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Susan doesn't believe in the mansion spirits, but she is being followed by something in a way that makes little sense.

It begins when she wakes up. Opening the drawer to the sideboard in her room to retrieve tea, she finds another gold chess piece wrapped neatly in ribbon. Lancelot didn't put it there - it hadn't been there when she made her pre-sleep cuppa the night before, and she woke up when he did and sleepily saw him off to his training; he hadn't gone near the drawer. She shuts the chess piece firmly away, makes her tea, and dresses blearily for her own archery practice.

There's a new bow in the closet, too. To her pleasure, it's a heavier one that requires a stronger pull - she's quite got used to the draw of the ones the closet first supplied to her.

After her shooting routine, she finds a lipstick in the precise shade Ingrid used to wear on the bathroom vanity. When she's showered and dressed for the rest of her day, she finds her favorite pastry - a sort of breakfast roll she used to get from the shop by the tube station she'd walk past on her way to work, back in London - on a platter in the kitchen.

It's when she opens one of the closets in the hall off the library to return a pile of laundered wash-cloths that she receives both some clarity and a deepening of the mystery: a jumble of assembled balloons tumbles out, made of some queer material and filled with a gas that keeps them afloat. The writing on them reads: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSAN PEVENSIE.

She stares at them, perplexed.

Susan's birthday post! Three days (by our reckoning) and eight months (by her reckoning) early! Feel free to have your puppets run into her in any reasonable location at any point during the day; she's just going to be accumulating more Stuff she can't get rid of as the day goes on.

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"What do the ones who don't hunt do?"

"They might exist as parasites or decomposers. Carrion beetles, for example. One needn't hunt if one goes through one's larval stages on a carcass."

"Gross," Janet says, with a little laugh, "but I guess a beetle's gotta do what a beetle's gotta do."

"Indeed." This little aside about insects has, at least, given Susan an opportunity to get hold of her own thoughts again, thank goodness.

Janet's dating a nerd. This would be more surprising if she hadn't gone to an entire college for massive magic nerds, she guesses. Nightingale's old house is visible at the end of their path now.

"Do you know, I hadn't thought I'd develop a passion for insects," Susan adds, as they approach the little office. "Ethology generally deals with rather larger animals. I suppose Karl von Frisch did his study on honeybees, but... none of my professors dabbled in that side of things."

"I guess Galahad is rubbing off on you," Janet says, with genuine fondness for them both. She's a weirdo magnet. "Do you have a favorite bug? Is that a thing people have?"

"I imagine Galahad might. I haven't got one."

"I'll ask him next time we do an ice cream tasting."

They're at the lakehouse, and Susan asks, "How often do you have those?" before opening the door firmly. As usual, she calls out hopefully, in the off-chance Thomas has returned, but the room is just as she left it last time she checked: the tea service is fully-stocked and a bottle of Thomas's favorite whisky sits next to it; the furniture is arranged to his preferences. It's been a week or two since her last visit, and some dust has settled in the intervening time, but the light is bright through the windows, shining on the little shelf with its collection of what she assumes must be magical objects and books.

There is, however, one change: a package on the desk.

"Delivery for Queen Susan," Janet says, sotto voce because it feels appropriate, maybe even necessary. Into the quiet, frankly lovely room, she adds, at a more usual volume, "We taste ice cream once a week."

"Have you got any favorites?" Susan asks. She goes over to the package. Something about its shape unsettles her.

Janet follows a step or two behind Susan, suddenly wary, curious despite herself. "Salted caramel."

"I don't believe I've tried that." She's still not touching the package, just moving around, looking at it from different angles.

"Okay," Janet says -- half-wary, half-casual. The tone of the room is hard to read suddenly, as she watches Susan circle the package like it might lash out and bite her without warning. "What, do you think there's an explosive in there?"

"No, it's just - the shape. It reminds me of something. But I can't imagine it would find its way here."

"Okay," Janet repeats more slowly this time, okaaaay. "What does it remind you of?"

Susan glances up at her. "Do you suppose it looks as if it might have a horn inside?"

Janet, quiet again in deference to the atmosphere of the moment, examines the package. She frowns, sharp-eyed. "Yeah. I mean, I couldn't rule out a horn."

"I suppose there's no use delaying," says Susan, at long last and after considerable delay. She rips the package open.

It's small, made of ivory, and - despite being fully intact - clearly thousands of years old. She runs her fingers over the fine ridges, the familiar wear of it, the smudge of something she'd rather not think about too deeply from once when she bore it in battle.

"I see," she says, frowning.

Janet finds herself stepping closer, eyes on Susan's... present, she guesses. It has that air about it, like something portentous. "So," she says, "that's what a horn-shaped package looks like."

Susan is still running her hands over it. On one level, it feels like coming home. On another, it feels like it might be some sort of ill omen. "Father Christmas gave it to me," she says, brushing over the patina that's formed over the delicate, largely-decorative wire band near the horn's mouth. And when you put this horn to your lips; and blow it, then, wherever you are, I think help of some kind will come to you, he'd said. "This and my first bow, our first week in Narnia. When blown, it fetches the help you require. It brought the four of us back to Narnia from London when Caspian used it." And though she does not know it, it was the call of this very horn that also brought her to the Mansion.

Any artifact that can yank people across worlds like that is powerful. What the hell is it doing here? Janet watches as Susan turns it in her hands, tracing the contours of its shape that must mean it's something familiar. "Father Christmas?" she asks, just to be sure. "That Father Christmas?"

"Oh, yes, naturally." The chain she'd used to hang the horn on her belt in Narnia is tucked in the folds of the wrapping paper, and hooks easily onto the wire bands. Hm.

"Wow." It feels like an understatement. "I didn't think anyone got real gifts from Santa. Uh, what do you think will happen if you blow it here?"

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