RaelynnRogers6
1916. As the thunder of the Somme draws nearer, nine-year-old Elinor "Ellie" Voss still believes her small French village is a safe place - a quiet corner the war will forget. But one dawn without warning, the sky erupts. In the space of a heartbeat, Ellie's world is reduced to smoke, rubble, and silence.
Alone among the ruins, she begins a desperate journey to find the only family she has left: a father fighting somewhere beyond the distant gunlines. With nothing but a cracked lantern and the fierce hope of a child, Ellie walks roads littered with refugees, soldiers, and shattered lives. Along the way she meets strangers - deserters, orphans, even an enemy medic - who teach her that kindness can flicker in the unlikeliest places.
But the closer she comes to the front, the more the truth becomes impossible to outrun: some people do not return, and some children must grow up far too soon.