What happens to the painting of the Dawn Treader after The Last Battle?


Susan was an orphan now.

Some children might have romanticized being orphaned, but the crippling pain of losing a family you loved never seemed to be a consideration for such pretenders.

And Susan had never been good at pretending anyway.

Her room was in the chaotic grip of early packing stages. She was going back to America, to live with some of the friends she had made from that trip so long ago. The Scrubbs had written to her, of course, telling her she was welcome to stay with them while she sorted out the next steps of her life. But Susan would rather put as much distance between herself and England as possible. It would help her forget.

Susan was halfway through the process of tearing out her wardrobe closet, deciding which articles of clothing were best suited to take with her, when she noticed a brown parcel hastily stuffed between the wall and a pile of shoeboxes. It wasn't the right shape for anything that belonged in there, and she pulled it out into the light to have a better look.

Oh, she realized, pulling a large frame out of its paper cocoon, it's that painting.

How funny that I put it in the wardrobe, of all places.

It had once belonged to Aunt Alberta, before Lucy and Edmund had convinced Eustace of Narnia's existence. Then Eustace had gotten possession of it, and the other "Friends of Narnia", as they called themselves, by extension. Their keen interest in the painting had stemmed from believing it to be Narnian, and now that Susan looked at it closely she supposed it did have more of a resemblance than she had first given it credit for. It had been Lucy's idea to send it to her, no doubt as a last effort to remind her of that imaginary world. Susan was sad to recall that she had sent a scathing letter in reply, telling her out for such stupid persistence. Oh how she regretted that now; she may have been batty with their enthusiasm for Narnia, but she had genuinely cared about her. They all had. She should have at least appreciated that when she had the chance.

There was a note taped to a corner of the frame, written in Lucy's beautiful flowing calligraphy. Susan glanced at it, remembering how she had scoffed at it when she had first read it. Now it only caused a bitter loneliness to well up within her.

"For our gentle sister, in the hopes that someday you'll find your way home."

Home. There had been a time when Susan thought she knew what that word meant. Now, as she glanced from that lonely ship to the chaotic room around her, she knew she was farther from understanding it than she had ever been before. What she had thought was home felt so empty, now that everyone who was supposed to fill it up was gone. As much as it hurt to admit, Peter and Edmund and Lucy had known better, somehow. She could sense that the three of them were now in a home realer than any she could possibly picture. They had gone without her, and she couldn't find the door. Tears welled up in Susan's eyes unbidden, spilling up from the aching void that her soul seemed to be these days. She slowly set the painting aside before burying her face in her hands. For what felt like the hundredth time, she felt truly lost.