We're shaken to our cores this week with the sad tale of Tony Makarios and his Ratter but we're lifted up by Lyra, Iorek and Lee.
The expedition takes a short break on their journey North and John Faa asks Lyra to check the alethiometer and ask more about how Bolvangar is being defended. Lyra tells him it is just as the witch’s daemon said, that it is being defended by a company of Tartars and they do not expect anyone to attack. As she relays the message, Lyra tells Lord Faa that the alethiometer is telling her something else: in the next valley there is a village by a lake that is being troubled by a ghost, perhaps even the ghost of a child. John Faa is dismissive of Lyra, more concerned about storming Bolvangar than investigating the possibility of a ghost. But Lyra does not give up so easily and slips away to talk to Iorek. She convinces Iorek to take her to the village in the next valley and gets permission from Lord Faa to do so. Lyra is filled with wild exhilaration as she rides an armored bear! Traveling on low ridges and outcrops of black rock, Lyra and Iorek look to the skies and see hundreds of witches flying towards the North. They encounter a man at the edge of the village and Iorek tells him they are looking for a child. The man asks if they’ve come to take the child away because the people are afraid of it. Further on, another man tells them that it is not the only child of its kind and that he has seen others in the forest. When Lyra and Iorek finally enter the fish house where the child is hiding, they find a young boy named Tony Makarios huddled in the corner, desperately clutching a small piece of dead fish to his chest. The Gobblers had cut away the boy’s daemon and created a severed child. Iorek and Lyra bring Tony back to the Gytian camp where he dies shortly after. They begin traveling once again; Lyra’s mind is frenzied with thought about Gobblers, and Dust, little Tony Makarios, the spy-fly, and Iorek Byrnison and she falls asleep as they draw closer and closer to Bolvangar.