((This takes place between the events of The Silver Chair and The Last Battle, but it can stand alone as a story.
Kitty Dennis is transported to Narnia, where she finds the nation on the brink of invasion and ruin. Together with her new friends, including Prince Caspian XI (son of Rilian, grandson of Caspian X) and the Mountain People, as well as one familiar but unexpected face, she must fight to defend Narnia – both from the Quotidoran troops and an even more dangerous power that underpins their every move – and will realise an uncomfortable truth about her past.))
On the final afternoon of the summer holiday, Kitty Dennis was wearing the last of the summer flowers in her hair. She had threaded the daisies into a crown and planted roses and pink geranium cuttings in her long waves. There was no reason for it, but when she twirled in front of her mirror she looked just like a pastoral princess. It was a perfect evening. It had been a fine day and through the radio the same refrain sounded joyfully in every house: the war was over. Kitty's father and brother could come home now. They would soon. Kitty and her mother had not heard from them for months, but they would soon. She wished that her mother was as sure of that as she was.
Her mother's name was Eleanor and she had dark eyebrows and hair that she always wore in a tight bun. Eleanor Dennis was a very organised and punctual woman who liked to keep the jam jars lined up and facing the right way. She loved her whole family but, now that Kitty had grown to match her height, they could no longer see eye to eye; for Kitty had no concept of a straight line and, at thirteen, was still apt to spend the whole afternoon filling her hair with petals. She was easily bored and, despite being a good deal brighter than most, was very easily distracted. Her teachers liked her in spite of her short attention span as she was such a good-natured girl, one of the bubbliest and kindest in the school, but they didn't all support Eleanor's assertion that her daughter should be a secretary. After all, secretaries needed to spend every day with their hair tied back in neatly and they couldn't fidget and drop things as Kitty was so prone to do, contrary to the appearance of the dainty-footed girl.
There was still a year before Kitty left school and tomorrow she was going back for a new term. She was sad that the holidays were over but very glad that the war was. Nothing lasted forever. Tonight she was going to make a bonfire at the end of the garden. Victory night or not, she did not intend to spend it cooped up in the house with her scowling mother. She missed her father. Rupert Dennis laughed more than anyone and had been away for years – a dashing captain in a bright clean uniform rushing into battle and protecting his nation and his daughter in her garden back home. Except that he wasn't. To the distaste of Kitty's imagination he was only a lieutenant and his uniform was probably ripped and dirty by now. Her older brother Stephen was only a private. He was only fifteen and technically too young to have gone to the war but, like so many other adventurous young men, had lied about his age and signed up anyway. By the time their mother had realised it was too late to change his mind.
But none of that mattered in the garden. The swing that her father had put up for Stephen was still there, but only Kitty and her little brother Thomas were light enough to use it these days. The garden was very long and, despite Eleanor's best efforts, largely unkempt. As though that wasn't enough, a gate at the end led out onto fields of long grass. However much the small village that the Dennises lived in might bore Kitty, she did not harbour a wish to live in the city. In her garden, everyone could be a captain and there were spirits and elves that whispered to her from the trees. Always, just out of sight, was the white horse belonging to the foreign prince who would carry her off into the sunset.
If she was honest with herself, she didn't really believe all the things her mind tried to paint onto the canvas of reality. Kitty was not a stupid girl but she was ever optimistic. The world was wide and she was young. The sky seemed larger than usual tonight and she inhaled deep lungfuls of forever from the soft outdoors.
At the bottom of the garden was a pile of red bricks, pressed up against the foot of an oak tree. Next to it sat a decaying crate that was filled with scrap wood Kitty had collected from around the village. A few feet from the crate, she knelt down and set her bricks into a rough circle on a patch of earth that she had prepared earlier with a shovel and she layered the newly exposed earth with a stack of newspapers from the top of the crate. The war was over. What a headline to have to burn! She picked up a bucket of water that she had brought into the garden earlier and dampened the grass around the fire pit, as she knew the danger of sparks spitting from the flames and how to decrease this danger by wetting the ground next to it. She then went to work on the wood, and it took her some minutes to pile it all into the brick circle to her satisfaction, but once she had done so the rest was easy. She pulled a matchbox from her pocket and the first one she struck took to the dry wood. It crackled and she replaced the matchbook and shuffled onto a conveniently placed log.
The fire grew and her eyeballs prickled from the heat as she stared into it. It was devouring her wooden offerings, licking the sides of a brass handle. She leant in a little closer and saw that the handle was in the shape of a lion's head. It had its mouth open in a roar but it didn't look frightening. The other side of the piece of wood was covered with pale paper, quickly turning to black as the flames took over. It might have been a piece from a chest of drawers, or perhaps a wardrobe. Kitty thought back but, try as she might, couldn't remember where she had taken it from. Perhaps it was Mrs Talway's rubbish bin or, more likely, the scrap heap beside the old professor's cottage.
By now smoke was streaming from her fire and, coughing, she moved a little further away as she knew, as every sensible person does, what silly and dangerous thing it is to inhale smoke. It billowed into the air, caught by a gust of wind that seemingly came from nowhere and made the gate swing shut with a loud bang. She didn't even glance over to check it as the smoke was far more interesting. It was spiralling into huge turrets and changing shape as it spread into the sky. The columns swirled and, for a moment, looked almost like trees. Then, with another surprising gust, the wind changed direction and the dark smoke blew into her face. Eyes watering, she got up to try and move but somehow the smoke was thickening. She brought her hands up to her face to protect herself from its suffocating taste and then they froze as she saw another tree. It wasn't her oak yet it was clearer than the smoke shapes, as though emerging from a thick fog. She turned around but could see nothing but grey clouds and, in an attempt to escape, stumbled over the log. The grass she landed on grass felt thicker than she remembered.
She blinked furiously and the clouds began to clear. As quickly as it had begun, the wind died down and the smoke disappeared into the air. But the view that she was looking on now was not her garden. In fact, it was not somewhere that she could ever remember seeing before. She was kneeling at the edge of a small clump of trees in thick grass that was far wilder than the highest ambitions of her garden lawn. In front of her the ground sloped down steeply, but not so steeply that she was in danger of losing her footing. Nonetheless, it was a long fall if she did so. She turned to look behind her, and found the inverse of the situation – the mountain rose above her and towered into the sky.
Kitty stood up slowly. Unless the smoke had driven her unconscious – and if it had there was very little she could do about it now – then this was not her imagination. It was very much something other, but she had no idea where she could possibly be.
((This is the first piece I've published here. So, depending on the response this gets, I'll hopefully be publishing the next chapter soon.))