The Pevensie kids are otherwordly in more ways than the naked eye reveals.
For starters, with all the years they have spent around great cats, they are absolutely silent when they walk. They can stalk and prowl like no one's business, and once, when a girl pissed off Lucy, she showed her her teeth.
When a shrink asks her why she is scared of cats, so many years later , she remembers the white flash in the schoolyard, the sudden certainty of death.
Second of all, they don't seem to leave footprints in snow. In the winters of Narnia, magic was all around Cair Paravel, benign spirits showing them how to leave no traces, go unseen in the great white. Some swear they move without touching the earth. No one is sure enough to rebutt them.
The Pevensies are unbeatable in snowball fights. Especially Susan can throw like a honkball pitcher, able to single out and pick off targets that should be out of reach.
When the boys drink alcohol for the first time, at ages 17 and 15, they turn out to have great tolerance, something no one their age should have. Yet Peter and Edmund can beat anyone in a drinking game. Narnian spirits were strong (pun intented), so they do not find this feat particularly challenging. And no one understands how Susan puts away bottles and bottles of wine without ever slurring her words or losing her razor sharp mind.
The boys that keep pouring her more wine, hoping to take her home drunk, leave disappointed every night. Susan knows what's up. She's been forced to sit through boring diplomatic dinners with alcohol as her only interesting companion, is used to men trying to take advantage when she drinks. She will not be tricked by school boys.
They have a tolerance for other substances, too.
When someone gets the bright idea to roofie Lucy at age 16, he ends up with a nail through his foot, hanging from the highest tree in London.
Lucy shows up the next day with dirt under her nails and a hammer in her backpack. The teachers take one look at Peter, who stares back with a glare that could refreeze Narnia, and decide not to say a word.
They're all insanely strong swimmers. Susan won prizes before, but now she's breaking records. Edmund saves a man twice his weight from drowing, dragging him along across a cold lake for half a mile.
No one understands how the scrawny, 5"9 kid pulled that off. Or how he manages to hold his breath for so long.
And then there is the question of their minds.
Suddenly, Edmund can beat even the most experienced men in chess. He goes on to become champion of the region and then of the whole of England.
Peter, once a mediocre student, is now a stunningly good writer. When his professor reads his essay for Ethics, he weeps, something that has never happened before. Many see a future in academia for him.
Susan becomes known as the best problem solver in school. She's able to resolve many conflicts, not in the least because she's so attractive men stop thinking about fighting the second she steps into a room. But underneath the beauty resides a smooth operator. Her professors don't doubt for a second she'll be a brilliant politician.
Lucy no longer has the child like innocence from before the war. Her sense of wonder never left her, though. The centaurs have taught her astronomy, and looking at the stars reminds her of Narnia, one of the few things that are the same. The boarding school telescope goes missing an awful lot, as does she. Often, her brothers and sister come along, especially on bright nights. They never get caught.
They've changed. And they hold onto these pieces of Narnia, because it is all they have left.
