? The famous fussy old man needs something from the feeble old lady, then?" The woman stretched both arms out, setting her basket down and shaking her staff. Then she sneezed. "Blast it, Doorkeeper, it's flower season! Achoo!"
"I know, but we need you."
"What bit you?"
"Not me—her." The Doorkeeper stepped to the side, and the veiled head turned.
"Not just her." The old woman took a step forward, and Huan took a step back. Susan could feel him tensing.
"None of that, dog-friend! I'm not going to bite. That's just my creatures. Here, now, let me havce a look at your tongue. Open up. That's right, show me all your teeth." A chuckle came from under the grey veil. She reached out an old arm and tapped something in Huan's mouth—or so Susan assumed, she couldn't see clearly from Huan's back. But then the wrinkled, muscled arm withdrew, and Huan slower nodded his head at the old woman in front of him.
"Your turn then. Help her down, dog-friend of hers. That's right, slide off. Now, where were you encased?"
"My arm hurts," Susan said, as quietly and steadily as she could. She remembered how her pain often hurt Peter. Huan would feel the same. "And my toes."
"Listen to the voice of you." The woman took two steps closer, reaching for Susan's arm. Trying to lift it did nothing. "Warm as the centre of the earth and broken as a volcano top. Yes, you had a nasty experience. Worse than the dog-friend's." The fingers ran up her arm, all the way to her shoulder. "Missed your heart, though. Too busy trying to get the whole of you for dinner, I'd bet. Well, this won't be an easy fix. Off my knoll, both of the others of you! I don't need your distractions."
"We'd better go," the Doorkeeper said, laying on hand on Huan. The large dog did not move. "Come now, ask her. Aslan's Queen, are you afraid to stay here alone?"
Susan looked over at the veil. She could only see the outline of the head beneath it, but the presence was unexpectedly warm, bracing, like the bite of cold air, or the wind of change from a doorway. "I think I shall be fine," she told her friends.
"Of course you will be, if we let the Cailleach work. Come, Huan." Huan waited a moment longer—just like Peter would have, Susan thought with a pang, but hadn't she wanted someone to care for her?—before turning to make his majestic way down the hill. He stopped at the bottom, turned, and sat, surveying the two of them with a steady gaze. The Doorkeeper headed for the trees and began speaking to them.
"The trees will steady him. You scared him witless, child." The old woman sat, tugging Susan down by the arm she couldn't feel. Taking that arm into her lap, Old Woman Winter began running her fingers around Susan's shoulder in a slow circle.
"What hurt me?"
"Good has never been made that evil didn't covet. And as evil things can never be content, they're drawn to the doors, running to every opening, trying to get through to a new place to corrupt. The Doorkeeper makes the doors that open and shut very quickly, too quickly to get to. I don't know how he made a mistake like this." The woman clucked. Susan could begin to feel her shoulder again, and the woman's fingers moved a little further down, still drawing that slow circle.
"I made the door," Susan admitted in a small voice. Old Woman Winter said nothing. "I didn't mean to call anything evil to me. I just wanted to ask the Doorkeeper something."
"You have as much sense of timing as most other humans. Which is to say: none. Look at the seasons, now. I never mind sharing with my sister. I go to sleep when it's my turn to sleep, and wake and work when the time comes. All things in their time—sorrow and all. You should learn that, warm-hearted girl." Her fingers were just above the elbow now, and Susan could feel the cold in her upper arm like an ache, but an ordinary ache, as if she'd been hit there with a snowball.
"Or you could look at the Doorkeeper. He hardly ever interacts with time. He steps through it, rather than living in it. No one knows how old he is. Of course, since he steps through time like we step through space, years become very difficult to track, he says. And he absolutely refuses to let us celebrate his birthday." Susan let her eyes go to him, to the fussy old man currently jumping to try to reach a tree branch. Her elbow gave a sudden stab of pain, as if someone wrenched it, then settled. She could feel it. Old Woman Winter's fingers moved further down, below the elbow. "But sometimes I think he is older than our entire world. Thousands upon thousands of years, of stories, where he has just a small glimpse of them—"
"That sounds awful," she said, when the other woman stopped.
"For us, it would be. But I do not think he is human. I do not know what he is, mind. Only that he was made for what he does, and he does it well." Her eyes left the Doorkeeper and came back to Susan. "So mind him," she said sharply. "All he does, he does for a reason. And if you thwart him you risk our entire world."
"I'll remember," Susan said with a shiver.
"Yes, I think you will. And let him lecture you. There's a time for lectures, and you scared him badly, so I think you might deserve a time of them." She'd gone all the way to Susan's wrist now; instead of drawing circles on it, she grabbed it with both hands. Warmth shot through Susan's arm, her fingers, her palm. Her entire limb tingled. And her toes, suddenly warm again. "There."
"Thank you. Truly."
"Thank you. I'd forgotten how yellow the flowers are. Even if I hate them. And it's good to have an unexpected surprise every few hundred years. Not more than that, mind! But an hour out does one good." Reaching up with one hand, she drew off the grey veil. Underneath it was one bright blue eye and one black eyepatch. Her hair was as white as thick icicles in the sun, and her dress as white as snow, with a pattern of green lines like evergreen needles on the arms. She closed her eye against the sun for a moment, then shuddered. "Ugh. Warmth."
Susan smiled. She couldn't help it; Lucy would have loved this old woman, and even Susan felt her heart stir with a bit of wonder. She got to her feet and offered her hand to Old Woman Winter.
"Thank you, warm-hearted girl. All right, to my feet." She dropped her veil over her head, and walked with slow steps back to the depression in the grass. "Good sleep, now." One more shudder, and she became still—and stone.
"Are you better?" the Doorkeeper puffed as he came up the hill, Huan bounding ahead of him. Susan held both arms out to her friend, hugging him and smiling over him at the Doorkeeper.
"I'm well."
"Then we'll be going. Thank you, Caillea—oh, you're asleep again. Very well. Thank you for caring for Aslan's Queen," he shouted, and patted the veil. Then he dusted his hands, reached his right into the air, and made the motion of turning a doorknob. The space in front of him sparkled with familiar white fire, then darkness. He stepped through, and Susan, taking a deep breath, followed.
Nothing felt cold.
A/N: Sorry I'm stopping here; it's just almost time for bed and I can't write anymore. Good night, world!