Cuckoo Song

by Frances Hardinge

  The torrent of other Besiders surged past them, disappearing through a torchlit archway into what looked like a cross between a banqueting hall and a jazz club. Candles glinted in chrome, wild whinnies tangled with saxophone trills.

  ‘Oh, that place is not for you, my dear,’ murmured the Architect with quiet savagery. ‘All that light, all that sound! Think of your headaches. No, you need quiet and dark.’

  He reached out and opened another door she had not noticed, then dragged Trista into a narrow stone-walled corridor. Brackets in the walls oozed silver flame that moved sluggishly and barely revealed the room, like a sad memory of fire rather than fire itself.

  The corridor forked again and again. The Architect chose this turn, that turn with dizzying speed as he weaved through the labyrinth.

  ‘Faster! Exercise is good for young limbs.’ The Architect’s stride accelerated to a long-legged lope, then a run, almost dragging Trista off her feet as he pulled her through antechambers, past walls carved with a hundred eyes, up and down twisting steps.

  At last he burst into a large, domed room, whose floor sloped down to a round shaft in the centre. With a forward sweep of his arm, he flung his prisoner to the ground, so that the breath was knocked out of her and her hat fell from her head.

  ‘Welcome to your new home.’ There was nothing smooth or debonair about the Architect now. He was seven foot of trembling malice, silver eyes brighter than the false torches. ‘Your father made it for you, and come the dawn he will seal you into it. By all means try to find your way out – you will fail. If you wish, you may sob here until you starve or stifle. If you wish for a quicker death, throw yourself in that pit. The fall never ends, but you will. It will pull the screams out of you until you unravel, leaving nothing but the screams.’

  ‘No!’ His captive flung herself at his feet, desperately clutching at his hand and arm. ‘Don’t leave me here! Please!’

  For a few moments the Architect was content to let the girl sob and cling, but then he gave a noise of distaste and pushed her roughly away.

  ‘What a pitiable object you are,’ he muttered. Then his eyes fell to his hand, sticky with grey strands instead of tears, and his wrist, which was now bare of all but shirt cuff.

  With astonishment and rage, his silver gaze flicked to his captive, and the scratched service watch gripped fiercely in her small, slim hands. The girl raised her head, and the Architect looked into a smile full of thorns.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ said the Cuckoo.

  The Architect’s shriek of rage was the fluting at the heart of a hurricane. The domed room shivered, cracks running across its paint-spiralled ceiling. He lunged at her, but she leaped out of the way, landing on all fours with her thorn claws extended.

  ‘Where is she?’ he demanded.

  ‘Long gone,’ hissed the changeling. ‘Can you even guess how long? Can you guess how long I have been by your side, laughing at you?’

  The Architect threw back his head and gave another terrible, infantile shriek, and the whole room tipped and swung like a bell, trying to hurl Trista towards the dark and gaping hole at its heart. He came after her as she fought to keep her balance, as the slabs shifted and bucked under her bare hands and feet. He seemed larger than the room, darker than the twisted stem of a tornado. And yet he was still man-shaped, with pale eyes that scorched and hands that snatched for her.

  The room flung her this way and that, so that she was battered painfully against wall and floor. She felt her sides rip like cloth seams. She tumbled and sprawled, coughing up brooches and thimbles. But always she found her feet again, just in time to dodge the Architect’s next grab. The watch never slipped from her grip.

  This was one of the Architect’s places, where he had more control than in the wider world. And yet again and again his fingers raked empty air, for in this moment of rage the Architect was not in control of himself.

  But I’m weakening. Every leap was taking more effort. I’m getting slower. I’m running out of time . . .

  One painful sprawl too many. She was too slow to rise. She felt strong fingers grasp a handful of her hair. She clawed at the Architect’s hand in vain as he dragged her relentlessly along the ground towards the shaft . . .

  . . . and then his grip loosened as the fistful of hair became a fistful of leaves. Trista sprang to her feet, unexpectedly finding herself directly behind her towering attacker. She hurled herself against his back with all her might, and as the room lurched, the pair of them pitched forward. Trista landed on her belly, digging the claws of her fingers and toes into the floor cracks to stop her sliding.

  The Architect, however, tumbled on to his side and rolled, vanishing over the edge into the dark, abysmal shaft. His scream made her curl up and clutch her ears. It went on and on, thinning and fading until there was nothing left but a tingle in the ear.

  Trista lay sobbing for breath on the stone flags, looking at the watch still clutched in her shaking hand. She sat up slowly and painfully, hearing the rustle as straw seeped out of her seams.

  With her claws, she prised open the back of the watch. There, amid the works, was a small strand of faded brown hair. Carefully she prised it out, and as it finally pulled free the tiny mechanism began to move.

  She closed her eyes, and imagined a spirit slipping free of the imprisoning cogs, escaping the terrible weight of winter. She thought she heard the wind surge softly, as if in a sigh, and then fall silent.

  ‘Goodbye, Sebastian,’ she whispered.

  The Architect had enchanted the watch to be a master of time, instead of just a servant. Sebastian’s hair in the device had bound him to it, and when the watch was stopped, he had been trapped between life and death. But the watch was not linked to Sebastian alone. Sebastian had left it to Violet, the woman he cared about more than any possession. So it had trapped her too, binding her to an undying dead man and his unending winter.

  The ticking of the watch was freedom for Sebastian, freedom for Violet. But now it was biting away the last seconds of Trista’s life.

  I’m out of time, she thought, as leaves fell past her face like confetti. I’m out of time.

  And then the Architect’s words forced their way into her mind once more. A watch can be taught to be a master of time, not just a servant.

  She stared at the watch, barely daring to understand her newest thought. She was running out of time, but in her hand lay something that perhaps could stop the inevitable. If she could bind the watch to her . . . put something in the works that belonged to her . . .

  But what did she have that was hers? Her hair was leaves, her body fragments of another’s life. Everything she had was borrowed, just as the Grimmer had said in her dream. She was litter and leavings, not a person in her own right.

  ‘But I am a person!’ she wailed, the room throwing back derisive echoes. ‘I’m real! I am! I’ve got a name!’

  A name. Inspiration struck at last. With fingers that felt increasingly like twigs, she pulled off the bead necklace on which Pen had scrawled her new name. That at least had been given to her, and her alone. As her eyes started to blur, Trista pushed a loop of the cotton into the works. The cogs bit the cotton, gently jammed and . . . stopped.

  The sounds woke her. A roar of engines, juddering and thundering. The hiss of sand. Shouts and orders. Gear clashes, the grinding and shrieks of metal defying its limits.

  Trista opened her eyes, and found still she had eyes to open. There was a watch in her hand, and there was still a hand to hold it. She sat up with difficulty, clutching at a rent in her flank. She was weak and in pain, but there was still a Trista to be weak and in pain. There was a strange numb lightness in her head that wanted to become joy, but was not yet sure how to go about it.

  It took her a moment to realize what the noises must mean. Those were not Besider noises. Those were the sounds of a construction site. Somewhere out there, ordinary hard-working people were preparing to place the cap on the pyramid of the station. She was still running
out of time.

  She clambered unsteadily to her feet, tucking the precious watch into a pocket, and staggered to the doorway, stooping now and then to scoop up precious fragments from her innards. Beyond it lay the Architect’s stone-walled labyrinth.

  By all means try to find your way out, the Architect had told her. You will fail.

  But the Architect had not reckoned on the trail that Trista had left, all too unwillingly, as he dragged her down corridor after corridor. Her wake had been scattered with scraps and stray leaves. Now, leaning against the walls for support, Trista followed them back.

  She would not be fast enough. Outside she could hear megaphone speeches, and applause from a crowd. Then a deep, juddering thrum that had to be the engine of the great crane . . .

  . . . which cut out again. There was silence, and then a discontented, puzzled hum of voices that went on and on. New speeches followed, apologetic in tone.

  They’ve stopped. They’ve stopped!

  Pen, wonderful Pen! You did it! You made them stop.

  At long last, she found the little door through which the Architect had dragged her. With a painful, incredulous surge of hope she pushed it open, and then stopped dead.

  The room beyond was filled with figures. A montage of Besider faces glared at her, stripped of all disguise, their features twisted by anger and grief. At their head stood the Shrike, his eyes burning under his bowler hat.

  ‘The Architect!’ was the whisper that ran through the crowd. ‘The Architect! The Architect!’

  Trista remembered the long, resonating scream, and her heart plummeted. They had all heard it. They knew what had happened. No tears or pleas would placate them for the loss of their hero, their saviour. And so she did not weep, and did not plead. Instead, she looked straight into the eyes of the Shrike.

  ‘They’ve stopped work out there – have you noticed that, Shrike? Piers Crescent won’t let them put the cap on the pyramid until he knows I’m safe. And if he doesn’t, this building will be unfinished. Unsafe for all the people who want to live here.’

  A tremor of uncertainty passed through the crowd, and all faces turned to look at the Shrike. As Trista had guessed, in the absence of the Architect, the Shrike was the obvious leader.

  His bulldog features twitched with suppressed feeling. Again she thought she sensed behind them a curved beak, this time itching to snap her in two, or crack her like a nut. All that he needed to do was give the word, and his fellows would rip her to shreds. But, she realized, that was the last thing he could do. He was bound by a magic promise not to harm her, either directly or indirectly.

  ‘If you don’t make peace with Piers Crescent,’ Trista went on, as calmly as she could, given that she was using one hand to stop her insides falling out, ‘it will mean disaster for everybody sooner or later. For him, and for you and your people. Will you let me talk to him for you? Or will you make the same mistake as the Architect, and tear apart everything for revenge?’

  The Shrike bristled for a few more seconds, then made a curt, angry gesture to the others, who reluctantly fell back towards the banqueting hall. It was not simply wrath that was brightening the Shrike’s button eyes, however, as he scrutinized Trista’s living, breathing form like someone analysing a conjuror’s trick.

  ‘How did you . . . ?’ His grey gaze flickered with something that might have been respect.

  ‘Maybe you made me better than you thought,’ answered Trista.

  He glared at her, then shook his head.

  ‘Somebody get the lady a ladder,’ he barked, his tone heavy with reluctance. His gaze passed over her rents and tears, and he winced fastidiously, conflict visible in his face. In the end, impulse triumphed over restraint. ‘And . . . And while we’re waiting, my needle and thread!’ He gave Trista the angriest smile in the world.

  ‘We are not friends, Cuckoo, but if I am letting you out, you will not emerge looking like some seamstress-in-training patched you together with her eyes closed. I am a craftsman, and I have my pride.’

  Chapter 43

  LETTING GO

  For the next few days, the Crescent family was front-page news, but the stories about them were very confusing. It was public knowledge that both the kidnapped Crescent girls were safe and well, but there were wild and varied reports of their rescue.

  Most agreed that the youngest girl had been discovered wandering in the snow by a policeman on the beat. She had subjected him to a dazzling deluge of tall tales, the tallest being that she was the missing Penelope Crescent. Fortunately the constable had been patient enough to check this story, which had turned out to be true.

  The rescue of the older girl was a far more sensational matter. Those who gathered to witness the Capping Ceremony to mark the completion of the new railway station were forced to wait as the proceedings stalled for inadequately explained reasons. It was later revealed that Piers Crescent, the civil engineer who had designed it, had suddenly demanded that everything halt, since the snow would make the placing of the apex too dangerous.

  While the crowd became restless, and the organizers tried to convince the increasingly irate civil engineer that his fears were groundless, a solitary figure had been noticed at the very top of the pyramid, weakly waving its hand. Hundreds watched as several men, including Piers Crescent, clambered up the scaffolding and came down again carrying a frail-looking young girl. Those who saw her recognized her from her photograph as the missing Theresa.

  In spite of all this evidence, however, there were still some newspapers that insisted that Theresa had actually been rescued the night before, when she was discovered dripping and dishevelled on a dockland jetty.

  There was just as much confusion about the identity of the girls’ kidnappers. All the papers that evening had carried stories on the arrest of Violet Parish, with lurid details of her rumoured criminal contacts. Having painted her scarlet as blood, the same papers’ accounts of her next day were short and rather furtive. The Crescent girls and their family were apparently adamant that Violet was blameless, and that she had in fact been injured in her attempts to protect the children.

  Indeed, it seemed the one person who had pointed the finger at Violet Parish was a tailor named Grace, and he was no longer to be found. As the days stretched with no further word, the papers alternated between describing the kidnappers as ‘mysterious’ and hinting heavily that the missing tailor might have been one of them.

  It was a week of wild stories, however. Everything, including the seasons, seemed to have gone mad for a time. Crazy reports of children seen on roofs, mysterious wild-fowl behaviour, ghost barges and missing dressmakers seemed not out of keeping with the freak miniature winter that had descended on Ellchester within hours, and which yielded to an Indian summer within days. After a while, ‘Wild White Week’, as it became locally known, was dismissed as a time that didn’t count, a period when the usual rules had temporarily stopped working.

  The Crescents certainly had nothing to tell the newspapers. The reporters tried for a while to trace Violet Parish, but Piers had paid for her to be moved from the city hospital to a private clinic outside town, and no details of her location were forthcoming. The Crescents, after all, could afford a high quality of discretion.

  The clinic nestled in the lap of three hills, and had a peaceful, coddled feel. Its lawns were neat, but not severely so, and there were crazy-paving paths through its little orchard. The apple trees had suffered during the freak blizzard, however, the weight of the snow ripping away many boughs. The grass was lush and green, but still had a saturated, sodden look. Like the patients within, the grey-stone clinic was suffering its own share of recovery pangs as workmen struggled to mend a damaged roof, and pipes that had burst during the freeze.

  To anybody who knew her, it was clear that Violet was suffering from impatience and boredom more than from the splint on her leg. The orderlies had quickly learned that her repeated demands for news on ‘when it would be fixed’ were questions about her motorcy
cle, not her leg. Violet had been lucky, suffering only sprains and bruises rather than any fractures.

  ‘I bounce,’ she explained to anybody who asked, with a savage grin.

  She refused to believe there was any good reason for the splint (‘They’re just afraid I’ll chase the male orderlies’) or for her to be denied cigarettes (‘I’m choking without them’). The staff tolerated her jibes, but refused to yield to any of them. Violet was at least allowed visitors. She seemed happiest in the company of another patient, a young girl who had been admitted at the same time with the conveniently vague complaint of ‘nerves’.

  On the first morning in September, that same young girl could be found in Violet’s private room, leaning out of the window to hear the church bells chime.

  Trista never tired of hearing them. Clocks fascinated her now, the way they ticked and told the hours without her dying. Suns that set and rose again, without a countdown. Mornings without the whispers and snickers of mortality.

  The last soft chime throbbed into silence, and Trista stepped back into the room with a slightly rueful smile.

  ‘Are you going to do that every hour for the rest of your life?’ asked Violet. She was dishevelled and shiny-faced without her make-up. The books and magazines which people had given her to relieve the tedium had avalanched on to the floor and been left to sprawl there.

  ‘It still isn’t boring,’ Trista answered, slightly embarrassed. ‘I’m enjoying meals as well, now I can just eat a normal amount.’ Then, a little more boldly: ‘Are you going to keep moving around, now that it’s not chasing you?’

  Violet puffed her cheeks thoughtfully, and wiggled the toes of her imprisoned leg.

  ‘Probably,’ she said at last. ‘Habits die hard. I love the fact that I can stay still if I want, and sleep a full eight hours in the same bed without causing Ragnarök. But . . . it turns out I love speed, motion and change too, and without them I go stir crazy. At some point, that became part of me. However, now I’m the one who chooses. I can move towards something, instead of just running from a past I can never escape.’