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Lyra is eight years old when she gets caught out in the storm.
It’s springtime, but instead of budding flowers and birds coming back from the south, the arrival of spring is accompanied by one of the worst storms Oxfordshire has seen in years. It won’t flood, or so they say, but the residents of Oxford and its surroundings still tie down their belongings and huddle together inside as the rain starts beating viciously against rooftops and window panes. The wind makes the trees creak to the point of branches breaking off, and it whips the rivers into a frenzy. It’s not a night to be outside.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Pan hisses, hidden as he is beneath Lyra’s far too thin spring jacket, which is already soaked through. He’s in the form of a dormouse, and his paws are clutching Lyra’s shirt, as if to make sure he doesn’t get blown away. Lyra doesn’t reply to his chastising because she doesn’t want to hear it. Also, it’ll hardly help.
She really had been planning to be back by nightfall. The wind hadn’t picked up until the evening anyway, so how was she supposed to have known? It isn’t like she wants to be here. She’d much rather be huddling in front of the fire at Jordan, or already beneath the blankets in her bed. Instead she’s huddling in the hole left by an uprooted tree, the roots still gnarly and bent above her. It was the best shelter she’d been able to find. She’s muddy and wet, and she’s certain she’ll get a beating once she returns to the college for ruining her dress. In her opinion, they clearly should have given her a dress that’s more durable. She can’t see why she should be blamed for that.
“It was a stupid bet,” Pan comments again, though she can hardly hear him over the sound of the wind. However, she knows to what he’s referring. A bet with the townie children, about who could find the first spring berries.
“There en’t any berries out here anyway, and if there was, they’d be blown away by now,” Lyra mutters and wraps her arms tighter around herself. She’d wanted to stay out looking for longer than all the rest, but once the storm had surprised them, she hadn’t been able to find her way back. Then she’d been sliding down a hill and now here she was, hiding until it was over. In comparison, one of Mrs Lonsdale’s harsh baths didn’t sound too bad.
“-ra!”
Both their heads snap up, though Pan hears it clearer than Lyra. “Was that someone calling, or was it the wind?”
They both listen, and for a moment they’re almost convinced that they were tricked by the noise of the storm, which is still raging around them.
“Lyra!”
Pan perks up, enough so that his head is above her collar. There’s no mistaking it. “That’s-”
“Thorold!” Lyra shouts as loud as she can, going as far as to stand up from her little muddy alcove, even if the rain gives her hair another whipping. The hole is deep enough to reach to her chest, but it gives little cover once she’s standing up. She isn’t even sure her voice carries over the howling of the wind. What her uncle’s servant is doing out here she has no idea. She didn’t even know Lord Asriel was expected. Had he arrived while she was out in the woods, looking for berries? Another reason to consider the whole expedition a failure if she’d missed him. She shouts again. It’s impossible to see anything, and if she’s not mistaken the wind has picked up. The trees creak worryingly all around her.
“Sir, over there!”
She can’t even make out which direction the voice is coming from. Maybe if she squints and puts her hand above her eyes she can make out figures- or no, those might just have been trees-
There’s more creaking and suddenly someone appears from the side, jumping down into the hole with her, and hands underneath her arms as she’s not very gently shoved out of the hole with a shriek. Pantalaimon turns into an ermine under her jacket to have a better grip.
“Idiot child!”
That’s certainly her uncle, and he’s climbing out after her, faster than she can really register. She can’t imagine why he sounds so angry, other than the fact that she can’t imagine anyone being too happy having to go out in a storm like this. But she thought she hadn’t done too badly! She’d even found cover, all on her own, instead of wandering around the forest, which she’s heard you’re not supposed to do when lost.
She was about to explain all this - rain in her mouth be damned - but she doesn’t get much further than a half aborted ‘uncle’ before he grabs her again.
“Watch out!”
There’s a loud creaking, and then Asriel is throwing them both to the side, his arms around Lyra as they roll away. Lyra has no idea what happened, but the noise she hears, a loud thump and creak next to them, is at least loud enough to pierce the roaring of the storm. Her back is against the ground, her face tucked into Lord Asriel’s shoulder as his hand cradles her neck for a moment longer. There’s a strange stillness there, in his arms, and she feels impossibly small. Or maybe it’s just the fact that she’s being protected from the rain.
The next thing she knows, Asriel’s getting up and yanking her up with him. It hurts, and she can hear Stelmaria growl as he speaks again. “What the devil possessed you to hide out there?”
Lyra can’t understand what he means at first. There’s a tone in his voice that she hasn’t heard before, and while his face is hard to see with all the rain, she can’t be imagining that look. It’s not just anger. He’s worried. Despite the situation, and the way she’s started to shiver - or maybe she had been all along - that warms her a little. He never worries.
Then she catches up with what he’s talking about, and she turns to the hole in the ground which she’d made her temporary shelter. Except the hole is gone, and somehow, the tree that had been lying so kindly to its side, offering her a place to rest, has snapped upright again, as if closing a trap. Lyra stares at the roots digging into the ground where she’d been not a minute earlier. That could have been me, she realises. Buried beneath those roots, and if not pierced by them, then certainly crushed or worse - locked inside a hole in the ground and no one would have heard her.
Suddenly the shivering catches up with her legs and she can’t quite stand on them, but this time she doesn’t fall to her knees, but is instead hoisted up in Asriel’s arms as he huddles her close. She didn’t noticed growing so cold.
“Thorold, run ahead and tell them to prepare a hot bath for her,” she hears her uncle say, though he hardly has to shout to be heard over the wind. His voice is already loud enough, and that’s somewhat comforting. The storm is clearly no match for him.
--
Lyra is unsure how she manages it, with the storm thundering overhead, but she falls asleep somewhere before they reach Jordan, and she’s quite groggy as Asriel hands her over to a fussing Mrs. Lonsdale, who immediately sets about stripping off her clothes and getting her into a hot bath, which feels scalding before she grows used to it. At least that did plenty to wake her up, but by then her uncle is already gone. Not that she expected him to stay around bathing her. Mrs. Lonsdale was clearly there for that, scrubbing mud from all over her while prattling on about how irresponsible Lyra is.
Lyra herself is quiet, though more contemplative than grumpy, and Pan sits on the edge of the bath in the form of a sparrow, just as silent.
After the bath is done, she’s dressed in her nightclothes, and some warm socks that she’s quite sure are not meant for a child. She’s given another blanket to wrap around her shoulders and then she’s led to one of the guest rooms and sat down in front of the fire. A cup of hot tea is placed in her hands, and she even manages to mumble a thank you to Mrs. Lonsdale, who just scoffs and makes her way out. Lyra sips her tea in silence. If she’s not mistaken, there’s a little bit of honey in it. She never gets honey in her tea.
Neither she nor Pan have the time to contemplate where they’ve been brought, or take in the presence of large suitcases in the corner of the room clearly marking it as inhabited, before the door opens again. She’s expecting Mrs. Lonsdale, or perhaps the Master come to give her another lecture, but it’s Lord Asriel she sees in the doorway. While he’s hardly in his pyjamas - she’s not even sure she could imagine him in one - he still has a similar blanket to hers wrapped around his shoulders. Lyra wonders if he too were forced into a hot bath, though she doubt Thorold cleaned him off with the same ferocity as Mrs. Lonsdale did for her. There’s silence as he looks at her, and then her uncle turns to the corridor.
“Thank you, Thorold, you can rest for the night.”
She hears a muffled ‘sir’, and then Asriel enters the room and closes the door, letting out a sigh that’s more tired than any she’s ever heard from him. He doesn’t look at Lyra again but goes to pour himself a glass of- well, something. Lyra isn’t quite sure what, but it’s something the adults drink. Particularly “in trying times” Bernie Johansen, the pastry cook, had told her once, and then he’d laughed when she asked if it was some kind of medicine. Whatever it is, Asriel takes a large sip out of it before he looks back to her.
“As much as those scholars try to teach you, I suppose outdoor survival courses wouldn’t be their first priority. With how wild you are, perhaps it should be,” he says, and Lyra isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be an insult or a compliment.
Asriel picks out a book from a rucksack he’s placed on the floor. To her surprise, he then comes over to her in front of the fire and sits down next to her. It’s strange, she thinks, to be on such an even level with him. She hasn’t seen him in at least sixth months, and this wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined their reunion going, but it’s still nice. Her eyes dart over to Stelmaria, who’s settling with closed eyes by the side of the fire. She doesn’t look all that wet from the rain, but Lyra knows that Pantalaimon is cold, with the way he’s wrapped around her shoulders as an ermine again, and so she imagines the snow leopard must be too, despite that thick fur.
“Lyra, are you listening?”
Her uncle has her attention again as she looks up at him, clasping her cup of tea with both hands and taking a sip. Her eyes are wide and he looks tired. He’s always ferocious or determined. She doesn’t know if she’s ever seen him tired before. She nods, and he sighs.
“Good. Now, you know very well that you’re not supposed to go far away from the college,” he starts, and there's an exasperated tone in his voice that makes it clear that he believes it to be an inevitability that she will anyway. Usually he’d have given her a scolding. Lyra hides her grin behind her cup, though with the look he gives her, she can tell she wasn’t successful. “But if you’re determined to be a disobedient wild cat of a child, then at least you could do so without risking your life. You can read, yes?”
A strange question, and Lyra has to fight the urge to roll her eyes. She tends to go quiet in the presence of her uncle, but right now it’s a little bit of a relief, to not have to speak. He seems to be able to get her meaning anyway, because of course she can read. If only to be able to read his postcards.
“Excellent,” he continues and places the book he picked out before in front of them. To Lyra’s surprise, it’s a notebook - a very nice one, in leather. And it’s completely empty. There’s a pen in his hand. “Then let’s make sure there are no repeats of today’s stupid mistake, shall we?”
What follows is the strangest lecture Lyra’s ever received. Lord Asriel is the one writing and drawing, though he shows it to her as he goes about it. He teaches her about how to find her way if she’s lost in the woods - look for the direction of anthills - how to leave trails that won’t be destroyed easily, what marks to leave. He also teaches her about what berries she can and can’t eat, which mushrooms she shouldn’t touch and what snakes are venomous. Lyra doesn’t think she’ll go out into the woods any time soon - the image of being crushed underground is still haunting her - but if she ever did, she’d be a lot more prepared for it.
Somewhere halfway into his speech about how to find the nearest source of water, Lyra nods off, though she’s tried her very best to stay awake. When she wakes up again, briefly, it’s as Lord Asriel puts her down in her bed. She tries to say goodnight, but she’s not sure if she manages before falling back asleep, Pan curled up next to her.
--
The next morning she wakes up, and she feels unusually warm. Glancing around her, she notes that this is because she has double the amount of blankets than usual. It’s with certain surprise she realises that her uncle must have given her his. The thought makes her smile, but not as much as when she turns to her nightstand and spots the leather-bound notebook lying there. She reaches out and grabs it, opening the first page, the one before all Asriel’s notes about woodland survival.
To Lyra. So that she’ll live to reach the age of nine, for which this was a birthday present. Regards, Asriel.
It’s short, but more personal than she’s used to, and Lyra grins wider than she remembers doing in weeks.
Later, she finds out that Lord Asriel already took the train to London early that morning. While that does fill her with some disappointment, it’s not as harsh as it usually is when he leaves without saying goodbye. She stays inside the whole day, the scholars having given her the day off, and she spends it reading through her uncle’s notes and looking at the quick sketches of leaves and mushrooms. When the time comes to sleep again, she clutches the book to her chest, as if she can soak up the words into her skin.
“We’ll show him, Pan,” she says and Pan glances up, a sleepy house cat curled up next to her on the bed.
“Show him what?”
“I’ll make it all the way to age ten. By that time, I wager I’ll be an expert, and he’ll have to move on to teaching me about surviving in the North, where there en’t no anthills. After that, he’s sure to bring us with him next time he leaves, don’t you think?”
Pan mumbles something vaguely pessimistic and Lyra ignores him, as per usual. She falls asleep clutching her notebook and imagines going on a grand adventure in the North, where there’s less mud, and certainly no uprooted trees out to kill her. Besides, if there were, her uncle would surely be there to save her. Lyra, however, is determined to not let that happen. Next time, she’ll make him proud by saving herself.