Page 210 - The Midnight Library

www.urdukutabkhanapk.blogspot.com
www.urdukutabkhanapk.blogspot.com

It was a curious fact that no matter how many lives she had experienced,

and no matter how different those lives were, she almost always had her
phone by the bed. And in this life, it was no different, so she grabbed it and
sneaked out of the room quietly. Whoever the man was, he was a deep
sleeper and didn’t stir.

She stared at him.
‘Nora?’ he mumbled, half-asleep.
It was him. She was almost sure of it. Ash.
‘I’m just going to the loo,’ she said.

He mumbled something close to an ‘okay’ and fell back asleep.
And she trod gently across the floorboards. But the moment she opened
the door and stepped out of the room, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
For there, in front of her in the half-light of the landing, was another

human. A small one. Child-size.
‘Mummy, I had a nightmare.’
By the so light of the dimmed bulb in the hallway she could see the girl’s
face, her fine hair wild from sleep, strands sticking to her clammy forehead.

Nora said nothing. is was her daughter.
How could she say anything?
e now familiar question raised itself: how could she just join in to a life
that she was years late for? Nora closed her eyes. e other lives in which

she’d had children had only lasted a couple of minutes or so. is one was
already leading into unknown territor y.
Her body shook with whatever she was tr ying to keep inside. She didn’t
want to see her. Not just for herself but for the girl as well. It seemed a

betrayal. Nora was her mother, but also, in another, more important way :
she was not her mother. She was just a strange woman in a strange house
looking at a strange child.
‘Mummy? Can you hear me? I had a nightmare.’

She heard the man move in his bed somewhere in the room behind her.
is would only become more awkward if he woke up, properly. So, Nora
decided to speak to the child.
‘Oh, oh that’s a shame,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not real, though. It was just a

dream.’
‘It was about bears.’
Nora closed the door behind her. ‘Bears?’