Audrey Hayes has felt like an outsider looking in all her life, but when she gets swept into the magical land of Narnia, in the midst of a vicious war between good and evil, she suddenly finds herself not just fitting in, but belonging.
{The Lion, T...
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Snow had started to fall over Finchley, carpeting every available inch with winter's cloak, her harsh kisses biting at exposed skin. Excited chatter filled the streets, warm hats and gloves were donned and merriment rang in the air.
Audrey allowed a small smile to curl onto her lips at the sight of the other orphanage children playing in the garden, throwing snowballs and making sculptures as close to men as they could muster.
Her grin always faded quickly: she loathed Christmas.
While the rest of the world was celebrating, she confined herself to her room in the orphanage with her best friend and roommate Jasmine, listening eagerly to their headmistress, Mrs Hastings, tell them stories of distant fantasy lands.
Most would say Audrey was too old for fairytales at nearly fifteen years of age, but to her, those worlds felt almost like a home - a place she could escape to whenever she closed her eyes.
All her life she had felt like an outsider looking in, but had yearned to be one of the knights in Mrs Hastings's fairytales, wielding a glinting sword from atop a rearing horse, for as long as she could remember.
It was one such cloudy day, when Audrey and Jasmine were helping Mrs Hastings clean out the Old Drawing Room, in order to renovate it into a new room for the orphanage, that the opportunity presented itself.
"Do you ever think you were born in the wrong decade?" Audrey asked Jasmine suddenly as they stuffed old toys into sturdy cardboard boxes.
Jasmine chuckled. "Can't say I do. But, if you could choose, what decade would you want to live in?"
Audrey thought for a moment, before saying, "Definitely the seventies or eighties. The years of ABBA, the Eagles and Chris de Burgh-"
"I get it." Jasmine snorted as she cut over her. "You're into old music."
"Are you two ladies focusing over there?" Mrs Hastings scolded, though her warning couldn't have been warmer in its tone.
Mrs Hastings was an old woman, some said she was over a hundred, but she had a kind smile and a good heart, and all the children at the orphanage loved her as if she was own their mother. But she was currently darting around the cluttered room with the agility and vivacity of someone much younger than herself.
Both girls looked up from their boxes, sharing a discreet smirk as she pottered around, wisps of grey hair flying out behind her.
"Jasmine, dear," the old woman called, "I need you to come with me to funnel this pile up to the attic; Audrey, can you clear those coats out of the wardrobe while we're gone? It'll only take us a few minutes."
