The gardens were peaceful tonight. Pantalaimon played around my feet; his beautiful marten form sinuously twining around my ankles. My heart constricted to see him looking so fulfilled; it was an emotion that I was alien to.
I sighed. The Botanic Gardens. Maybe Will, in his world, was sitting in the exact same place, right now, thinking about me too? No, it wouldn't happen.
My heart didn't constrict this time: It wrenched. It wrenched fit to burst out of my chest, in a bloody spray of agony.
Many times, since returning from my adventure, I had wanted to just fall down, and beat my fists on the ground and scream about the unfairness of it all. Often, in my solitary walks to the gardens, I saw young lovers. I wanted to scream at them too. Why could they have a happy ending, when mine was just all messed up? Why would it be that my true love is in another world, in a place where I can't reach him until I die? That was my only solace. That once I died, I could be with Will, forever…
A growl disturbed my self-pitying reverie. Pantalaimon was crouched low to the ground, stalking what appeared to be a piece of grass. I smiled. I picked him up, and hugged him tightly. He protested.
"Lyra! What do you think you're doing! You're not thirteen anymore, you're a young lady at a distinguished college! Put me down!" He cried, squirming to get out of my grasp. I didn't let go. Instead, I put him on my lap, and stroked him from head to tail.
"I love you, Pan," I whispered, feeling a treacherous tear escape. It fell down my cheek slowly.
"Love you too, Lyra," he replied, pushing his head into my knee. He stopped. "You're thinking about him, aren't you?"
"Who?" I pretended to not know what he was talking about.
"You know exactly who I'm talking about," he said scathingly, twisting his head around to look at me. His liquid eyes undid me.
"Yes," I said another tear rolling down my cheek. They fell onto his lustrous fur, forming beads of moisture.
"You know, crying about it is not going to help."
"I never said it was going to help. It at least makes me feel a bit better." Pan stood up on his hind legs, and patted my nose with his paw.
"Oh, Lyra," he murmured, blinking at me with his liquid eyes. "It hurts so much, doesn't it?"
"It does," I wept, hugging him tightly. "Oh, Lord it does."
"I miss Kirjava," he said, as if it was a consolation. It wasn't. If anything, it just made me cry harder.
"I miss them both!" I cried, burying my face in his fur. "It's not fair!"
"No, its not," he said softly.
"It would have to be me, wouldn't it?"
"Well, if you hadn't hid in that closet, none of this would ever have happened in the first place, am I right? A chain of events that started with something as innocent as curiosity…"
"Innocent!" I laughed and cried at the same time. Pan always knew how to do that.
"Yes, Lyra. Compared to now, you were innocent as a bird!"
"That's how they referred to me. Innocent…" I said, biting my lip.
"Look, I know it hurts. But you have just got to forget about it for a while."
"How can I do that?" the tears fell thick and fast now. Once I started crying, I just couldn't stop myself.
"Catch me, Lyra!" he cried, and Pan jumped up and ran across the path into a thicket. I gave a shaky laugh. I jumped up and followed him, smiling softly.
It was ages later, breathless and dirty, that I finally caught Pan. I held his furry body to me, and then remembered what I had been trying to forget.
Pan was right.
Sometimes it was good to forget.