#inftask

“Dea?”

“Wakey wakey, Ly!”

“No, Dea, no wakey wakey now. It´s in the middle of the night. How did you even get here?”

Lyra supressed a groan as she pushed the warm blankets away and sat up in her bed, looking down at her baby sister. She could have sworn she´d locked her door, yet there it was wide open and bringing in light from the corridor. How Dea had managed to crawl out of her high bed and through two locked doors were beyond her imagination.

With a sigh, the older girl got up. “Come on, Dea, let´s go get you back to bed.”

The toddler started chatting excitedly in incoherent sentences- at least until Lyra placed a finger to her own lips. That made Dea repeat the gesture, nodding with a solemn expression as she shut up. The older girl took her hand.

“Quiet, quiet, yeah? Let´s not wake up mum and dad.”

“No wakey wakey,” the kid agreed, clinging on to her hand.

She kept her hand in Dea´s as they walked into the corridor, both making sure to be extra quiet as they walked past the door leading to the master bedroom. Luckily there were no hushed conversation coming from behind the door tonight. Lyra had been worried that was the reason her baby sister had woken up- even though she didn´t look as worried as she usually did whenever it happen, she could never be sure. Together they tiptoed past, the carped on the floor softening the sound of their footsteps. Lyra made sure to give her sister an encouraging –if not sleepy- smile to keep her silent and happy.

“There we are,” she said as they walked into the last room on the left before the stairs; Dea´s bedroom.

The inside was filled to the brim of teddy bears and dolls, some after Lyra and some new. Yellow flowers were painted on the wall, although their usual happy colour now was grey in the darkness. Dea must have opened the curtains, because she could see the streets of London outside the window- unusually quiet. It might have been in the middle of the night, but there was always traffic in London no matter the hour.

Maybe she was still dreaming. There were no traffic in dreams.

To be entirely honest she still felt like she was dreaming, so maybe she still was.

“Here now,” Lyra said softly as she picked the younger girl up and placed her in her bed. She still slept in a bed where one could roll up a grind to keep her from rolling (or climbing) out, for this very reason. Dea could never respect nap-time as a kid, but would constantly crawl out and take midnight walks around the house. Still did, it seemed.

Lyra tried to put the duvet on top of Dea, which was a task harder said than done as she kept squirming, wanting to stand up.

“Look Ly-ly, look!” She exclaimed, getting up and pointing at the window. Lyra glanced in the direction and stopped for a second.

Outside was a bright blue light flying across the sky, leaving no trail of smoke behind. No, wait, it was red! No, green! It kept changing colours as they watched, Dea making gleeful noises and softly clapping her hands at the pretty colours. Once again she got the feeling of dreaming rather than being awake, but before she had time to do something along the lines of pinching her arm, Dea did something that took her by surprise. She threw her tiny hands around her neck, giving her a hug.

If she wasn´t so damn tired she would have laughed out loud. Instead she went for a tired smile as she hugged her baby sister back. At least one person in this family was still happy to see her.

It had been raining all morning. Rain in London usually meant soft drops of warm water falling from the skies like tears, sending businessmen and kids alike scattering of the streets and into nearby stores for a few minutes until the drizzle was done. Up north it was a more miserable business.

The skies were painted in a dull grey that seemed to stretch out on and on, and in this case rain also meant two kids sitting in a house filled with boxes, with their noses pressed against the glass as they stared out. For some reason, the picture of them sitting there was printed into her brain- if Lyra closed her eyes now she could probably recollect the mental picture as clearly as if it was a real one. Sitting there curled up in the window still, one of those bulging outwards so it was possible to actually sit there, with Mary next to her. They looked alike, except that her cousin looked a lot cooler than her, with her black hair in a short cut barely reaching her shoulder and streaks of red falling through it. Her name didn´t fit her; Mary was a name befalling the gentle and meek, and she was none of those things.

She was one of those people who just had it; the ability to do whatever they wanted and walk away without any consequences, always knowing what to say and how to look at people to make them sigh and go ´fine, just don´t let it happen again´.

To be honest, Lyra struggled to put an age to them in that memory; to her the entire thing had an ageless haze over it. There were no numbers in a memory. That was the beauty of it. But she had seen a picture of them that summer, in a photo album hidden far away in a closet, hidden for her the times she wanted to torture herself by flicking through the pages remembering. Often she had thought of stealing that picture, but she knew that it wasn´t worth the grief if her parents found out. Maybe they liked to torment themselves as well by opening the book.

Lyra and Mary at Gareth´s house, age 8 and 12. Mary was the oldest, and with her it-factor there was no reason for her to hang out with her younger cousin, yet she never complained when Lyra tagged along, constantly walking in her footsteps. Lyra had to smile whenever she thought about it; in her childish eyes Mary was the coolest person to ever walk on this earth. Whatever she said would make her laugh, and she always found time to play with Lyra´s dumb toys or make up new games whenever they were bored.

It seemed like they sat there for hours waiting, and maybe in some way they still were. Waiting, waiting, always waiting hidden deep down in her memories. But in real life the sky cleared up, revealing a bleak and pale sun shining down at them through the clouds still lingering. The kids put on their shoes and coat and tiny hats –Lyra´s mom had insisted, because this was in the time she still cared- and ran out to the beach. Everything was wet, but it was still amazing. Mary made it amazing. As they strolled across the wet sand she talked about how it was just like a movie set.

If Lyra closed her eyes, she could still see Mary walking there beside her, with dark hair falling in her eyes from the wind. She remembered thinking that with her red jacket she seemed a bit like little Red Riding Hood, but Mare was never the helpless girl clinging on to a basket. That was Lyra, or at least in the time before she learned how to take care of herself. Mary was the wolf, fearless and brave as it strolled through the forest, making its presence known.

A single sentence comes with that memory, clear as day. I´ll miss you when I go to America. Promise to visit me sometime, Lyre?

They moved two weeks later, leaving the house on the rainy beach behind. They took the boxes with them, Mary put her red coat on once more. Then they left. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and months to years. Four years passed, and for some reason that memory wedged itself inside her head, hiding in-between lessons learned and broken feelings in the past.