Lyra Giannelli

Eloise Dalton

For years, I had a recurring dream. It wouldn’t always be the exact same one. Sometimes I would be kidnapped, sometimes I would be stuck in a burning building or I’d be drowning. Most of the time, I would be trapped in a tiny room of a place I had assumed for years must be some kind of temple or cathedral. It always felt eerily realistic with the walls crumbling around me and explosions blasting in the distance.

Every time, no matter what form my dream took, an older boy would pick me up and save me, and then he would tell me to wait for him—then I’d wake up.

My therapist thought I must have experienced something traumatic as a child which I was yet to heal from, and it would explain why all these dreams had the same ending. I almost believed her until I realized every time in my dream, the boy would call me Hyacinth.

Familiar as it sounded, that was not my name. I was pretty certain my name was Lyra even though my foster parents had preferred to pretend I didn’t kno