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No-one knew, not even Susan herself, but the gentle queen who returned was with child. No-one save Aslan. No tame lion he, but no cruel one either, not needlessly, and the child-to-be melted away with the breasts and the hidden hair, the riding muscles, and the callouses from shooting a longbow and dancing barefoot all night out of doors. The callouses never came back; there was little enough riding and shooting in England, not for a young lady such as Susan at least, and while there was plenty of dancing all night, little of it was either barefoot or outdoors. But both breasts and hair grew back in their time—and so, in its time, did the would-be child.
It caused quite a rift among the four Pevensies. No-one entirely believed Susan’s tale that it must be Narnian, not even Lucy, and of course the poor girl could not begin to tell anyone else how she must have conceived. Not her mother, who longed to comfort and forgive, if only Susan would trust her! Nor her father, who maintained that his gentle daughter must have been forced and wanted to involve the police, if only she could bring herself to name the blackguard! As it was, there was much talk of lipstick and nylons, and of the corrupting influence of jazz and the wrong sort of boys. (If there is a right sort of boys, I have yet to come across them.)
No-one believed her save Aslan. For all worlds must end, not just Narnia, and virgin births, true ones at least, are in far too short a supply to squander. Needs must. After the funerals, Susan stood by the window cradling her belly and feeling hooves kick, and waited for the sky to boil with blood, red as lipstick.
21 October 2017