Page 211 - The Midnight Library

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‘Because of that stor y.’

‘Right. Yes. e stor y. Come on, get back in your bed . . .’ is sounded
harsh, she realised. ‘Sweetheart,’ she added, wondering what she – her
daughter in this universe – was called. ‘ ere are no bears here.’
‘Only teddy bears.’

‘Yes, only—’
e girl became a little more awake. Her eyes brightened. She saw her
mother, so for a second Nora felt like that. Like her mother. She felt the
strangeness of being connected to the world through someone else.

‘Mummy, what were you doing?’
She was speaking loudly. She was deeply serious in the way that only four-
year-olds (she couldn’t have been much older) could be.
‘Ssh,’ Nora said. She really needed to know the girl’s name. Names had

power. If you didn’t know your own daughter’s name, you had no control
whatsoever. ‘Listen,’ Nora whispered, ‘I’m just going to go downstairs and do
something. You go back to bed.’
‘But the bears.’

‘ ere aren’t any bears.’
‘ ere are in my dreams.’
Nora remembered the polar bear speeding towards her in the fog.
Remembered that fear. at desire, in that sudden moment, to live. ‘ ere

won’t be this time. I promise.’
‘Mummy, why are you speaking like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that.’

‘Whispering?’
‘No.’
Nora had no idea what the girl thought she was speaking like. What the
gap was, between her now and her, the mother. Did motherhood affect the

way you spoke?
‘Like you are scared,’ the girl clarified.
‘I’m not scared.’
‘I want someone to hold my hand.’

‘What?’
‘I want someone to hold my hand.’
‘Right.’