Kristen Margaret Pevensie grew up listening. She listened to her mother, her grandparents, her two uncles, her one aunt, her cousins and anyone else. She listened to the things they told her and to the things she wasn’t supposed to hear.
“Peter no one is going to rent me an apartment if I show up unwed with a daughter. They’ll think I’m a loose woman who won't pay the rent. I just need you to go with me to see the places.”
Kristen heard her mother talk to her uncle when she was four. She didn’t know what some of the words or what their meaning was but she knew her mother wasn’t happy. She also knew she was supposed to be in bed.
“Of course I’ll come with.” Her uncle said. A bunch of sleeps later Kristen and her mom moved into a tiny apartment all by themselves. There was only one bedroom but Kristen loved it because that meant her and mom got to have sleepovers every night. Her mother always told the best stories when they slept in the same bed. Stories of tree’s that walked and rivers that sang and animals that talked.
Her aunt told her stories of a Lion who was more than a lion. Her uncle told her stories about right and wrong. Her other uncle told her stories of kings and queens.
Kristen liked her mother's stories best.
When Kristen was six years old she started school. Her mother didn’t send her away like the little girl three doors down. Later she’d know it was because her mother couldn’t afford too. Even later still she realized it’s because her mother couldn’t bear to send her away. Her mother or her aunt or one of her uncles walked her to school every day and walked her home after.
Still it wasn’t long before Kristen realized that the other children walked with their mothers or their fathers.
“Do I have a Daddy?” She asked her mother, her tiny childs legs kicking back and forth at the counter of the ice cream shop. Her mother sat on one side with her aunt and her uncles sat on her other side.
“Yes you do baby.” her mother answered.
“Where is he?” Kristen asked staring at her treat.
“You father was a hero during the war. He died sweetie, before you were born.” her mother told her calmly.
“Oh. What was he like?”
“He was a very good man. I’ll tell you about him tonight at bedtime how does that sound?”
“Ok.”
Later that night while her aunt and uncles sat in the living room her mother told her about her father during story time.
“Your father was a great man. He was in charge of a lot of soldiers and he cared about each one of them. He learned all their names and dreams. He would have done anything for the people who fought alongside him. He was also a brave man. He stood up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves anymore.” her mother told her while lying in the bed next to her.
“Did he love me?” Kristen asked.
“Baby he would have loved you so much. Before he died he talked about what he wanted to do. What he wanted for the people he was in charge of. What kind of father he wanted to be. He would think the same thing I think- you are exactly the daughter we would have asked for.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I don’t know baby. We were different people back then. I miss who we could have been I guess. I wouldn’t trade it for the world though. I got you and you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Go to bed now little bug. We’ll talk about your father whenever you want.”
“Night Mummy, I love you.”
“I love you too little bug.”
Kristen couldn’t sleep though, her child mind turned over her mother's words again and again. She could hear the mumble of voices in the living room where her mother had made tea. She crept to the door to listen.
“You could have told her the truth.” her uncle said.
“I did Peter. Or at least this world's version of the truth. What was I supposed to say? Kristen dear, your father is king in another realm. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead but I know you’ll probably never see him so he might as well be?” her mother asked.
“Aslan promised she’d go to Narnia- she might meet him.”
“Aslan never promised when. I don’t want her to get stuck waiting for another world to come while she has to live in this one. She’s already the daughter of an unmarried single mother. I don’t want to make it harder for her. A soldier is the best I can tell her right now. The important details are true. What he was like and that he would have loved her. That’s what she cares about- not if he was king.” her mother insisted.
“I agree.” her aunt's voice rang out.
“You do Lu?” her uncle asked.
“Yes. Coming back, knowing I can’t go home to Narnia- it hurts. It hurts and it’s hard to live here. But we are- well were- adults. We lived fifteen years more there than we did here before we came back the first time. Kristen is still a little girl. Let her be a little girl. She can miss Narnia once she’s been there.” her aunt said.
“Alright- what do you think Ed?”
“I agree with the girls. The first time we went we were children and thrust into a war. The second time we weren’t children but we had children's bodies. I don’t want my niece becoming a soldier in a war beyond her control when she’s six. Her time will come.” her favorite uncle spoke slowly and evenly.
“We can give her stories Peter, you, me, Ed, Lucy, Eustace and Jill, we can all give her stories about Narnia so when she does go she’s ready. But that’s all they can be right now. Stories.”
That was the first night Kristen wondered if maybe all the stories her relatives told her were true. Her mother started to tell her stories of not just dancing tree’s and singing rivers but of people too. Her mother told her about a king named Caspian who saved his people.
“Mummy, is Caspian in your stories supposed to be like Daddy was?” she asked one night when she was seven.
“Yes baby.” her mother answered.
“I think I would have liked him.” Kristen decided.
“I know you would have.”
“Did you love him?” her favorite uncle asked her mother one night after she was supposed to have gone to bed.
“I don’t know. Not like I loved Margaret. There wasn’t enough time. We were both so lost and caught in between things that it comforted each other. I hadn’t felt like that since we left Narnia the first time, since I left Margaret. I just wanted to feel it again. I was also scared. He was too. We made each other a little less afraid. If we stayed I think I could have loved Caspian. But I don’t think I did, not yet at least.”
After that Kristen started to listen to her mother’s, aunt’s and uncle’s stories closer. The high king they mentioned sounded a lot like her oldest uncle, the king like her favorite uncle, the queen sounded like her aunt and the high queen sounded too close to her mother. She still loved the stories but now sometimes they sounded like memories.
When she was nine she asked her aunt if she believed in magic. They were walking in the park one day and Kristen gather up her courage expecting to be told that magic was for little girls and babies. Her aunt told her that magic is in everything and of course she believed in magic. Kristen thought of that for awhile. But she remembered her grandma saying that her aunt always had her head in the clouds. Kristen didn’t know what that meant but her grandmother had sounded worried.
So she asked each of her uncles, her cousin and his new wife. They all told her magic was very real. She still wasn’t sure so she gathered up all her nine years of courage and asked her mother.
“Of course magic is real. Magic is in everything if you look for it. The best magic though is love little bug.” her mother told her. Kristen watched her mother put on her makeup as she did every morning before they walked to school and her mom went to work. Kristen started to see how her mother transformed from being a mum to being an important lady with each swipe of lipstick. Maybe that was a kind of magic.
When Kristen was ten her mother moved them to a bigger apartment. Her uncle became a teacher at her school.
“Betty asked me about you.” Her mother told her uncle as they walked home after school one day.
“She seems nice.”
“Peter you have to start going out. She is very nice. I think you’ll like her.”
“It’s just I don’t think she can ever understand... well you know.”
“She can’t but you have to live in this world. We’re never going to go back.”
“I guess. I’ll ask her to dinner.”
Her uncle asked out the school secretary on Wednesday and went to dinner on Friday. By eight o'clock he was over at their apartment. After her bedtime tea Kristen asked her uncle to come tell her a story. He always looked happy telling her stories and he looked sad that night. That Friday night he didn’t tell her a story of kings. That night he told her a story of a boy who became a man and returned to being a boy. His voice was heavy as he spoke and Kristen thought she could hear sorrow bleed into his words.
She hugged her uncle extra tight that night.
And then she stayed up so she could sneak down the hall and listen to her mother and uncle.
“What went wrong?”
“How can I do it Su? I’m 42. How can I go to dinner with someone twenty years younger than me.”
“Here she’s only five years younger. Here you’re 27.”
“How do you do it?”
“I don’t- haven’t you noticed? It’s not like I can take a casual lover here. Dating as an unwed mother is almost as difficult as being first assistant to a member of parliament as a woman. I’d lose everything if I took another woman as a partner. Margaret is dead. Aslan only knows how many centuries ago there and 13 years ago here. I miss her all the time still. Caspian is probably dead by now but who knows. I don’t know if there is another chance for me. I’m 26 here and 41 there. How many more chances do I get?”
“I don’t know Su. I don’t know for any of us.”
“Well I have an excuse. I’m an unwed mother. You’re a young man who works with children. You’re going to have to figure something out.”
“I know.”
“Was she nice?”
“She was very nice. Earnest. Smart and funny.”
“So try again. Put Narnia away. We have to live here.”
“Ok, I’ll try.”
When Kristen was twelve she was a tiny bit too old flower girl in her uncle's wedding to the school secretary. As she walked up the aisle before the bride she studied her uncle closely. He looked truly happy- something she didn’t see on her family often. Except her aunt. Her aunt almost always looked happy. Today her uncle looked like the king from his stories that she thought might be memories. Her mother wore a pretty dress Kristen had never seen before and her uncles wore suits. Her aunt wore a beautiful light blue dress. Her mother even danced with one of Ms. Betty’s older cousins. When they finally went home from the reception Kristen asked her mom if she’d sleep in her bed that night and tell her a story.
“What do you want to hear little bug?”
“Can I have one about the High Queen? Did she ever fall in love?” Kristen asked thinking about the conversation she hear two years ago between her mother and uncle.
“Yes she did. She fell completely in love when she was seventeen.” her mother said, dipping into her memory voice. “She fell in love with another woman.”
“Did that happen a lot? Girls loving other girls?”
“Sometimes, it wasn’t bad when it did. Because love is something special and whenever it happens it should be protected. Love is precious and good.”
“What was the High Queen’s love like?”
“She was beautiful. More importantly she was kind. She made the queen laugh. She helped teach the queen all of the dances. She told the queen news that didn’t reach the queen's ears. She loved children. She was strong too- not in body. She was quite slim and slender but her conviction was strong. She loved openly and with everything she had.”
“What happened to her?”
“The queen was taken from her kingdom and brought to her old land. She was returned to the body of her childhood and told to wait. A year passed before she returned to her country. When she got back hundreds of years had passed and her love had died. The queen never forgot her though. She thought about her love everyday. Every year on her loves birthday the queen remembers her and honors her memory.”
“Do you still miss her Mum?” Kristen asked. She’d eavesdropped on enough conversations over the years to know her mother’s stories (along with her aunt’s and uncle’s) were true.
“I do Little Bug. But not the same way I did when I first lost her.” her mother didn’t sound surprised at her question but Kristen was already a bit convinced her mother knew everything.
“Why didn’t you ever go back again?”
“Because I couldn’t. My time there was done. Go to bed Little Bug. Once your uncle gets back from his honeymoon we’ll have everyone over and we’ll tell you all about it, or at least most of it.”
“Ok, I love you.”
“I love you too Little Bug- you are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Kristen grew up listening. She listened to her mother’s stories, to conversations from the end of the hall, to the love in her uncle’s voice when he talked to his wife, to the passion in her other uncle’s voice when he talked about justice, and to her aunt’s blinding and hard won faith. Bit by bit and piece by piece she learned about what her family had gained and lost. She learned about the promise that she would go there too.
When she was seventeen years old she felt a pull in the center of her belly while she waited for her uncle to finish grading papers. For a moment the world blurred and she stood in a forest next to a large lion.
“Someday you might have to fight- fight for what you believe in because that’s the only thing worth fighting for.” her uncle’s voice rang in her ear.
“Right and wrong sometimes look the same. It’s ok to wait to decide until you know where everything lies.”
“There’s magic everywhere. In Narnia and here. You just have to look. You already know what it looks like.”
“Little Bug when you go I don’t know how long you’ll stay but live every moment. Remember you don’t own him your obedience. He has to earn that. The only thing you owe Aslan is that you believe in him. You don’t owe anyone anything. If you’re there for a long time it’s ok to love. It’s better to love than not. Lay some flowers on Margaret’s grave if it’s still there. If your father’s alive get to know him. If not take time to learn about him. Remember you are the best thing that happened to me and I love you.”
“Aslan.” she said to the lion.
“Kristen.”
“Why did you do it? Why did you take it all away from her?”
“She couldn’t live in this world anymore. She had to live in England. You can’t live with a foot in two places.”
“If you let her stay the first time...”
“She wouldn’t have been able to come back and save everyone.”
“Can I see her grave? Margaret's?”
“Yes Dear One. Your father has had it cleaned and the stone replaced in honor of your mother.”
“Can I meet him?”
“Yes.”
“How long do I have?”
“As long as you need.”
“One year and one day. I know what growing up here did to my family. I won’t do that to myself. I want a year and a day.”
“I shall come for you then.”
“Will this be my only visit?”
“We shall see dear one.”
Kristen Margret grew up listening. She listened to animals that talked, rivers that sang and trees that danced. She listened to her father tell her stories of his childhood and the short time he knew her mother. She listened to dwarves share the legends of the old world and the new land. She listened to the lion who wasn't a lion. After a year and one day she returned home to England, by her choice not his. Her mother was right, she didn't owe him her obiedence, she owed him her belief. Her uncle was right, fighting for what she believed in was worth anything. Her uncle was right, it was ok to wait to decide. Her aunt was right, magic was every where.