The Rookery

by Deborah Hewitt

  She heard footsteps behind her and sidestepped to the left, turning towards the noise just a fraction too late. A glancing blow struck her from behind and Alice’s skull vibrated as she was pitched forward. The folder tumbled from her hands and slid along the corridor as the momentum sent her crashing into the wainscoting. Her back slammed against the polished wood, knocking the breath from her lungs. Struggling for air and punch drunk, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees with a groan. She swayed back and forth, her arms trembling and eyes searching for her attacker.

  But the corridor was empty.

  ‘What the hell—’

  A deafening crack resounded overhead and she flinched. Crack. Crack. Crack. A series of sharp blows snapped through the corridor like falling dominoes. The walls! The wainscoting was fracturing. The wooden panels split in half, one after the other. Splintered fragments burst from the seams as snaking cracks opened in the grain.

  Dazed, Alice made to crawl sideways, but jagged shards of wood sprang loose from the panelling and thudded onto the floor, barring her path. Too close. She hitched a breath and spun on her knees in a bid to clear the danger, but stilled as she turned into a serrated chunk of oak. It pressed against her chest, the pointed tip digging under her ribs. She didn’t dare breathe again as she slowly inched backwards. But a sliver of pointed wood jabbed the back of her neck and she froze. Trapped.

  Spiked shards of broken wood surrounded her, all of them pointing inwards. The wood panelling . . . had ruptured and reassembled itself around her body, hemming her in. Keen-edged spears of oak angled inches from her skin. Her adrenaline surged, telling her to get away, but she ruthlessly stamped it down. One wrong move and she would be skewered.

  Against every instinct, she became utterly motionless. There was no more sign of movement.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. She was trapped so neatly she couldn’t move her arm to check the wound on her head. It wasn’t painful – shock had numbed it – but she could feel warm blood seeping down the back of her neck.

  ‘How about we call it a draw?’ she said into the empty corridor, trying to lure him out. ‘My head for your knee?’

  Laughter, short and abrupt, echoed like gunfire. Her pulse jumped.

  ‘Kuu?’ she whispered.

  Her nightjar blinked into view with an agitated flutter. Alice steadied her breathing and held its gaze.

  ‘Bird’s-eye view.’

  Stretching its pale wings, the nightjar rose into the air, its tail feathers extended and its legs tucked under its breast. Alice opened her mind to the sensation of flashing images, and then reached for the composure to separate her cumbersome human body from her nightjar’s vision. The scene laid out below her was one of destruction. Plaster dust and debris were strewn across mangled wooden planks – choppy piles of spiked timber surrounded Alice on every side. From above, she appeared trapped between the teeth of a vicious predator.

  The nightjar swooped lower before gliding to the window. It was then that Alice saw the shadow fall across her back. There was someone watching – hiding in a nearby doorway or approaching from the corner.

  With a screech, the nightjar looped around, picking up speed, determined to identify Lester’s exact position . . .

  Alice gasped.

  The link with her nightjar’s vision broke.

  The wood . . . She blinked fiercely, tears of panic and pain forming in her eyes. The shard of jagged oak pressed under her ribs was moving. Embedded in a cluttered mound of shattered timber, it drove towards her. Its tip pierced her cotton jumper. She scrabbled to push it away, wrapping both hands around it and thrusting, but it was no use. The wooden spike met flesh.

  ‘Bea!’ she shrieked, fear chilling her blood. ‘Bea! Tom!’

  The spike punctured her skin . . . Her nightjar soared through the air and landed on her shoulder. It churred comfortingly, rubbing its head against her wet cheeks. Alice pushed the bird away and tightened her grip on the wood. With an explosive exhale she urged the surface to disintegrate. Her palm tingled with pent-up power and the wooden spike turned to ash under her fingers.

  Her relief was short-lived. Another spear shunted closer to take its place. Hands still smarting, she grabbed it and willed it to wither and rot. It too crumbled. But another took its place, and another. Too many, too close. Alice stared at her nightjar in disbelief, her hands trembling as a shard slid under her ribs. All thoughts vanished as the wood began to push into her chest. A drop of her blood splattered on the tiles . . .

  She couldn’t stop the wood. But she could stop a person. A person whose lifeblood would attract her deadly soul like a magnet . . . No. Oh God, what was she thinking? She could never—

  Another bead of blood splashed the floor. The pain sharpened and she gave in. ‘Kuu,’ she moaned. ‘Go.’

  Her nightjar cawed and butted her shoulder in understanding. Then it unfolded its wings, bent its legs and lifted off, just as a clatter of footsteps turned the corner and came to a skidding halt.

  ‘What in the name of Ukko’s hammer is going on?’ shouted Bea, aghast.

  The cord linking Alice to her nightjar grew thinner as it increased its distance. The glow dimmed, and Alice stared at it in horror. ‘Bea,’ she breathed. ‘No. Go away.’

  A bolt of electricity hit Alice in the spine. She snapped backwards, her muscles cramping, and relaxed as she exhaled sharply. She fought to maintain her consciousness, to hold her human shape. A dark hunger pricked at the edges of her consciousness. A throb of warmth nearby stirred some part of her buried deep inside. No. No. Not Bea. Her deadly soul began to peel away from her body, particle by particle. She mentally fought to hold it down, to trap it inside. But it was drawn to the life pulsating in the corridor – vivid and dynamic. To Bea.

  ‘Kuu,’ she begged. ‘Kuu. Come back.’

  Alice’s chest was tight. She prodded it with a finger and found it wadded with cotton dressings and surgical tape. Cranking open one eye, she squinted at her surroundings. She was in her room, bundled up under a blanket on the bed. A whisper of rain pelted the windows and slid down the glass, distorting her view of the gardens beyond the Whiston Building. She frowned into the gloom.

  ‘It’s not supposed to rain in June,’ she murmured.

  ‘Actually, for the past few years, June has been the fourth-wettest month of the year.’ Her gaze drifted sideways and found Tom sitting on a Victorian school chair, peering over at her. ‘Fifty millimetres of rainfall, on average.’ He smiled, blue eyes gleaming.

  She made to sit up, and hissed at the sudden sting under her ribs.

  ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘The nurse had to use butterfly stitches.’

  ‘Tom, I . . .’

  She trailed off, her eyes sliding away from his, searching out the room. There was a distinct absence of aristocratic dynamism. An absence that slowed her heart and stuck in her throat.

  ‘Where’s Bea?’ she croaked. ‘Is she – oh God, Tom—’

  ‘She’s downstairs,’ he soothed. ‘She had to put the corridor back together.’

  Her mouth opened and closed. ‘She’s – she’s not—’

  The door swung open and Bea burst into the room, necklace jangling and long patterned dress flowing around her like something alive. Alice sank into her pillows, weak with relief. Bea’s hair was pinned back into a bun, shot through with what at first appeared to be two long pins but which, on closer inspection, turned out to be shards of wood.

  ‘You’ve got wainscoting in your hair,’ Alice said, brows furrowing.

  Bea patted the bun. ‘I had some pieces left over and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where they went. Jigsaws were never my forte.’

  Tom cleared his throat, and it was so unusually assertive that they both turned to him in surprise. ‘Alice,’ he said with a penetrating look. ‘What happened?’

  They listened in silence while she recounted what she knew of the scene in the corridor. She found herself spilling the news tha
t she’d had a previous attack, though she left out the message that had called her a murderer. While she talked, Bea moved closer to examine the window frame, her expression serious.

  ‘And you think you heard someone outside your door?’ said Bea. ‘The night of the first attack?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, who’s got access to the staff accommodation, other than us?’ she asked, gesturing at herself and Tom.

  Alice shook her head. On this part of the floor there were only four apartments: hers and Holly’s empty unit at this end, and at the other end one belonged to a nervy old woman who worked in the Department of Legacy Disciplines and the other to a reclusive researcher in the Sydenham Building. She’d checked out their nightjars when she’d first moved in, and they were dull as ditchwater and totally harmless.

  ‘Holly’s parents,’ she said, ‘and Lester. He knew which entrance led up here; he was trying to access it the day he . . .’ She swallowed. ‘And the way Holly used to talk, I think he’d visited her up here. If he knew which apartment was hers, he’d have known which was mine.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Bea. ‘You don’t think they were—’

  ‘No,’ said Alice with a shudder. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘You think . . . Lester did this?’ asked Tom, his face falling.

  ‘I think he blamed me for his fall from the banister,’ she said.

  ‘Then it’s my fault,’ Tom said quietly. ‘That would never have happened if he hadn’t felt justified in attacking me. It’s only because of me that you were even there.’

  ‘No,’ said Bea, her face pale. ‘It’s my fault. I could have reported him to Whitmore for what he did to Tom, but I didn’t.’

  ‘But only because I asked you not to,’ said Tom, staring down at his lap, his face unreadable.

  Alice glanced up at Tom’s and Bea’s nightjars, competing for guilt as they swooped overhead with twitches and agitated jerks.

  ‘I’m going to resign my post at the House,’ said Tom, rising, his face strained. ‘I can’t administer the draught again. I should have done it sooner.’

  ‘No, Tom, don’t be silly, darling,’ said Bea, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him back into his chair.

  ‘You can’t let him have that much power over you,’ said Alice.

  They lapsed into a tense silence, only broken when Bea spoke again, her nose wrinkled in thought.

  ‘Two revenge attacks because of the incident in the stairwell?’ she said. ‘Even for that awful cretin, it’s a bit extreme.’

  Alice hesitated. ‘Maybe that wasn’t the only reason,’ she said carefully. A memory flashed into her mind that left her cold. Murderer. ‘Maybe it was because I was the only candidate who survived the binding draught, on the night his own protégée died?’

  Tom flinched.

  After a moment, Bea nodded and Alice relaxed. ‘He’s always been bitter about others’ success,’ said Bea.

  ‘We’ll have to be on our guard from now on,’ said Alice.

  ‘Never mind being on our guard,’ said Bea. ‘We’ve got to report him to the Runners.’

  ‘No,’ Alice said quickly. ‘I don’t want them involved. I’d rather . . .’ She couldn’t explain to them why she despised the Runners so much. Infiltrated by Marianne’s Fellowship bent on their own plans, Alice had lost faith in them long ago – even before their commanding officer, Reuben Risdon, had killed her best friend.

  ‘No Runners,’ she said firmly. ‘Not yet. We don’t have any solid evidence.’

  ‘No,’ said Bea in a clipped voice. ‘Darling, I’m sorry, but look at you. He could have killed you.’

  ‘Please, Bea. Just . . .’

  Bea sat back in her chair, crossing her arms with a deep frown.

  ‘I should be the one to contact them,’ said Alice, changing tack. ‘Let me be the one to do it. Okay?’

  Bea’s eyes narrowed, but she gave a grudging nod.

  Alice’s wound had healed rapidly. The university nurse had said it might be a fortnight before the butterfly stitches came off, but in only two days, the cut on her chest had scabbed over and she was bursting with energy. She needed to burn it off after forty-eight hours in bed – most of which had been spent sketching and trying to communicate with Kuu about how, if they were to trust one another, the bird must never allow Alice’s soul to be released again. It wasn’t some accidental mishap or unknown flaw that had forced Kuu to ‘go’; Alice had done it herself. She’d told the bird to leave – but the nightjar must never follow that order again. And as soon as Alice shored up her Mielikki legacy with the second portion of binding draught, those reckless instincts might fade away too.

  Sketching had always calmed her mind, and now her sketchbooks were filled with nightjars and buildings, trees and people. She had drawn Bea from memory last night, but she was out of practice and the likeness had been disappointing. She’d drawn the Summer Tree, over and over. For some reason, it had proven so much easier to remember the curves and texture of the tree than it had the planes of Bea’s face – and yet she’d only seen the Summer Tree once in a year, while she saw Bea’s face almost every day.

  Finally, the cut healed, and Alice returned to work to find the university’s entire student body buzzing with anticipation for the annual Cream of the Crops competition, being held on the lawns that evening.

  Easing herself into a chair, she glanced over at the professor, wondering if the woman had even realized she’d been missing for two days. One quick glance told her all she needed to know about Reid’s current state of mind. The professor’s nightjar looked frazzled. Its dark feathers were rumpled and its wings refused to lie flush with its body. With its complex pattern of chocolate browns striped with beige and its distinctive speckled breast, it resembled a song thrush, save for the wider, flattened head. Alice watched it carefully. Magellan’s Nightjar Compendium had had a lot to say about feather patterns. The speckles clearly marked Reid as having Pellervoinen’s legacy.

  Alice chewed thoughtfully on the end of her pencil. Kuu’s feathers were plain white. There was nothing to indicate she had the patterns associated with Mielikki. Was that a sign that her Mielikki skills were genetically subordinate to her Tuoni legacy?

  Reid’s sharp footsteps recaptured Alice’s attention. There was nothing particularly sinister about the professor’s nightjar. It seemed tired, like Reid, but not in a state of active aggression. Alice wondered if it was worth probing the subject of the Fellowship and watching for lies or unusual responses. Because of the attack she still hadn’t dealt with the matter of the leaflet she’d found in the folder.

  The professor stood back from the blackboard erected along the length of the room. It was not a blackboard in the traditional sense, since it was in fact a block of polished hematite mounted to the wall. Dark greyish-black and formed from crystals of glimmering iron oxide, it seemed to sparkle in the right light.

  Reid examined a calculation she’d chalked up. One hand stretched up to trace it from the start, along the messy algebraic equation to the solution at the end. Which, judging by her reaction, was wrong.

  ‘It’s not a simple change of direction if it creates a domino effect that changes everything else!’ she hissed under her breath.

  She hurled the white chalk across the room, where it pinged off a coffee cup and rattled under a desk. Both hands went to her hair and she scraped it back, clutching the curls, pulling them so tight her wrinkles smoothed out.

  ‘I’m done,’ she announced. ‘I’m done for today. For every day!’

  With a petulant grunt, she yanked her hands free of her hair, and Alice’s eyebrow lifted at the sight of the white dust covering the curls. She looked like a Georgian noblewoman in a powdered wig.

  Reid flicked her hand at the blackboard and the chalk equation vanished. With one vicious finger, she stabbed at the hematite and scrawled something across it. She stood back, and Alice squinted at the glittering black rock, where the professor had used her legacy to carve the word Don
e! into the hard surface as though it was butter. Then Reid snatched up the folders piled on her own desk and stormed over to Alice’s.

  ‘Did you copy those files I asked you to sort days ago?’

  Alice winced. She’d forgotten. Bea had kept them safe for her after Lester’s attack, but they were now sitting, un-copied, in Alice’s in-tray again.

  ‘I’ll do it now,’ she said with forced breeziness. She’d just reached out for the topmost stack of papers when Reid emitted a strangled sound. The folders Reid was carrying thumped to the floor, several pages skittering under the desk. The professor’s bony fingers yanked at Alice’s sleeve and shucked it up, exposing her wrists.

  Reid bore down on her, squeezing Alice’s arm, her eyes wide with apoplexy.

  ‘What is it?’ said Alice, peering up at her in alarm. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Reid’s face was nearly bloodless. Her stare was wild – manic – as her eyes darted over Alice, studying her with an intensity that was intrusive.

  ‘But you . . . Where did you . . .?’ Reid hissed incoherently, her gaze flickering over Alice’s clothing, the ring on her finger, her cluttered desk. ‘How could you possibly . . .?’

  Reid’s fingers clenched harder around Alice’s cotton shirt, her nails digging deeper. The skin pinched, and there was a small flare of pain. Alice tried to pull away, confusion and irritation swiftly transforming into anger.

  ‘Stop it,’ Alice snapped. ‘What the hell do you think you’re—?’

  Reid’s hand flew open with such force that Alice’s arm was flung back to the desk. Her elbow caught the folder of papers in her in-tray and sent them cascading over the floor.

  Reid stared at them, her face twisted and her hands shaking.

  Alice’s eyes darted straight to Reid’s nightjar. The little bird was trembling with shock and panic – and overlaying her emotions, Alice was able to pick out another strong sense washing over the professor. Vivian Reid had a shameful secret – and her nightjar had never even hinted at such until this very moment.