Free The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

from?”
    “Up the hills. There was a big fog and storm and everyone was frightened, so we all run up in the hills. Then when the fog cleared, the grownups could see with telescopes that the city was full of Specters, so they couldn’t come back. But the kids, we ain’ afraid of Specters, all right. There’s more kids coming down. They be here later, but we’re first.”
    “Us and Tullio,” said little Paolo proudly.
    “Who’s Tullio?”
    Angelica was cross: Paolo shouldn’t have mentioned him, but the secret was out now.
    “Our big brother,” she said. “He ain’ with us. He’s hiding till he can . . . He’s just hiding.”
    “He’s gonna get—” Paolo began, but Angelica smacked him hard, and he shut his mouth at once, pressing his quivering lips together.
    “What did you say about the city?” said Will. “It’s full of Specters?”
    “Yeah, Ci’gazze, Sant’Elia, all cities. The Specters go where the people are. Where you from?”
    “Winchester,” said Will.
    “I never heard of it. They ain’ got Specters there?”
    “No. I can’t see any here, either.”
    “ ’Course not!” she crowed. “You ain’ grown up! When we grow up, we see Specters.”
    “I ain’ afraid of Specters, all right,” the little boy said, thrusting forward his grubby chin. “Kill the buggers.”
    “En’t the grownups going to come back at all?” said Lyra.
    “Yeah, in a few days,” said Angelica. “When the Specters go somewhere else. We like it when the Specters come, ’cause we can run about in the city, do what we like, all right.”
    “But what do the grownups think the Specters will do to them?” Will said.
    “Well, when a Specter catch a grownup, that’s bad to see. They eat the life out of them there and then, all right. I don’t want to be grown up, for sure. At first they know it’s happening, and they’re afraid; they cry and cry. They try and look away and pretend it ain’ happening, but it is. It’s too late. And no one ain’ gonna go near them, they on they own. Then they get pale and they stop moving. They still alive, but it’s like they been eaten from inside. You look in they eyes, you see the back of they heads. Ain’ nothing there.”
    The girl turned to her brother and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his shirt.
    “Me and Paolo’s going to look for ice creams,” she said. “You want to come and find some?”
    “No,” said Will, “we got something else to do.”
    “Good-bye, then,” she said, and Paolo said, “Kill the Specters!”
    “Good-bye,” said Lyra.
    As soon as Angelica and the little boy had vanished, Pantalaimon appeared from Lyra’s pocket, his mouse head ruffled and bright-eyed.
    He said to Will, “They don’t know about this window you found.”
    It was the first time Will had heard him speak, and he was almost more startled by that than by anything else he’d seen so far. Lyra laughed at his astonishment.
    “He—but he spoke! Do all dæmons talk?” Will said.
    “ ’Course they do!” said Lyra. “Did you think he was just a
pet
?”
    Will rubbed his hair and blinked. Then he shook his head. “No,” he said, addressing Pantalaimon. “You’re right, I think. They don’t know about it.”
    “So we better be careful how we go through,” Pantalaimon said.
    It was strange for only a moment, talking to a mouse. Then it was no more strange than talking into a telephone, because he was really talking to Lyra. But the mouse
was
separate; there was something of Lyra in his expression, but something else too. It was too hard to work out, when there were so many strange things happening at once. Will tried to bring his thoughts together.
    “You got to find some other clothes first,” he said to Lyra, “before you go into my Oxford.”
    “Why?” she said stubbornly.
    “Because you can’t go and talk to people in my world looking like that; they wouldn’t let you near them. You got to look as if you fit in. You got to go about