Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

‘I think they’re doing what the Architect does to make people see him as handsome,’ she whispered. ‘It’s probably the same thing the bird-things do, so everyone thinks they’re just birds. Lying to people’s minds without saying anything. But those two over there… I don’t think they’re very good at it.’

‘I had an odd feeling about them, but…’ Violet trailed off, frowning.

‘It’s as if they’re wearing a lie, but it doesn’t fit them.’ Trista tried to straighten her thoughts. ‘They haven’t buttoned it the right way, so it’s baggy in some places and coming away in others.’

And maybe Pen and I can see through it more easily because we’ve had more dealings with the Besiders , she added silently in her head. I’m almost one of them, and we’ve both been to the Underbelly. It’s as if we have a stamp on our passport.

‘Well, we can’t stand here in the street,’ muttered Violet, looking warily about her. She gave the tea room an appraising glance, then pulled off her gloves and strode resolutely towards it, Trista and Pen keeping pace.

The tea room looked self-possessed but a little weather-worn. Celeste would probably have sniffed at it for being ‘plain’ and ‘frequented by all sorts’. Compared to the pretty Lyons tea shops with their fancy cakes in the window, it did look a bit drab.

Violet pushed the door open, and the girls filed in behind her. They traipsed through the ground-floor bakery, then up the stairs to the first floor.

The tea shop itself had walls the pale colour of egg custard, interrupted by occasional paintings of nursery-book scenes where wispy fairies danced with mice. There were about twenty square tables, two-thirds of them occupied. A couple of female staff in aprons hurried to and fro bearing plates of cake, and making ready the pots at the corner counter, with its row of great steel urns, spotted with age.

A smell of cooking sausages made Trista’s stomach leapfrog. With a shock she realized that it was probably lunchtime. The day was seeping out of her fist like so much dry sand.

‘I’m really hungry,’ declared Pen in a half-growl, half-whine.

Violet chose a table in the corner by the window, so that they could keep a discreet eye on the street.

While Violet ordered crumpets and tea from the waitress at the counter, Trista cast a careful glance across the dining area. At a distant table she saw the mysterious couple from the boat, heads stooped together in earnest conference. Then her eye strayed to the next table, and the next, and the next…

A twitch of the head that was too rapid, too hawk-like. A flash of silver in the eyes. A furtive licking of a jam knife with a long tongue. Boots that in shadow seemed to have toes…

‘What is it?’ murmured Violet, as she returned to the table.

‘Other Besiders,’ breathed Trista.

Violet nodded very slowly, taking in the information. ‘How many?’

‘Do you see the waitresses?’ whispered Trista. ‘And the two ladies eating bacon over there? And the old man in the worn-out hat, and the young man with the newspaper?’

Violet nodded.

‘Well…’ Trista hesitated. ‘I think those are the only ones who aren’t Besiders.’

Violet grimaced and hissed her breath in through her teeth.

The tea shop was filled with a commonplace-sounding hum of conversation, but when Trista focused she could hear what her fellow diners were really saying to the waitresses that came to take their order. It was like those moments when Triss’s father tuned the family wireless and brought voices magically into clarity.

‘Bring us butter! Butter! Never mind the bread.’

‘Good afternoon. I am not here to devour you. Now bring me sweetmeats so that I may pass as one of your kind.’

‘A glass of your tears, my honey. What? Oh. Tea then.’

The two waitresses were young, tired-looking women, and Trista noticed that both of them looked tense and strained. They made mistakes, miscounted money, occasionally knocked over a milk pot or rattled their trays. The other non-Besider customers had the same air of confused unease.

‘We should have brought a rooster!’ hissed Pen.

Trista blinked hard, and realized that the strange, seated figures had something else in common. All of them were wearing overcoats or long shawls in shades of grey or brown, made of the same dull, tufted fabric. As she watched, a woman at a far table yawned, and her coat seemed to ripple and flutter in a way that was familiar.

‘Look at their coats!’ Trista murmured. ‘I know it’s difficult – your eye doesn’t want to see them – but look . I think they’re made of feathers. Bird-thing feathers.’

All three of them jumped when a tea tray was set down with a slight clatter. Trista flinched, wondering how much the waitress had heard.

‘I love children.’ The waitress winked at Violet. ‘They always have a world of their own, don’t they?’ She set out the crumpets, butter and jam in front of the threesome, and gave Trista and Pen a broad, indulgent smile. ‘You girls make the most of it while you can, that’s all I can say.’

Trista and Pen stared back at her with dark, round, exhausted eyes.

‘I want a spoon, please,’ said Pen dourly.

The waitress had barely turned her back when another figure drifted into the room. At first glance she looked like somebody’s smartly dressed aunt, in tweed hat and coat. As Trista stared, however, the illusion split like the skin of a rotten fruit. She saw beneath it the red doll-cheek circles painted on to the drowned-looking face, the cat’s tails knotted into the floor-length black hair. The woman drifted like a mote on the breeze and came to a halt by their table.

Cowslip-yellow eyes passed over Violet and Pen, then fixed on Trista.

‘These two – are they yours?’ asked the woman. Her voice seemed to be made of the sobs of children in some distant cavern. Her gaze crept pointedly towards Violet and Pen.

That’s almost exactly the same question the couple from the boat asked. What does it mean? And why are they all asking me that?

Because they’ve seen something in me that is like them. They think I’m a Besider too. And they want to know if Violet and Pen are my… friends? My pets?

‘Yes,’ Trista said defensively, hoping she was giving the safer answer. ‘They’re mine.’

‘I’m n—’ began Pen, then gave a yelp as Trista kicked her. ‘Ow!’

‘I’m still training the small one,’ Trista said quickly, recalling the Architect’s words on the telephone. Oh, you have her trained then, do you?

Violet put an arm around Pen, perhaps to comfort, perhaps to restrain. Her gaze flicked from Trista’s face to that of the stranger and her brow furrowed in frustrated concentration.

The woman appeared to accept Trista’s answer, giving a slight nod, then put her head on one side.

‘Where is your coat?’ she asked, in her eerie, echoing voice. ‘I was told we were all to wear coats on arrival. So that we would not… cause remark.’ The last words were pronounced carefully, as if she was reciting them from memory.

‘I don’t need one.’ Trista watched the woman closely for any sign of reaction. ‘I didn’t arrive today – I was already here.’

The woman’s yellow eyes became butter-bright with interest.

‘You have been living in this… town then? And is it true about the bells?’

Trista nodded. ‘They cannot hurt us.’

‘I wanted to believe,’ breathed the woman. She shook her head. ‘I had no choice but to believe, to take a chance. Are you one of our guides then, for the ride tonight?’

‘No.’ Trista sipped slowly from her teacup to give herself time to think. ‘But I might join the ride… for fun. How much have you been told about it?’