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Chapter 17

Golden Auroras

This is a terrible idea, the golden monkey thought with a growl as Mrs. Coulter and Lyra made their way over to the physics building where Lyra had first met Dr. Mary Malone. This is the definition of conspicuousness. This is a terrible idea.

Mrs. Coulter sighed as the monkey droned on and on in her head, expressing his disapproval and his concerns and his overall misgivings of humanity. It was the same old thing with him, really–in their world and in this one. People weren't to be trusted, and they had to do everything in their power to stay away from suspicion and unflattering attention. They had to be careful, and take only carefully-considered risks. They were not meant to walk straight into uncertainty and danger like this.

But Mrs. Coulter didn't have time for it. Lyra had gotten herself wrapped up in this mess, and it was up to Mrs. Coulter as her mother to get her out of it. And it was also her duty to help Lyra figure out what she wanted to know, whatever that even was. It was too late for them to back out.

"It's this way," Pan said to them from Lyra's pocket as they exited the lobby and headed over to the porter.

"She's expecting us," Lyra explained, sweetly, as the porter stared at the two of them in confusion. "Go on and ask her. We'll wait. But she's expecting us, I swear it."

And indeed the man let them up, to which Lyra gave a triumphant smirk as she led the way back over to the stairs. All Mrs. Coulter could do was follow, amused at how it was she following her child in this strange, foreign world.

All the more terrible, the golden monkey groaned.

At the top of the stairs, however, Mrs. Coulter instantly knew that something was wrong. Near a door with a woman's symbol on it was a tall woman a few years older than Mrs. Coulter with short, black hair and flushed cheeks. She was a bit twitchy in her overall presence, moving at every sound and clasping her hands. When she was Lyra, she nodded, but upon seeing Mrs. Coulter, she momentarily tilted her head in confusion before entering the door and ushering them inside.

"You must be Dr. Malone," Mrs. Coulter puffed as they squeezed inside, Lyra pressed to her side. It wasn't the best place for introductions, but it would have to do. "I'm–"

"Who is this?" Dr. Malone directed to Lyra, her eyes scanning Mrs. Coulter up and down. She was oddly agitated, with her eyes flickering toward the door and then back again quite rapidly. The golden monkey thought she was up to something, but Mrs. Coulter instead wondered if she were afraid of something. It seemed like it, at any rate.

"She's my mother," Lyra answered truthfully. "She's here to help. She knows about Dust, too, and wanted to come."

"There's someone else in the lab," Dr. Malone continued, not acknowledging what Lyra had said. "Police officers or something. They know you came to see me yesterday–I don't know what they're after, but I don't like it."

"How do they know I came to see you?" Lyra asked at once.

"I don't know! They didn't know your name, but I knew who they meant…"

"This is too dangerous," Mrs. Coulter interjected, feeling her own mistrust and fear lurk in her stomach as she grabbed Lyra's hand and moved closer to the door. "I'm sorry, Dr. Malone, but we can't–"

"Dr. Malone?" said a woman's voice from outside, causing everyone to stop and turn their head toward the door. "Have you seen the child?"

A look passed between Mrs. Coulter and Dr. Malone just then. It was intense, like a surge of anbaric charge. Say no, Mrs. Coulter said with that look–her blue eyes narrowed and cold. Dr. Malone stared back, her own dark eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. It looked as though she didn't know what to do, didn't know what she wanted to do. But Mrs. Coulter made it very clear what she had to do.

"Yes," Dr. Malone called, her eyes darting to the door and her brow furrowing as she gazed helplessly over at Mrs. Coulter. "I was just showing her where the washroom is…"

"No!" the golden monkey hissed aloud from the handbag, causing Dr. Malone's brow to furrow even more and Mrs. Coulter to hit him roughly with her elbow.

This was, as the monkey had said earlier, terrible. Her face tight with fury, Mrs. Coulter followed Dr. Malone out of the washroom, her right hand squeezing Lyra's harder as they entered the hallway to see a young, pretty woman practically run over to them while eying them suspiciously. Her eyes had widened ever so briefly at Mrs. Coulter's appearance but then transitioned to a general hardness. She was part of some state agency, Mrs. Coulter could tell, and she could only begin to wonder what Lyra had done in that lab yesterday and how it likely alerted every agency watching over matters of dark matter.

It really was a terrible idea for them to come here.

"Hello," the woman said to them, her voice calm and eyes trained this time on Lyra. "You're Lyra, aren't you?"

It startled Mrs. Coulter, for the woman to know Lyra's name. Dr. Malone had just said that they didn't know her name, after all. Had Lyra been that careless? the monkey thought to her. And, Mrs. Coulter added, gaze flickering back to Dr. Malone, was this Scholar as harmless as she came across to be? Why warn them of this woman's presence only to have already told her everything she wanted to know?

Think, Mrs. Coulter chanted to herself, feeling her heart start to beat faster and her mouth start to feel dry. Think, think, think.

"Yes," said Mrs. Coulter for her, stepping forward so that she was between her child and this sharply-dressed woman who was now staring at her full-in-the face. "And may I ask who you are, how it is you know my daughter, and why it looks as if you're about to rush her?"

The woman hadn't been expecting this, it seemed. Mrs. Coulter could see the cold surprise spread across her face as she then calculated what to do next. She also stiffened in her posture and demeanor. It was almost palpable. She clearly had some important business to attend to but didn't quite know how to go about it now that Mrs. Coulter was involved.

"I'm Sergeant Clifford," she said a few beats later, forcing a pressed smile. "I've heard all about your daughter from Dr. Malone and have a few questions for her. That's all."

"Hmm." Mrs. Coulter narrowed her eyes and started tapping her foot–an outward presentation of impatience and irritation, she knew. "I'm afraid I am not comfortable with that, Sergeant. My daughter has quite the wild imagination, and I'm not here for her to play games."

"Then why are you here, Mrs…?"

"Van Zee," Mrs. Coulter answered easily, thoroughly surprising the golden monkey as they hadn't used that name in quite some time. "And I am here as a fellow researcher. We come all the way from Denmark, and this is how I'm greeted? I must say, Mary, I am most displeased."

No one seemed to know what to do just then. Not even Lyra, whose grip tightened and body stiffened in the most uncomfortable behavior Mrs. Coulter had seen from her in some time.

It was easy, really, as Mrs. Coulter had seen a flier on their way up to this floor: there was a series of physics lectures from Scholars at the University of Denmark. "Physics," she surmised, must be the home discipline of those who study what Carlos had described as "dark matter," or what they knew as Dust. So it would be plausible, however too convenient, for another researcher to show up at a time of extreme reported activity. And Mrs. Coulter could certainly talk her way through Dust, regardless of which terminology she had to use or the circumstances under which she had to use it.

"I, I'm sorry," Dr. Malone offered quickly, putting her head down. "Lyra came to see me yesterday, ahead of our meeting, and I couldn't resist showing her what we'd been working on."

So, she was on their side after all. It was a relief to Mrs. Coulter, for she hadn't been sure and didn't know what options she'd have if that weren't the case. Sergeant Clifford was watching their every move and taking in each word as if it were oxygen itself, her eyes widening. "Still, Mrs. Van Zee, if we could just take a few minutes to–"

"Very well," Mrs. Coulter sighed, readjusting her bag and fixing her hair. "As long as it's quick. We have lunch reservations in twenty minutes."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Lord Boreal laughed as he sat back comfortably in his chair, his snake daemon slithering from his sleeve onto the plain wooden desk in front of him. "I'm very sorry to have missed His Eminence, especially as my news concerns one of his most influential members. Are you sure he can't be reached?"

"No, my lord," said the low-level priest, nervously. "He left a couple days ago for the North and hasn't said when he'll return. Can–may I send along a message?"

"I can take care of that," Lord Boreal drawled, crossing his legs and looking around at the polished lobby of the London Magisterial Seat. "Or I may just...pay him a visit myself. Thank you very much for your time."