Cuckoo Song

by Frances Hardinge

  ‘A mechanic?’ Pen seemed uncertain whether to be scandalized or disappointed.

  ‘Yes,’ Violet grimaced. ‘One of the things I learned during the War. Strange – the War was probably the best schooling I ever had. I signed up to help with the War effort, and first they sent me to work in one of those munitions factories. I made a lot of friends there – mostly other munitionettes – and it certainly knocked the corners off me. Many of the male workers didn’t really want us there, you see, and there was a lot of bullying and name-calling. One girl even had her tool drawer nailed shut when she was out of the room.

  ‘Then I was reassigned and found myself driving this clapped-out ambulance. I had to learn my way around an engine, just to keep the darn thing on the move. I didn’t expect I would need the knowledge again after the War ended, but –’ she shrugged – ‘what else can I do? Even if I could find a job where I didn’t need to stay in one place more than three hours at a time, why would anyone give it to me when they can pay half as much to some fourteen-year-old fresh out of school?’

  ‘Violet.’ Pen’s brow was creased. ‘If lots of people don’t have any money or work, why don’t any of them want to be our kitchen maid? Mother says it’s impossible to find anyone.’

  Violet walked on for a little while before answering.

  ‘I’m sorry, Pen,’ she said at last, ‘but your mother has a reputation. She fires her servants at the drop of a hat, and doesn’t give references, which means they can’t get another job. Clara Bassett says that most servants in Ellchester have been warned about your family.’

  ‘Clara Bassett?’ Pen looked incredulous. ‘Do you mean Cook?’

  Violet nodded. ‘I still talk to her now and then. Every time your mother hires a new maid or governess, Mrs Bassett tries to take them under her wing. Apparently she always warns them to avoid you and Triss as much as possible – particularly Triss.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Pen. Violet did not respond, but Trista thought she knew the answer.

  Trista thought of Celeste jealously patrolling her children, unable to bear Triss showing fondness for anybody else. Cook had survived by remaining stubbornly and stoicially invisible in her basement. Discovering that Cook had opinions about the Crescents was rather like finding that a familiar wardrobe opened on to an entirely new house. Violet halted outside a shop, which the striped pole proclaimed to be a barber’s. The bell tinkled as she entered, Trista and Pen a step behind.

  Two young men with hair oiled to blackbird sleekness were attending to customers, one trimming a moustache and another brushing hair cuttings from a portly neck. Neither exactly smiled to see Violet, but neither looked unfriendly. One gave a small nod in the direction of a door further in the shop. Violet returned the nod, and strode through the second door.

  The room at the back was scruffy but practical. A broad-set man with coppery hair was seated at a desk, scanning sports pages and marking results in pen.

  ‘Frosty!’ he said as Violet entered the room. ‘Always a pleasure to see you.’

  ‘Bill,’ Violet said without preamble, ‘I need to ask you something downright peculiar. I know you had some boys . . . working late here last night. Did any of them happen to hear anything odd go by at about midnight?’

  ‘Midnight?’ Bill narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you mean the geese?’

  ‘Geese?’ asked Violet.

  ‘Great big flock of geese,’ replied Bill. ‘We heard ’em go over just after midnight. That’s the fourth night in a row that it’s happened too.’

  ‘Did you see where they went?’ Violet asked promptly.

  ‘They swooped over, then curved about and headed back towards the centre of the city.’ Bill looked at Violet narrowly. ‘Why are you interested?’

  Trista felt a sting of relief. The overheard ‘geese’ could only be the Architect’s midnight riders, and if he had headed back to the centre then at least he had probably not taken Triss out of Ellchester.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me.’ Violet grimaced.

  ‘I ask, because I’m rather interested myself,’ continued Bill. ‘Geese don’t just circle like that for no reason. I think something’s been frightening them into the sky each night. As you know, I got some runners placed down in the Old Docks – they tell me that about four days ago strange boats started turning up. Small, old-fashioned craft. They draw up at the quays in the afternoon and evening and let off passengers. By dawn they’re gone again. Something’s happening down there. I’d like to know what it is.’

  ‘What did the passengers look like?’ Pen asked impulsively.

  ‘That’s the rum part.’ Bill scratched his head. ‘Nobody could describe them, not even how many there were, or whether they were dressed shabby or ritzy. But they agreed on one thing: none of the passengers had any luggage.’

  Things half seen and half heard. People hard to describe. In between and misty, dancing flea-footed across the numb places in people’s minds. And these strange boats had started turning up at about the same time the Architect began riding over the city.

  Trista made eye contact with Violet. Besiders, she mouthed.

  At this point, one of the barbers from the shop slipped into the back room and cleared his throat.

  ‘Mr Siskin,’ he said to Bill, ‘there’s a hare coursing that I thought might interest you, sir.’ He took up the paper on the desk, turned back some pages, then handed it to Bill with a meaningful look.

  After the barber had left, Bill looked at the paper in his hands for a long moment. Then he sniffed and spread it out on the desk, beckoning Violet over.

  ‘I’ve seen better likenesses,’ he said.

  The photograph of Violet showed her as a sweet-faced girl in her late teens, with a lustrous flood of ringlets. Nobody glancing at that picture would have guessed how a few years could have pulled that face taut, giving it anger and angles.

  The other picture was a photograph that had been taken of the Crescent family less than a year before. It was the standard family pose that photographers loved, mother seated, children arranged ornamentally on either side, and father resting a proprietorial hand on the back of her chair. Through Triss’s memories, Trista could even remember posing for the photograph, having to hold still for what seemed an age while the image seared its way slowly into the film.

  Pen had not held perfectly still, of course, so there was a slight ghostly smudge of movement to one side of her face, but she was still recognizable. Triss’s purse-mouthed countenance, on the other hand, had a frozen clarity beneath its floppy white ribbon.

  ‘CRESCENT DAUGHTERS KIDNAPPED’ thundered the headline. Trista’s eye tumbled helplessly down the columns of inky lettering. Violet Parish sought in connection with the disappearance . . . no ransom demand as yet received . . . rumoured to be retaliation after a financial dispute . . .

  ‘We’re not kidnapped!’ protested Trista.

  ‘It’s all full of made-up stories!’ stormed Pen.

  ‘I’m good at softening the police,’ Bill murmured, ‘but I’m not that good. What is all this about, Violet?’

  ‘Sorry, Bill,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a mess. But it’s not a kidnapping.’

  ‘Well . . . that’s a shame.’ Bill sighed and tutted under his breath. ‘It’s a crying shame I didn’t read this until an hour after you’d left. I could have used that reward.’ He gave Violet a small twinkle, then frowned slightly. ‘You know where all my out-of-town friends are if you need a place to hide?’

  ‘I know – thanks, Bill.’ Violet gave him a small but genuine smile. She stood to leave, then hesitated. ‘Bill . . . do you mind if I take that paper?’

  As they took to the street again, Violet handed Trista the paper.

  ‘It’s a picture of Triss,’ she whispered. ‘Could you eat that, if you start feeling hungry again?’

  At the very thought, Trista’s appetite rose like a shark to a smell of blood. It’s all right, she told herself. I know what this is. I can handle it. She braced herself f
or the wave of hunger, and felt it sweep over her, but this time it continued to increase, consuming her. She was shaking uncontrollably. This was new. This was worse. She snatched the paper from Violet, her hands crushing it into a ball, and began to cram it into her mouth.

  ‘Holy Moses! Not in the street!’ hissed Violet. She grabbed Trista by the arm and quickly drew her into an alley. ‘I’ll stand out here and keep watch until you’ve finished.’

  As Trista staggered towards the back of the alley her vision darkened and speckled. Something inside her was gaping wider and ever wider. As it did so, everything distorted, as if through a fisheye lens. Everything became smaller, small enough to push into her mouth without trying. In fact, she would have to try hard not to.

  She gobbled the paper, and for a second could taste the photograph, but its Trissness was thin as gruel. For a moment her hunger dipped and waned, like a flame in a draught, but the next instant it surged into life once more. It was not enough. She needed more.

  She had to eat. She had to eat. There had to be something she could eat.

  Like a stray cat she scrabbled through the rubbish in the alley, looking for more copies of the Chronicle with their pictures of Triss. There were none, so in the frenzy of hunger she scooped up half-rotted scraps and swallowed them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Pen’s voice was right behind her.

  Trista did not turn round but remained crouched, only raising one stealthy hand to wipe a speck of grime off her lower lip. She did not want Pen to see her face, just in case it was a monstrous, thorn-mandibled mask of hunger. If Pen kept talking to her normally, then perhaps everything could be normal.

  ‘I was . . . I was hungry, Pen.’ How inadequate those words sounded. ‘I’m . . . hungry.’

  ‘I’m still hungry too,’ replied Pen mournfully. Trista could hear the smaller girl dropping to a crouch next to her.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m really hungry, Pen.’ Trista swallowed drily. ‘I think . . . I think it’s because I lost bits of myself on roofs last night, when I was chasing the Architect. Those pieces left a hole, Pen. And I think that’s why I’m so very, very . . .’ She trailed off, clenching her hands into fists.

  ‘Then eat more things!’ Pen sounded dismayed. ‘I can get you leaves!’

  ‘It’s no good,’ Trista said through gritted teeth. ‘They have to be Triss things.’

  ‘You can’t fall apart!’ shouted Pen, as if it was something she could insist upon. ‘I . . . I won’t let you!’ Before Trista could react she felt Pen’s arms thrown around her, with the desperate energy of a rugby tackle. ‘You can’t !’

  Pen.

  Trista closed her eyes and held Pen tightly. She clung to the one thing that felt warm and solid in her strange, unforgiving world.

  Suddenly Pen gave a squeak and wince.

  ‘Ow! Triss . . . why are you spiking me?’

  Trista’s gaze dropped to her hands. The thorns were out, curling from her fingertips like bramble briars, digging in through the shoulders of Pen’s light dress. Her tongue could feel the fine points of tapering teeth. And her arms were curled around something that was banquets, and lemonade on a summer day, and hot soup in winter . . . and there was a hole inside her like a bottomless shaft that a person might just tumble into . . .

  She pushed Pen away as hard as she could. The smaller girl fell backwards, hitting the cobbles with a yelp. Winded, she stared up at Trista, and her expression of outrage and shock slowly ebbed into horror and fear.

  Trista dared not stay another moment. She backed away, then turned and sprang on to the top of the nearest wall. From there she dropped down on the other side into a neighbouring alley, landing at a crouch with her heart hammering. Then she was away and running, head ducked down to hide her monstrous face.

  Chapter 35

  CRUEL MIRROR

  Outside, the air tasted of snow. There was something brittle in the jolting of the breeze, and the sky was so low Trista felt she could leap and draw her claws across it. Instead she continued to sprint down lane after lane, her shoes quickly picking up grime and leaf-litter from the pavement.

  Where was she? She did not even know. These were not the streets that made sense to the Triss part of her mind, with prim, trim rows of houses where everything was held modestly back behind painted front doors and Venetian blinds. Here, in the roads between the back-to-backs, all the front doors were open and bold life poured out into the street. It was like watching somebody eating with their mouth open. Children sped hither and thither in intense, smile-less gaggles like starlings. Mothers in hairnets chatted and peeled potatoes on doorsteps, fathers sat and smoked.

  She ran on, ignoring the front-yard cycle-repair shops, the children huddling outside the tobacconist to beg cigarette cards off strangers and the salty reek of stalls selling oyster pie.

  At last Trista glimpsed the outline of the Victory Bridge, a concrete rainbow bowing to the earth under its own weight. The sight of it set her internal compass straight. She was no longer running through a twisted labyrinth of her own mind. She was still in Ellchester, with the river somewhere to the right, and the town’s slate-scaled hills to her left.

  At last she stopped for breath in an enclosed alley full of the cold echoes of falling drips. She gasped, and sobbed, and ground her narrow teeth.

  I hurt Pen. And what if I’d eaten her?

  I’m a monster. A monster. Mr Grace was right all the time. And Violet was wrong.

  But Trista couldn’t think about Violet without feeling a warm, stubborn hope. She remembered the way that Violet had stared straight into her eyes with complete faith.

  Maybe I nearly ate Pen. But I didn’t. And I won’t. I won’t hurt Pen, whatever happens. I won’t make Violet wrong, not after everything she’s done.

  Trista swallowed, and in her mind’s eye she could see the smile of the Architect. How charming he had been on the telephone! And how slyly he had slipped in that suggestion that devouring Pen might save Trista’s life. Perhaps he really had felt a shred of fondness for Trista at the time, but his real motive had been his desire to strike at Piers Crescent’s heart as cruelly as possible.

  ‘But you couldn’t make me do it, Mr Architect,’ Trista whispered aloud. ‘You lost that game. I’m not your tool, and I never will be. I’m free and I’m myself, until my pieces fall into the gutter. And I’m not ready for that to happen just yet either.’ She wrapped her arms around her makeshift body, with its ravening hungry hole at the centre, and hugged her small, dark victory as tightly as possible.

  I’ll find something to eat. Something that isn’t Pen. Something to stop me falling apart before evening.

  Her thoughts scampered, cunning and ravenous as mice. Where could she find something dear to Triss? Was there anywhere else outside Triss’s own home that had been important to her? Unlikely. Triss’s life had been lovingly enclosed by the walls of her house, like a pearl imprisoned in an oyster shell. Trista could have wept with frustration.

  An idea struck her, and took hold. It was Tuesday – and Celeste had told Cook that she could take the whole of Tuesday off. Piers would be at work, and Tuesday was the day Celeste usually played tennis and had tea with other members of the Luther Square Mothers’ Association. Margaret would soon have finished her work at the house.

  It was just possible that even now the house was empty.

  When she thought of venturing near the Crescent home again, Trista’s insides twisted into a black scribble of indescribable feelings. The hunger won out, however. With new purpose Trista broke into a sprint once more. Her feet barely grazed the surface of the puddles, and the echoes slumbered on undisturbed.

  The wind was Trista’s friend, so icily chill that it cleared all but the most dogged from the streets. It dragged up protective coat collars, and everybody hurried by, paying one another no heed. Shop owners were too busy battening down their displays to notice Trista. Nonetheless she kept to the alleys and side roads.

  She began to recognize l
andmarks, street names, achingly familiar to the Triss part of her head. But now she saw everything through a filter of her own strangeness and wildness. The familiar did not welcome her. It stared at her aghast. She was not coming home. She was an insidious shadow falling upon the neighbourhood, like influenza or bad news.

  And then, at last, there it was. The little square with its tiny park in the middle. The glossy cars, now crystal-freckled with the first spotting of rain. The tall, pompous houses shoulder to shoulder behind their wrought-iron railings. Trista slunk along walls between hiding places, then skulked behind an unattended car.

  There was a postman at the door. He knocked and waited, knocked again, then leaned back to peer up at the house.

  Trista wet her lips as she watched him straddle his bicycle and depart. Nobody had answered the door. The house was empty.

  She scurried from her hiding place, swift as a wind-chased leaf, weaving through the side streets until she was in the alley behind the houses. Pushing open the gate to the yard, she crept in, a pepper-tingle of fear sweeping across her skin. Triss’s memories were everywhere she looked, and they chafed Trista like stolen shoes. They did not fit her. She could not understand how she had ever thought they fitted.

  The back door was locked.

  Above her, the bedroom windows beckoned. Trista felt the leap as an electricity in her legs, even before she sprang. Her fingers closed on one of the sills, and she tugged herself up with ease.

  She scrabbled at the window, her thorn-claws leaving scratches on pane and frame alike. Then she managed to heave up the sash and pushed her way in past the soft lavender-coloured curtains. The room beyond smelt of powder, potpourri and the slightly acrid scent of wine tonic. It was Celeste’s room.

  Trista ventured out on to the landing, then opened the door into Triss’s room. Her heart ached as she saw how carefully the room had been tidied and aired, the bed meticulously made, with Triss’s nightdress folded on the pillow. It was like the scene from Peter Pan where the Darlings discover that their rooms are poignantly waiting for them to come back.