As a child, Susan remembered. It was one of her talents, the one she was most proud of. All her tests were returned to her with perfect marks and kind comments, her mother could always count on her to remember which groceries they had to buy and her father was always grateful when Susan found the item he had lost, for she always remembered where he put it. As a Queen, Susan also remembered. She remembered the faces of her subjects, the reasons they had come before her, the solutions she had given them. When she met them years later, she would enquire if the problem had indeed been permanently fixed, and they would praise and love her for remembering them. Peter always wondered how she did that, how she managed to figure out who this specific bunny was, as they all looked alike. Susan would sigh and point out the little spot of white on the left ear, or the spot on the nose, or the way the eyes looked. Peter then proclaimed that he could never remember small details such as that, and Susan just smiled. She could remember, that was her talent.
Susan’s memory was not limited to schoolwork, or grocery lists, or locations of things, or faces and problems. Susan remembered everything. The things around her always left a permanent imprint on her brain, and sometimes, sometimes it was too much. The bright colours and busy activity in Narnia overwhelmed her, the many new people and animals she saw daily tired her, and she was plagued by memories of the many battles she had fought. On those days, she wished she was back home, in England. For Susan, even if her siblings didn’t, remembered the land she came from. She remembered the quiet neighbourhood where nothing ever changed, she remembered school where her classroom was always the same, she remembered her house, her garden, her parents. The endless unchanging routine without political debates, grand festivities, council meetings and partitioning strangers. And Susan missed it.
At first, the missing was small. It only popped up after a particularly busy day, when her brain felt overwhelmed with all the sights, sounds, smells and tastes. But as Queen Susan of the Radiant Southern Sun grew up, the missing grew too. Now, she didn’t just miss the routine, the safe and the known – for her queenly duties had become a new routine of its own – but she missed the praise. Sure, she was praised in Narnia, but not for her remembering anymore. She was praised for her beauty, her grace, her long hair, kind eyes, her dancing and her smile. But not for her memory. Nobody was surprised when she remembered them after many years, for they were too enamoured with the Queen’s beautiful dress. Nobody praised her when she recalled the exact details of a peace treaty signed many winters ago, for they were looking at her figure. But Queen Susan did not care for long hair, for red lips, for fair skin and big eyes. To her, they were worthless. How far could one go with beauty, if one did not have the brains to back them up? But it seemed like the more she grew, the prettier she became. And the prettier she became, the littler they cared about her opinions, her ideas, her wisdom. She looked with envy at Lucy, who had also grown into a beautiful young woman, but who, permanently stuck in the ‘youngest sibling’-position, was not seen by anyone as just a pretty face. They loved her for her kindness, not for her hair shone in the sun. They adored her for her fierceness, not the way her dress hugged her hips in just the right way. They listened to her war strategies, without complimenting her delicate wrists and long fingers. So, Susan closed her eyes and remembered. Remembered how it used to be.
She had had a particularly busy week when the White Stag was spotted. When Edmund came, barging into her room early in the morning, Susan was staring out her window, not seeing anything. She was remembering her parents, her life in England, where the colours were dull and the people unchanging. She had not slept all night, flashes of memories of the celebrations that had been keeping her up. She tried to sort them, face by face and event by event, but it was too busy in her mind. There were too many faces stored, too many events bouncing around, too many colours confusing her. And, for the first time in her life, Susan wished she did not remember. This thought had come a little after midnight, and it had shocked her so that she had not been able to fall asleep even if the memories did calm down. So, she hid in the calmest memory she had: walking through the rain to the grocer on the corner to buy two eggs for her mother, so she could make Lucy’s birthday cake. It had been completely quiet on the streets, and she was the only one in the store. Everything was dull and grey and so beautifully calm. Until Edmund’s wild story of the spotted stag dragged her from her mental walk through the neighbourhood back to her royal bedchambers in Narnia.
They all went hunting for it, of course. Edmund and Peter had insisted they wanted to try to catch the creature, and Lucy and Susan would not be outdone. The horses were saddled in no-time, and before the Beavers with their long list of planned events for today could protest, the siblings were out, riding into the meadows, across the stream, towards the forest. And for a little while, Susan was able to hide her worries away. Only for a little while, though. They found the stag and chased it through the forest until they had cornered him near a river. The animal was about to cross into the streaming water when it froze. Susan’s horse had stepped into a beam of sunlight shining through the trees, lighting up the Queen’s hair and turning it a gorgeous blonde. Lucy had whispered to the rest that the white stag must be enamoured with Susan’s hair, and with those words her worries came back, all at once piling on top of each other. And Susan wished, hoped, dreamed, yearned that she could go home, that she could forget this all happened, and just live her life like any other girl her age – she was not even sure which age, she was twelve when she left England but now she was twenty-eight – would. The stag blinked, jumped into the river and was gone. Edmund complained that they hadn’t made a wish, and thus the hunt continued. But Susan remembered she had made a wish, and she hoped desperately that it didn’t count, that it didn’t come true, that them cornering the animal hadn’t counted as them catching it. But of course, it did.
And although Susan begged her siblings to turn back, to leave the stag be, it was no use. And so, the Pevensie siblings arrived home. They stumbled out of the wardrobe in bodies too small for their minds and a time too close to the one they left. The following days, Susan saw the memories of her brothers and sister slowly return. When she immediately picked up a new routine, they had to relearn how to turn on the radio, how to spend their free time, and how to navigate in the bodies they had outgrown. Susan remembered how happy they used to be, but their smiles were gone now. She did not exactly remember why her siblings were so happy. They had had a lovely childhood, but her vague memories seemed to show a happiness bigger, brighter, more extensive than that. Oh well, it was probably their worries about the war, about their father fighting it, about being away from home that painted everything in a different light. Their talk of their fantasyland named Narnia where everything is good and beautiful was probably a psychological coping mechanism, Susan concluded. There was, after all, no way a land could be hidden in a wardrobe, or beavers could talk, or lions could rise from the dead. And if there was, Susan would have remembered it. After all, remembering things was one of her talents, the one she was most proud of.