"That's all right," Susan said. That was one benefit about this place, at least: No bombs. She didn't really want to talk about the bombs any further, however. She didn't have nightmares anymore about the raids over London, but thinking about it was not, she considered practically, very helpful.
"At any rate, Lucy eventually stopped talking about it and we hoped that was the end of it. It was, for a time, until the next day it rained. This time we decided to play hide-and-seek, and I was 'It.' 'It' is the seeker, the one who tries to find where all the others are hiding," she added, trying to explain as she went. "I'd hardly begun to search for them before she came barreling out, shouting that Edmund, the brother between Lucy and me, had 'got in' two, and it was all true, and wouldn't it be brilliant?
"But when we asked Edmund what had happened, he said that they had only been pretending." She paused and added, "He was very sorry for this later. But of course, at the time, we thought that Edmund had only been playing a particularly nasty trick on Lucy and we were really beginning to grow concerned about, well, how she was taking everything."
Susan in particular had been concerned if the stress about Father and being separated from Mother and moving to a new place had been too much for Lucy and had somehow separated her from her senses.
"In the end, though, Lucy was right all along. Professor Kirke's house was such a grand old home that people would come to take tours of it, and we had been most strictly warned by the housekeeper not to get in the way of those tours. That day, though, it seemed there was no place to go to get out of the way - no place at all, but into the wardrobe. We all crowded in, and despite it being a simply enormous wardrobe, there wasn't much room for all four of us. I kept getting pressed back and back until something poked me."
Her voice softened, taking on a tone of remembered wonder with a slight hint of sadness. "It was a tree branch. It was the most peculiar thing. On the one hand, we could see the open door, the slight light coming in from the spare room, and on the other - snow covered firs, the white stretch of snow seemed to go on for miles, and right in the middle of this forest was an iron lamp post. Of course we stepped through, thinking that we could always go back if it was too dangerous."
Or maybe only Susan had been thinking that at that point. Either way.
"But by the time we knew how dangerous it really was, it was far too late to turn back."
Susan meant that too - it had been dangerous, but as soon as they had learned what had happened to Tumnus, of course they had to see if they could do something for him. And Narnia had been dangerous in other ways as well - it was in her blood, had been her life, and now she would never see it again. Hundreds upon hundreds of years had passed; all of her friends, all of those she had cared for with all the grace she had were dead and gone. She could never go back.
<3 /deep breath - more tl;dr
"At any rate, Lucy eventually stopped talking about it and we hoped that was the end of it. It was, for a time, until the next day it rained. This time we decided to play hide-and-seek, and I was 'It.' 'It' is the seeker, the one who tries to find where all the others are hiding," she added, trying to explain as she went. "I'd hardly begun to search for them before she came barreling out, shouting that Edmund, the brother between Lucy and me, had 'got in' two, and it was all true, and wouldn't it be brilliant?
"But when we asked Edmund what had happened, he said that they had only been pretending." She paused and added, "He was very sorry for this later. But of course, at the time, we thought that Edmund had only been playing a particularly nasty trick on Lucy and we were really beginning to grow concerned about, well, how she was taking everything."
Susan in particular had been concerned if the stress about Father and being separated from Mother and moving to a new place had been too much for Lucy and had somehow separated her from her senses.
"In the end, though, Lucy was right all along. Professor Kirke's house was such a grand old home that people would come to take tours of it, and we had been most strictly warned by the housekeeper not to get in the way of those tours. That day, though, it seemed there was no place to go to get out of the way - no place at all, but into the wardrobe. We all crowded in, and despite it being a simply enormous wardrobe, there wasn't much room for all four of us. I kept getting pressed back and back until something poked me."
Her voice softened, taking on a tone of remembered wonder with a slight hint of sadness. "It was a tree branch. It was the most peculiar thing. On the one hand, we could see the open door, the slight light coming in from the spare room, and on the other - snow covered firs, the white stretch of snow seemed to go on for miles, and right in the middle of this forest was an iron lamp post. Of course we stepped through, thinking that we could always go back if it was too dangerous."
Or maybe only Susan had been thinking that at that point. Either way.
"But by the time we knew how dangerous it really was, it was far too late to turn back."
Susan meant that too - it had been dangerous, but as soon as they had learned what had happened to Tumnus, of course they had to see if they could do something for him. And Narnia had been dangerous in other ways as well - it was in her blood, had been her life, and now she would never see it again. Hundreds upon hundreds of years had passed; all of her friends, all of those she had cared for with all the grace she had were dead and gone. She could never go back.