More Like Susan

Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone.

When I'm older, I'm sure I'll understand.

Now I laugh at my naive comment when Susan kissed Caspian before we left the last time, because now, I understand. I sigh as I watch a soldier and his girlfriend. He made her giggle. I wish...

"What are you looking at?" Edmund's voice breaks through my thoughts.

"Nothing," I quickly respond. "Come on then."

"I was invited to the British Consul's tea party by a naval officer, who happens to be very handsome. I think he fancies me," I pause in my reading of Susan's letter. Another one? I remember our reign, how I had had 21 suitors in the five years after I had turned 18, whereas my more beautiful sister had had many more. I had stopped counting after number 257. I turn back to the letter. "It seems the Germans have made the crossing difficult. Mother hopes you both won't mind another few months in Cambridge. Another few months? How will we survive?"

"You're lucky; at least you've got your own room. I'm stuck with Mullet Mouth."

"Susan and Peter are the lucky ones, off on adventures."

"Yeah. They're the eldest and we're the youngest. We don't matter as much."

On the inside I admit that Ed is right. I walk over to the mirror, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "Do you think I look anything like Susan?" I ask. Please, Edmund, please say yes, I silently beg.

Instead, my older brother rises and asks, "Lucy, have you seen this ship before?"

As I turn to answer him, I think, He avoided my question. Why would he do that unless…

After we return to Narnia and Caspian takes us into the State Room, I notice something across the room from a golden relief of Aslan. "Susan's bow and arrows." Caspian reaches into a cabinet-like area and pulls out a small box, as he says my name. I turn and see, "My healing cordial and dagger." Her gifts are prominently displayed, but mine are tucked away like Aunt Alberta's unwanted knick-knacks. After I clasp the belt around my waist and Edmund is reunited with his electric torch, Caspian begins to explain what's happened in Narnia since we left. "Since you left us, the giants of the north have surrendered unconditionally. Then we defeated the Calormene army at the Great Desert. There is peace across all of Narnia."

"Peace?" my brother asks.

"In just three years."

"And have you found yourself a queen in those three years?" I inquire.

"No. At least, not one that could compare with your sister," he responded.

Again with Susan? Does every male that's unrelated to us have to fall in love with her? Is she that much more beautiful than me?

After we had escaped trouble in the Lone Islands and been given our quest to destroy the mist, we arrive at a seemingly uninhabited island. That night, I am kidnapped by invisible beings who ask me to enter an invisible house and recite a spell. As I look through the Book of Incantations, I see a spell that causes snow, reading it and basking in awe as the room fills with the snow. After a few minutes of the snow, I blow on the book to clear the wet stuff off of it. The pages begin flying and I slap my hand on them to stop them.

I look around to see that the snow is completely gone. I turn my attention to the page the book had landed on. "An infallible spell to make you she the beauty you always wanted to be. As I look at the other side of the page, I see my reflection, or do I? Slowly it morphs into, "Susan, what's going… on?" I stop as I realize that she was saying the same thing I was. I reach up and touch my face. She does the same. "I'm beautiful," I recognize. I hurry over to a mirror I had noticed earlier. I'm still me. I hasten back to the book, just in time to see Susan disappearing from the small window. "Wait! Make me she, whom I'd agree…" Then, I decide to just rip the page out and say the spell later.

As the ship tosses about in the storm brewing outside the cabin I sleep in, I pull out the spell. "Transform my reflection, lashes, lips, complexion. Make me she whom I'd agree holds more beauty over me." I slowly rise from the bed as I notice that the storm has stopped. I stand in front of the mirror, and my nightgown clad reflection morphs into my sister in a blue party dress. Music plays on the other side of the mirror, and I push on the glass, which opens under my touch.

As I enter the party, a man announces, "Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Pevensie." I smile as I walk through the crowd amidst their applause. "Edmund," I greet as he loops his arm through mine.

"You look beautiful, sister."

"As always."

"Peter." My eldest brother takes my other arm.

"Excuse me, miss," a man with a camera asks. "Can I get a photo?"

"Mother's going to love this. All her children in one picture," Peter comments as the man sets up the camera.

"Smile…" he says.

I am confused. "Hang on, where am I? I mean, where's Lucy?"

"Lucy? Who's Lucy?" Edmund inquires.

I begin to struggle right as the man takes the picture. "Susan? What's wrong?" Peter asks.

"Come on now, miss. Nice big smile," the man urges as he cleans the lens.

"Edmund, I'm not sure about this. I think I want to go back," I say, beginning to get worried.

"Go back where?" my brother asks.

Is he crazy? "To Narnia."

"What on earth is Narnia?"

"What's going on? Stop this!" I scream, covering my face to keep the camera man from seeing me. I open my eyes, and I'm back on the Dawn Treader, looking in the mirror again. Aslan walks up beside me. "Lucy," the Lion says.

"Aslan?" I ask, whirling around to see Him, yet He is not in the room. But He is in the mirror. "What have you done, child?"

"I don't know. That was awful."

"But you chose it, Lucy."

"I didn't mean to choose all of that. I just wanted to be beautiful like Susan. That's all."

"You wished yourself away, and with it much more. Your brothers and sister wouldn't know Narnia without you, Lucy. You discovered it first, remember?"

"I'm so sorry."

"You doubt your value. Don't run from who you are." He walks off, and I sit up in bed, calling His name. Was it all a dream? Yet I hold the page with the spell. I pull it out and examine it before wadding it up and rising to toss it into the fire. I hear a Lion's roar, and I know He is pleased.

I doubt my value. In His eyes, I'm as beautiful as Susan. And He's the only One that matters.