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Lyra hated shrimp, but she ate it for Mrs. Coulter's sake.
They were at the Royal Arctic Institute for another important meeting with so-and-so and such-and-such, which had become part of their annual weekend activities. It was dreadful, really, the way Lyra had to dress up for these events: frilly pink dresses and patent leather shoes and gently-curled hair and perfectly-poised shoulders. Pan had to act on his best behavior, too, as a handsome little raven or a tall and proper ermine. He was never allowed to take the form of a common house cat, or a squeaky cub or anything else Mrs. Coulter deemed “unsuitable.” They had to speak when spoken to and nod along when socially cued to. Neither of them liked it, but they did it anyway, because Mrs. Coulter could be good when they did as she wanted.
Lyra didn’t like going to church, either, as she’d never been one to internalize religion. Uncle Asriel had actually openly challenged it in front of her, talking about all these churchgoers following the motions of things they hardly even understood. He’d mock them and laugh at them, and tell Lyra to be careful of them. Yet now Lyra went to mass with Mrs. Coulter every single Sunday, and sometimes again during the week for a special event. She didn’t like it, but she did so anyway, because it made Mrs. Coulter happy.
"It's not supposed to be like this," Pan whispered to her after it didn't go well another time. Mrs. Coulter had a few guests over to the flat. They were from the Magisterium, she'd said, and were very important. There were two women and two men and one little girl who belonged to one of the couples (the exact connection wasn’t entirely clear).
"This is Lyra," Mrs. Coulter said to the girl, touching the top of the girl’s head and smiling down kindly at her. "I think she may be of some interest to you, dear.”
The girl's name was Adelaide. She was tall and well-spoken and polite and entirely awful.
"You don't look like a rich person's kid," she sneered at Lyra not even ten minutes into their conversation. The adults had gone off to another room as Lyra and Adelaide sat together in the sitting room. Lyra had no toys to show her since Mrs. Coulter insisted they all be put away, and all of the books and magazines on display were the most boring ones about space and physics. Mrs. Coulter’s flat was largely quite unsuitable for children, really, which was strange now that Lyra lived here full-time, too.
“That’s a not a very nice thing to say, is it?” Lyra snorted back. She didn’t like this girl. Not one bit. So it didn’t really matter how she talked to her now, as they’d never be friends. Lyra just wouldn’t bother herself.
“Who are you, then?” Adelaide pressed. She tilted her head to one side and stared at Lyra curiously, as if she were some kind of display at a museum. “You can’t possibly be that lady’s daughter.”
“And why do you say that?” Lyra challenged. She felt defensive all of a sudden. Heat flushed her cheeks and her fists instinctually curled into little balls. Pan felt it, too, and brushed against her ankles as a panther and bore his fangs at the girl’s little parakeet daemon, whose eyes glimmered unkindly at them.
“That attitude, for one thing,” Adelaide sniffed. The way she spoke only made Lyra only stiffen further. “With kids like me, we don’t have to prove that we belong. We just do. And someone like you never will.”
In that moment, Lyra realized that she could do quite a few different things. One option—and the most appealing one—was to reach forward and shove Adelaide right off the sofa and onto the cold, hardwood floor, giving her a fright and putting her back in her place. Lyra’s heart fluttered at the thought, really, and kept thinking about the look on her snide face when her bottom was on the ground and she was looking up at Lyra. She wouldn’t ever expect it, which would make it all the more satisfying.
Mrs. Coulter wouldn't like that, though. Indeed, Lyra thought about her caregiver’s fury if she did that. She’d said this meeting with these Magisterium people was very, very important. She said it had to go well and that Lyra had to be a good girl on her very best behavior. She’d said to do it for her, and that if Lyra behaved herself, they could go out for ice cream and then on a nice little picnic in the park. Lyra quite liked these little park outings, as Mrs. Coulter would wear a less-fancy dress and actually sit down on the ground with her and bathe in the sun and do all the things they normally never did during the week and around the flat.
Lyra knew that she should just let it go, smile politely and ask Adelaide what she’s studying at school or if she wanted to play patty cake or something else stupid like that. Lyra should take the high road, as Mrs. Coulter would say. She should control her emotions. She should be a good hostess. She should be better.
But Lyra wasn’t better. She wasn’t polite and she wasn’t sweet and she certainly was not in control of her emotions. She shoved Adelaide—hard. The girl tumbled to the floor and fell not on her bottom but actually on her head, and let out a great big wail. Her daemon changed into a robin and flew up and away, squawking for help. The adults rushed into the room and took one look at the scene before all eyes trailed to Lyra, whose face still wore the smug content of having gotten her way and showed that petty little girl up.
“This is unacceptable,” Mrs. Coulter fumed twenty minutes later. The guests had left in a flurry and now Mrs. Coulter was pacing the living room floor, sending glaring glances at Lyra as the golden monkey hissed. “Completely and utterly unacceptable.”
“I’m sorry,” Lyra whispered, head hung low. Pan cowered on her shoulder as a little brown mouse, his whiskers twitching.
“You’re sorry?” Mrs. Coulter demanded, stopping now to tower over Lyra. It was scary, almost, the intensity with which the woman glowered. It vaguely reminded Lyra of Uncle Asriel when he’d get angry at her for going on the roof or missing lessons. It was almost different, somehow. It felt more out of proportion, really, especially given how calm Mrs. Coulter was about other things. “Now you’re sorry, after you ruined my business meeting because someone made one little comment?”
“It's not supposed to be like this," Pan thought to her again later that evening. Mrs. Coulter hadn’t even wished her a goodnight when Lyra told her she was headed off to bed. She hadn’t looked at her or responded to her; she hadn’t acknowledged Lyra’s presence at all. And now as Lyra got up out of her bed toward Mrs. Coulter’s room to apologize yet again, Pan grew more and more restless.
“I really am sorry, Mrs. Coulter.” They were standing face-to-face at Mrs. Coulter’s bedroom door now, both dressed in beige nightgowns. “I know that I need to work on that kinda stuff. I can’t just do what I like.”
“You’ll visit their home with me tomorrow and apologize to Adelaide?” Mrs. Coulter pressed a few minutes later as they were snuggled into her bed. Mrs. Coulter’s bed was large and soft, with feather-down pillows and covers. Lyra had only been in it a few times and felt like she was floating on air each time, and nodded blindly in her haze.
“You’ll be a good girl for me?” Mrs. Coulter added.
Lyra nodded again.
“You’ll do as I say?”
Lyra let out a sleepy “mm-hmm” before curling up against the woman and drifting off to gentle hands stroking her hair and the top of her head.
It was difficult, really, pretending to be good.
Lyra didn’t think she was a bad person. She felt like she could hardly even comprehend what that was, and how she and those around her fit into those molds and definitions. At the special Magisterium classes Mrs. Coulter made her attend, they talked a lot about being “faithful” in life, and about good people following the church and doing their duty and listening to the authorities. Again Lyra felt disconnected, as Uncle Asriel had told her to never trust the authorities and, in fact, to consider that maybe the opposite of what they say is true.
Yet still she attended the classes and went to mass, Mrs. Coulter holding her hand as they entered the chapel and sliding an arm around her every so often as they sat in their pews, heads turned diligently toward the front. It felt good when they were like this. Lyra felt close to her. As long as Lyra did exactly as Mrs. Coulter said, Mrs. Coulter would treat her so, so well, and give her more love than Lyra had ever experienced.
On a cool autumn evening after a particularly busy day of shopping and Mrs. Coulter visiting places to fill out “special paperwork,” Pan just couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re nothing but a pretty little pet!” he burst out, changing from his favorite ermine form to a growling bearcat. He snarled at her as he said so, shaking his head at her.
“I am not,” Lyra insisted, feeling struck by the accusation and the way Pan so violently said it. She felt it inside her, too, the way he felt: angry, impatient, betrayed. He’d been harboring these feelings for a while but suddenly felt incapable of hiding them.
“This isn’t real, Lyra!” He threw back, and all Lyra could do was stare, caught in an utter stupor. “Can’t you see? She’s only ever nice when you do as she says, when you pretend to be whatever it is that she wants. What about you, and who you want to be? Do you think she actually cares?”
That troubled Lyra more than she wanted to admit. She found it impossible not to think about what Pan had said, and about who she was and what she wanted and how everything added up. The next few days she watched Mrs. Coulter more closely than she had before. She watched how she dressed and what she ate and how she talked and what she did and didn’t say to the people all around them. She watched how she interacted with the servants and the shopkeepers and, importantly, how she interacted with her.
“That looks lovely on you,” she was saying as Lyra tried on a slim yellow dress with frills at the bottom. “We’ll put it in the basket and you can wear it to church once it warms up some.”
Lyra thought it was ugly, actually. Well, maybe it wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t really her style. The sleeves were puffy and the chest framed in such a way that actually reminded Lyra a bit of Adelaide and all the girls she hated and didn’t want to look like. She didn’t mind some of the clothes Mrs. Coulter made her wear, but this one just didn’t sit right with her.
“But, Mrs. Coulter,” Lyra said slowly, aware of Pan’s little cat nose sniffing up at her as he realized what she was about to say, “what if I don’t want to wear it to church?”
It was silent a moment as Mrs. Coulter stopped, looking at Lyra from over another dress she was holding up to critically examine. The golden monkey snapped his head around, eyes narrowed, and Lyra simply stared back, her heart rate starting to pick up. She didn’t know what she was saying, or how to even say it. But something just compelled her to do it.
“Don’t be silly, darling,” the woman eventually laughed, looking away and going back to the dress. “You’ll look lovely in it.”
Pan stiffened at her ankles, and Lyra felt it, too. The expectation, the tension, the clash between what Lyra wanted and what Mrs. Coulter wanted; the automated understanding that whatever Mrs. Coulter thought was the way it would be.
“But… you think so? What if I don’t?”
Maybe it was because Mrs. Coulter wasn’t used to someone speaking back to her. Maybe it was because she really, really liked this ugly little dress for some reason. But in a flash, Mrs. Coulter was inches away from her, bent down and eyes boring into Lyra’s. The air felt charged around them, with some sort of heavy energy running through the both of them. “Drop that tone, young lady. I am purchasing you this dress and you will be grateful. You will wear it to church and you will look lovely. We will not waste any more time discussing this as we have plenty more to do.”
Yet again, Lyra realized that she had to let it go. Nodding slowly, her eyes trained on the floor, she pretended to agree, to accept that this was the way her caregiver was supposed to treat her. Mrs. Coulter perked up and took her hand as they exited the shop, commenting on the changing colors of the leaves and wondering when she’d need to tell the gardener to sweep up the terrace. Lyra nodded blankly and followed, her hand glued to Mrs. Coulter’s not out of affection but what increasingly felt like possession.
It was easier to just agree with Mrs. Coulter. Their relationship was wonderful when Lyra agreed with her and wore her frilly little dresses and talked in a sickenly sweet and happy voice with all the many people Mrs. Coulter introduced her to. Their relationship was good. She gave Lyra so many things she wanted and thought she’d never have, that she didn’t even realize could exist. She made Lyra feel more whole when she’d spent her entire life feeling only ever partially connected to anyone or anything.
As Pan said, though, it wasn’t real. It was all play pretend. Lyra felt that crush deep into her soul, and felt Pan gently nip her fingers as he hid inside her sleeve. This wasn’t real life. They were living some kind of fantasy. And there would soon be a time where playing pretend just wasn’t enough, and where real things would have real consequences.