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The girls were in high spirits after the movie. While Wendy was still mortified by the picture it had reminded her of happy times in Neverland which got everyone talking about their own adventures.
Everyone, but Susan.
The former Queen of Narnia was silent throughout the ordeal of returning to their apartment. She had initially thought that going to see the film was a marvelous idea and even encouraged all of the others, if only for the sake of subjecting Wendy to some embarrassment, but as the show progressed she found herself slipping into a deep melancholy that eventually turned into a seething bitterness. As soon as they reached the apartment, Susan went to her room while the other girls made up some tea so as to continue their conversation. Twenty minutes later, Wendy knocked on her door.
“Susan, are you alright?”
“Go away.”
Wendy opened the door and Susan could see through her red, tearful eyes that all the other girls were looking at her.
“Susan, what's wrong? You haven't said anything since we left the theater?”
“You. All of you. You're all wrong!”
Wendy looked shocked, but not aggravated by this accusation.
“I'm sorry? How are we wrong?”
“You can all go back! Back to Neverland, or Wonderland, or Oz or wherever you bloody well went!”
“Susan, certainly you can get back to Narnia!”
“You didn't pay attention to the story did you?”
“You told us it wasn't finished.”
“Mr. Lewis isn't finished writing, but my story ended in 'Prince Caspian'!”
“Well, how is that so bad? Surely you-”
“Everyone is so foolish! They never think when they read his stories!”
“Mr. Lewis?”
“No, I mean... him!”
“As-?”
“Him!”
“I don't understand.”
“He said I could never come back. Lucy and Edmund got to go back. They even brought my beast of a cousin along one time and then he went there with some girl I barely met. I'm certain even Peter got to go back in the end. But not me. I wasn't... I couldn't... he won't let me!”
She was sobbing now. Years of anguish coming out in front of her friends who were so like her, and yet so very different.
Dorothy came close and put a hand on her friend's shoulder.
“Susan, certainly you could go back. I could take you there with my silver slippers and-”
“You would say that! You can go back to Oz or Kansas, or wherever you like at any time with those blasted shoes! But I can't! He controls all the ways in and out of Narnia and I am not allowed!”
“But why not? Certainly he can't be so unreasonable?”
“Can't he though? We went and fought his war, and ruled his country. I fed his people, protected them from invaders, drought, and famine. I worked my fingers raw trying to untie the knots that held his corpse, though I need not have bothered. All of us carried that weight that he gave us. And then we were expelled without a word. When the professor died, I was willed that bloody wardrobe. I had it chopped up and burned. It was never going to work for me again, and having it around was more that I could bear. I am three years younger now than I was when I left Narnia. I grew up there. I was to be married there. I had friends there. And in an instant, it was all gone.”
The pressure in the room grew dramatically. Each of the girls felt as if they were carrying an immense boulder on their shoulders. Susan looked at them all with baleful eyes.
“Alice, you never really left Wonderland. Lyra, you could go back if you really wanted to. Wendy, I'm certain you could too, though you never really lived in Neverland and Peter Pan is just a child who you have had some long holidays with, and Dorothy, you... But I can't. I have been thrown out of my home! And what does he do after I'm gone? He lets it go to ruin! My people! My home! And he doesn't even bother to see that it is taken care of for ages!”
Wendy looked on her friend with concern. Susan's comment had hurt. Wendy doubted her ability to make it back to Neverland ever again, but she did still have the means of making the attempt. The enormity of Susan's plight was starting to settle on her. Still, the two books that she had read about Susan and her siblings were coming back to her and she felt her friend might have overlooked an important fact.
“Susan, it is terrible that you can't go back, but certainly you didn't want to leave your parents behind?”
As soon as the dark haired woman locked her gaze on her, Wendy could tell she had said the wrong thing. Lyra saw Susan's eagle suddenly regard Wendy's goose as prey. Her voice came out as cold as ice on distant mountains.
“I missed my parents every day I was in Narnia. Just as I miss them, my sister and brothers now. If he had wanted us merely to fight his wars then he could have sent us back as soon as that was done. He could have set up someone else to lead his country. He could have won his own battles, he didn't need us! But no. He put those crowns on our heads himself. Edmund and Lucy cried for our parents for months, and I'm certain Peter did too, though he would never admit it. But we didn't remember the way out. And we had a country to rule as well. None of us were prepared for that! How could we be! We were children. But it was what he wanted. So we ruled. We ruled and we did a good job. For him. Our rule was the best that Narnia would see for a millennium afterward. And how were we rewarded? We had our home stolen twice!”
The girls stepped back while Susan continued her tirade. She could feel her face becoming hot with anger at the injustice of it all.
“Being a teenager in a strange land, without your parents, even if you are a queen, is no picnic. Having to do it a second time isn't much easier when one home is unreachable and the other is a smoking ruin! Peter was a wreck for months after we got back from our second adventure and Lucy and Edmund even longer! And they all forgot about the trials we faced because of him! They just forgave him and thought nothing of it! They thought, if anything, they might have failed him! That they were in the wrong and he was perfect! I overheard Mum and Father talking about sending Lucy to an institution about a month after we got back, and that was when I stopped talking about Narnia. To protect them. To make them get over it all! To keep them with me! And he still took them away from me!”
Susan had collapsed on the floor and was sobbing openly. Wendy had only ever seen an outburst like this when a family came to grieve over one of her lost boys. These were tears of utter, crushing, despair. After several moments, Susan rallied to continue. She was going to get all of this out here and now, come what may.
“After they... died, I did what I could to numb the pain. I told my story to that horrible Mr. Lewis. I went to all sorts of parties. And then one night I thought about...going to see them.”
Wendy took a deep breath. Susan was not talking about going to visit a graveyard.
“I looked at that bottle of morphine for a long time. I wanted so badly, to feel nothing. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because I knew he wouldn't let me see them. And so I live with this pain, every day, because maybe my suffering will please him enough to let me see my family when I die.”
Wendy had her own tears now. Tears of sympathy for her friend. Dorthy and Lyra were sitting down, shocked looks on their faces at the burden their friend bore. Alice came up to Susan and hugged her tight.
“My dear Mock Turtle, you have finally become a Tortoise.”