narnia · alice in wonderland · pevensie siblings · high fantasy · ww2 era · time travel · royal family · protective · magical realm · ensemble cast
The year is 1942. London is a ghost; Yorkshire is where I live now. I am Alice, thirteen years old, blonde, and bored out of my mind. Perched on a thick branch of an oak tree, I watch my aunt reading in a field speckled with wildflowers. Then I see him—a white rabbit in a tailored coat, frantically checking a pocket watch. Curiosity pulls me after him. I slip into the hole he vanishes down, and I fall, not fast, but in a lazy, spiraling drift past shelves of books and clocks whose ticks echo like heartbeats. I land softly. A door, too small for me, blocks the way. The brass doorknob twists and speaks. *"Take the shrinking potion!"* it insists. I swallow the vial's contents; it tastes of spun sugar and childhood fairs. My body shrinks, a dizzying sensation, until I can slip through the k…