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Smoke filters out of her mouth, her teeth closed and white. She's gotten out of the habit of opening her lips to speak. It shows.

The white of her skin on this hot, muggy day makes her think of a woman she once met, a woman whose lips were stained red with poison. She never tans, she burns. Her hair is unevenly cut, the shorn ends twitching towards her face. It had once fallen all the way to her waist and she could almost remember Peter's arm ghosting its way around her hips, hand playing with her hair as it shone gold in the sunlight.

She has no arrows here, no apple to aim at with a keen eye. Her glance at the passerby is lazy, the older women looking down their noses at this slight woman with rouged cheeks and eyes that are too knowing.

Her nylons have a run in them and she wonders what Lucy would have thought. How carefully put together she used to be! Now the forced smiles have ceased to be and there is a growing crease between her eyes that worries her. She wonder if she should start putting cream on to ease the transition into spinsterhood.

On her sixteenth birthday she had lost her virginity to a boy whose name she can scarcely remember, his hands had been sweaty on her breasts and his lips wet and cold. Peter had started when she had come in with her hair hand combed and her eyes sparkling. The sex hadn't been good but, oh, it had made her feel so much older.

The boys had been plentiful back then. They had crowded around her at school and red imprints of her lips were not uncommon to be found on their collars. Once Peter had dragged her out of a boy's car, her blouse unbuttoned. He had glanced and color had been high in his cheeks as her fingers had stumbled through the buttons.

Now she lives in a little house where the dust gathers on the piano. The spot before the looking glass is shiny from years of turning about and sly glances at her reflection. The door to the house is always hard to open, she has to tug with both hands after she turns the key. Peter would have done it for her but the train has gone and taken him away. She can still remember the blood dripping from what used to be his face. Oh god, his handsome face that was the only familiarity that she had had left in the world.

She flicks the cigarette and the ashes scatter to the wind, she can remember the frantic feel of wondering if Aslan was coming for her. She is still here, she wonders if she leaves the gas on whether or not she will be forgiven. Susan thinks she knows the answer, she shudders.