Frances Hardinge - Cuckoo Song

Trista lay sobbing for breath on the stone flags, looking at the watch still clutched in her shaking hand. She sat up slowly and painfully, hearing the rustle as straw seeped out of her seams.

With her claws, she prised open the back of the watch. There, amid the works, was a small strand of faded brown hair. Carefully she prised it out, and as it finally pulled free the tiny mechanism began to move.

She closed her eyes, and imagined a spirit slipping free of the imprisoning cogs, escaping the terrible weight of winter. She thought she heard the wind surge softly, as if in a sigh, and then fall silent.

‘Goodbye, Sebastian,’ she whispered.

The Architect had enchanted the watch to be a master of time, instead of just a servant. Sebastian’s hair in the device had bound him to it, and when the watch was stopped, he had been trapped between life and death. But the watch was not linked to Sebastian alone. Sebastian had left it to Violet, the woman he cared about more than any possession. So it had trapped her too, binding her to an undying dead man and his unending winter.

The ticking of the watch was freedom for Sebastian, freedom for Violet. But now it was biting away the last seconds of Trista’s life.

I’m out of time , she thought, as leaves fell past her face like confetti. I’m out of time.

And then the Architect’s words forced their way into her mind once more. A watch can be taught to be a master of time, not just a servant.

She stared at the watch, barely daring to understand her newest thought. She was running out of time, but in her hand lay something that perhaps could stop the inevitable. If she could bind the watch to her… put something in the works that belonged to her…

But what did she have that was hers? Her hair was leaves, her body fragments of another’s life. Everything she had was borrowed, just as the Grimmer had said in her dream. She was litter and leavings, not a person in her own right.

‘But I am a person!’ she wailed, the room throwing back derisive echoes. ‘I’m real! I am! I’ve got a name!’

A name. Inspiration struck at last. With fingers that felt increasingly like twigs, she pulled off the bead necklace on which Pen had scrawled her new name. That at least had been given to her, and her alone. As her eyes started to blur, Trista pushed a loop of the cotton into the works. The cogs bit the cotton, gently jammed and… stopped.

The sounds woke her. A roar of engines, juddering and thundering. The hiss of sand. Shouts and orders. Gear clashes, the grinding and shrieks of metal defying its limits.

Trista opened her eyes, and found still she had eyes to open. There was a watch in her hand, and there was still a hand to hold it. She sat up with difficulty, clutching at a rent in her flank. She was weak and in pain, but there was still a Trista to be weak and in pain. There was a strange numb lightness in her head that wanted to become joy, but was not yet sure how to go about it.

It took her a moment to realize what the noises must mean. Those were not Besider noises. Those were the sounds of a construction site. Somewhere out there, ordinary hard-working people were preparing to place the cap on the pyramid of the station. She was still running out of time.

She clambered unsteadily to her feet, tucking the precious watch into a pocket, and staggered to the doorway, stooping now and then to scoop up precious fragments from her innards. Beyond it lay the Architect’s stone-walled labyrinth.

By all means try to find your way out , the Architect had told her. You will fail.

But the Architect had not reckoned on the trail that Trista had left, all too unwillingly, as he dragged her down corridor after corridor. Her wake had been scattered with scraps and stray leaves. Now, leaning against the walls for support, Trista followed them back.

She would not be fast enough. Outside she could hear megaphone speeches, and applause from a crowd. Then a deep, juddering thrum that had to be the engine of the great crane…

…which cut out again. There was silence, and then a discontented, puzzled hum of voices that went on and on. New speeches followed, apologetic in tone.

They’ve stopped. They’ve stopped!

Pen, wonderful Pen! You did it! You made them stop.

At long last, she found the little door through which the Architect had dragged her. With a painful, incredulous surge of hope she pushed it open, and then stopped dead.

The room beyond was filled with figures. A montage of Besider faces glared at her, stripped of all disguise, their features twisted by anger and grief. At their head stood the Shrike, his eyes burning under his bowler hat.

‘The Architect!’ was the whisper that ran through the crowd. ‘The Architect! The Architect!’

Trista remembered the long, resonating scream, and her heart plummeted. They had all heard it. They knew what had happened. No tears or pleas would placate them for the loss of their hero, their saviour. And so she did not weep, and did not plead. Instead, she looked straight into the eyes of the Shrike.

‘They’ve stopped work out there – have you noticed that, Shrike? Piers Crescent won’t let them put the cap on the pyramid until he knows I’m safe. And if he doesn’t, this building will be unfinished. Unsafe for all the people who want to live here.’

A tremor of uncertainty passed through the crowd, and all faces turned to look at the Shrike. As Trista had guessed, in the absence of the Architect, the Shrike was the obvious leader.

His bulldog features twitched with suppressed feeling. Again she thought she sensed behind them a curved beak, this time itching to snap her in two, or crack her like a nut. All that he needed to do was give the word, and his fellows would rip her to shreds. But, she realized, that was the last thing he could do. He was bound by a magic promise not to harm her, either directly or indirectly.

‘If you don’t make peace with Piers Crescent,’ Trista went on, as calmly as she could, given that she was using one hand to stop her insides falling out, ‘it will mean disaster for everybody sooner or later. For him, and for you and your people. Will you let me talk to him for you? Or will you make the same mistake as the Architect, and tear apart everything for revenge?’

The Shrike bristled for a few more seconds, then made a curt, angry gesture to the others, who reluctantly fell back towards the banqueting hall. It was not simply wrath that was brightening the Shrike’s button eyes, however, as he scrutinized Trista’s living, breathing form like someone analysing a conjuror’s trick.

‘ How did you… ?’ His grey gaze flickered with something that might have been respect.

‘Maybe you made me better than you thought,’ answered Trista.

He glared at her, then shook his head.

‘Somebody get the lady a ladder,’ he barked, his tone heavy with reluctance. His gaze passed over her rents and tears, and he winced fastidiously, conflict visible in his face. In the end, impulse triumphed over restraint. ‘And… And while we’re waiting, my needle and thread!’ He gave Trista the angriest smile in the world.

‘We are not friends, Cuckoo, but if I am letting you out, you will not emerge looking like some seamstress-in-training patched you together with her eyes closed. I am a craftsman, and I have my pride.’

For the next few days, the Crescent family was front-page news, but the stories about them were very confusing. It was public knowledge that both the kidnapped Crescent girls were safe and well, but there were wild and varied reports of their rescue.