The basket smelled of fresh bread, folded under the clean linin cover, and as Lyra swung it at the end of her arm (she couldn't help it; something about walking down a stepping stone path made her do it unconsciously) she could hear the small glass jars of homemade condiments tinkling against each other. Everything was quaint, cute, a little surreal, and as they reached the car, Lyra had a strange prickling feeling that if she looked back now, the cottage might have disappeared.
So she looked back, and the cottage was exactly where it was supposed to be. She told the hair on the back of her neck to settle (though it paid her no mind, the heebie-jeebies too strong to be dismissed) and when Rosario mentioned a walk, Lyra nodded right back.
"For sure," she agreed, deciding to lean fully into the heebie-jeebies and agree to eat lunch in a cemetery on Halloween, cuz they weren't the boss of her. "Couple of girls having a picnic with our arrow, bet we won't even be the weirdest looking pair in the place," she said, trying to pry some humour back into the situation to make it all less... dazing, and looped her non-basket arm through Rosario's non-arrow arm as they struck out toward the cemetery.