I was glad when you died.

Perhaps it's unwise for me to speak it or write it, but nothing can stop me from feeling. We feel what we know to be true because truth demands to be felt—I think you would agree. So I cannot help feeling what I know to be true and yes, it's true that your death was something I expected and welcomed.

They say you were swept away into eternity, and I suppose that you are eternal in a way, though not in the way they want to believe. I knew you are not an immortal woman of divine power and, while you were my queen, I knew that you were still the wide-eyed Daughter of Eve with the wild imagination and simple wisdom amidst an everlasting snow that only you saw as beautiful.

They say, too, that it was time for you to return to the strange world you came from, a world which—I must admit—I never truly believed in. You imagined so much and experienced so little and yes, I suppose you were right about a lot of things. You were right about Aslan and you were right about spring and you were right about the light that dances on snow banks. Yes, you were right about a lot of things. But I think that you were wrong about just as many.

They never say that you died.

It's true; you did not die. At least, not when they say (or will not say) you did. By then, you had been dead for quite some time, and the dead do not die again.

You died in pursuit; not in pursuit of the white stag, but in pursuit of yet another white dream you found yourself lost in years ago. It was the same white dream that served as my nightmare; a nightmare that you did not belong in, regardless of what the prophecy said. And no matter how much you forgot or how lost you became, you had no place here. You had no place in a world of ice, not even after it thawed. You were light, and you never did understand why light could not be swallowed by darkness.

I never believed in wardrobes or spare rooms or any of those other fantasies you used to talk about, but I wanted that light all the same. That's the thing about light—light in a world that knows only darkness. It makes you want to believe in places where winter is only a season and the trees can't betray your secrets.

But it's hard. It's hard to believe in something you've never known, and I often envied your ability to get lost in a dream while I was stuck in a nightmare.

Yes, you were lost.

You stopped talking about gramophone records and telegrams and flying machines you became Queen Lucy the Valiant and you were lost. You were lost in a dream that was never yours to begin with, and that was when you died. Perhaps it's selfish, but truth demands to be felt.

I was glad when you died.