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Susan opens the door and Peter is on the front step. He tells her to sit down. He tells her about the accident too steadily, and if she weren't swiftly going into shock herself, she would have thought that to be the reason for his strange calm. (Later, she will find it's not shock but something else entirely.)
Her bedroom is too empty. Peter's is too.
They have to identify the bodies - all of them, since the Professor and Polly have no living family, since Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta are on their way from Cambridge, since Jill's parents are on holiday in the Peak District. Peter sees their parents and almost crumples, face pale. Distantly, she hears him mumble something. Susan draws herself up and tells the policeman that yes, that's Robert Pevensie, and Helen beside him, as far as she can tell.
The rest are no less hard. (Though not so much for Peter, it seems, all blank again. She knows he's seen cadavers at medical school but these are not faceless strangers.) The Professor had always been kind, especially in those early days in the country after… (After, is all Susan really thinks of it as, now - a before and an after and the great looming thing in-between that she refuses to put a name to.) Polly had welcomed them into her home like family rather than friends, back when Susan had still visited with the others. Jill, Susan knows (had known) the least, and she regrets it; Peter identifies the girl in a detached tone. At Eustace, Susan clutches Peter's hand, feels her nails dig into the thin skin on the back, can't unclench it though she knows she must be hurting him. His own nails are clipped severely short.
The sheet is pulled back from where it's tucked beneath Edmund's head and Susan can only stare at the body that used to be her brother. The breath refuses to enter her lungs, refuses to leave, too. It makes sense - if he's to stay this way forever then surely she should also. He's too pale, skin drained of all its colour - he would hate that, she can't help but think. Neither of them say anything for a long while. The policeman has to prompt them, receives a hollow "yes" from Susan in return.
Lucy's hair is rust-coloured and matted. Susan almost reaches out a hand to run her fingers through and untangle it as she has so many times before, curls that hand into a fist instead. Her nails dig into the meat of her palm. "That's Lucy," Peter says, and it's not, because Lucy has always been life itself, always moving even in sleep, tossing and turning in the bed opposite Susan's. This thing in the shape of Lucy is completely and utterly still.
They go home.
The house is too empty. Susan wakes from dreams of a ruined castle on a ghost-filled island, drifts around the house in her nightgown.
Peter pins up Lucy's drawings on the fridge and Susan takes them all back down, tucks them back in the sketchbook, puts the sketchbook back in the drawer of the desk that has already begun to gather dust.
She may not recognise herself when she looks in the mirror (face gaunt, and far too pale) but she is not the only stranger in this house. In a stark contrast to the usual status quo, it's Peter who has his head about him, Peter who organises the funerals. (Susan is beginning to realise there is something wrong with her brother. There is something he knows, something he is keeping from her.) He says they should wear bright colours, and at that Susan puts her foot down. He says Lucy would like it, and she knows he's right but funerals are supposed to be dark and upsetting and you wear black and put on a smile and accept condolences. She knows why he's suggesting it, but all that's over now - can't they let it rest with the people they're burying? Can't they finally move on and be normal?
She says as much - is screaming it, by the end - and Peter sits there calmly.
"Fine Su," he says. "We'll do it your way."
She wears a black dress and he wears a black suit. His pocket-square is defiantly red and gold and they both know she can't say a thing because it was a gift from Edmund.
There are three funerals. Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer are cremated with the wish for both their ashes to be scattered on a certain hill near a big house in the country. Jill Pole is buried in the graveyard of a little church on the outskirts of London near her home. Robert and Helen Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Lucy Pevensie and Eustace Clarence Scrubb are buried at St. Mary's Church around the corner from the house.
Susan cries. Peter doesn't.
The night before the third funeral, the worst one, Susan is a miserable little ball curled up in her bed and Peter knocks on the door.
He sits at the foot, says, "I need to tell you something." She doesn't reply. He starts with dinner at Polly's, ends with a Lion, a choice, a Door. She rolls over to stare at the wall.
"Don't you see, Su? They're all alright!"
"Please, Peter," she says. "Not this. Not now. You saw the bodies."
In the corner of her vision he waves a hand. "That's just in this world - not the real them."
She lets out a hard breath, sits up. "This is real," she snaps. "I'm real. You're real. They're dead, and that's real too. They're gone. And if you want to cling to some fantasy then feel free, but all the games and the stories - I'm done! I can't do it anymore."
"Su-"
"No." She lies back down, tucks her duvet up around her neck. "Go away, Peter." She feels the mattress shift, hears the door close quietly behind him.
She shouldn't ask, shouldn't indulge it, but they're both more than a little drunk after the funeral, and Susan supposes if she doesn't like the answer then all she has to do is finish the bottle of wine. "You got to see them, then? At the end. Ed and Lucy and the others?"
Peter nods.
"See, that's why I can't believe you," she says.
He sighs. "Su-"
"-no, because it's not fair." She interrupts. "It's not fair, because if it's real, then you got to say goodbye and I didn't. It's not fair!" She blinks hard, tries to hold back the tears welling up. "I can't believe you got that because if I did believe it I'd hate you for it, and I don't want to hate you." The dam breaks, tears spilling down her cheeks, and her throat is all tight when she swallows. "But you keep acting like they're not even gone and I hate you for that, too."
Peter tucks an arm around her and she turns into him, buries her face in his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Su."
Whatever Narnia has taken from them in the past, they have always been there for each other. This time, it feels an awful lot like he's stayed there - everything of him that's him - and left her behind, left an empty shell in Peter's place. She knows that what she's asking will hurt, that it's horribly selfish, but she needs Peter to grieve. She needs this to be real. "I just need you to be my brother again. Please, Peter."
"Alright, Su," he says softly, squeezes her tight. "It's going to be alright."
The grass crunches beneath their feet when they trek across the frosty field up to the hill. When they reach the old apple tree at the top they can see the familiar house not too far off. She wonders who lives there now, thinks briefly of that wardrobe, of snow up to her knees and fur coats, of the four of them all bickering and achingly young. Susan shakes her head and dismisses the thought, the dream. The snowfall had been disappointing the winter they'd lived here - barely enough for a decent snowman.
"Looks smaller than I remember it," Peter says.
Susan shrugs. "I think that happens when you grow up."
The house in Finchley seems too small sometimes, especially when she wakes from dreaming about that castle, but then she looks over at the empty bed and knows it should feel half the size again - a third, really.
They spread the ashes, stay there a little while longer, then they return to London. They take the train. Peter sits on one side of the booth and Susan on the other. They leave the window-side seats empty.
It's long past dark by the time they get back. Susan fumbles with the key on the chain around her neck. The metal has been tucked against her skin under layers of shirt and jumper and coat and it's warmer than her fingers - a dull sort of warmth that creeps through the numbness.
Peter waits patiently on the doorstep.
Susan opens the door.