Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

Shaky steps took her across the green to the water’s edge, where she halted and felt the cold properly for the first time. This was where they had dunked witches, hundreds of years ago. This is was where suicides had used to drown themselves.

At one place on the bank the mud was ravaged, tussocks of the grass pulled away, the earth finger-gouged. That’s where I dragged myself out. It must be. But why did I fall in?

She had hoped that if she found memories here, they would provide solid ground at last under her feet. But when memory came it brought no comfort. Here was only fear and falling.

Triss recalled an icy darkness, cold water choking her nose, mouth and throat. It seemed that she remembered looking up through a shifting brown murk, while her limbs slowly flailed, and seeing two dark shapes above her, their outlines wavering and wobbling with the motion of the water. Two figures standing on the bank above, one taller than the other. But there was another memory trying to surface, something that had happened just before that…

Something bad happened here, something that should never have taken place.

I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to remember.

But it was too late, she was there and the Grimmer was watching her with its vast, lightless slit of an eye, as if it might open it wide and stare into her gaze at any moment. Then, as the panic rose, her mind flapped shut like a book and instinct took over. She turned and ran, fleeing from the water, sprinting across the green and tearing back up the hill to the cottage with all the speed and panic of a coursed hare.

Six days , came the laughter. Six days , it snickered like old paper in a draught. As Triss woke, however, the words melted once more and became nothing but the whisper of leaves against the window.

Triss’s eyes opened. Something scratchy was touching her cheek. She reached up, pulled the dead leaf out of her hair and stared at it. One by one, she recalled her actions the previous evening. Had she really climbed out of her window, gobbled windfalls and then stood on the banks of the Grimmer, feeling that it might speak to her? She picked her way through the memories with disbelief, like a householder surveying rubbish scattered by foxes overnight.

There were more dead leaves in her hair, so she hastily pulled them out and pushed them out through the window. Her muddy feet she wiped clean with a handkerchief. Her nightdress was grimy and grass-stained, but perhaps she could smuggle it into the laundry without anybody knowing.

Nobody saw me. Nobody knows what I did. And so if I don’t tell anyone, it’s like it didn’t happen. And I won’t do it again – I’m better this morning. I’ll get dressed and go down to breakfast, and everybody will say how much better I’m looking today… and that’ll make it true.

Sure enough, as she creaked her way down the stairs she was met with relief and joy in her mother’s voice.

‘Triss! You’re up! Oh, it’s so good to see you looking better…’

Hunger had finally broken Pen’s siege. She scraped her chair as far from the rest of the family as she could, and sat with her head bowed resentfully over the plate. She ate with all the good humour of a condemned prisoner.

Fresh eggs from the farm had been brought in and boiled, and now sat freckled in their cups beside the racks of toast. The pack of wolves that seemed to have taken over Triss’s stomach was still baying for food, but she managed to eat slowly and steadily, and stop when she had finished her share.

There. See? I’m better today.

They were going home after breakfast. Everything would be normal once they were home.

Back in her room Triss quickly piled her possessions into her little red travelling case and last of all stooped to pick up Angelina, her doll. Angelina was a fine, large, German-made doll, about the size of a human baby. Her bisque skin was not glossy like porcelain, but with a dull shine like real skin, and she had carefully painted lashes and gracefully curved brows. Her painted lips were parted to show tiny white teeth. Her curling hair was light brown, like Triss’s own, and she wore a green-and-white dress with an ivy-pattern print.

Triss’s mind performed an odd little twist, so that she seemed to see her possessions as a stranger might. An unfamiliar thought crept unbidden into her mind. It’s as if I’m still six years old. It’s as if I’m still the age I was when Sebastian died.

She stared down at Angelina with a slight squirming in her stomach, a tiny worm of shame and wonder.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked under her breath. ‘I’m eleven. Why do I still carry a doll around?’

And it was while these words were still hanging in the air that the doll moved in her hands.

The first things to shift were the eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss’s face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to speak.

‘What are you doing here?’ It was an echo of Triss’s words, uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. ‘Who do you think you are? This is my family.’

All the breath had left Triss’s lungs. Her whole body had frozen, otherwise the doll would doubtless have dropped from her hands. It’s a trick , she told herself frantically. Pen must have done this somehow, it’s a trick.

She felt the doll move in her grasp as it gripped at her sleeves with its delicate hands and hauled itself a little more upright, jutting its head forward to peer at her more closely. Its glass eyes seemed to come into proper focus, and then the doll flinched and started to shake. Its mouth fell open, emitting a low, eerie mewl of horror and fear.

‘No,’ it moaned, and then started to thrash, its voice rising to a wail. ‘You’re not right! Don’t touch me! Help! Help! Get her away from me!’ It flailed at her with tiny china fists, its scream rising to a single eerie note that went on and on like a siren. Through the window, Triss saw the house martins burst in terror from their nest in the eaves, and the wall plaster crack slightly, spitting powder into the air. The doll’s jaw dropped wider and its scream became ear-rending, until Triss was sure that everybody in the house and beyond must be stopping to stare and wonder.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ She shook the doll, but to no avail. ‘Please!’ In panic she tried to smother the small screaming face with a fistful of woollen shawl, but it only muffled the sound a little. At last, in sheer desperation, she threw the doll across the room as hard as she could. It hit the wall head first with a crack like a gunshot, and the scream cut out, leaving a chilling silence.

Triss walked over to Angelina. Tump, thump, thump went her heart, like a policeman beating at a criminal’s door. She turned the doll over with her foot. Angelina’s face was cracked from one side to the other. Her mouth was still open, as were her eyes.

Triss dropped to her knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered uselessly. ‘I… I didn’t mean to…’

She would be found kneeling over Angelina like a murderer over a corpse. Panicking, she pulled a couple of logs out of the basket by the hearth, pushed the broken doll into the basket’s base and piled the wood back on top. Perhaps nobody would find her until after the family had left.

The door opened unexpectedly, just as Triss was straightening again. She spun around guiltily, mouth dry. Somebody had come to investigate the terrible screaming, of course they had. What explanation could she possibly give them?