And now Pan had to carry this wallet all the way back to St.Sophia’s College, and Lyra’s bed.
He gripped it between his teeth and pushed his way up to the edge of the rushes. It wasn’t heavy, but it was awkward, and what was worse, it was saturated with the smell of another person: sweat, cologne, smokeleaf. It was being too close to someone who wasn’t Lyra.
He got it as far as the fence around the allotment gardens, and then stopped for a rest. Well, he would have to take his time. There was plenty of night left.
* * *
* * *
Lyra was deep in sleep when a shock woke her up, like a sudden fall, something physical, but what? She reached for Pan, and remembered that he wasn’t there: so had something happened to him? It was far from the first night she’d had to go to bed alone, and she hated it. Oh, the folly of going out by himself in that way, but he wouldn’t listen, he wouldn’t stop doing it, and one day they’d both pay the price.
She lay awake for a minute, but sleep was gathering around her again, and soon she surrendered and closed her eyes.
* * *
* * *
The bells of Oxford were striking two o’clock when Pan climbed in. He laid the wallet on the table, working his mouth this way and that to relieve his aching jaw before pulling out the book with which she’d propped open the window for him. He knew it: it was a novel called The Hyperchorasmians, and Pan thought Lyra was paying it far too much attention. He let it fall to the floor and then cleaned himself meticulously before pushing the wallet into the bookcase and out of sight.
Then he leapt up lightly onto her pillow. In the ray of moonlight that came through a gap in the curtains, he crouched and gazed at her sleeping face.
Her cheeks were flushed, her dark-gold hair was damp; those lips that had whispered to him so often, and kissed him, and kissed Will too, were compressed; a little frown hovered on her brow, coming and going like clouds in a windy sky—they all spoke of things that were not right, of a person who was becoming more and more unreachable to him, as he was to her.
And he had no idea what to do about it. All he could do was lie down close against her flesh; that at least was still warm and welcoming. At least they were still alive.
Lyra woke up to hear the college clock striking eight. In the first few minutes of drowsy surfacing, before thought began to interfere, her sensations were delicious, and one of them was the warmth of her dæmon’s fur around her neck. This sensuous mutual cherishing had been part of her life for as long as she could remember.
She lay there trying not to think, but thought was like a tide coming in. Little trickles of awareness—an essay to finish, her clothes that needed washing, the knowledge that unless she got to the hall by nine o’clock there’d be no breakfast—kept flowing in from this direction or that and undermining the sandcastle of her sleepiness. And then the biggest ripple yet: Pan and their estrangement. Something had come between them, and neither of them knew fully what it was, and the only person each could confide in was the other, and that was the one thing they couldn’t do.
She pushed the blankets away and stood up, shivering, because St. Sophia’s was parsimonious where heating was concerned. A quick wash in the little basin where the hot water knocked and shook the pipes in protest before condescending to appear, and then she pulled on the tartan skirt and the light gray jersey that were more or less the only clean things she had.
And all the time Pan lay pretending to sleep on the pillow. It was never like that when they were young, never.
“Pan,” she said wearily.
He had to come, and she knew he would, and he stood up and stretched and let her lift him to her shoulder. She left the room and started downstairs.
“Lyra, let’s pretend we’re talking to each other,” he whispered.
“I don’t know if pretending’s a good way to live.”
“It’s better than not. I want to tell you what I saw last night. It’s important.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you came in?”
“You were asleep.”
“I wasn’t, any more than you were just now.”
“Then why didn’t you know I had something important to tell you?”
“I did. I felt something happen. But I knew I’d have to argue to get you to tell me about it, and frankly…”
He said nothing. Lyra stepped out at the foot of her staircase and into the dank chill of the morning. One or two girls were walking towards the hall; more were coming away, having had breakfast, stepping briskly out to the morning’s work, to the library or to a lecture or tutorial.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she finished. “I’m tired of this. Tell me after breakfast.”
She climbed the steps into the hall and helped herself to porridge, and took her bowl to a spare place at one of the long tables and sat down. All around her, girls of her own age were finishing their scrambled eggs, or porridge, or toast, some chatting happily, some looking dull or tired or preoccupied, one or two reading letters or just eating stolidly. She knew many of them by name, some just by sight; some were friends cherished for their kindness or their wit; some just acquaintances; a small number not exactly enemies, but young women she knew she would never like, because they were snobbish or arrogant or cold. She felt as much at home in this scholastic community, among these brilliant or hardworking or gossipy contemporaries, as she did anywhere else. She should have been happy.
As she stirred some milk into her porridge, Lyra became aware of the girl opposite. She was called Miriam Jacobs, a pretty, dark-haired girl, sufficiently quick and clever to get by academically without doing more work than the minimum; a little vain, but good-natured enough to let herself be teased about it. Her squirrel dæmon, Syriax, was clinging to her hair, looking stricken, and Miriam was reading a letter, one hand on her mouth. Her face was pale.
No one else had noticed. As Miriam put the letter down, Lyra leant across the table and said, “Miriam? What is it?”
Miriam blinked and sighed as if she were coming awake, and pushed the letter down onto her lap. “Home,” she said. “Something silly.” Her dæmon crept onto her lap with the letter while Miriam went through an elaborate demonstration of not caring that was wasted on her neighbors, who hadn’t been watching anyway.
“Nothing I can help with?” asked Lyra.
Pan had joined Syriax under the table. Both girls could sense that their dæmons were talking, and that whatever Syriax told Pan would be in Lyra’s knowledge very soon. Miriam looked at Lyra helplessly. Another moment and she might burst into tears.
Lyra stood up and said, “Come on.”