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I’m sitting under my favorite breadfruit tree, hands locked around my knees, thinking.
With my back against the tree trunk, here on the cliff top, I can’t see the beach, but I can hear the waves lapping. Lady Cordelia’s rooster just crowed, heedless of the hour, but he’s far away. The waves are louder.
We had no squalls or storms today, just calm seas, clear sunshine and rolling waves. Now the stars are bright overhead. In the treetops, the night birds call to each other. Today’s been a long day, stranger than I expected, and I want to go over it all in my head again before I sleep.
I don’t want to forget what I said today, or what I learned.
I don’t want to go home yet.
I started my day up here, as I often do. Sat here on the eastern cliffs, watching the ocean and pondering the currents of my life. I spend a lot of my free time up here, when I’m not swimming. I like to watch the waves roll in, listen to the birds talking to each other, and hear the village sounds from far enough away that I know no one’s talking to me.
Our cliffs aren’t tall—perhaps twice a grown man’s height—but they drop straight down to the waves. Right here, the water’s deep enough for diving. To the south, the cliffs slope down and the ocean floor slopes up, until they meet in a long stretch of sandy beach. Beyond that, the ocean goes on forever.
Not really forever—there’s other islands and mainlands, of course. I’ve even visited some of them. Friends visit us every week, coming from the nearby islands with goods to trade and new stories to tell. Most of the time, though, it’s just the hundred-odd of us who live here, keeping our chickens and tilling our fields and squabbling about petty things.
I’ve lived here all my life. I mean, Mother tells me about this faraway land where I was born, before we came here to this island, but I don’t remember it. My earliest memories are of sunshine, hot sand, and sparkling cool waves.
I remember dribbling wet sand through my fingers. I remember wanting to touch the water where it lapped at the shore, and being angry because Mother held me back.
Lately, I've been thinking about leaving. Not forever, but for a while. Catch a ride to one of the other islands, maybe, spend some time with people I haven't seen every single day of my entire conscious life. I want to visit the mainland—New Zealand, or even Australia. I want to see a city.
I haven't wanted to mention these half-formed plans to Mother. She’d probably start crying about how I deserved more than this god-forsaken island, and how she failed me, and so on. I don’t know. I like this island, but I want to see what else is out there.
I would feel bad leaving Mother all alone, though. It’s just the two of us—my father died when I was a baby—and most of the folks here on the island don’t like her much. Despite all her problems, I still have a duty to look out for her.
This morning, I sat up on the cliffs until my breakfast was well settled in my stomach. Then I stripped off my tunic and breeches, walked to the edge, and dove in. The sea met me, cold and salty and refreshing.
The water was a welcome change from the clear sunny air, and I smiled at the small fish swirling through the clear water. My descent slowed, and I kicked, pulling myself the rest of the way down to the sand below me, where I could turn and push myself toward the surface.
When I was a kid, I remember watching the visitor’s children in the water. I wanted to be just like them, with their playful splashing and laughter.
Back then, we didn’t speak much of each others’ languages, but we got along okay. Those neighbor kids taught me how to hold my breath and where it's safe to dive, how to pull myself through the water, how to let the waves carry me back to shore.
As I got older, I learned more of their speech. They showed me which plants and creatures are harmless, and which to avoid. They explained how to slip sideways from the clutches of a riptide, and came to my rescue when I got caught and forgot in my panic.
Mother still doesn't know about that one.
I mean, she hasn't learned more than the odd word of our neighbors' language. All of us younger folk get along all right. Most of the elders, too. Our leader, Avier, tries harder than the rest, and can make it through whole conversations without fumbling for a word. Usually.
We’ve been living here for almost twenty years. Mother still hates the water. Still grumbles whenever she sees me knifing through the waves as smoothly as if I was born to them—but this is my home. The ocean belongs as much to me as it does to the younger children, the ones who were actually born here on this island. I love the liquid pressure around my limbs, the colorful fish and plants that dart past me.
Despite Mother's stories, I don't remember my father, or anything before this island. She says I took my first steps on the stone floors of a castle. I've never seen a castle. I can't imagine a house made all of stone, and taller than the treetops. Who would need that much space?
When I was just a boy, she lulled me to sleep with stories about a faraway land of rolling green hills and forested mountains, where you can run for days and not see the ocean. In that land I was a Prince, she was Queen, and we had silk clothes, servants, and horses to ride.
I’ve never seen a horse, or a mountain, or silk. I don’t think I’d like being so far from the sea that I couldn’t hear the waves.
Mother used to tell me that someday we’d find our way back there, and get revenge on those who killed my father. She doesn’t say that so much anymore. As I grew, she drank more and laughed less. I think she still wants to go back.
I don’t remember my father. If I want revenge on anyone, I guess it would be whoever made us move to this island and made Mother always unhappy. But if we hadn’t moved here, I would have never known the ocean, never learned to swim, never raced my friends through the water or competed to see who could dive the deepest.
Mother doesn’t tell so many stories anymore, but the other adults do. Avier and Cordelia and all the others in Mother’s generation—the ones who were full-grown when I was born—they’ll sit around the fire on gloomy days, reminiscing about the good old days.
One day, when I was about ten years old, we had a whole group of neighbors visiting when a sudden rainstorm blew up. All of us children crowded around a fire, waiting for it to pass, and told stories.
By then I understood almost everything the neighbor children said, and it occurred to me that I didn’t know the word in their language for Narnia. So I asked them.
They looked at me like my head had turned into a coconut.
I tried to explain—you know, the faraway land that we all come from, where the grown-ups lived when they were young!
They told me I must mean the mainland.
“No,” I insisted. “People travel on the water to reach the mainland. Avier says we came from Narnia through a door in the back of a cave.”
Then they all started talking over each other, arguing, and referencing legends I hadn't heard before, but no one had an answer.
I tried a few other times. It turned out that their elders actually didn’t tell stories about doors in caves or lost green hills. Their families had lived on their islands for generations, and before that had sailed across the ocean from other islands. None of them knew anything about a place called Narnia.
I think that's when I realized that no matter how much I learned, I would never be quite like them.
This morning, I was thinking about all these things as I swam. I was thinking about how I want to leave the island—but can’t imagine being away. About all the things I’ve learned from neighboring islanders—but will never be one of them. All the stories I’ve heard about the land of my birth—but none of them my own memories.
I surfaced, blowing out a stream of bubbles and filling my lungs with sweet air. The calling of the younger kids drifted on the breeze. Overhead, the gulls cried, the insects hummed, and Cordelia’s rooster crowed.
I slipped back underwater. The sounds cut out, replaced by the slower, weightier sounds of the ocean. I've never told Mother that's part of why I spend so much time swimming, but I think she knows.
No matter how drunk she is, when I'm underwater I can't hear her yell.
I pulled myself down through the water. It was shallower here, no more than half the depth of the diving hole, and I skimmed along the sandy floor, curving around boulders and buried logs.
My attention was caught by the unmistakable churn of an engine through the water, and I turned toward the sea to watch the boat pass. The waters around our little island are much more traveled than they were when I was small, and ships and boats pass within eyesight several times a day, sometimes more.
It wasn't passing us. This boat was headed straight for our beach.
Today wasn't supposed to be a trade day. Were friends coming to visit? I surfaced, pushing my trailing hair out of my eyes. The clamor of voices was louder now. I peered at the boat, with its outboard motor.
Yeah, I knew this boat—its pilot mostly ferries people between various islands, sometimes even going all the way to the mainlands—but why was he coming here? That squashed the visiting-friends theory. None of the young folks who might come over would have borrowed this boat.
I pulled myself through the water toward the shore. The group clustered on the beach wasn't just children, anymore. They'd been joined by adults, everyone talking and pointing at the approaching visitors. Of course, outboard motors chug faster than I can swim, but I started less than a dozen yards from the shore, so my feet touched down first.
I wanted to see what was going on, but my clothes were still up on the cliff. We’ve relaxed many of our clothing standards in the decades since we arrived on this island, but our old folks still care a lot about being clothed.
I sprinted up the beach. Sand clung to my ankles. I hadn't swum far from the diving hole, so it wasn't long before I’d climbed the path up the cliffs and was skidding to a stop by the tree where I’d left my clothes. No time to dry off, but I could yank my breeches on, tie my dripping hair back out of my eyes, and dart back the way I came, tugging my tunic over my head as I went.
By the time my still-damp toes sank into hot sand, the visitors had landed. I joined the group. The boat pilot was, indeed, who I thought it was, and I waved to him in recognition and greeting. He grinned and lifted a hand in return.
Besides the pilot, there was only one other visitor: a white woman, dark hair curling gently under her hat. She was paler even than us. (Our skin is lighter than most islanders. I guess that’s because we aren’t from here originally.) Our island leader, Avier, had already arrived and was talking to the woman. I stepped closer, trying to hear the conversation.
The woman spoke English with a strong accent, but I understood her fine. Her voice was deeper than I'd expected, and reminded me of the broadcasts from Australia and New Zealand, which we sometimes picked up on the radio, but it wasn't either of those, either.
She hadn’t brought a translator, which was unusual. Strangers—white people—usually bring translators when they visit our island. They’re always shocked when they discover that we all speak English.
“What brings you to our quiet island, Lady?” Avier was saying. Like all the older folks, he retains traces of the old-fashioned in his speech, little oddities never matched by those who visit our island.
“I’m chasing rumors and memories,” said the woman. “The names of those I seek are unknown to me, but I have reason to think they settled on a Pacific island. I met them only briefly, very far from here, but in the last two decades I have wondered many times what became of them.”
“And you believe that we know— “
“You!” The shout cut Avier off mid-sentence.
I froze. I hadn't noticed Mother in the crowd, but there she was, ahead of me. She swayed a little, already drunk although it wasn't even noon. “You dare show your face here?” Mother shoved her way right up to the strange woman, face flushed. “This is all your fault, and you dare come here?”
“Pru— “ began Avier, putting his hand on Mother's arm.
She jerked away. I didn't have to see her face to know how venomous Mother looked. “Don't you touch me, filthy mongrel. You have no right to tell me what to do.”
I wanted to sink into the sand and vanish like a burrowing crab. When she's like that, she's unpredictable, but I knew—I just knew—that sooner or later she'd see me in the crowd and drag me into her rant. I hate it when she does that.
“You're the one who killed my husband and stranded us here!” She was shouting at the stranger again. “You took my throne from me. You doomed my son to the life of a nobody.”
I winced. Usually, if Mother's going to go on one of her tirades, at least she directs it at people who are used to her. I looked around at the other adults. Maybe one of them would step in? The older adults were watching, some with folded arms or narrowed eyes, some nodding, some frowning.
Mother was still shouting at the stranger. "And now you have the gall to intrude on the last bit of land I can call my own, and look me in the eye, as if you could be my equal. Me! When I was once Queen of a whole land, with a castle, too.”
The younger adults and older children were whispering to each other, laughing in quiet dismissal. We've all grown up watching my mother yell about what should have been. Ugh, the aftermath of mockery from this latest outburst would last for weeks. The younger children watched, wide-eyed. Even our island squabbles aren't usually this dramatic. To be fair, though, my mother's often in the middle of them.
The woman said something too low for me to catch. If it was intended to be soothing, it didn't work. Mother scoffed. “Don't pretend to understand my pain, young lady. Have you ever been ripped from your home and banished to a strange shore? You have no idea what I've been through.”
That was enough. If I didn't get her away now, she would progress to further insults. Whatever the lady's reasons for visiting our island, she didn't deserve this treatment.
It didn't seem anyone else was moving to step in. Oh well. She's my mother, and my responsibility. I pushed my way forward, reaching for her arm.
The stranger must have had enough, because she abandoned her low tones and said in a more carrying voice. “Ma'am, I do not deny that I had a hand in your pain, although I dispute the exact sequence you recount. But do not speak to me of lost homes and lost families. The Lion is a fickle god, and you are not alone in losing much.”
For a single startled moment, everyone was silent.
“Mother.” I took her arm. “Mother, come on. Let’s go home.”
She pulled away. “Miraz, it's her. All this is her fault!” Her unsteady gesture encompassed the whole island, perhaps the whole sea. I could smell the rum on her breath.
“It’s time to go home now.” I was trying to coax her away quietly.
“What makes you think you can tell me what to do?”
My next words came out sharper and louder than I intended. “You’re drunk, Mother. You’re drunk and carrying on in front of everyone. Stop yelling at our guest and come home!”
She pressed her lips together and came.
I thought I’d won, but no sooner had I got her home than she whirled, furious.
“How dare you raise your voice to me in public?”
“Mother, it was an accident. I didn’t mean to—“
“That woman—” she spat the words, cutting me off “—is responsible for all the suffering I’ve endured these twenty years. I raised you here, alone, with no husband or parents or servants, because she and her spoiled little siblings had to ruin everything. And you stand there and shame me in front of the entire island!”
I snapped. I’ve tried to hide my thoughts, to keep the peace between us. We live together, in a house on an island, after all. But suddenly the weight of it all was too much.
“I want to leave," I blurted
“You listen to me, young man—“
“No. You listen, Mother.” My hands were clenched into fists, but my voice didn’t shake. “This island is my home. I may not have been born here, but I love it just the same. I’m glad I grew up here, surrounded by ocean and sky. I don’t remember Narnia. I’m an islander.”
She sucked in a breath, as if that last word had been a physical blow, and sat down on her bed.
“There were fireworks when you were born,” she whispered. “Everyone celebrated the birth of their prince.”
I dropped my voice, suddenly conscious of how loud I’d become, and of how much sound would carry through the board walls and corrugated tin roof.
“No one sees me like that now, Mother. I’m just an island boy, and I’m happy. I don’t want to spend my life pining for some lost country that I can’t even remember. I want to explore, see the mainland, see cities and trains and everything else. But this will always be my home.”
She didn’t answer.
“I think I need some time away. I love you, Mother, but I’m not a little boy anymore, and I can’t be the prince you want me to be.”
She turned away, still not answering.
So I left her to her sulking anger, shut the door, and wandered toward the main square.
I wanted to talk to this visiting stranger. She had stood up to my mother so calmly. It even seemed she knew what Mother was talking about, which piqued my interest further. I’d never met someone from off-island who knew anything about Narnia. Despite what I’d just said to my mother, I was intensely curious. I might be an island boy, but I still wanted to know where my family came from.
The crowd on the beach had dissipated, and the boat was nowhere in sight.
A gust of anger billowed up in me, at the scene my mother had caused, the time I’d spent arguing with her back at the house. Our visitor had left? Without me even having a chance to greet her properly?
Then I came around the corner of a building and saw the stranger in the main square. She and Avier were sitting on low stools under an awning, sipping coconut water. My anger wisped away immediately. I wasn’t too late.
Despite my eagerness, I hung back, hesitating at the edge of the shade, waiting to be acknowledged. Even though I'm old enough to be a man, it's hard not to feel like a child in the presence of those who've known me my whole life.
Avier looked up. “Ah, Raz! Joining us?”
“If it’s all right, Avier. Hello, ma’am.” I bowed, somewhat uncertainly, to the lady. It's how the older folk like to be greeted, but it's an island custom, not one much practiced by outsiders.
She inclined her head, acknowledging the courtesy. She was younger than I'd thought, not nearly as old as Avier or my mother.
“I came to apologize for my mother's outburst,” I said. Apologizing for my mother is sadly familiar territory.
“Quite the scene we had there,” said Avier.
The lady grimaced. “Perhaps I should apologize as well. Your mother’s reaction was not what I expected, but it is not entirely surprising.”
“Did you really kill my father?” I blurted, my tongue betraying me for the second time that hour.
She met my eyes. “You are old King Miraz’s son? I heard your mother call you Miraz, as well. I have not heard that name in years.”
“Only my mother calls me that. It’s just Raz, usually.”
The lady rose, setting aside her cup, and extended her hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Raz. I am Susan Pevensie, and no, I did not kill your father.”
I took her hand and bowed again, even more awkwardly. “Well met, Lady Susan.”
I heard a dry chuckle. “Just Susan, usually. It was Queen Susan, when it was anything, but that was long ago. Shall we walk and talk? I’m sure you have as many questions for me as I have for you. I find such conversations are easier had while walking, and you have a lovely beach here.”
Even that first meeting raised more questions than it answered. Such as: What questions could she have for me? If she hadn’t killed my father, who had? Was she telling the truth? If so, how many other flaws were buried in my mother’s stories?
She’d called my father a king, without a trace of mockery or laughter. So that, at least, was consistent. Who was this lady?
We took our leave of Avier and left the awning behind. The sun was high, the sky bare of clouds, so I picked a trail through the shade, pointing out various landmarks as we went, making nervous conversation.
She listened intently, asking the odd question here or there, until we reached the shoreline.
“I’ve always loved the sea,” she said, stopping to look out at the horizon. “I lived on the shore for many years, and now I am never quite at rest unless I can hear the waves.”
“Are you from Narnia, as well? I thought there was no ocean in Narnia.”
“Yes. And no. I was born in England, and now have spent more years there than I ever did in Narnia. But I went to Narnia when I was a child, and grew up there, and yes, there is an ocean. We lived on the coast.”
There were so many questions crowding my mind that I didn’t know which to ask first, or how to say them.
She didn’t wait for me to sort it out. “To answer your earlier question more fully, I was not present at your father’s death. The details I know came to me second-hand, but from those I would trust with my own life. I will answer any questions you have, but my account may conflict with what you have heard.”
“I want to hear your telling,” I said. “I’ve never met an outsider who spoke of Narnia.”
We talked for a long time. Hours. Some of the things Susan told me, I’d heard before, but many were wholly new. She said my father fell in a duel, and one of his own lieutenants stabbed him in the back before he could rise. I’d heard that theory before, once or twice, when old history is being discussed.
Although Susan wasn’t present at the duel itself, she readily admitted to having taken part in the war against my father, the war that led to that duel. So I suppose my mother’s anger makes sense.
Susan said that my father, while King, only gained his throne by murdering his brother and banishing his nephew. That’s not something I’d heard before. I want to ask some of the other adults, about it—especially Avier. He’s sensible and fair-minded. Maybe he knew and didn’t mention it to me because he didn’t want to anger my mother, but he will tell me if I ask him.
All the king and prince and royalty stuff seems far more complicated than our island politics.
Susan laughed when I told her that. “All politics is complicated, in every world,” she said. “For me, politics has always been about navigating the many needs of different people, and trying to care for each of them. There’s always one too many power-hungry folks, though, who will grab whatever they can get their hands on, and damn the rest.”
When I was little, I used to like the idea of being a prince. Now I’m glad I’m not. I don’t have to worry about being murdered in my sleep because someone wants power.
Susan used to be a queen in Narnia. I think she might have even been queen longer than my mother.
The strange thing, though, is that she talks about it less than Mother does. Even though I just met her today, I can say that. She answered all my questions about it, but—I mean, for example, she seemed a lot more interested in telling me about her recent travels in Western Samoa, and all the work she saw being done there to build a government and infrastructure, now that they’ve gained their independence.
I asked her why she came here, and how she found us. She went back to that idea of responsibility, of looking out for the needs of others, and admitted that she’d felt some obligation toward us, since she’d participated in the whole war against my father. I think it’s because she used to be a queen, even though she didn’t say that. She might not talk about it directly, but I think it’s buried beneath everything she says, like the roots of a tree.
She found us by clues and rumors and half-remembered things from years ago. I guess she knew we’d gone from Narnia to a deserted island in the Pacific ocean, and apparently everyone in Narnia spoke English? So she went looking for information about recently-discovered islands with English-speaking populations.
When she told me that, she hesitated, before continuing, “It’s been a long time, and—well, the others are gone. For years, I’ve been the only one who remembered Narnia, and I wanted to see if there was anyone else in this world.”
“I don’t remember Narnia.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You were just a baby when I saw you, there.”
“We’ve met?”
“No, no, not as such. I saw your mother, across the crowd, holding you. I was younger, then, than you are now. Isn’t that an odd thought?”
I asked her a lot of questions about doors between worlds, and how she got to Narnia and back. Mother’s been wishing for a door back for years. I was afraid Susan would tell me one exists, and that my ponderings about past and future were about to get far more pressing.
But no—there’s no more doors. At least, not that she knows about. There might be doors to other worlds, but Susan says it’s hard to find them by looking. You have to stumble on them, and usually when you’re a child.
That’s a relief, honestly.
I ought to tell Mother, at some point. That there aren’t any doors left, I mean—but I’m not ready to talk to Mother yet. Eventually
Susan and I talked until her pilot returned to ferry her back to her lodgings. I came back here, to the cliffs and my favorite breadfruit tree, to think it all over. She said she’ll return tomorrow.
I thought she’d answered all my questions, but now that I’m sitting here, I’m thinking of so many more I want to ask her.
Tomorrow will come soon enough.