Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

Instinct told Not-Triss to avoid looking either to left or right, and she was glad that she had Pen by the hand. She stepped out on to the brick ‘slope’, and it tipped to become a level, horizontal surface under her feet. Ignoring the internal voices that screamed that she was walking up a sheer wall, Not-Triss strode on. She ignored them again when the brick gave way to sandstone and concrete and they screamed that she must be walking along the underside of the bridge.

The faint sounds of the early-morning city were fading. The distant rumbles of the first trams, the the rattle of handcarts – these sounds were dissolving like salt grains in water. A strong wind blew around them, and the peals of the gulls became louder.

And as they walked and walked, it seemed to Not-Triss that she heard something new in the voices of the gulls. It was not that the sound changed, rather that it was unsheathed like a blade so that its edges were bared. Or perhaps it was her ears that were unsheathed and her hearing that grew sharper.

‘Child!’ she could hear the gulls shouting. ‘One child, two child! Pink cheek childs with eyes in their heads! Soft eye childs with hearts like fruit!’

Not-Triss knew that Pen could hear them too. The smaller hand did not shake, but gripped hers like a vice. Not-Triss squeezed it back as they matched each other, step for step.

Not-Triss told herself that she was walking along the top of a bridge, not the underside. That was the only way to stay calm. The path before her was so broad that thirty men could have stood shoulder to shoulder across it. There were curve-topped walls to either side, and they threw the walkway into ever-deepening shadow. Beyond these side walls the sky had a dull lustre like oiled lead, and against it shapes could be seen circling and skimming. They were swift as ice skates and called with their almost-gull voices.

And ahead…

‘What’s that?’ whispered Pen.

About thirty yards away, the shadowy path disappeared into a large dark mound that blocked the way entirely, like a giant molehill. Or a housemartin’s nest under the eaves , thought Not-Triss as she remembered for an instant which way was up. It was so dark that she seemed to hear the hiss as it sucked light out of the air. Its mass was irregular in shape, its outline knobbly and bristling with spikes.

As they drew closer though, the inkiness seemed to drain away. The opaque mound resolved itself into a cluster of small, dun-coloured buildings, which clustered and jostled and sat on each other’s shoulders, as if somebody had piled them into a cairn. The windows were squint-thin and without glass, the roofs sagged and dimpled like damp bread, and some had steps cut into them so that one could reach other huts further up the mound. Ladders leaned and ropes dangled, so that the whole vista looked like a strange brownish Snakes and Ladders board. There were spires, not lofty like those on a church, but wickedly slender and topped with weathervanes that moved independent of the wind. There were flagpoles too, from which drooped tattered banners, their colours too faded and grimy to be recognizable.

‘It’s a village,’ Not-Triss answered, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

‘But we’re under the bridge, aren’t we?’ Pen scowled. ‘Why is there a village under Father’s bridge? Does he know?’

It was a surprisingly good question.

‘I don’t know,’ Not-Triss answered. ‘But I wish I did.’

There was motion in the house-mound. It was not a single flash of activity to draw the eye, but rather a universal stirring, like the subtle seething of an anthill, or the heat-shimmer of a summer day. Now and then pennants flapped with idle deliberation, like horse tails slapping at a gnat’s bite. The outlines of the roofs shifted, as if low, scarcely seen shapes were scurrying along them. There were faces at the windows too. Not-Triss never saw any of them directly – they were too quick for her – but their fleeting appearances left a smudge upon her eye.

‘I think there are people looking at us,’ hissed Pen. ‘Who are they?’

Not-Triss recalled what the captive bird-thing had said about the Architect. Of all the Besiders in these parts, he is the most powerful and dangerous. Mr Grace had used the same term back in the cottage, when he had talked of throwing her in the fire. The only way to show the Besiders that we mean business. He had believed that Not-Triss herself was a child of the Besiders, or a doll of their creation. If the Shrike had made her, then presumably he was a Besider too.

‘Besiders,’ she said aloud, trying out the word.

‘What does that mean?’ demanded Pen.

Not-Triss shrugged, trying to seem calm despite the hammering of her heart. ‘I think we’re about to find out.’

The wind’s tone changed and rippled, and now there was music riding on its back. Not-Triss had known at blood level that there would be, but the sound of it still surprised her. She realized now that she had been expecting old-fashioned instruments – pipes, fifes, fiddles and tinny drums. Instead there came the cocksure, brassy warble of a saxophone, the blare of a cornet and the squeak and trill of a clarinet being made to work for its living.

Not-Triss had heard jazz with neatly wiped shoes and jazz with gritty soles and a grin. And this too was jazz, but barefoot on the grass and blank-eyed with bliss, its musical strands irregular as wind gusts and unending as ivy vines. It was not human music; she could tell that in an instant. This was truer, purer and more chaotic, but also… colder. Human jazz was a clumsy imitation of this music, but it had blood, breath and warmth to it.

The melodies called to her, but she knew she should not answer. Her feet were full of pins, but if she let them twitch even an inch she would start dancing and never be able to stop.

Pay no heed to any music that you hear playing , the bird-thing had told her.

‘Don’t listen to the music!’ she whispered. ‘Don’t dance!’

In spite of her determination, however, her pace was increasing, trying to find a match in the rhythm of the music. Pen was speeding up beside her as well, until they were pelting along at a syncopated sprint. And then, all of a sudden, they were no longer approaching the village, they were in the midst of it, and Not-Triss had the eerie feeling they had been there for some time.

A man bowed low to them, as if thanking them for a dance. Not-Triss caught only a glimpse of his face as he straightened. His long, pointed nose and chin met and merged, making a loop like a cup handle. Then he had moved away, losing himself in a crowd that was full of cheerful noise but baffled her eye when she tried to gaze upon any part of it. The throng flowed around the two girls, apparently unconcerned by their presence. Not-Triss felt her determination waver, dissolving into the shyness and uncertainty of a child lost in the adult whirl of an unknown town.

Her everyday mind tried to tell her that she was in an ordinary street, clean and gleaming with sunlight after rain. However, her sharp eyes noticed the strangeness in the puddles, the way individual drops would swell on the surface and then fly ‘upward’, obeying the call of thwarted gravity. Her everyday mind was dazzled by the brilliant displays in the shop windows and the sweet, crimson smiles of the immaculate shop girls. However, her eyes noted the bizarreness of the wares, the gold clocks whose hands moved backwards, the arrays of tiny arrowheads made of flint, silver and glass, the cages of goats as small as mice.

None of this was wasted on Pen either.

‘Look!’ The younger girl surged towards the nearest shop window, nearly pulling Not-Triss off balance as she did so.