Chapter 4 – The dark secret

Lyra awoke in the same place that she went to sleep – it appeared to be the middle of the night on observation and the Dursleys were probably all asleep.

"Ow!" Lyra whimpered: she ached all over. How could she have possibly deserved this? She sat up and looked around her to find that she was surrounded by destroyed shelves, dust and scattered shoes. It appeared that from a round, thin bruise upon her forehead, one of Aunt Petunia's high heels had landed on her head during the collision. She tried the door, it was unlocked, and clearly a mistake on Uncle Vernon's part. She opened it, limped out and proceeded into the small kitchen and into the fridge to rummage for some food. All she managed to find there that she didn't need to cook was an apple and a cheese-string and she took them both back to the cupboard with her and waited till morning. While she was sitting there thinking and trying to remember what happened all she could feel was a bubbling amount of hate towards the whole lot of them. There was nothing that she could find funny about her situation at all as she would normally attempt to do on the smaller things, like fitting into Dudley's hand-me-downs. How could she stand this any more? She was now officially reaching boiling point. Her whole life had gradually been getting worse these past few years and they now hated her more than ever. She'd noticed the gradual increase of abuse as she began doing more and more crazy things that she appeared to have no control over. Was she mad?

What was she supposed to do – call Childline and say that she was regularly getting beaten up by her Uncle for doing what they believed was magic? No way. The thing with Lyra was that she was very stubborn and was determined to try and sort things out for herself. She would not give up. She just sat there and nibbled on her not allowed "breakfast" until morning.

First she heard alarms go off upstairs and then a few groans and footsteps. The floorboards creaked as Dudley got out of bed and then everyone came down the stairs for breakfast. Lyra hid her apple core as Aunt Petunia's face appeared at the door and all she said was,

"Out! Hurry up and help cook the breakfast, you'll find the bacon in the freezer, then you will come back here and stay well out of our way." Lyra just nodded in response. What choice did she have anyway? She was sick of this, but all that would happen is that it would get worse. Hmmm, maybe in future she should take up being an invisible, non-existent person as they obviously wanted her to be. She bet to herself that they wouldn't care if she died or got lost anyway.

After she had cooked the breakfast she was ordered back to her cupboard again, all she could think to say under her breath in anger was,

"I hope they get a heart attack from too much bacon!" at that moment the letter box opened and five letters came sliding through onto the door mat.

"Get the post Dudley." said uncle Vernon, his mouth full of bacon.

"Why should I get it – make her do it!" Dudley pointed at Lyra and Uncle Vernon responded with a,

"Might as well, she's nearest – get the post, girl." She was already picking up the post by this time, she thought there was just no point in arguing with him: she'd probably just get a longer life sentence in the cupboard. Besides she really did not want to get caned by her cousin's new Smelting's cane.

There were five letters; one a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge explaining that she was ill from some kind of foreign food – she couldn't have cared less. The other three were two bills and a magazine for Aunt Petunia. Hang on, she thought, this letter's weird – it was a yellowy colour with wax fastening the back. Fascinated she turned it over whilst walking into the kitchen with the rest of the letters. She gave the bills, postcard and magazine to Uncle Vernon who was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and continued walking into the sitting room. On the fancy letter it said in very neat, fancy writing,

Miss L Potter,

The Cupboard under the Stairs,

4 Privet Drive,

Little Whinging,

Surrey

She was gob-smacked and felt very excited. She'd just got a letter, but whom from? She didn't have any friends or other relatives who'd write to her so who could it be from? She read it again – 'The Cupboard under the Stairs': what kind of person would write that? How did they know? But before she could contemplate any further, the sound of uproar had emerged from the kitchen.

"Lyra's got a letter, Dad! Why don't I have one?"

"What? Lyra's got what, Diddykins?"

"She's got a letter!" Dudley replied to his mother.

"Give that to me right now!" said Uncle Vernon who had just followed her into the sitting room. He seemed panicky. What was this letter about and who was it from to cause her relatives to panic so? She was confused but through her confusion blinded by a strange desperation to keep this letter. She had to keep this letter, she had to read it as if her life depended on this yellowish piece of parchment. In her mind she had an image that the universe revolved around this letter. Why should she be denied this one letter? One letter could mark the next chapter of someone's life after all. At this point Lyra snapped and all her pent-up anger was released in a sudden gush of roaring fury.

"NO, WHY SHOULD I? IT'S MY LETTER! What have I ever done to deserve this?" Lyra was so fuming that she felt as though she would explode: she couldn't put anything into words anymore, all she could see was red and an episode of pain as Uncle Vernon grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.

The funny thing was that when her uncle did this he winced and jumped back in surprise. Even through all of Lyra's anger, confusion and frustration, she was under an additional state of pure shock as to how she was reacting. What just happened? She thought to herself numbly. Then it all clicked into place and…

FLASH

She found herself in a woman's arms hugging her tightly. The woman was screaming and crying and running away from a black-hooded figure who was walking over a crumpled figure on the floor. A stabbing pain filled up into Lyra's heart and clogged up her throat – why? She felt some strange sympathy towards this man crumpled on the floor. As her gaze found the fallen man's face another vision took over her mind: She was on a toy broom whizzing around the house being chased by the now not crumpled man who was laughing and clapping – next to him was the lovely woman who was hugging her now, gasping for breath and running. She was back in her mother's arms in a nursery being placed into a cot in the corner.

The black-hooded man was fast approaching the cot and her mother began pleading with him,

"P-p-please stop t-this! Ta-ke me not h-her! Please!"

"Get out of my way you stupid woman or you shall both die."

"NOOOOO! Not my Lyra no! Take me instead, take me…"

The man's cold laughter filled the room making Lyra's hairs stand on end. His voice was cold and high and sounded like pure evil and she found herself ironically marvelling at his voice which affected her in such a way that at the same time it was able to appear so flawless to her which made it but more eerie, terrifying in fact to endure.

There was a flash of green light, a scream and a crumpled woman on the floor. Lyra felt numb, abandoned and empty. She stared at the man in front of her, and he stared back. She couldn't see his face, just his cloak. But even this one year old new that that wasn't her daddy in a costume playing another game with her. No, this was much more serious than that.

He pointed a thin, long piece of wood at her with sparks emanating from its end and then everything became cold and slow and she found it increasingly hard to breathe and felt so miserable it was unbearable. More cloaked shapes materialised in the nursery through broken windows and they all approached the cloaked man and opened their mouths and their rattling breaths filled the room. He pointed the sparking piece of wood at her face quickly and said something. There was green light and an explosion, a stab of pain and then a sucking, rattling breath followed by a weird stretching sensation in the room. And she knew no more.