Chapter Thirty-Five Dust and Roses #2
“I think they might be little fragments of the thing I want.”
The bomb Colonel Schreiber and his team had been working on so assiduously had done almost everything they wanted.
The opening between Lyra’s world and the rose world had been smashed and scattered over an area about the size, Lyra guessed, of—well, what?
Of the front quad of Jordan College, perhaps.
Or bigger: she couldn’t possibly tell. Or smaller: she couldn’t see.
But each of those fragments, the ones that kept still in midair, was a tiny opening into her own world, big enough, perhaps, if she was lucky, if everything worked as she hoped, if she could keep her hand from trembling, if she didn’t lose her grip—just big enough for the point of the needle.
She felt for balance and settled her hand on the tree. It was only a slender trunk, splintered at the top with the upper part trailing on the ground, but it could take her weight and keep her steady.
She let her eyes rest on the air in front of her, focusing on nothing yet, just letting the little specks drift and float. When she saw one that definitely didn’t move, but simply hung there, she blinked—and lost it.
“Don’t hurry,” said Malcolm’s voice.
“Oh! Where are you?”
“Behind you. Don’t look round. Keep your head still.”
“You know what I’m looking for?”
“Asta told me. I’m looking for these things that keep still. I can see a few of them, but one blink and they’re gone. What’s the best thing I can do?”
“Just stay close and catch me if I fall. I’m very dizzy.”
“I will.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.”
She let her awareness drift together. Remembering what Giorgio Brabandt had told her about seeing the secret commonwealth, she relaxed her attention as much as she could and just watched the air.
And part of her mind knew that it all might be a fool’s errand.
She’d cut through wood and steel with the needle, but those things were in her world, and stayed there.
She’d never actually cut through into another, as Will had learned to do.
And the holes, the tears and the gashes left by the explosion, were so small—maybe she wouldn’t be able to put the needle into one, even if she could see it—and perhaps the bomb had torn open the way into another world entirely—
No, that was her mind wandering.
Just find one speck that doesn’t move in the air. That’s all for now.
So she tried again. She could never have thought how hard it was, because concentrating on just one thing was impossible, but she mustn’t think of anything else.
Except…
If Pan was there, close by in the other world, their own world, perhaps he’d be able to hear her.
So she said, “Pan? Are you there?”
Only the ordinary sounds of the morning went on, the noise of the machinery above everything else. But there was still birdsong: she could hear that too. And voices? Were those voices talking? Perhaps it was just the workmen further down the slope.
She tried again, more loudly, and Malcolm joined in: “Pan! Pan!”
She closed her eyes to hear better and called again.
Was that a responding voice? That faint distant cry?
“Pan! Pan!” She gestured to Malcolm not to call: she needed to hear Pan, as faint as he was, and he needed to hear her voice clearly, above every other sound. “Pan!”
And then, the one thing she wanted above everything else in the world, her daemon’s voice: “Lyra! Here, Lyra!”
“Stay there! Pan, don’t go away! Stay where you are!”
Every nerve in her body was shivering. She peered through streaming eyes at the place in the air where his voice seemed to be coming from. Everything shimmered, nothing kept still. But there was his voice again: “Lyra, Lyra, I’m here!”
“I’m coming, Pan! Promise! I’m right here! Just looking for the right place…Don’t go away, whatever you do!”
There was one of the little torn gaps—a bit larger than most of them—and light was moving behind it, but such a small thing, no wider than the tip of a fingernail before it was filed.
And no, she’d lost it again; but yes, there it was…
She tried to line it up with things behind it, the edge of a group of trees, the windscreen of that red bulldozer further down, the corner of a stone wall around a distant field across the lake…
Yes, there it was, and it hadn’t moved, and she could find it again.
“Nearly there, Pan…Can you still hear me? Are you there?”
“Still here.”
“I’ll try again…”
Bracing herself against the trunk of the toppled willow, she reached out, supporting her wrist with the other hand, and placed the needle point precisely into the tiny gap.
It slipped away—but that was because her other hand, still hurting from the assault by the soldiers in the train, was painful to keep in that position.
She let it hang before lifting it up again, and she heard herself uttering a long low moan of weariness and pain, but shut it down and gritted her teeth and lifted the needle once again, found the spot at once, and cut down as far as she could reach.
And the air opened, and there was her own world, and Pantalaimon tumbled through and into her arms.