Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

‘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.

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.

Another thought crossed her mind. If Pen was making any noise at all, then right now she was not suffering from her eerie state of silence. If Not-Triss wished to speak to Pen, this might be her best chance.

It was risky, given the fragility of the ice beneath her feet, but Not-Triss slipped out of her room anyway and very gently tapped on Pen’s door.

‘Pen!’ Not-Triss tried to make her whisper eiderdown-soft. ‘I know you’re awake!’

There was a short, sharp movement within, as if somebody had started.

‘Don’t be scared – I’m not going to hurt you.’ Once more Not-Triss was haunted by the image of the scratched lines in the younger girl’s cheek. ‘I’m sorry about your face. I didn’t mean to. I was just… scared. I… only meant to slap you.’ Somehow that had sounded better in her head.

There were no more noises of motion within, though Not-Triss thought she heard the sound of slow, careful breathing.

‘Pen, I know you can hear me! We have to talk. Can I come in?’

No answer. Not-Triss reached for the handle and gently turned it. The door refused to open, however. Evidently Pen had wedged a chair or something against it. Not-Triss wondered if the smaller girl was hunched in a corner of the room, staring hypnotized at the silent, menacing turning of the handle. She sighed, and rested her forehead against the wood.

‘ Please let me in, Pen! I know you hate me, but you need my help, and I need your help. You have to tell me everything you know about the Architect – what he’s doing, how you got in touch with him, where he lives. Think about Triss – you want to get her back, don’t you? What do you think will happen if we don’t work together?’

There was an abrupt snuffle, like somebody resolutely sniffing back a sob.

‘Go away!’ came the snapped whisper. ‘I… I’ve got a gun! Don’t you break this door in, or… or I’ll shoot you!’

‘You haven’t got a gun.’ Not-Triss fought against all the years of Triss’s frustration and hurt and focused on the memory of Pen standing alone and drenched in the rain. ‘And I’m not going to break into your room. But I can’t keep talking through the door like this – sooner or later I’ll wake everybody up!’ There followed a few seconds of silence while her words were digested.

‘Go away,’ hissed the unseen Pen again, this time with venom and more confidence. ‘Get away from me, or I’ll scream .’

And that threat, more than the menace of imaginary firearms, was enough to drive Not-Triss from the door. She could not afford to be discovered roaming the nocturnal house a second time, not after her first ignominious capture. Once again, holding out a hand to Pen had been about as rewarding as plunging it into a nettle patch.

Day crept in like a disgraced cat, with a thin, mewling wind and fine, slanting rain. Her face pressed against her window, Not-Triss watched it come. The birdsong sounded hard and metallic.