Outcast of Narnia

Chapter One: Remembering Narnia

Chapter One: Remembering Narnia

Susan stopped at the top of the stairs, set down her brown paper parcel, and smiled at herself approvingly in a tall mirror. She leaned down and straightened the line at the back of her nylons. The new hat had been a wise choice. Not that Lucy would notice.

Three doors down on the left, she knocked and heard a clear voice calling, “Enter.”

“I’ve brought you something,” said Susan.

“Who are you?” said Lucy.

“It’s me, Susan.”

“Su-san,” said Lucy, repeating the word slowly. “There is no one in Aslan’s country by that name.” Lucy was sitting on a round rag rug on the wooden floor, hand on the pocket of her smock, which made her look younger than she was, almost as young as when she discovered the mysterious country in the wardrobe five years earlier.

“Oh, Lu—do give it up. It’s been ages and you’re still on with that daft story…” She stopped.

“We did once know a Queen Susan,” Lucy said. “Ages ago. But she was not invited to Aslan’s country. She no longer believed in Narnia. She thought it was a silly game. So Aslan left her behind when he called everyone through the door.”

“I’ve brought you something,” Susan repeated.

“What could you have brought that we would want,” sniffed Lucy.

Susan put down her parcel on the rug and began picking at the knotted twine wrapping.

Lucy’s pocket twitched, and a nose and whiskers appeared just above her hand. “Reepicheep!” she said. “Be still!”

“Lucy! There’ll be the most dreadful row if the Head finds out you’ve got a pet in here.”

“He’s not a pet. He’s a free citizen of Narnia and he can go where he likes!” Lucy said defiantly.

Susan pursed her red lips as she finished undoing the last of the knots. The paper fell back to reveal a glimpse of scarlet and gold and fur.

“What is it? What have you brought?” said Lucy, with the first flicker of her old curiosity.

“It’s from Narnia, a gift,” said Susan slowly. “I’ve had it altered it a bit. I think it might fit you.”

“Where did you get it?” asked Lucy.

“From a friend of Narnia.”

Lucy put out her hand to touch the silk. Somehow, it made the whole room seem brighter. A radiance shone from the golden trim. She stood and picked up the garment by its shoulders and saw that it was a gown, a long tunic in red silk with a surcote of brocade edged in fur. “We do remember a robe something like this from our castle at Cair Paravel.”

Susan tried hard to remember those days, the magic of their childhood games. She caught a hint of the distant music of fauns’ harps and dryads’ flutes.

Lucy put down the dress and picked up the furry mantle. A wide seam could be noticed at the bottom, where brown velvet panels had been added to lengthen the garment. Lucy had grown several inches in the last year. She picked up the mantle and swirled it around her shoulders. It looked odd over her dingy smock and lumpy woolen socks, but she made up for it with the regal look she directed at Susan.

“We demand to know where you have come upon these garments. You must have stolen them.” She grew thoughtful, “Were it not that you do bear a resemblance to our sister Susan, although she is much prettier, we should banish you to the Lone Islands on the instant. Shouldn’t we, Reep!” The fawn-colored mouse was scrabbling at the inside of Lucy’s pocket and she put her finger out for it to clutch.

“See how soft the coat is, Reep,” she said, and began to stroke the mouse’s head with the edge of the fur.

“I-we” Susan stammered. “—thought you might like to wear it, now and again, to remind you of old times.”

“Well of course,” said Lucy. “Although we do have many finer gowns, this one might just do for traveling. We will be departing on a journey tomorrow, and were in need of a traveling dress.” She clapped her hands. “Fauns!”

As she knelt down again to pick up the gown, the mouse hopped out of her pocket and began running across the wooden floor. “Reep!”

She stumbled after it with a pasteboard box, and managed to get ahead of it and trap it. “Time to go to sleep!”

She clapped her hands again. “Those fauns,” she said to Susan. “They must be merrymaking again, and neglecting their duties.”

“I’ll go see what’s keeping them,” said Susan, and quietly opened and closed the door.

She paused again in the hallway outside to look at herself in the mirror. Was it true that she was not as pretty as she used to be? If the attentions of Payton Marsh could be believed, she was even prettier. But she was paler than she had been. Sylvia Marsh had commented on her pallor, and suggested that Susan think about adding some rouge to the lipstick that she wore every day.

She still had the same high forehead and midnight-blue eyes that had attracted the love of Prince Rabadash and suitors from all over Narnia, Archenland and the islands of the east. She had grown up once in the past, in Narnia, an imaginary sort of growing up, she told herself. But now and again she did have dreams or memories of that time, of lilac-scented evenings in the gardens of Cair Paravel, and of feasts on the deck of the Splendour Hyaline.

But those feasts were spun out of gossamer in comparison with the actual parties she had been invited to, parties with cake and meat pie, beer, foods they had rarely seen during the war years, and dancing with the fast set to which Sylvia and her brother belonged. Visiting Lucy like this had caused her to miss a card party, but she was her only sister, batty or no.

Susan went down to have tea with the Head, Mrs. Musgrove, and explained why she thought Lucy should be permitted to keep both her mouse and her Narnian garments. She was surprised at how easily Mrs. Musgrove agreed. “I’ve seen it before in cases like this,” said Mrs. Musgrove. “A sudden shock puts them back into their childhood. Sometimes they’ll come out of it on their own. And sometimes not.

“I did see one case,” she continued, spreading jam on a biscuit, “where a boy had lost his father in the war, and refused to admit to being over the age of seven. He spent all his time playing at Robin Hood, and firing off his bows and arrows. His mother humored him, even built him a tree fort, and hired friends—paid them—to come and play with him, when they were too old for such things. He stayed out there in the fort for weeks at a time.

“One day he came down from the fort, went back with a hatchet, and chopped it to pieces!”

“You don’t say,” said Susan.

“And what’s more, from that day forward, he acted his age. So I think you are right, my dear. The best thing to do is humor her for the time. The other guests won’t bother her. We’ll take good care of her and the mouse—what did you say its name is?”

At the door, she gave Susan a hug and a kiss on both cheeks, to which Susan reacted with surprise, holding herself stiffly.

“You’re all to be pitied, she said. “Poor little orphans.”