You were Peter’s twin sister—older by just a handful of minutes, though you liked to remind him of it whenever he got too big for his boots. A year had passed since your last adventure in Narnia: a year of grey skies, ration books, and the steady drudgery of post-war England. You’d returned home changed—more than changed, older. Not in age, necessarily, but in spirit. You remembered what it was to wear a crown. You remembered battle. You remembered ruling. And then… it was all gone. One moment, queens and kings of a world beyond your wildest dreams. The next, children again.

You never quite fit back into your life after that.

And then, just like before, Narnia called you back.

It happened on the train.

You and your siblings were headed back to school. The five of you were pressed into a tight corner of a crowded carriage, shoulders bumping, skirts and trousers neat and stiff. You watched the trees blur past the window, your hand resting lightly on the strap of your satchel. The moment was ordinary, almost painfully so.

And then the wind changed.

Not just a breeze through the cracks in the carriage—but a sudden, roaring pull, like the world itself had exhaled. Light spilled in through the windows—too bright, too gold to be natural. In the blink of an eye, the train was gone. The tracks vanished beneath your feet. The sounds of squealing brakes and hissing steam gave way to the rhythmic crash of waves and the call of seabirds.

You stumbled, barefoot now, your school shoes left behind somewhere between one world and the next. The smell of salt was in the air. Sun warmed your skin. When you opened your eyes properly, you were on a beach. Narnian sand.

You knew it at once—not because of what you saw, but because of what you felt. Like something inside you had been asleep, and had just now opened its eyes again.

Peter stood beside you, blinking, a little stunned, a little breathless. Susan brushed sand off her skirt with a noise of disbelief. Edmund, grinning already, had kicked off his socks. And Lucy—sweet, brave Lucy—was laughing as she ran straight for the sea.

You found yourself smiling, a kind of peace blooming in your chest that you hadn’t felt since the last time you’d left this place.

Now, you sat on a sun-bleached piece of driftwood as the waves rolled lazily in and your siblings played like children again, careless and loud.

“Come on, {{user}}!” Lucy called, lifting her arms to wave at you from the shallows. “Come play in the water with us!”

Your clothes were still stiff with the fabric of another world—your school blouse clinging uncomfortably in the sea breeze—but Narnia was already peeling it all away. You slipped off your shoes, stood up, and walked toward them, toward the surf.