Cuckoo Song

by Frances Hardinge

  Flutter-tap, flutter-rasp-bangitty-flap, flappety-flap. Flap. And perch.

  There it was, a tiny shape perched on the drawer handle, so small that she would not have seen it if she had not been looking for it. Even now it melted into shadow before her direct gaze, and only kept its outline when she looked slightly away. It was distracted for the moment, sliding an envelope in through the narrow gap above the drawer.

  Her instincts prickled in her veins like a thousand tiny thorns, causing her muscles to tense and coil.

  Now.

  Not-Triss sprang from cover, the motion as easy as falling. The only sound she made was a faint flap from the counterpane, stirred by her passing. Nonetheless the perching thing heard it, and looked around in time to see her landing neatly on her bare feet. Its shocked cry sounded the way a scar looks. The thing spread its wings, but Not-Triss was already hurling the shawl.

  The fabric swamped the creature, but even the heavy wool was not enough to keep it down. A moment later there was a shawl-smothered shape crashing blindly around the room, bouncing off walls. All the while it hissed and screamed, in a voice like hot embers dropped down a well. Not-Triss could just make out gabbled curses and muffled abuse.

  Not-Triss made a few jumps in an attempt to catch it, only to have the trailing fronds tease through her fingertips. She bounded on to the desk, landing so lightly that it did not even shudder, and leaped out into the centre of the room, seizing the loose ends of the shawl with both hands. She landed with a triumphant huff of breath, but the next moment her feet were dragged from the floor again as the thing fought its way back into the air and Not-Triss clung on to the shawl like grim death as she was lifted from the ground, swung against shelves and then dropped floorward by sudden cruel swoops so that she landed awkwardly.

  ‘Twig-minx!’ it screamed. ‘Scrap-brat!’

  It tired in time, though its torrent of shrieked abuse continued. When Not-Triss found her feet on the ground, she threw herself on top of the struggling mass of increasingly ragged shawl, and then forced the bundle into her sewing box. Before it could burst out of her grip again, she slammed the lid and sat on it.

  There was a wail of utter horror, like a wind-change before a storm.

  ‘Let me out! Let me out or I’ll bonfire you! I’ll make nests of your bones!’

  The box jumped under Not-Triss, and she could hear rending within. She could picture the wicked little beak tearing the shawl apart.

  ‘Not till you tell me what I want to know!’ she hissed back. ‘What are you?’

  ‘Just a messenger! Deliver letters!’

  ‘Where’s the man who wrote the letters? Where’s Sebastian?’

  ‘Don’t know! Don’t know any Sebastian! Don’t know what is in letters! Not my fault! Not my fault!’

  ‘Whose fault then? Who sent you?’

  The response the creature gave might have been a name. It slithered over the eardrum the way moonlight slides over the surface of a rippling pool. It was unfamiliar, but Not-Triss already had an idea who might have sent the bird-thing.

  ‘Is that the same man they call the Architect?’

  ‘Yes! Brick-magic. Insidey-outsidey-hiding-magic. Let me out!’

  ‘Did he steal away the other me – the real Theresa?’

  ‘Yes! Needles and pins, they burn! Let me out!’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know – only a messenger. Architect would know. The Shrike might know.’

  ‘The Shrike?’ The box was rattling so badly that Not-Triss had to brace her feet against the floor to stop herself tumbling off.

  ‘The one who made you. Skraaark!’

  The one who made me. It’s true then. It’s really true. An unacknowledged shoot of hope that Pen had been wrong withered and died.

  ‘What am I?’

  ‘Rag doll, thorn-doll, seven-day doll! Cruel doll! Killing doll!’

  ‘Stop it!’ snapped Not-Triss, bouncing hard on the box lid, her mind a simmering turbulence of rage and fear once more.

  ‘Killing me!’ insisted the voice again, now rising in what sounded like pain and panic. ‘Killing me! Let me out! Stop killing me!’

  ‘Well, stop flapping if you don’t want to hurt yourself!’ Not-Triss whispered back, but the sounds from the box were becoming troubling. The wingbeats were more frenzied and intermittent, and there was a rattle now and then as if something hard and heavy was lurching about inside.

  ‘Please!’ For all the voice’s strangeness, the panic sounded real. ‘Get it away from me! It’s killing me!’ There followed an incoherent susurration which sounded like sizzizzizzizzizz . . .

  Scissors.

  With a stone-cold jolt, Not-Triss remembered her mother’s scissors twisting antagonistically in her hand and the vast cast-iron shears falling down towards her head outside the dressmakers’ shop . . . and the sewing scissors sheathed in the silk-lined lid of the sewing box. Scissors had turned on Not-Triss, wanting to hurt her. If this creature was like her in some ways, perhaps she had just shut it in a box with a tool that wanted to kill it . . .

  Her conscience smote her. Whatever this creature was, even if it was sent by her enemies, she had not seen it do anything that deserved death at her hands.

  ‘Promise you won’t attack me!’ she whispered.

  ‘I swear!’ came the shriek.

  ‘Promise you won’t lie to me!’

  ‘I swear!’

  ‘Promise me you’ll stay and answer my questions!’

  ‘Three questions, three answers – I swear!’

  Not-Triss would have liked to insist on more promises, but there was a terrible breathy wailing and whimpering coming from within the box, and she was afraid if she waited a moment more the creature within might actually perish. She had no idea whether her captive would really consider promises binding, but she slid off the sewing box and flung open the lid.

  No flutter of wings erupted into the room, and for a moment she feared that she might have been too slow. Peering into the box, however, she discovered a pitiable sight. Somehow the scissors had managed to fall from their sheath in such a way that the two points were embedded in the base, one on either side of the bird-thing’s throat. It appeared to be unhurt, but was clearly too terrified to move for fear of shredding itself on the hostile blades.

  ‘Help . . .’ it whispered. When she looked at it directly Not-Triss could see only a pattern of staining on the silk lining. When she peered intently at the scissors, however, the figure became visible, and she could see that it had the face of a lean old woman ashen with terror, brows threadbare and pimpled.

  Not-Triss reached towards the handles, then hesitated. It occurred to her that pulling the scissors free might not be the best idea, in case they were waiting for a chance to close on the captive creature’s neck with a self-satisfied snip. Snatching a small award cup from one of the shelves, she popped it over the bird-thing’s head, to its evident confusion and outrage. When she tugged the blades free they did indeed close, but clinked harmlessly off the metal. They then settled for twisting in her grip, scraping the skin from her knuckles until she flung them away across the room.

  There was a lather of wings, and the bird-thing was not in the box any more. Not-Triss stared around the room in vain, fearing that it had fled in spite of its promises. Then she became aware that there was something bobbing in her peripheral vision. The creature was perched on the silver frame of Sebastian’s soldier photograph, gripping the metal with tiny pale hands.

  They looked at each other for a long second, bird-thing and thorn-doll, and then the former flew sullenly down to perch on the desk with an air of concession.

  ‘Friends now,’ it whispered, its voice as soothing as a rattlesnake lullaby. ‘You won’t tell anybody about this? Not them?’ It jerked a head towards the door, the bedrooms beyond. ‘Not . . . him?’ A fearful glance towards the night-filled window, and Not-Triss thought of the Architect.

  Not-Triss said nothing. Instinct to
ld her there was danger in making promises, and she was suspicious of the creature’s sudden good humour.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking of asking,’ the bird-thing continued, edging closer to her along the desk in small, companionable sideways hops. ‘You want to know where you can find him. Do not ask that, for I cannot answer it. Our beaks are bound on that matter, and we could not say anything of it if we wished. And anyway, if you have wits you will not want to find him. Of all the Besiders in these parts, he is the most powerful and dangerous. He would tear you to pieces.’

  Besiders? Not-Triss nearly asked the question aloud, but bit back the word at the last moment. She had almost used up one of her three precious questions.

  ‘He’s not the one you want to talk to,’ the bird-thing continued. ‘I will tell you that for free. You want to talk to the Shrike. The Shrike created you – he will know how he made you and why. He will know something of the Architect’s plans. And he doesn’t belong to the Architect, the way we do. He just works for him when the price is right. So he might not kill you. If you’re clever. And if you know where he can be found.’

  Not-Triss closed her eyes and sighed. The hint was obvious. But was there anything more useful she should ask? The bird-thing had already told her that it had never heard of Sebastian, did not know where the real Triss could be found, could not reveal the location of the Architect and was ignorant concerning the letters it delivered.

  ‘All right,’ she muttered, ‘where can the Shrike be found?’

  ‘He lives in the Underbelly, beneath the Victory Bridge,’ the thing answered, in crisp, triumphant tones. ‘Of course,’ it continued, with a hint of mockery, ‘knowing where he is will not be enough to get you there.’

  Not-Triss could have kicked herself. Now she had little choice but to ask the trailing second question. Without it, the first piece of information was useless.

  ‘How can I get into the Underbelly to find the Shrike?’ she asked, through clenched teeth.

  ‘Go down Meddlar’s Lane under the bridge’s end, turn your face to the bricks and start walking. Then keep walking until the sound of the traffic grows faint and you can understand the gulls. Of course –’ and now there was clearly a suppressed snigger in the voice – ‘knowing how to reach the Underbelly is not the same as knowing how to enter it and leave again safely.’

  Not-Triss hesitated a long moment. Her brief advantage over the invisible sniggerer was slipping through her fingers. However, she had already committed herself with her first two questions, and there was no going back.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said at last, giving in, ‘how do I enter and leave the Underbelly safely?’

  The creature leaned forward, and its grin of pleasure was diluted by a gleam of earnestness.

  ‘Find yourself a cockerel, and a dagger or knife. Before you enter the Underbelly, drive the blade into the ground by any means you can. That is the only way to keep the path open behind you for when you need to leave. Pay no heed to any music that you hear playing. And whatever happens, remember why you are there. If you have questions to ask, keep asking and make it plain that you will not be gone until they are answered. Keep the cockerel wrapped and dumb until you think you are in danger.’

  It watched her face for a few seconds more, and the sparks in its eyes became gleams of malicious delight.

  ‘But hurry, scrap-brat! You have only three days left! Three days! Three days!’

  And then it was gone, with only the briefest rasp of sound, like somebody running their thumbnail down a notepad.

  Too late, Not-Triss realized that the dead of night was no longer as dead as it had been. From down in the street she could hear the sound of hushed and puzzled voices, and the barking of excitable dogs. Even so, she was slow to make sense of it, her mind still shaken by the bird-thing’s words.

  Thus it was that she was quite unprepared when the door suddenly opened, and she found herself bathed in candlelight.

  Chapter 16

  CAUGHT

  There was no time to dive under the bed. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and the candle dazzled her, so that she could scarcely make out the two figures standing behind it.

  ‘Triss!’ Her mother’s tone was beyond anger or incredulity. There was awe and fear in her voice.

  Not-Triss could only gape into the light. How stupid she was! For some reason she had assumed that her ferocious battle with the bird-thing would have been inaudible to ordinary ears, like Angelina’s screaming back in the cottage. Now she realized that it had been very, very audible indeed, loud enough to wake the whole street.

  The light advanced slowly into the room, and Not-Triss could see that it was held by her father. Not-Triss wondered how she looked to them – a glaring, dishevelled specimen perhaps, hunched like a church gargoyle on the scuffed rug.

  ‘Triss – what are you doing here?’ Her father’s voice was very, very level.

  ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. A stupid lie, but she scarcely cared any more. What was one more stupid lie in this house full of stupid lies?

  Her mother still hovered in the darkened doorway, and Not-Triss could just make out shocked stars of candlelight reflected in her eyes. Glancing around, Not-Triss could understand her aghast silence. The sacred room was in chaos. Most of Sebastian’s award cups had been jogged off their stands during her battle with the bird-thing, and several photographs had fallen face first. The rug was chaotically rucked, and the wood of the shelves and desk was gouged here and there with fine, deep scratches.

  ‘Triss,’ her father began again. ‘I’m trying to give you a chance. Why did you come in this room? What . . . happened just now? Was there something else in here with you?

  Yes. I fought a bird-thing and forced promises out of it at scissor-point.

  Not-Triss looked down at her own hands, clenching at her cloth-covered knees. She shook her head.

  ‘Then where on earth did that terrible noise come from?’ demanded her mother.

  Not-Triss did not need to look up to know what expression her mother would be wearing. A hesitant, brittle look, eyes brilliant with uncertainty and nerves.

  ‘Oh, why don’t we blame it on Pen?’ Not-Triss heard herself snap, in a voice that sounded harsher and more brutal than her own. Something had burst, and the words welled out, in spite of all her attempts to dam them. ‘That’s what we always do, isn’t it? That’s what she’s for, isn’t it? We blame everything on Pen and then we change the subject. And nothing matters as long as we don’t talk about it.’

  The following silence was terrible. There had been a whole conversation she might have had, she knew that now. It was no longer there to be had. She had ripped out the remaining pages of the script, and had fallen off the ragged edge of the paper.

  For a moment there was nothing she wanted more than to break loose, scream at them for lying to her for so many years and demand an explanation. Here they were, acting as if she had behaved in a strange and treacherous fashion, and all the while they had been hiding the letters sent by their dead son. The unfairness of it filled her with Pen-like rage.

  The next moment she remembered that it was Triss they had lied to for years, and that she herself had many dangerous secrets that needed to be kept. If she gave vent to her temper, would she give herself away for the monster she was? Had she given away too much already?

  ‘Go to your room, Triss.’ Her father’s voice was so distant that it took Not-Triss a moment to understand that his words were directed at her.

  Very slowly, Not-Triss got to her feet. As her unsteady steps carried her back to her room, her mind crowded with all the excuses and stories she should have used when asked for an explanation.

  I was sleepwalking. I had a nightmare. I think maybe I cried out in my sleep. A lot.

  There was a bird in the room. It was squawking and banging around. I came in here to help it out through the window.

  I dreamed that Sebastian came back, so I came in here to see if he was sleeping in his bed.
But he wasn’t there, and I was really upset. And cried a lot.

  Why hadn’t she said something like that? Anything, just so that her parents could force themselves to believe her, and could go to bed with their minds somewhat at rest. That was the whole problem, though, she realized. Right at that moment, she had not wanted their minds to be at rest. She had not wanted to make things easy for them, or to add yet another lie to the stack of comfortable lies that seemed to be the only thing holding up the roof.

  ‘Stupid,’ she whispered, feeling her eyes sting and her lashes clog with cobweb. ‘Stupid! What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just lie? Now they’ll think . . .’ She could hardly begin to imagine what her parents might think.

  The excitement of her little victory over the bird-thing had dissolved, leaving only dread. She had learned something from its answers, perhaps enough for her to continue her investigation, but at what price? It was too late for her to offer her parents an innocent-sounding explanation for her presence in Sebastian’s room, the strange shrieking and upheaval that had taken place and the long scratches on the furniture. Any plausible excuse she gave from now on would smack of a tale invented in retrospect, and for very good reasons.

  But I have to think of a story, she realized. By tomorrow. Something that will explain everything, even why I shouted at them, and why I wouldn’t explain myself at the time. Or I’ll be knee-deep in doctors for the next three days, and I’ve only got three days. That’s what the bird-thing said.

  Only three days.

  Chapter 17

  QUIET

  Not-Triss managed only snatches of sleep during the night. Her mind sparked and spun relentlessly like a Catherine wheel, trying to come up with stories that would save her.

  In the early hours she was woken by sounds of furtive, shuffled movement which appeared to come from Pen’s room. To Not-Triss’s surprise, they did not appear to wake anybody else. But, she considered after a moment, perhaps they were not as loud as she imagined. Perhaps she could hear them so clearly because her own senses were peculiarly sharp, or because she was in tune with the sounds of the night.