She turned on reluctant feet. Peter stopped ahead of her. Aslan still stood in the shade of the colonnade.
"Walk with me a while more."
Susan looked at her brother. His eyes were just as watery as hers and even more when he refused the tears to fall. Peter ahead and Aslan behind; she was stuck in between. She couldn't go back and she couldn't go forward. Why couldn't she just be left alone? Alone to let the words sink in: into Narnia you twice were called and into Narnia you shall not return. Alone to cry in a lonely pleasure garden and alone to smoothe the wrinkles from her dress--but the Lion's face was firm, and lovely, and lovable. She loved the black eyes that bore into hers so much she could feel her heart crack.
She gave one more shaky look to Peter and joined Aslan back among the colonnettes.
They walked the full length of the colonnade. Susan felt chilly in the shade, though it was already midsummer. She wished she had brought a shawl. She wished she'd worn longer sleeves, wished she'd worn the war dress she took from her own ruinous home and its ruinous, forgotten vault. Aslan led her through the shade of the courtyard to Miraz's lower gardens. Wide, circular swaths of soil marked the former homes of sleeping trees who'd awoken and walked away, walked away to seek Him. Still shaded, still cold, and still Aslan said nothing.
Why bring her here at all? her mind screamed. If she could let herself think it, she'd call it unkind. Feel it, call it cruel. But that was forbidden. Forbidden for the sake of His lovely face. But why? Oh, why couldn't He have left her alone?
His voice startled her, low against the dumb, twittering birds and deep as the slow rumblings of the sea. Susan's hands were shaking.
"Your heart is heavy with many sorrows," He said. "Recount to me your sufferings."
She said nothing for a long time. "We're sad about leaving, Sir. Peter and I."
"I did not ask about your brother," said Aslan, stern but kind. "Give me your heart."
"I suppose I'm sad, then." She couldn't help but be a little angry; she clenched her muscles to keep the tremor from her voice. "But that's all that's to be said. We're not coming back and that's decided."
Aslan lay down in the grass. Susan had no choice but kneel with him. The grass was damp; surely it'd leave stains. A shame for such a fine dress. But it didn't matter anyway. Not now.
Susan waited until her legs fell asleep. Aslan was silent. Fidgeting, she watched the garden: the dumb birds in their nests and bathing in magnificent fountains carved with crow faces; dumb squirrels that chased each other across the remaining trees; honey bees and carpenter bees among vivid delphiniums and the last of spring's forget-me-nots. Everything seemed so loud in her ears, animals and water and buzzing wings, and her own broken, thudding heart, and her own shaky breaths, and she could no longer swallow the lump in her throat.
And even now the Lion was silent.
"Oh, Aslan!" she cried. "This isn't--this might not be because of me?"
"I mean-- we're not coming back, Peter and I; it's not... not because you might be angry at me?"
"What have you done, Daughter of Eve, for which I might be angry with you?"
"I--" Suddenly Susan felt she hadn't planned this far. She clenched her jaw and gripped her skirt until she could feel her nails through the fabric and into her palm. Anything to get herself under control. One deep breath, two. "Lucy told us to follow her and I didn't believe her. And then it turned out she was right all along. I... I haven't ruined it for us, have I? Because I didn't listen to her? It's not Peter's fault, you know," she added hastily, tripping over her words. "It was Trumpkin and I who took us the wrong way. Don't keep Peter out on my account, please--"
"I asked for your heart, not for his. What now, Daughter of Eve, did your sister tell you?"
"She told us to follow her." Susan paused. "Or... she told us to follow you."
"Why did you refuse, Daughter of Eve?"
"Because--" She blinked. "Because no one else had seen you! And no one had seen you in Narnia in a thousand years."
She heard the scorn in her voice; her cheeks heated up and she looked down in shame.
"So you believed, Daughter of Eve, that neither had your sister seen me?"
"I... I thought she believed she saw you."
"You yourself-- why did you disbelieve?"
"Because--I--because it didn't make any sense!" she fumed. "Why would you appear to her and not to any of us?"
Susan didn't respond; Aslan didn't press her. Garden noise resumed once more, plaintive and ignorant and overwhelmingly loud until deep breaths wouldn't calm her, until her hands were so numbed that her nails couldn't hurt them and grinding her teeth couldn't keep her tears from falling, until all she could hear was Aslan's slow purr, until Susan wept.
"Daughter of Eve," He said again, softly, softly. "Recount to me your sufferings."
It was a moment before Susan could speak clearly again. "I thought... Surely you'd appear to us, if... if you still wanted us to. If you still wanted us."
He let her cry a few minutes more.
"Dear heart," He breathed. "Fear holds you fast in its grip; it need not. Show me your hands. Lay your worries at my feet."
She held out her shaking hands. They were dotted with red crescents. Aslan lowered His great head and licked her palms. The crescents disappeared; her skin felt clean and fresh and new such as no worldly bath would suffice. Susan sobbed.
"You have pierced your hands with many wounds. You need not again; hands and feet have already bled for you, and have risen up again."
When Susan dared to meet His gaze she saw the large tears lining His large eyes. With another sob that wracked her chest she wrapped her arms around his neck. His mane dried her tears as they flowed; she had not lain with Him like this since He lay dead on the Stone Table. Oh, and she had not wept like this in years, and the Lion weeping with her, and the willows swaying.
"Do not scorn your tears, Dear One, for they are blessed; they shall be returned to you."
"I don't want to leave like this. I don't want to leave you."
"Susan." She felt the vibrations from deep within His chest. "Though you depart out of Narnia one thousand times, though you be apart from me for one thousand years, I will never be apart from you."
"But what if I never see you again?" she cried. Her head was wet with Aslan's tears.
"You will. From the Giants who dwell in the Northern Waste to the Crown Prince of Archenland, from the lowest slave in Tashbaan to the Tisroc and the Tisroc's household, from the powers that war in your own world to the school children that torment you in their ignorance--all will see me as I Am." His voice had grown, and grown, and grown to that of a king of the world-- it shrank again to a murmur.
"You are no exception, Susan Pevensie."
"What if--what if I still can't see you?" she whispered. "If I don't want to see you?"
"You will." He kissed her forehead. "Let us remain like this for a while, until your tears are spent, as you remained with me before the night of the Stone Table."
Susan lay with Him until she fell asleep. There is no such pillow as the tufts of a lion's mane, much less of a Lion the size of a war horse, and she slept more soundly than she had in over a year. When she awoke, she felt like she'd slept for hours, though the sun was still the same height in the sky. Her eyes didn't burn. Aslan hadn't moved a muscle.
"Aslan," she said quietly. "I... I think I'm ready now."
"It is well, child." He waited for her to sit up. "I will walk with you again. But now, let us walk in the sun."
