Lucy avoided mirrors after she had come back from her last trip to Narnia. She avoided Susan too, although she hated herself for it. Susan had come home from America with stories of skyscrapers, bars and dates with pretty boys, but when she asked Edmund and Lucy how their time in the Scrubb household was, she did not believe them. She didn’t remember Aslan, or Reepicheep, or Caspian. She didn’t remember Narnia at all. She had only laughed and said it was very nice of them to include Eustace in their play, before regaling another colourful account of a date gone wrong. It was, however, not just Susan’s contempt for Narnia and their adventures there that caused Lucy to avoid her older sister. The true reason was that every time Lucy looked at her sister’s brown, curling hair and gorgeous tanned face she was reminded of the Gentle and desired Queen she once knew. And every time she saw Edmund and Peter laugh at another one of Susan’s escapades, she was reminded of that horrid, horrid spell she had cast, of that awful visit to that awful world where she, Lucy Pevensie, did not exist.
One day, during the wedding of one of her mother’s younger friends, a photographer took a picture of the three oldest siblings whilst Lucy was congratulating the bride. When she turned around to join her siblings again, Lucy saw the flash of the camera and almost burst into tears. She managed to contain herself, but once they got home she claimed the picture, joking how it was her right to own a picture of the siblings she was not on. But now, sitting alone in Primrose Park, one of her favourite places in London, Lucy let her tears flow freely. The picture in her hands showed three happy adolescents, free of worries and care. Susan, with her clear skin and stunning smile, Peter, with his golden hair and cheerful laugh and Edmund, who had jumped in at the last second, with a jawline that could cut through rock, slightly squinting in the sunlight. The perfect Royal trio, and any stranger that would look at the picture had no reason to suspect there to be a fourth sibling. And why would they?
Lucy Pevensie had become Queen at age eight. Her royal duties didn’t pertain much, just the occasional ‘smile and wave’, so she spent most of her time outside. Talking to Mr Tumnus, or drinking tea with Mr and Mrs Beaver, or playing with the nymphs or swimming with the merpeople. She had grown up carefree, and she left the serious business to her brothers and sister. Peter had a knack for law, and Susan was ever the great diplomat. Edmund had proven himself to be quite the man for maths and economy, taking over the responsibility of the Royal treasury. So when Lucy grew up for the first time, and came of an age that she desired more responsibility, there were no tasks for her left. The three oldest monarchs of Narnia had managed wonderfully without her for the first few years, so why would they need her now? Thus, Queen Lucy the Valiant continued to spend her time with her subjects, playing, talking, gardening and celebrating. She helped where she could, but if there was ever an issue of even marginal importance, even her closest friends would rather confide in the older Kings and Queen than in her.
When they all grew up, it was Susan that was approached by suitors from abroad. At first, Lucy hadn’t minded. She was too young, too free, too busy with the Narnians to look at other human men, and the ridiculous attempts at wooing the oldest sister had entertained all four siblings. But time passed, and Lucy, too, grew up. Yet still, no suitor came for her hand. Of course, she had some that had approached her, but all had tried and failed to court her older sister first. No one had ever come for her, just her, for it was only about the beauty of Queen Susan that tales were spread. Lucy was only an afterthought, a post scriptum, an ‘oh, the beautiful Queen Susan the Gentle of Narnia, she has a younger sister too’. Lucy didn’t blame her sister for her beauty, nor did she fault her for revelling in the attention that it brought her. But more often than not, Lucy would leave the parties and big celebrations early in order to walk through the woods, or along the coast, and, she soon discovered, no one noticed her absence.
This, by now, was something she had gotten used to. Sitting on Primrose Hill with London spread out in front of her, she doubted anyone would miss her too. Her mother and Susan were out shopping for a new dress for Easter Sunday, Peter was studying and Edmund and Eustace were catching up after a long semester spent at separate schools. Her father, as always, was working, so Lucy was alone. And this time, she had no beavers, no fauns, no trees or merpeople or talking mice to keep her company. It was just her, a picture of her older siblings and a view of the grey and dirty city of London. With her thumb, Lucy traced the outline of her older sister’s face. It truly was flawless, and shaping just like it had before, the first time they grew up. Lucy found it such a shame her sister kept her hair shorter, and she missed the moments she had spent braiding the Queen’s endlessly long hair, decorating it with flowers or shells or leaves. Now, Susan kept it either loose around her face, or occasionally up with a simple bow. Lucy used to braid it for her, here, in London, but every time Susan thought Lucy didn’t see, she untied her hair. It wasn’t ‘in’ to have your hair braided, so soon Lucy stopped offering. The eyes of her older brother looked bright into the camera, the deep wisdom glowing from it hinting that he had lived longer than the photographer could ever suspect. Edmund’s curly hair was immortalised in a blurry smudge as the camera had caught it in movement. His smile was bright, for winter was over and spring had begun, and all was good again.
None of the siblings noticed Lucy’s quiet demeanour. Why would they? Their busy lives left little time to speak with each other extensively. Helen Pevensie had noticed, but she noticed that all of her children had changed after the war. She talked about it with her husband, and he blamed the War. The War had changed everyone, not just the soldiers fighting in it. Helen nodded, and went back to sleep. Her children were growing up, after all, so it made sense that their characters changed. She didn’t notice the sadness in her youngest daughter’s eyes, the longing for a world far from here, the unexplained absences or the longing looks to the trees she passed. How could she? She did not know of Narnia, of her children’s rule, or of the people in the trees. She did know Aslan, as did her husband, but they did not know Him by the same name their children did. She knew him as God, as the Almighty Father, as the Saviour of all people, as the One, she believed more rightly than she could ever guess, that had kept her family safe when the war devastated the rest of the world.
So, Lucy sat on top of Primrose Hill, looking down at a sight so far removed from Narnia that her adventures almost felt like a fever dream. Almost. But there was no way Lucy could ever forget the friends she made or the places she had seen or the things she had experienced. And as she looked down upon the picture, the picture of three royal siblings laughing and celebrating, Lucy felt just as terrible as she had when she was Susan, as when she had seen the Pevensie’s life without Narnia. And right before her eyes, the picture seemed to change. Instead of an awful reminder of her insecurities, of her shortcomings, of her sister’s superior beauty and her brothers’ wisdom she saw something else. She saw three children, playing in the snow, ignorant of what would happen. She saw three children, fleeing from an evil witch. She saw three warriors, she saw three rulers. And she saw what Narnia had brought to each of them: courage, patience, kindness, hope. And suddenly, in the background, Lucy noticed something else. A seagull, flying in the distance. At that moment, Lucy could have sworn she heard the silent whisper of Aslan, speaking the words He had spoken to her before: Courage, dear heart.
Lucy did not avoid mirrors anymore after she came back from Primrose Hill. She didn’t avoid Susan, either. She laughed at her sister’s stories about the ridiculous behaviour of American boys, marvelled at the pictures of the skyscrapers and even went out clubbing with her sister once. Instead of hiding the picture out of sight, she put it up above her desk, and instead of tearing up, a smile crossed her face each time her eyes fell on her siblings’ happy faces. It was not just life in Narnia that had changed them all, it was living without Narnia that had changed them more. And although Susan turned her back on Narnia, Lucy knew that Narnia had not turned its back on the Gentle Queen. After the train crashed, after they had arrived in New Narnia, Queen Lucy the Valiant treasured this knowledge, for she knew that one day, Queen Susan the Gentle would return to Cair Paravel once again.