Lyra

I stumble through the dark woods, tripping over roots that have claimed the narrow path many years ago, following the sound of crashing waves. The full moon rests high in the sky, acting as my guide. The world is cold and bright in the moonlight but bleached of color, casting everything in shades of blue and gray as I race forward.

There it is again on my left hand—a black tattoo of a crescent moon surrounded with a ring and geometric line art. The Sigil of the Crescent Moon.

I skid to a halt, stopping at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. In the distance, over the turbulent waters, two women levitate in the air, facing each other.

One wears a snow-white witch’s hat and a long, white fur cloak that blows wildly in the winds. She brushes a strand of her straight, bluish-black hair from her piercing crystal-blue eyes that seem to glow unnaturally in the moonlight. She bears the Sigil of the Full Moon on her left hand—an orb representing the moon, surrounded with a snowflake pattern—so similar to the one on my own, yet entirely different all the same.

The other is tall and dark, leaner than her enemy. Her golden eyes are like stars in the night, her hair wild and curly around her round face. She wears a sleeveless black tailcoat with a gold lining, and her black witch’s hat is adorned with gold trim. From her shoulder to her wrist, her right arm is covered in line-art tattoos of different beasts—a lion, an eagle, a rooster, a dragon—and upon her right hand is the Sigil of the Sun, a black symbol crafted in the sun’s image.

“Yukiko!” I hear a man shout from the beach down below.

He is perhaps thirty, and taller than any man I’ve ever seen. He is fit, with long, wild brown hair and a short beard. His long black coat flaps around aggressively, the bottom half drenched from the waves. He, too, has the Sigil of the Full Moon on his left hand.

Both women raise their marked hands at each other, and the forces of nature respond to their call. A great globe of fire forms between them, utterly dwarfing them in scale, and flies at the white-clad witch. The ocean below stirs and the waves crash chaotically, until it spits up a pillar of water that reaches the very clouds above to intercept. The water swallows the flame, then descends back to the vicious sea.

In return, a great tsunami comes up to swallow the golden witch—a wall of water as tall as mountains. But the wave crashes back down to the sea harmlessly, clouds of steam wafting from the golden witch.

In the sky a dark mirage of the sun forms, its surface stirring with hot energy. A black solar flare shoots off toward the white-clad witch, who encases her form in a thick chunk of ice. The scalding blast shatters the frozen shell as it passes, leaving her unharmed.

Both women summon the energy of the celestial powers above them to their palms, and as they do, the moon and the dark sun both seem to glow more intensely.

Silver and gold bursts of power collide.

The world blares a blinding white, and I throw a hand up to cover my eyes—

And just like that, I’m back in my bedroom.

I let out a loud groan. It seems like I’ve had this same dream every night this week, and every time I do, it leaves a lingering feeling in my chest, like something is wrong.

I raise my left hand, expecting to see the sigil, but it’s blank. I inspect my hand for a while, with only the light from the streetlamps outside to illuminate my room. It feels odd, almost as if I’m wearing another person’s skin. I feel like a passenger in this body.

I sit up and look around the mint-colored room. I don’t feel like I belong here. The desk beneath the window, the nightstand with the beige alarm clock, even the calendar on the back of the door, none of it feels like it’s mine. I drag myself out of bed and walk over to the tall mirror hanging off the back of the walk-in closet door.

All the air flees my lungs and I recoil at the image I see looking back at me. For a split second, a dark-haired girl with blue eyes and a purple outfit looks back at me, but by the time I blink, she’s gone, and only my startled form remains. I touch my face and my auburn hair, inspecting my reflection for any sign of disparity.

Perhaps I’m more tired than I realize. Still, I can’t will myself back to sleep, so, instead, I get ready for school. I don’t remember having to wear a uniform in the past, but the dark blue vest, matching plaid kilt, and white blouse do at least suit me.

As I change, I feel a sense of dread seeing the cracks on my left arm. They run from my elbow in all directions, as far as my wrist and my shoulder. They don’t hurt, but they seem to be spreading, and they are sharp to the touch, as if running my fingertips along broken glass.

Maybe I should tell someone, or go to the doctor, but something inside me balks at the thought. I shake my head.

I walk over to the desk, where a silver ring with a crescent moon cradling a blue topaz lies. It’s the only thing I have that actually feels like it belongs to me. I slip it on my left ring finger, something in my chest easing my anxieties.

I grab my navy winter coat, wrap a black wool scarf around my neck, and head downstairs to slip on my black cinch-top winter boots. My black canvas schoolbag sits by the door, and I sling it lazily over my shoulder and head out my door.

There is fresh snow covering the sidewalk, as pretty as it is slippery. The cold wind penetrates my leggings effortlessly, but the chill is still manageable.

I feel out of place in this neighborhood. All week, I keep getting my house number and street mixed up. I feel like I’m on the wrong side of town. I get all turned around walking to school, and it always feels weird how much longer my route seems to be.

I can see the back of the school as I turn a corner, looming at the end of the street. I’m early—the front gates won’t even be open for another fifteen minutes or so. Even as I walk around the south wall of the grounds to the front, only a few cars rest in the parking lot, and the groundskeeper is still shoveling the snow away.

As I approach the iron-wrought front gates, I half-expect to see a cheerful ginger-haired girl with glasses and a tall boy with dark eyes, but no one is there. It’s strange—I don’t know anyone who fits those descriptions, yet somehow something in me always seems to be looking for them.

“You’re here early, Lyra,” a voice says to my left. I ignore it. “Lyra?”

I turn to see a middle-aged man in slacks and a nice tie shivering inside his rider jacket. He has a brown crew cut and round glasses.

The name seems so unfamiliar and ill-fitting, I often forget to respond when I hear it. It feels like someone else’s.

Someone else’s name. Someone else’s home. Someone else’s body. Is there anything in this life that’s actually mine, other than this ring?

“Lyra, I’m talking to you,” the man says, interrupting my thoughts.

“Sorry, sir, I wasn’t paying attention,” I reply.

“If you keep your head in the clouds you’re bound to trip,” he says with a smirk. He unlocks the gates and pulls them open with a heavy heave. “Get inside and warm up.”

I drift through my classes aimlessly, almost like a ghost. I don’t engage with the lessons, I don’t talk to my classmates, and most people seem to ignore me, too. It feels like I’m a part of the background more than anything else, and by the time the final bell rings, I still can’t shake this feeling of being out of place.

I linger after school, for no reason other than to avoid going back to that empty house. My parents are supposed to be away on a trip for December, but somehow, any time I try to think of them, I can only see blurry faces and unspecific shapes. I seem to have trouble recalling anything, for that matter. Everything just seems fuzzy and strange.

As I finally leave the building, over an hour past the bell, I stop along the path to the gate and look up. I can see a waxing crescent moon in the sky, and something about it seems so enthralling.

Selena.

A strange feminine voice whispers sweetly in my mind, though no one is around. I pause.

As my eyes return to the earth, I spot something by the gate. At first glance I almost mistake it for a dog, but it’s larger than any dog I’ve seen. The wolf’s fur is as white as the snow itself, and she stares at me with crystal blue eyes. I look around for another person, if for nothing else than to simply confirm I’m not hallucinating, but there is no one around. Even beyond the school grounds, I hear no voices, no cars.

The wolf turns and wanders off, and I feel an intense compulsion to follow it. My feet move on their own before I can think better of it, and I follow the beast as it wanders through the suburban streets. All the while, I can’t help but notice the city has become a ghost town. It’s quiet, and there are no signs of life anywhere, as if everyone was whisked away except for me.

The wolf leads me to a street that hugs the perimeter of a large forest, and I follow her to a long, winding dirt driveway. At the driveway’s end is a black-and-white gothic manor at the crest of a hill, with a small, frozen pond just out front. At the peak of the house is a large owl who seems to be staring straight into my very heart.

The wolf wanders up to the double doors, which open on their own for her. I follow her into the dark home with no hesitation.

My footsteps and the wolf’s claws both echo as we stride across the hardwood floor, passing under the silver chandelier that decorates the foyer. The walls are navy and covered in oil paintings all bearing a lunar or winter motif, and the furniture is dark with lavender or royal blue upholstery. On either side of the room is a grand, L-shaped staircase leading up to a balcony on the second floor overlooking the room, and beneath is a long hall–one the wolf walks down, leaving me with no choice but to follow.

At the hall’s end is a double door with the sigil of the full moon on it. I feel a sudden sharpness in my head. It doesn’t hurt, per se, but more like a powerful shock. For a moment, I see a very large older man with a beard by the doors and the girl with ginger hair at my side. My hand flexes, and I can almost feel it grasping a strange, rectangular device.

As the doors open on their own the images disappear, and the wolf leads me onward.

I wander inside the room. A large two-story library stands before me with that same sigil painted on the floor, illuminated by the massive bay windows on the far side.

The room is full of fireflies, all paying no heed to the wolf or myself. They emit a silver glow, though, unlike any firefly I’ve seen. I am so distracted by them that I don’t notice the other person in the room until the wolf wanders to their side and sits by them obediently.

They sit in a great blue armchair facing the windows, with a small, round table at the left side, holding only a black wood-bound book. A pale green moth sits atop the book, perfectly still, watching a thousand just like it flutter by outside the window. I stop at the edge of the sigil on the floor and watch the figure raise a pale hand to pet the wolf, affectionately scratching behind her ears for a moment. On her hand there are two rings—one identical to my own, the other a silver engagement ring with a round, blue diamond housed in a snowflake, with tiny white diamonds lining the top of the band.

She rises from her chair and steps around it to face me.

For a moment all I can do is stare, barely believing my eyes as my dreams and reality collide.

She has that same sparkling dress that fades from pale blue to dark blue, the same white fur cloak and large white hat.

The white-clad witch from my dreams.

Something tells me I have been waiting for this moment. Like I’ve been searching for it my whole life. I take a deep breath and muster up what little courage I can find in my heart, and I ask her:

“Who are you?”