Bringing Home Susan
A tale of Narnia









Susan gripped the back of the chair, staring out the window, her gnarled knuckles turning white. The fine map of wrinkles on her face told the story of her life as they tightened. Her long hair, once coal black, now only held color in a few strands, the rest bleached white with the strain of years, children and her children’s children. It was here, in this rickety old house, where she could hear the strains of her grandchildren’s laugher from the gardens, that she had been told of her family’s tragic end. It was pure irony that the day she lost the last shred of her life in Narnia, the sharing of tales by her other siblings that she began to believe once again. She had shut it out, refusing to remember the heart she left behind.

Footsteps padded behind her and clicked like boot heels, but she knew it wasn’t her husband. It was something far more powerful and beautiful, something she had spent years running from the memories of, fearing that they would consume her.

“Good evening, Aslan.” Her voice was calm, clear and controlled, though the knuckles tightened further, causing the aged wood to creak in complaint.

“Daughter of Eve.” He acknowledged her, stepping up, his head coming to her waiste still, even in her high heels. His mane, softer than any real animal’s hair, brushed against her arm. They stood in silence for a moment until Susan gave an annoyed sigh.

“Why did you take them?” It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask, but it was still an important one.

“They didn’t belong here, you know that. This world was meant to temper them, create the people that Narnia needed.” Aslan replied, not giving her an inch. He knew the question, he left hanging between them, unspoken, crystallized by years without an answer. Susan was silent for a moment, savoring its unanswered state, letting it ferment those last few moments before she exploded.

“Why them and not me?” The years of tears choked her throat now, making it difficult to get the words out. She wouldn’t cry. She had done that already. Weeks upon weeks of tears, of sobs that threatened to choke her, she wished often that they had. Years ago, she thought she had healed that wound, but seeing Aslan again, it reopened, fresh, allowing the infected pus to drain out. It had been gathering over time, to make the small, dripping sore in her mind, that only she could see. Anyone else would never notice it, but she would always know that it was there. Aslan looked at her and then gave a very lion like whuff onto her hands and they relaxed, leaving warped wood behind.

“He liked you. You would have confused everything that needed to happen. Even now, he still loves you, and it causes strife between him and his wife. She didn’t need to ask who he meant. Unbidden, the image of his face sprang to her mind. She had forgotten it as years dulled the pain, but it sprang back with crystal clear sharpness, every angular feature burned into her memory. Long black curls as dark as her own, and black eyes designed to swallow you whole. Her ears supplied his voice, his strange accent biting off the end of his words, leaving them choppy, distilled down to their pure essence. Prince Caspian, the man whom she thought she loved, but had been separated from for so long. Lucy had told Susan that he married and moved on, before she, too, was gone. Susan started her life over then, throwing herself into a life of fact, rather than fiction. Immersing herself in the day to day, ignoring the tales of Narnia, to avoid that little skipping beat her heart would make. She made a life for herself, with another man whom she loved just as well. Fifty years and many grandchildren later, Aslan brought all that back in an instant. Her friends were all dead and gone now, but the magic, the childlike wonder still lurked in her soul. It ached with a fierceness that surprised her with its intensity.

“What do you want from me, Aslan?” She asked, her voice weary, and filled with resign.

“Come home. Your brothers, sister, and he miss you.” Aslan leaned against Susan, the warmth of his coat cutting cleanly through her simple skirt.

“I have a life here, a family. They abandoned me.” Susan protested, moving away from the persuasive heat. It melted her resolve, turning her bones to jelly and forcibly relaxing her.

“They had no choice, once you belong to Narnia, you cannot live without it for long.” Aslan said simply. She knew it was true. Narnia made you feel alive like nothing else. “Not truly.”

She looked out over the gardens at where her children played, a small smile creeping onto her lips as the heat from Aslan warmed her.

“Can you wait five minutes, let me find George. They left without saying goodbye and it destroyed me.” Aslan merely bowed his head, then raised it to acknowledge her request.

“Long live Queen Susan the Gentle.” He said it quietly, but it struck her in the quiet and she paused.

Her husband was easy to find, following the sounds of his dictatorial voice as it echoed through the empty house. He stopped and looked at her, the hubbub dying out around them, squashed by the gravity of the moment. He took her hands and squeezed them, pulling her out into a corridor away from the rest of the family.

“I have five minutes, less now.” She groped for words and only caught the ones that mattered. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Susan dearest.” He squeezed her hands harder, his arthritic joints popping. “Don’'t go.”

She had told him of her Narnian adventures after her siblings died with her Aunt Polly and Uncle Digory along with poor Jill and silly Eustace. He had surprised her by believing.  Sometimes he understood the nights that she looked at him and saw someone else, and loved him just the same. Sometimes he hated her for it, merely because he loved her, and her only. She always hated herself when she saw the dark hair against the canopy of their bed, instead of his blond.

“I have to.” Her voice broke as he gathered her into his arms, his frail bones surprisingly strong. “I belong there. Take care of the children and don’t tell them the truth unless they know enough to know what to ask.”

If they asked the right questions, it meant that Aslan had called and, much as it terrified her to think that he would, she wouldn’t deny Narnia to anyone. Knowing that holding her there would only make it more difficult to let her go, he kissed her once on the lips, with a passion they hadn’t felt for years since loving each other became a habit rather than a feeling. Susan returned to the study, her eyes bone dry. She sank to the floor and wrapped her arms in Aslan’s warm mane like that night so long ago when she rode him with Lucy.

“Take me home, Aslan.” Her lips twisted on the word home as she realized that was what it had always been. “Take me to them.”

She buried her face in his fur and there was a rushing wind that ruffled her hair. When it settled, she saw it was black, a color it hadn’t been for years. She was sixteen again, the tales of her time on the other side gone from her face that she explored with youthful hands.

She looked up to see all of them there, their eyes looking up expectantly. Lucy, Peter, Edmund, Eustace, Uncle Digory, Aunt Polly and Jill. And Caspian. He hung back, coming forth only after the others had embraced her. His wife, with troubled eyes, turned to hide from the other woman her husband loved. Caspian clasped Susan to his chest, burying his head in her neck and his hand in her hair, echoing his goodbye so many years ago. The family remained a respectful distance from this reunion.

“I’ve missed you.” Her mind hadn’t spared her any detail of him and his voice echoed along her nerves.

“I’ve missed you too.” She smiled as he kissed her forehead, his lips lingering. This was as close to intimacy they were allowed, but this was all right as this was Aslan’s Narnia and you were happy just being near the one that you loved. They released each other, and separated, him to his wife, and she to her family. They still smiled and their hearts stayed in that single moment even though their bodies moved away.


Far away, on a cold, hard, wooden floor, a man who had truly believed his wife’s tales sat with her body in his arms as the doctors pronounced her dead. He closed her eyes with a sigh and did not try to reclaim what escaped with the air from his lungs. He faced the children they had created together, with dry eyes. He wordlessly opened his arms and they flocked to him to comfort. He allowed them to believe that it was in their power to do so, but it was really the glowing paw prints of a noble lion by the window, right where one would have sat to comfort a dying woman on her last breath.