Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

The second doctor was much younger, and believed in the ‘talking cure’. He told Not-Triss that he was there to help her defeat her secret ‘monsters’. Sometimes you had monsters that frightened you, and so you pretended they weren’t there and didn’t look at them. But the strange and magical thing was, if you did look at the monsters they just vanished away, and you were perfectly safe. The young doctor had the clear, earnest eyes of a man who had never seen a monster in his life.

The third doctor was really a nurse, a big, boisterous woman with a voice that could have drowned out a foghorn.

‘Fresh air!’ she explained in tones that might have been heard as far as Denmark. ‘We move the beds outside, so they have fresh air all the time. And they can see the sea. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

Each time, something about Not-Triss’s spiny stillness and strangeness infected the room, draining the certainty from the doctor’s voice. As she left each doctor, Not-Triss clung to her father’s arm and buried her face in his coat.

‘I don’t want to go to this place – I hate it. I don’t need to come here. I want to go home!’

She could hear that she was whining like a six-year-old. However, she could not help it. Every moment wasted here was a precious grain of sand slipping through the hourglass of her life.

After they left the ‘fresh air’ woman, they drove out of Wenwick along the narrow coast road. Not-Triss’s spirits rose a little when she saw a signpost promising Ellchester in nineteen miles, then dropped away as they drove past it in the wrong direction.

‘Why aren’t we going home?’ she exclaimed, alarmed.

‘We’re staying at a little seaside cottage, just for tonight,’ her mother answered promptly. Her eyes were shiny, and Not-Triss wondered if she had brought some of her tonic with her. ‘Think of it as a tiny holiday, to make up for the one that was cut short. We thought a change and some sea air might do you good.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ The panic that Not-Triss had been fighting down exploded from her. ‘It’s a trick! You’re going to take me to a rest-cure place and leave me there!’

‘Triss!’ The tone of exhaustion in her father’s voice silenced her. ‘It’s just a cottage that was recommended to us. It sounded… quiet. Peaceful. No doctors, I promise.’

He sounded as though he had been carrying a great weight for miles and had just realized that the road ahead of him wound its way up a mountain. Not-Triss felt a pained pity, but also confusion.

‘And… And we’re going home tomorrow?’ she could not help asking in a whisper.

There was a pause as her father manoeuvred the car around a corner on to a narrow, sloping driveway.

‘Yes. First thing tomorrow.’

The drive twisted down through a little wood of dripping silver birches, the black crusts on their white barks like healing cuts. The woods had a rich, energetic smell of rot, and the thirsty scent of moss. At the bottom a grey-stone cottage lurked at the base of a small cliff, as if trying to shelter from the rain. Beyond it the ground sloped downward to a beach, where the sea pawed at loose pebbles, hushing and hushing the scene to an ever-deeper quiet.

Getting out of the car, Not-Triss was struck by the chill of the down-beach wind, and the wet, salt smells of weed and rock pools. She felt as if the tide of the year had gone out unexpectedly and left them in autumn. The light was ebbing, the cloud-smothered sun spreading dull white wings above the horizon.

Then, quite unexpectedly, the door of the little cottage opened, and a homely orange light bloomed in the doorway. A young woman with tousled hair stood there, holding up an oil lamp.

‘Mr and Mrs Crescent?’ It was so strange to hear such a warm, human sound in this grey scene. ‘Thought I heard the car coming down. I just put the kettle on – come on in!’

While Not-Triss’s father hauled at the family’s cases, Not-Triss and her mother scampered for the bright doorway, then stood dripping in a narrow hall. Now that she was closer, Not-Triss could see that the ‘woman’ at the door was younger than she had thought, perhaps no more then sixteen.

‘I’m Dot,’ declared the oil-lamp girl, as if this explained everything. Her face was skinny but vital, with large dark eyes and a pointed, mischievous chin. ‘Come through – I’ve stoked up the fire.’ She led them into a small sitting room with faded curtains and walls panelled in dark wood. There was a low, scratched table, and five large, saggy brocade chairs that smelt of dogs. ‘If you give me your over-things, I’ll hang ’em up to dry.’

Dot was dressed in a plain, practical blue frock with an apron over the top rather than a proper servant’s uniform. Her manner was surprisingly friendly too, and this confused Not-Triss. She seemed too bold for a maid, but her Ellshire countryside accent was thick as custard, and her knees grubby from scrubbing floors. Not-Triss expected her mother to stiffen and give clipped, disapproving responses to put the girl in her place. To her surprise, however, she simply gave a faint murmur of consent, surrendered her coat and allowed herself to be shown to a chair.

The room was lit by the blaze from the hearth and a series of small candles and lanterns arranged along the mantel and the table. Glancing around her, Not-Triss realized that she could see no gas-fittings.

‘Where are the gaslights?’

‘Oh, there’s no gas in the cottage,’ Dot declared cheerfully. ‘Wasn’t worth their while, building the pipes down the hill just for this place. But there’s good hearths in most of the rooms, and a decent stock of candles.’

By the time Not-Triss’s father had heaved the cases into the house, both Not-Triss and her mother were sipping hot cocoa and watching their coats dry.

‘Look at that! The rain’s letting up. Always the way. Stops as soon as you’re indoors…’ Dot continued her warm, effortless prattle, and Not-Triss found herself feeling profoundly grateful to her, as bridge after bridge of Dot’s words were strung out over the gaping chasms of the waiting silences.

‘I expect you’d like to see your rooms?’

The staircase was dark, cramped and narrow, the stairs dipping smoothly in the centre where they had been worn by centuries of feet. The bedroom door frames were short and irregular, and her father had to stoop to pass through them. ‘Sir, ma’am, this is your room. There’s a family of house martins in the eaves by the window, and they chirrup something frightful of a morning, but if you close the shutter it cuts out the sound. This little room is yours, miss. You can look out and see the lighthouse of Wellweather Island.’ The chamber was small, low-ceilinged and wood-panelled, half-comforting, half-claustrophobic. The only light came from another oil lamp on the table. ‘I’ll leave you to get settled. If you need anything, I’ll be in the kitchen preparing dinner.’

At the word ‘dinner’ Not-Triss felt her terrible hunger stir once more, like a great mastiff rousing itself from slumber.

Left alone in her room to ‘refresh’, Not-Triss waited for a few seconds, listening to the creaks of her parents edging their way back down the stairs. Only when these sounds faded did she unlatch her case and fling its contents on to her bed. She snatched up and swallowed an embroidered handkerchief, a bundle of postcards and a pair of gloves, then leaned against the wall, trying to rally her mental forces.

The fire in the hearth was only just gathering life, and the air was cold enough that each breath summoned a brief flicker of vapour.

Why had her parents brought her here?