Years passed, and gradually Lyra's life began to form a regular pattern again. During the week she would work and study on Arabic and History and the other subjects that she was expected to learn. While every Friday evening she would journey to St Sophia's main college to study in Dame Hannah's enormous library, to learn the secrets of the alethiometer.
These were her favourite times of the week, relaxing in an armchair, surrounded by thick books through which she delved, eager to decipher the truth. At first, Dame Hannah had said, it was best to start with questions that you already knew the answer to, so that you could be sure that you had not made any mistakes; questions such as 'where do I live?' or 'what did I have for breakfast?'. But gradually she moved onto harder problems that she did not know the answer to, but would be able to verify after she had worked it out.
"How about," she asked Lyra, who had just finished her latest problem, "you find out who owned your school before we bought it?"
"Aw, that's easy!" said Lyra, basking the lazy summer that poured through the windows, illuminating the dust, "Its that old, fat man who lives in the house at the back."
"Very well then, do you know who he is?"
Lyra shook her head.
"Then you can find that out for me." Dame Hannah said with a smile, and indicated the books. "First you need to work out how to ask the question, and then…"
"I know, I know." Said Lyra, pushing her hair behind her ear, "I've asked this one before."
She had asked the alethiometer this question about Will, so technically if she just held the thought of the fat, old man instead...
Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm her mind using the exercises that she had been taught, and thought hard of the question she wanted to ask.
"No, Lyra, you're asking about a man, not a boy." Corrected Dame Hannah, when she saw how Lyra had arranged the hands.
But the alethiometer had already begun to move in a pattern that Lyra found disturbingly familiar, but from where, she could not quite remember.
"Come on now, let's open the book and find what symbol you need."
Putting the still spinning machine to the side with a sigh, she commenced the long and tedious search for the truth.
Four months later Lyra was able to work out, with help from Dame Hannah, that the fat, old man who lived behind her dorm was in fact an ex-member of the constitutional court and had been forced to sell because of the recent uprising and whose wife had died leaving him one son.
However it would be many years before the familiar pattern she had seen emerged from her subconscious memory. In the mean time, there was plenty to keep her occupied. Not to least the recent antics of the church.
"My dad says that its all just a hoax, the church trying make a come back." Matilda said, relaxing back into the sofa.
"Bit extreme." Said Morgan, "faking a second coming just to get a bit of popularity!"
"I don't know. Lyra here was the second Eve." Said Grace, indicating her, "So why not a second Yesu?"
"Apparently he can walk on water, just like Yesu did."
"Yeah, and he doesn't have a daemon, but he's still normal."
Morgan snorted, "Sounds really normal."
"You know what I mean," said Matilda.
"Well, some people do believe in him. My aunt, for instance, went all the way to Bangladesh to see him speak." Said Grace, "she said she saw him actually bring someone back from the dead."
"Really?"
"Yeah, there was this guy in the audience, really fat, weak heart, who suddenly fell on the floor, dead, halfway through the speech. He was near the front, so aunt Caroline couldn't see him, but she heard later, that Yesu, or whatever, went up and ten seconds later the guy was up and running again."
"How do you they know he was dead?" asked Matilda.
"There was a doctor in the audience, who said he was."
"Bit convenient." Said Persephone entering with Anne, Morgan's closest friend, and completing the group.
"Well, I never said I believed it, I'm just saying that's how it seemed!"
"And I was just saying it was a bit convenient." Replied Persephone, tossing her perfect curls.
"And so Yesu, or whoever, just brought him back!" said Anne, attempting to distract them back to the original conversation.
"Mmm, about ten seconds later he woke up, and started talking about how he had been in a dark tunnel and how this light had brought him back."
"Well he's definitely lying then." Said Lyra, who up until that moment had kept quiet, "I've seen the land of the dead, it looks nothing like a tunnel, light or no light."
She looked up at her the people around her. Persephone had always flat out refused to believe her, on the basis that it undermined too many of her fundamental beliefs. She knew as well that Anne and Morgan had always been sceptical of her story, but then they were sceptical of everything.
"Hey Seph!" said Morgan, eager to diffuse the sudden tension in the air, "What was that you said you absolutely had to tell me earlier?"
"What? Oh that, oh my gosh, I can't believe I forgot!" Said Persephone, subtly turning away from Grace and Lyra and addressing her closer friends.
"What?"
"You know that weird old man who lives in the Lake House at the back, you know, fat, bald, pompous, dead wife."
"Yeah, yeah." Said Matilda with an anxious glance at Grace who was muttering something about 'insensitivity' and 'respect for the dead' to her daemon Khalifa, who was nuzzling her elbow in sympathy.
"Any way, you know he has a son!"
There was an anticipatory silence.
"Well," continued Persephone, her racoon daemon leaping up and down in her lap, "He's coming to live here!"
"No! Really!"
"With his father, right behind our dorm!"
"Oh my gosh, that is so exciting." Said Morgan, mimicking Persephone's tone.
"And that's not all!"
This time there was a silence, as nearly the whole room leaned in to hear what more there could be.
"His father is so happy to be back that," she paused for effect, "He's throwing a massive great ball!"
"You have to be joking!"
"And everyone in the top years at St Sophia's is invited."
After that, all other topics of conversation were wiped out as girls discussed what clothes they were going to wear and who was likely to be there and of course what Sir Humphrey Orion-Parker's son might look like.
But through all of this Lyra drifted like a girl in a dream. Only Matilda seemed to notice the unusual silence in her ordinarily vibrant friend. But she assumed that it was to do with the Messiah and the churches apparent return of power, and tried to console her by correctly pointing out that no one really knew what to think, and that it was all just speculation.
But she was wrong. Though Lyra distrusted the church, she was reluctant to get caught up in it again. But it was easier to allow her to think that, then to try and explain to a load of over excited girls, that she had no interest at all in their conversation.
Despite her and Wills agreement to find other partners, she was still finding it difficult to move on. Even after three years there was not a single night that she did not dream of him and the precious hours that they had spent together, little knowing that her deepest desires were soon to be realised.
Authors notePlease, please review. Its not that hard and they really keep me going.