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The loss of the smooth taste of the word Queen in her mouth is what unravels her. She comes apart like an old skirt, tattered edges and wandering string.

First, she hems her too-long school skirts, making them end just above the knee. Daring for a girl who has never been with a boy as plain-old Susan Pevensie rather than as Queen Susan. Her shirts seem to lose buttons, exposing the pale place above her collarbone. She remembers lips pressed there reverentially. When she pushes up the sleeves of her woolen sweaters her exposed arms are perfect, showing their smooth undersides. Free of heavy golden bracelets given to her with urgently spoken entreaties for her hand. In marriage, of course. The closest proposal she's been given as Susan Pevensie is Stephen Smith telling her that she looks decent. Not beautiful, decent.

---

When she comes in with swollen lips from her first-ever bout of necking as Susan Peter demands to know where she's been. His voice is deepening and she thinks of how bare his head looks, how ordinary.

His hands are on her arms and she looks up at him with her mouth half-parted, a reply looking to be drawn out. "I was with Ruth, she wanted to look at some lipstick." A tube of lipstick is in her handbag, a rich red that reminds her of Peter after he fought the wolf for her. Never forget to wipe your sword, someone had said that. Her eyes suddenly feel wet.

The stern looks leaves Peter's eyes at the sight of her tears and she feels triumph fill her mouth.

"Sorry, Su. I was worried." He looks almost embarrassed at this and she is struck again by how bare his head looks.

Susan smiles and reaches up to kiss his check. Color burns high on his cheeks and his hands are loose at his sides, not knowing whether to turn into fists.

This is just the first confrontation. It ends awkwardly each time, Peter bewildered by this Susan. She has a glib answer for every question, an excuse for every accusation.

----

When Lucy makes a face at the sight of her putting on smooth nylons she merely smiles. Peter pretends she isn't showing too much leg when she comes in at night and she pretends she doesn't know it. The loose threads of civility towards her kin come apart in her hands, Susan's sharp tongue knows no bounds. It only stops when she is in a parked car with a boy with a face that doesn't remind her of ago. Her sighs remind her of the wind buffeting a place she used to live in, she can't quite remember the name.

When Peter looks at her, really looks at her after she comes in, smelling of sex, he is angry. "Susan, you do know what they are saying about you."

Susan only says, "I have no idea. Why should they talk about me?" She pretends she isn't sticky with sweat underneath her clothes. She wasn't calling a boy by a different name in her mind when he came within her.

Peter isn't calm. He is shaking her and she thinks of a white face with blood red lips, of a stone table, of a fair castle by the sea. She parrots, "I have no idea," until she forgets again.

He only says, "You little beast."

---

Her siblings now only talk of her in angry whispers. They talk about an imaginary land filled with talking beasts and living trees. She aches when she hears them but she always remembers she is plain-Susan now and cannot be anything else. She has always been this way. Every boy she kisses in the dark says she is beautiful, she is beautiful Susan.

When she thinks the name Aslan when she sends a prayer to God she cannot place a face to the name. The relief fills her until she thinks the top of her head will come off.

The prayers to God become less frequent after the train accident but the name Aslan is on her lips every morning she wakes to an empty house. She can hear Peter saying, "You little beast" in dreams. In those dreams he wears a crown and she can only think it will cut her. Except in those dreams her head is heavy with gold and a lion with a golden mane says her name until she thinks she will scream.

She wakes to a cold room and an even colder bed.