The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3)

by Philip Pullman

Lyra led him almost to the end of the garden, over a little bridge, to a wooden seat under a spreading low-branched tree. “Yes!” she said. “I hoped so much, and here it is, just the same. . . Will, I used to come here in my Oxford and sit on this exact same bench whenever I wanted to be alone, just me and Pan. What I thought was that if you – maybe just once a year – if we could come here at the same time, just for an hour or something, then we could pretend we were close again – because we would be close, if you sat here and I sat just here in my world –” “Yes,” he said, “as long as I live, I’ll come back. Wherever I am in the world I’ll come back here –” “On Midsummer’s Day,” she said. “At midday. As long as I live. As long as I live. . .” He found himself unable to see, but he let the hot tears flow and just held her close. “And if we – later on –” she was whispering shakily – “if we meet someone that we like, and if we marry them, then we must be good to them, and not make comparisons all the time and wish we were married to each other instead. . . But just keep up this coming here once a year, just for an hour, just to be together. . .” They held each other tightly. Minutes passed; a water-bird on the river beside them stirred and called; the occasional car moved over Magdalen Bridge.