Bookverse/movieverse. Contains a spoiler for The Silver Chair, although not one central to the plot.
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I survey myself in the mirror. The mask is comical, but I like to think it’s a little regal as well. It is half crimson, half black, and bordered with burnished curlicues. Small, catlike ears rise from its top corners. Before I join the ball, I rumple my hair one last time, turning it into a proper golden mane.
Dozens of couples twirl and bob as the band pumps out its jaunty noise. The men are in angular black tuxedos, the women in loud storms of color. All wear masks—glittering, feathered, outlandish masks. A mob of perfumes and cigarettes add their flavors to the warm air.
It is a moment before I see her—a pale girl alone in the corner, her arms folded, shifting from foot to high-heeled-foot. The novice belle of the masquerade ball. She wears a strapless gown the color of sapphires, and a mask that only conceals her eyes and half her forehead. It is silver and blue, and easily the least elaborate one in the room.
“May I have this dance?” I recite when I reach her. She starts, and looks up. I smile. In the fragments of her face that I can see—quickly blinking eyes, that lovely half-opened mouth—there is much surprise.
She takes my hands without a word, and I pull her into the fray.
“You’re cold,” I say as we begin to dance.
“Oh.” She looks down, bites her lip, and looks up again.
“Are you alright?” I ask quietly. I hold her a little closer.
“Yes. Yes, I think I am.”
For a few minutes we sway in dreamlike silence. She then takes a breath, as though about to dive into ice water. “It’s you, isn't it?”
I chuckle. “Of course it is.”
What’s left of her apprehension dissolves in a delicious trill of laughter. She flings her arms around my neck. The music becomes sweeter with her. People glance at us, but then look away. Those whose masks reveal their mouths show them to be smiling. Her joy is contagious to everyone, but especially to me.
In half-formed sentences that leap through time and topics, she tells me about her life. Her boarding school, her sadness, her sister, her dreams about lions. She asks in a conspiratorial whisper if all the people in animal masks remind me of the Talking Beasts. I say that of course they do; it’s like being a character in The Wind in the Willows. She’s startled by this, but then beams and compliments me for being well-read. She tells me she misses the badgers and mice and dwarves, and forces me to narrate everything they've done since we won the crown back from my vile old uncle.
When the song ends, I’m dizzy. Laughing, I extricate myself from her grip.
“Oh.” She’s disappointed.
“I’ll see you soon, I promise.” I kiss her hand. The nose of my mask bumps against her pale knuckles. A few dancers chuckle at the outdated gesture, but how can I care, when it makes her smile so warmly?
Later in the evening, once the masks are off and drinks are being had, I make another discovery, nearly as delightful as the first: Peter. I hadn’t expected him to be here. We shake hands and pat backs, and tell each other all that we’ve done since we last met—which feels like many millennia ago. Just as Peter begins to talk of his plans for medical school, he grins and waves at someone behind my shoulder.
I turn and catch a glimpse of the blue-gowned beauty—even more striking without her mask—hurrying to his side.
“Susan, this is Howard—you remember him, don’t you? He once lived across the street from us.”
As I recognize her face, the blood drains from it. She sways, but steadies herself at once. Her true expression is, again, hidden. “Wonderful to see you,” she says in a cracked, flat voice before she leaves us at a half-run.
I stare at her receding back, and then glance at Peter. He is frowning at me, as though trying to decode a great puzzle.
“Howard,” he says slowly, “what mask were you wearing?”
I hold up the cat mask, dangling from its black ribbon.
Peter covers his mouth and closes his eyes for an instant. He then puts his hands into his pockets and tilts his head upwards.
“We had a friend whose hair was the exact color of yours,” he remarks to the ceiling.
Guiltily, I flatten it.
“No matter.” Peter shakes his head as if to dislodge something from his ears. “I’d better find her. Have a good evening.”
“What happened to him?” I ask before he goes, and before I can stop myself.
“He died. She doesn’t know.”
I think this is a chapter in the Pevensies’ lives that Peter had no intention of sharing with me.
