But the bird-shaped Balthamos was watching closely, and Will stepped carefully over the floor of the cave and followed Mrs. Coulter to the little figure lying still in the shadows.
And there she was, his dearest friend, asleep. So small she looked! He was amazed at how all the force and fire that was Lyra awake could look so gentle and mild when she was sleeping. At her neck Pantalaimon lay in his polecat shape, his fur glistening, and Lyra’s hair lay damp across her forehead.
He knelt down beside her and lifted the hair away. Her face was hot. Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw the golden monkey crouching to spring, and set his hand on the knife; but Mrs. Coulter shook her head very slightly, and the monkey relaxed.
Without seeming to, Will was memorizing the exact layout of the cave: the shape and size of every rock, the slope of the floor, the exact height of the ceiling above the sleeping girl. He would need to find his way through it in the dark, and this was the only chance he’d have to see it first.
“So you see, she’s quite safe,” said Mrs. Coulter.
“Why are you keeping her here? And why don’t you let her wake up?”
“Let’s sit down.”
She didn’t take the chair, but sat with him on the moss-covered rocks at the entrance to the cave. She sounded so kindly, and there was such sad wisdom in her eyes, that Will’s mistrust deepened. He felt that every word she said was a lie, every action concealed a threat, and every smile was a mask of deceit. Well, he would have to deceive her in turn: he’d have to make her think he was harmless. He had successfully deceived every teacher and every police officer and every social worker and every neighbor who had ever taken an interest in him and his home; he’d been preparing for this all his life.
Right, he thought. I can deal with you.
“Would you like something to drink?” said Mrs. Coulter. “I’ll have some, too . . . It’s quite safe. Look.”
She cut open some wrinkled brownish fruit and pressed the cloudy juice into two small beakers. She sipped one and offered the other to Will, who sipped, too, and found it fresh and sweet.
“How did you find your way here?” she said.
“It wasn’t hard to follow you.”
“Evidently. Have you got Lyra’s alethiometer?”
“Yes,” he said, and let her work out for herself whether or not he could read it.
“And you’ve got a knife, I understand.”
“Sir Charles told you that, did he?”
“Sir Charles? Oh—Carlo, of course. Yes, he did. It sounds fascinating. May I see it?”
“No, of course not,” he said. “Why are you keeping Lyra here?”
“Because I love her,” she said. “I’m her mother. She’s in appalling danger and I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Danger from what?” said Will.
“Well . . .” she said, and set her beaker down on the ground, leaning forward so that her hair swung down on either side of her face. When she sat up again, she tucked it back behind her ears with both hands, and Will smelled the fragrance of some scent she was wearing combined with the fresh smell of her body, and he felt disturbed.
If Mrs. Coulter saw his reaction, she didn’t show it. She went on: “Look, Will, I don’t know how you came to meet my daughter, and I don’t know what you know already, and I certainly don’t know if I can trust you; but equally, I’m tired of having to lie. So here it is: the truth.
“I found out that my daughter is in danger from the very people I used to belong to—from the Church. Frankly, I think they want to kill her. So I found myself in a dilemma, you see: obey the Church, or save my daughter. And I was a faithful servant of the Church, too. There was no one more zealous; I gave my life to it; I served it with a passion.
“But I had this daughter . . .
“I know I didn’t look after her well when she was young. She was taken away from me and brought up by strangers. Perhaps that made it hard for her to trust me. But when she was growing up, I saw the danger that she was in, and three times now I’ve tried to save her from it. I’ve had to become a renegade and hide in this remote place, and I thought we were safe; but now to learn that you found us so easily—well, you can understand, that worries me. The Church won’t be far behind. And they want to kill her, Will. They will not let her live.”
“Why? Why do they hate her so much?”
“Because of what they think she’s going to do. I don’t know what that is; I wish I did, because then I could keep her even more safe. But all I know is that they hate her, and they have no mercy, none.”
She leaned forward, talking urgently and quietly and closely.
“Why am I telling you this?” she went on. “Can I trust you? I think I have to. I can’t escape anymore, there’s nowhere else to go. And if you’re a friend of Lyra’s, you might be my friend, too. And I do need friends, I do need help. Everything’s against me now. The Church will destroy me, too, as well as Lyra, if they find us. I’m alone, Will, just me in a cave with my daughter, and all the forces of all the worlds are trying to track us down. And here you are, to show how easy it is to find us, apparently. What are you going to do, Will? What do you want?”
“Why are you keeping her asleep?” he said, stubbornly avoiding her questions.
“Because what would happen if I let her wake? She’d run away at once. And she wouldn’t last five days.”
“But why don’t you explain it to her and give her the choice?”