Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

‘Why?’ asked Pen. Violet did not respond, but Trista thought she knew the answer.

Trista thought of Celeste jealously patrolling her children, unable to bear Triss showing fondness for anybody else. Cook had survived by remaining stubbornly and stoicially invisible in her basement. Discovering that Cook had opinions about the Crescents was rather like finding that a familiar wardrobe opened on to an entirely new house. Violet halted outside a shop, which the striped pole proclaimed to be a barber’s. The bell tinkled as she entered, Trista and Pen a step behind.

Two young men with hair oiled to blackbird sleekness were attending to customers, one trimming a moustache and another brushing hair cuttings from a portly neck. Neither exactly smiled to see Violet, but neither looked unfriendly. One gave a small nod in the direction of a door further in the shop. Violet returned the nod, and strode through the second door.

The room at the back was scruffy but practical. A broad-set man with coppery hair was seated at a desk, scanning sports pages and marking results in pen.

‘Frosty!’ he said as Violet entered the room. ‘Always a pleasure to see you.’

‘Bill,’ Violet said without preamble, ‘I need to ask you something downright peculiar. I know you had some boys… working late here last night. Did any of them happen to hear anything odd go by at about midnight?’

‘Midnight?’ Bill narrowed his eyes. ‘Do you mean the geese?’

‘Geese?’ asked Violet.

‘Great big flock of geese,’ replied Bill. ‘We heard ’em go over just after midnight. That’s the fourth night in a row that it’s happened too.’

‘Did you see where they went?’ Violet asked promptly.

‘They swooped over, then curved about and headed back towards the centre of the city.’ Bill looked at Violet narrowly. ‘Why are you interested?’

Trista felt a sting of relief. The overheard ‘geese’ could only be the Architect’s midnight riders, and if he had headed back to the centre then at least he had probably not taken Triss out of Ellchester.

‘You wouldn’t believe me.’ Violet grimaced.

‘I ask, because I’m rather interested myself,’ continued Bill. ‘Geese don’t just circle like that for no reason. I think something’s been frightening them into the sky each night. As you know, I got some runners placed down in the Old Docks – they tell me that about four days ago strange boats started turning up. Small, old-fashioned craft. They draw up at the quays in the afternoon and evening and let off passengers. By dawn they’re gone again. Something’s happening down there. I’d like to know what it is.’

‘What did the passengers look like?’ Pen asked impulsively.

‘That’s the rum part.’ Bill scratched his head. ‘Nobody could describe them, not even how many there were, or whether they were dressed shabby or ritzy. But they agreed on one thing: none of the passengers had any luggage.’

Things half seen and half heard. People hard to describe. In between and misty, dancing flea-footed across the numb places in people’s minds. And these strange boats had started turning up at about the same time the Architect began riding over the city.

Trista made eye contact with Violet. Besiders , she mouthed.

At this point, one of the barbers from the shop slipped into the back room and cleared his throat.

‘Mr Siskin,’ he said to Bill, ‘there’s a hare coursing that I thought might interest you, sir.’ He took up the paper on the desk, turned back some pages, then handed it to Bill with a meaningful look.

After the barber had left, Bill looked at the paper in his hands for a long moment. Then he sniffed and spread it out on the desk, beckoning Violet over.

‘I’ve seen better likenesses,’ he said.

The photograph of Violet showed her as a sweet-faced girl in her late teens, with a lustrous flood of ringlets. Nobody glancing at that picture would have guessed how a few years could have pulled that face taut, giving it anger and angles.

The other picture was a photograph that had been taken of the Crescent family less than a year before. It was the standard family pose that photographers loved, mother seated, children arranged ornamentally on either side, and father resting a proprietorial hand on the back of her chair. Through Triss’s memories, Trista could even remember posing for the photograph, having to hold still for what seemed an age while the image seared its way slowly into the film.

Pen had not held perfectly still, of course, so there was a slight ghostly smudge of movement to one side of her face, but she was still recognizable. Triss’s purse-mouthed countenance, on the other hand, had a frozen clarity beneath its floppy white ribbon.

‘CRESCENT DAUGHTERS KIDNAPPED’ thundered the headline. Trista’s eye tumbled helplessly down the columns of inky lettering. Violet Parish sought in connection with the disappearance… no ransom demand as yet received… rumoured to be retaliation after a financial dispute…

‘We’re not kidnapped!’ protested Trista.

‘It’s all full of made-up stories!’ stormed Pen.

‘I’m good at softening the police,’ Bill murmured, ‘but I’m not that good. What is all this about, Violet?’

‘Sorry, Bill,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s a mess. But it’s not a kidnapping.’

‘Well… that’s a shame.’ Bill sighed and tutted under his breath. ‘It’s a crying shame I didn’t read this until an hour after you’d left. I could have used that reward.’ He gave Violet a small twinkle, then frowned slightly. ‘You know where all my out-of-town friends are if you need a place to hide?’

‘I know – thanks, Bill.’ Violet gave him a small but genuine smile. She stood to leave, then hesitated. ‘Bill… do you mind if I take that paper?’

As they took to the street again, Violet handed Trista the paper.

‘It’s a picture of Triss,’ she whispered. ‘Could you eat that, if you start feeling hungry again?’

At the very thought, Trista’s appetite rose like a shark to a smell of blood. It’s all right, she told herself. I know what this is. I can handle it. She braced herself for the wave of hunger, and felt it sweep over her, but this time it continued to increase, consuming her. She was shaking uncontrollably. This was new. This was worse. She snatched the paper from Violet, her hands crushing it into a ball, and began to cram it into her mouth.

‘Holy Moses! Not in the street!’ hissed Violet. She grabbed Trista by the arm and quickly drew her into an alley. ‘I’ll stand out here and keep watch until you’ve finished.’

As Trista staggered towards the back of the alley her vision darkened and speckled. Something inside her was gaping wider and ever wider. As it did so, everything distorted, as if through a fisheye lens. Everything became smaller, small enough to push into her mouth without trying. In fact, she would have to try hard not to.

She gobbled the paper, and for a second could taste the photograph, but its Trissness was thin as gruel. For a moment her hunger dipped and waned, like a flame in a draught, but the next instant it surged into life once more. It was not enough. She needed more.

She had to eat. She had to eat. There had to be something she could eat.

Like a stray cat she scrabbled through the rubbish in the alley, looking for more copies of the Chronicle with their pictures of Triss. There were none, so in the frenzy of hunger she scooped up half-rotted scraps and swallowed them.

‘What are you doing ?’ Pen’s voice was right behind her.

Trista did not turn round but remained crouched, only raising one stealthy hand to wipe a speck of grime off her lower lip. She did not want Pen to see her face, just in case it was a monstrous, thorn-mandibled mask of hunger. If Pen kept talking to her normally, then perhaps everything could be normal.