Cuckoo Song

Chapter 34. A GAPING HOLE

Trista’s jaw seemed to have locked solid, and minutes passed before she was able to call back. There was a pattering of steps down in the street, and then the tiny figure of Violet emerged in the road below her.

‘Trista?’

Trista only managed a faint squeak in response. The street now looked terrifyingly far down, and the drop dragged at her stomach. She closed her eyes, hugged her knees and couldn’t move. The air was cold.

She was dimly aware of noises below, a rapping on wood, voices, creaks and bangs. Then something clacked loudly against the guttering near her feet. She opened her eyes, and her gaze settled upon the top prongs of a wooden ladder, shifting uneasily against the roof’s edge. After a sequence of creaks, Violet’s head and shoulders rose into view.

‘Come on,’ was all she said, very quietly. Trista edged over and shakily followed Violet back down the ladder. At the bottom, a stout man in a dressing gown viewed Trista with outrage.

‘You said it was your cat what was stuck on my roof!’ he exclaimed, glaring at Violet.

‘Thanks for the use of the ladder,’ Violet answered him blandly.

‘Here, wait! What was she doing—’

Violet turned on him.

‘My daughter sleepwalks,’ she declared icily, ‘and I didn’t want to spend an hour explaining that to you. What do you want me to do – put her back on the roof?’ Before the enraged man could reply, Violet took Trista by the hand and led her back to the alley where the motorcycle was waiting.

Thank you. Trista mouthed the words, but could not give them voice. Thank you for coming to rescue me. More than anything else, it was the way Violet had called Trista her daughter that set Trista’s eyes prickling. It made her feel that she had something small, fragile and warm to hold on to, something to put in the hole left by the fragments that the wind had chased across the roofs.

They rode back in silence. When they had slipped into the attic of Jack’s house, they sat down on one of the mattresses and Trista told of the chase, in whispers to avoid waking Pen. Violet hugged her all the while.

‘It’s not over,’ Violet murmured at last. ‘We’ll find them tomorrow. But now you need to sleep. You’re pale as paper.’

‘But I’m afraid to sleep!’ whispered Trista. ‘What if I fall to pieces before I wake up? What if tomorrow morning I’m just a pile of leaves and sticks tucked under a blanket? What if this is the last time I’ve got left, and I waste it all being asleep, then wake up dead?’

For a moment, Violet looked conflicted. Then her jaw set, and she took Trista by the shoulders.

‘You won’t,’ she said gently but firmly. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t. I’ll be watching you sleep. And if your hair starts to turn into leaves, or anything like that, I’ll wake you up.’

‘You promise?’ Trista felt the icy, titanic force of her terror recede a step or two. ‘You… you won’t leave me when I’m asleep and go out?’

‘I promise,’ said Violet, with a firmness in her tone that allowed no doubt. Her dark grey eyes were resolute as flint.

The long path down to the Grimmer had changed. Now it was knobbly with the roots of twisted trees. Rotting apples puckered on the grass like ancient, wizened faces. There were words to the birdsong and the leaves were softly laughing. Under Trista’s bare feet she could feel a flutter in the turf like a pulse. Ahead through the trees she could make out the sleek, obsidian surface of the water. An inky threat, a coal-black promise.

You have nothing of your own, said the Grimmer. Everything you have is borrowed, and when it is paid back there will be nothing left. Even your time is borrowed, and it is running out. One day. One left…

The wind rose and became bitingly chill. Trista could feel it starting to tear her apart like a dandelion clock…

…and then she woke, shivering with the cold.

She was in one of the attic beds, tucked under a blanket. Nearby, Violet reclined in a chair, her face set in a frown, her head moving in the discontented manner of one who is nodding in and out of slumber. Beyond her, in another bed, Pen was still fast asleep. White morning light was creeping in through the skylight.

Morning. My last morning. Only one more day…

The thought stared back at her, bald, cold and inescapable as the sky.

Trista’s breath was steam. She sat up, chafing feeling back into her hands.

Violet started fully awake, glaring around her for a baffled instant with glass-eyed antagonism.

‘Oh.’ She recovered herself, and let out her breath. ‘Still with us then?’ She came over and studied Trista with a speculative scowl, then drew her fingers through Trista’s hair, causing a faint, crackling rustle.

Violet stared down at the dead leaves in her hand, biting her lower lip hard.

‘It could be worse,’ she muttered under her breath.

‘It is worse,’ Trista said softly. She did not need to say anything more.

‘We still have a day,’ Violet answered doggedly.

‘What time is it?’ asked Trista.

Violet strode to the skylight, peered out and gave vent to a not-in-front-of-children word. Tiptoeing to her side over the chill floor, Trista could see at a glance why Violet had sworn.

The window was covered in a delicate lacework of frost, and through it Trista could just make out a faint sugaring on the nearby roofs and some gleaming thread-like icicles drooping from the guttering opposite. The sky was an uneasy grey, tinged with sepia. Storm yellow. The heavy yellow of a sky full of snow.

Violet’s face was mask-like, but in her clenched jaw and the movement of her eyes Trista detected panic and a deep-seated dread. With a shock she realized how much she had asked of Violet the night before. For Trista’s sake, she had stayed in one place for hours. Now Winter, which had been stalking Violet in vain all these years, was settling upon Ellchester with unseasonable speed.

‘You cursed !’ A sleepy, querulous-looking Pen was sitting up in her bed.

‘Right after breakfast, I need to go out,’ declared Violet. ‘I’ll head to Plotmore Hill – that was where you lost track of the midnight ride, wasn’t it, Trista? You two will have to stay here.’

Both girls started to protest.

‘No arguments,’ Violet told them flatly, with a concerned glance at Trista.

Breakfast was chaotic and sparse. Jack was apparently still asleep. His aunt and brother-in-law had already left for work, and his two teenage sisters were just hurrying out to their jobs at the laundry. His mother and eldest sister were getting ready to go to the market, so making breakfast was left to Jack’s eight-year-old niece, who took care of it with the briskness of practice, pausing to wipe the faces of the younger children like a miniature mother.

Everybody’s fingers were numb with cold, but the cover remained in place over the hearth. The tea tasted like puddle water. Breakfast was a slice of bread with margarine. Violet devoured hers in seconds and then fidgeted, waiting for everyone else.

‘But I’m still hungry!’ protested Pen. ‘Why are they getting more?’ The younger children in Jack’s family were being handed a second slice of bread and margarine, wrapped in paper.

‘That’s their lunch, Pen,’ muttered Violet with a wince. ‘They’re taking it to school.’

Whenever she got the chance, Trista tried to make eye contact with Violet, willing her to hear her mute appeal. Please don’t leave me behind with Pen! I don’t know if she’s safe with me! But Violet seemed stubbornly determined to avoid her eye, and kept following Jack’s mother and sister with her gaze.

Trista barely noticed the front door slam, but was slightly surprised when Jack’s oldest sister came back into the kitchen, removing the hat and coat she had just donned.

‘Mum’s just gone to buy some bread and eggs,’ she said brightly, ‘so you can have a breakfast that’s closer to what you’re used to. I’m to stay and make you more tea. Wait there and make yourselves comfortable.’ She ran up the stairs, presumably to put away her hat and coat.

Instantly Violet rose from her chair, taking care not to let the feet scrape.

‘We’re leaving,’ she said softly. ‘Quickly and quietly. Now.’

When the trio were back on the street, Pen stared back incredulously at the house. ‘Why did we leave? They were going to make us more breakfast!’

‘We’re in the newspapers,’ Violet said in a low tone. ‘I’ll bet my hide on it. The paper arrived while we were eating. Jack’s mother and sister read it, then went to whisper in the hall. Then Jack’s sister came back to keep us here. Jack’s mother must have gone to the police. There’s probably a reward.’

‘She betrayed us for money?’ Pen exclaimed in disbelief. ‘I’m going back to break her windows!’

‘Don’t you dare!’ snapped Violet, then sighed and gave Pen a gentle exasperated look. ‘Pen… money only seems like a mean reason if you’ve never had to think about it. Most people have to think about it all the time. Money doesn’t mean cake and diamonds; it means finally paying off what you owe to the landlord, the baker and the tally man. It means having coins for the gas meter, so you don’t have to chop up your shelves for firewood. It means keeping the wolf from the door for a while.

‘She didn’t owe us a thing, Pen, and if she doesn’t fight for her family, no one else will.’

The wolf from the door. Hunger was like a wolf, Trista reflected. She had felt its teeth savaging her innards many times now. She had been caught up in her own self-absorbed, frantic battle with it, and had never considered that many people might go through their whole lives with the wolf trotting a pace behind them. Perhaps she had still been trapped in Triss’s conviction that the world revolved around her own needs and suffering. Her own story now seemed very small.

Then her personal terror consumed her again, and she snatched at Violet’s sleeve.

‘Violet! I left Triss’s dress behind in the attic room!’

‘Oh hell !’ Violet looked back the way they had come, clearly conflicted. ‘Trista… I’m sorry. We can’t go back. It’s just too dangerous. Let me know if you start to get hungry and… I’ll think of something.’

‘So… are we going to meet racketeers?’ asked Pen when they had parked the motorbike on Plotmore Hill. ‘Will they have guns? Are you their moll?’

‘No, Pen!’ Violet rolled her eyes. ‘Guns only happen in movies and America. And I’m not a moll, for crying out loud! Most of the time I just deliver things. That’s why I have the sidecar, so I can load it up with anything or anyone that needs to get somewhere fast. And I’m a good mechanic who doesn’t ask questions – even if the car I’m fixing is full of black-market tinned cheese.’

‘A mechanic?’ Pen seemed uncertain whether to be scandalized or disappointed.

‘Yes,’ Violet grimaced. ‘One of the things I learned during the War. Strange – the War was probably the best schooling I ever had. I signed up to help with the War effort, and first they sent me to work in one of those munitions factories. I made a lot of friends there – mostly other munitionettes – and it certainly knocked the corners off me. Many of the male workers didn’t really want us there, you see, and there was a lot of bullying and name-calling. One girl even had her tool drawer nailed shut when she was out of the room.

‘Then I was reassigned and found myself driving this clapped-out ambulance. I had to learn my way around an engine, just to keep the darn thing on the move. I didn’t expect I would need the knowledge again after the War ended, but –’ she shrugged – ‘what else can I do? Even if I could find a job where I didn’t need to stay in one place more than three hours at a time, why would anyone give it to me when they can pay half as much to some fourteen-year-old fresh out of school?’

‘Violet.’ Pen’s brow was creased. ‘If lots of people don’t have any money or work, why don’t any of them want to be our kitchen maid? Mother says it’s impossible to find anyone.’

Violet walked on for a little while before answering.

‘I’m sorry, Pen,’ she said at last, ‘but your mother has a reputation. She fires her servants at the drop of a hat, and doesn’t give references, which means they can’t get another job. Clara Bassett says that most servants in Ellchester have been warned about your family.’

‘Clara Bassett?’ Pen looked incredulous. ‘Do you mean Cook?’

Violet nodded. ‘I still talk to her now and then. Every time your mother hires a new maid or governess, Mrs Bassett tries to take them under her wing. Apparently she always warns them to avoid you and Triss as much as possible – particularly Triss.’

‘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.

‘I was… I was hungry, Pen.’ How inadequate those words sounded. ‘I’m… hungry.’

‘I’m still hungry too,’ replied Pen mournfully. Trista could hear the smaller girl dropping to a crouch next to her.

‘I’m… I’m really hungry, Pen.’ Trista swallowed drily. ‘I think… I think it’s because I lost bits of myself on roofs last night, when I was chasing the Architect. Those pieces left a hole, Pen. And I think that’s why I’m so very, very…’ She trailed off, clenching her hands into fists.

‘Then eat more things!’ Pen sounded dismayed. ‘I can get you leaves!’

‘It’s no good,’ Trista said through gritted teeth. ‘They have to be Triss things.’

‘You can’t fall apart!’ shouted Pen, as if it was something she could insist upon. ‘I… I won’t let you!’ Before Trista could react she felt Pen’s arms thrown around her, with the desperate energy of a rugby tackle. ‘You can’t !’

Pen.

Trista closed her eyes and held Pen tightly. She clung to the one thing that felt warm and solid in her strange, unforgiving world.

Suddenly Pen gave a squeak and wince.

‘Ow! Triss… why are you spiking me?’

Trista’s gaze dropped to her hands. The thorns were out, curling from her fingertips like bramble briars, digging in through the shoulders of Pen’s light dress. Her tongue could feel the fine points of tapering teeth. And her arms were curled around something that was banquets, and lemonade on a summer day, and hot soup in winter… and there was a hole inside her like a bottomless shaft that a person might just tumble into…

She pushed Pen away as hard as she could. The smaller girl fell backwards, hitting the cobbles with a yelp. Winded, she stared up at Trista, and her expression of outrage and shock slowly ebbed into horror and fear.

Trista dared not stay another moment. She backed away, then turned and sprang on to the top of the nearest wall. From there she dropped down on the other side into a neighbouring alley, landing at a crouch with her heart hammering. Then she was away and running, head ducked down to hide her monstrous face.