The Nightscape

The Silent Girl

A few days later, Lyra was sat in the city library, trying to focus on her book. It was really boring, about parallel universes and quantum physics, and the exact opposite of what she was interested in, but she wanted to find out more about the Scapes. Still, half of the words in the book may as well be in Latin for all the sense it made for her. She sighed and closed the book. She needed a text book, or something to that effect to help her understand. Or for Guy to finally agree to meet up again. According to him, his sister was better again, but he business in another part of the country to attend to. Being nosy, she had tried to coax what it was from him, but that hadn't worked, and when she tried to ask more about the Scapes he had answered by saying it was best talked about face to face. 

With a heavy sigh, she stood, uncurling from the armchair and leaving her bag on it so no one else would steal it. It was tucked away in the back corner, with a brass reading lamp over it and far away from the more heavily trafficked areas of the library. All in all, it was her favourite place to read. Lyra began to scour the aisles of books, looking for the helper who always hung around in this section, usually crouched in the small gaps between the shelves reading books hidden away from the head librarian. 

Sure enough, she found the girl tucked away reading a heavy textbook that looked to be about genetics, immersed in the pages as though it was the most fascinating thing she had ever read. Lyra paused by her nook, waiting for her to turn the page before clearing her throat and catching her attention. The girl stood and grinned at her silently. She was short and skinny, with wild red hair she had tried and failed to tame into a braid, and dark brown eyes with gold flecks. She never spoke a word, so Lyra didn't even know her name, given that her nametag that stated it was 'David' probably wasn't accurate. Her arms were covered in tattoos, and she always looked at least slightly hungover despite her heavy gothic makeup.

"Heyo, need your help with something." She nodded happily, closing her textbook and placing it back on the shelf. "Cool, I need a physics textbook that explains basic terms." The red headed girl lead Lyra to the physics area of the library. Of course, Lyra could have found it by herself, but this girl seemed to know where and what every single book in this library was, so it was always quicker to just ask her. She stopped in front of a shelf, looking up to a place where neither of them could reach. Lyra looked around for a ladder, and she thought the girl was doing the same, before she started scrabbling up the shelves like a monkey and realised she was checking that there weren't any witnesses. Lyra laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound, not wanting to draw attention and get the red head in trouble. A moment later, she dropped to the ground with a soft thud, clutching a book to her chest before straightening and offering it to her. 

"Thank you, you are a life saver!" Lyra whispered, smiling when the girl flipped her hair in an over the top, self aggrandising way. They went their separate ways, Lyra returning to her seat in the corner and starting to cross reference the terms she didn't understand. About half an hour later, though, she was beginning to loose hope. Some of the principles made sense, and she could see how they could apply to the Scapes, but most of them just confused her so much she was getting a headache. 

"I knew I'd find you here!" Anya crowed as she stood above her friend, earning a few sharp looks and hushes. Lyra looked up, surprised, still immersed in her research and feeling detached from the world around her. 

"Oh, hi. Were you looking for me?" She asked quietly, shifting to one side as her friend plopped herself down on the arm of the chair, making the old and cushioned wood creak and complain about the added weight. 

"Yeah, I've only been spamming your phone for the last couple of hours. Since when have you been so invested in physics of all things?" She asked, flipping the book closed to wrinkle her nose at the cover. It was an understandable reaction; Anya had sat next to Lyra in science class in their high school, so she knew full well how much her friend hated the subject.