Leonardo da Vinci Virgin of the Rocks

Leonardo da Vinci Virgin of the RocksLeonardo da Vinci St John the BaptistLeonardo da Vinci Madonna with Yarnwinder
sit up lightly.
Tell them stories, she said.
When supper was over, the three humans and Atal sat on rugs outside Mary's house, under the warm stars. They lay back, well fed and comfortable in the flower-scented night, and listened to Mary tell her story.
She began just "I did as you told me," she said. "I made a program, that's a set of instructions, to let the Shadows talk to me what to do. They said they were angels, and, well..."
"If you were a scientist," said Will, "I don't suppose that was a good thing for them to say. You might not have believed in angels."
"Ah, but I knew about them. I used to be a nun, you see. I thought before she first met Lyra, telling them about the work she was doing at the Dark Matter Research group, and the funding crisis. How much time she'd had to spend asking for money, and how little time there'd been left for research!But Lyra's coming had changed everything, and so quickly: within a matter of days she'd left her world altogether.