SUSAN of NARNIA

Chapter 1: America

"If you take everything away from a living creature: freedom, home, habits, happiness, it'll turn in sheer need and desperation to the one thing that's left ..."
-My Friend Flicka, 1943

Susan Pevensie had come to America with her parents for a visit in 1942 and had been introduced to a woman named Marjorie at a party that she had attended with her parents in Washington DC where her father, John Pevensie, had been lecturing, on military affairs, for sixteen weeks during the summer.
Initially, Susan took Professor Kirke's advice when he told her and her siblings, "... don't talk too much about [Narnia] even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves." but Marjorie seamed to have had some rather strange and interesting adventures herself so Susan told her about her adventures in Narnia, but when she realized that these tales appeared less grown up to Marjorie, they became somewhat offensive to her and she stopped speaking about or even thinking about them.
Susan soon began to where nylons and lipstick all the time and to join Marjorie in some of her more grown up pursuits. Susan didn't even like her own name, after a time, because, "after all", she told herself , "it was so ordinary", thus she started going by another name in some circles.
Her new friends had told her that she could make a good name for herself as an actress and after that she put even less effort into her schooling and had spent a good deal more time socializing with her friends at parties and waiting for invitations that would secure her career as an actress.
Over time Susan began to forget about Narnia all together, and it came as quite a shock to her when upon a visit with her siblings they all spoke of their adventures in Narnia. She now felt out of place for she had been doing everything within her own power to forget about Narnia and make herself into a more grown up person and now Narnia seamed so distant and juvenile to her. She therefore responded to each of them in a manner that made it clear to them that she was no longer a friend of Narnia.
In truth, unlike her brother Peter, Susan hadn't initially taken the news well, that she would never be coming back to Narnia. She had finally become content in the real world after the first fifteen years that the four had spent in Narnia as kings and queens, when she had again been brought back with her siblings to help establish Caspian as king, and then Aslan had told her that she would not be coming back to Narnia.
In some ways the news was better as she could now adjust to the real world and not be concerned with Narnia any more. And yet there was something still missing from her life which she continued to try to fill with more adult things. As time went on she had heard that Edmund and Lucy had had another adventure with their cousin Eustace, and then that Eustace and another girl named Jill Pole had been back to Narnia again. For some time after this, Susan heard nothing further from her family about Narnia.
In 1945 Susan returned to America and followed her friend Marjorie to Los Angeles to pursue her own acting career.
Then a letter arrived from Peter informing her that the whole company, [who had been to Narnia], had been eating together and talking at Professor Kirke's home when they had been visited by a Narnian who appeared in great distress. The letter was short and came at a very bad time for Susan, as she was being turned down for a part in another movie. She sent back a hasty response, that seamed to her to be realistic, informing him that she now had her own life to live, and being very busy, could he please not speak to her of things which both of them were "far to old to be fantasizing about".
That was the last communication that she had with him. Not long after that, all of the producers of the movies that she might have had the chance to act in informed her that they didn't need anyone else and that she might do better to return home to England at that time. Susan's friend Marjorie who had been acting very strangely since 1946, now abruptly stopped communication with her altogether. Finally, Susan sadly packed her things and bought a train ticket to the east coast where she would take a ship back to England.

Early the next morning, Susan sat in the corner of a diner in Los Angeles having a buttered biscuit with strawberry jam, drinking a warm cup of coffee, and reading again the last letter informing her that she was not needed. What would she do now? She was 21 years old and it was 1949. She had wasted much of her life up to that time trying to become an adult and now she didn't know what to do. Just then the waitress brought Susan a copy of the morning paper, but realizing that she was running out of time to catch her train Susan simply gathered up the paper and her letter and left the tip at her place.

After having boarded the train Susan opened the paper and began to read. She was suddenly struck with horror as she read a short news clip about the train accident at the Bristol train station. Due to a malfunction a train had taken the bend of the track far too fast and derailed colliding with another incoming train and many of those on-board and on the platform had been killed instantly. A list of names followed and she saw the following names listed,

Digory Kirke
John Pevensie
Helen Pevensie
Peter Pevensie
Edmund Pevensie
Lucy Pevensie
Jill Pole
Polly Plummer
Eustace Scrubb
...

It was as if Susan had suddenly had the ground taken out from under her. Everyone who she had been the closest to, everyone who she had been running from, was now dead.