Cuckoo Song

Chapter 19. RUNNING FROM THE SCISSOR MAN

Pebbles clacked under their hasty steps with a cold, disapproving sound. The wind was against them. Overhead the clouds rolled by, solemn, smoky and vast, the pale face of the moon surfacing now and then. The black waves seethed unseen against the black beach, only occasional frills of white foam visible in the gloom.

Pen ran alongside her, panting fiercely. Her silveriness of the day before seemed to have worn off, and she was now as dark and solid as she had ever been. Not-Triss could not even start to guess how Pen had contrived to suddenly appear here, let alone why the younger girl had decided to save her.

Panic had led them down the beach, because it was flat, and panic told them they needed to run fast. Panic had nothing to suggest when the beach ran out and they found themselves staring at the cliff-face of the headland that formed the end of the cove. They halted for a second, staring and gasping for breath, and Not-Triss recovered enough of her wits to realize how exposed they were.

‘Head inland!’ she hissed. ‘Into the woods!’

The pair of them scrambled up the beach, over some slippery wave-worn boulders and into the birch wood beyond. Staring up the steep, tree-covered slope that seemed to climb forever, Not-Triss felt the clammy touch of despair.

The woods were thick with wet rust-coloured bracken, which soaked them as they struggled up the slope, and hid their own feet from them. The damp moss and leaf-rot were softly treacherous underfoot. The silver-birch trunks gleamed in the darkness like lean and elegant ghosts.

There was no sound of pursuit behind them yet, but there would be. Not-Triss was sure of that. Mr Grace and Piers Crescent must have gone to find light sources. And scissors, said a fearful part of her mind. She tried to silence it, but she could not rid herself of a mental picture of Mr Grace bounding up the slope after her with a pair of enormous scissors, like the ‘long, red-legged scissorman’ from the old story, who cut off children’s thumbs.

They tried to throw me on the fire.

Her lungs started jerking with sobs. She couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not when she needed every ounce of breath for climbing. If they could just reach the road…

But Pen kept falling down. Her legs were shorter. The bracken came up to her waist, not her hips. Not-Triss caught her and helped pull her back to her feet over, and over, and over. At last, when Not-Triss stooped to drag her upright for the twentieth time, Pen pushed her away hard, so that Not-Triss nearly slid back down the slope.

‘I hate you!’ Pen’s would-be shout was muffled by breathlessness, and Not-Triss realized that the younger girl was sobbing with exhaustion and rage. ‘I hate you! You stupid… Why did you have to happen? I never asked for a stupid… stupid… toothy… stupid… monster thing.’

‘I know,’ whispered Not-Triss. It was all she could do to keep her voice quiet and calm. Her mind was a thundercloud, waiting for the first crack.

‘You spoil everything! Always! Even when you’re just fake you, you still spoil everything. And now you’ve made me run away again!’

There were lights further down the slope, tame white-yellow lights that swivelled and scanned, foliage feathering their beams. Hand lamps, perhaps, or electric torches.

‘Pen,’ breathed Not-Triss, ‘they’re coming. They’re coming after us, Pen.’ With despair she stared down at Pen’s round, stubborn face.

Please, Pen, please! I’m so close to screaming. Don’t make me carry you! I can’t! I can’t do that as well!

‘We’ve got to get up to the road, Pen,’ she heard herself say. ‘It’ll be easier then. And we’re nearly there.’

‘Liar,’ growled Pen, as she scrambled to her feet with painful slowness. ‘Lying… monster-face.’ Nonetheless she continued her struggle up the slope, sobbing for breath.

When the rain descended, at first Not-Triss did not know what it was. All she knew was that the air suddenly rushed downward, waterfall-cold, and the forest gave a long exhalation like a sigh of relief. Then she felt the chill, heavy finger-taps of fat raindrops on her skull and understood.

She closed her eyes in an instant of gratitude. The weather was on her side for once. Their scuffles and rustles would be much harder for their pursuers to hear now.

We must be near the top. Please let us be near the top.

It became a chant in her head, and the words had almost lost meaning by the time she scrambled over one more tussock, and found herself staring at the winding, puddle-silvered road. Her legs burned and her head felt light.

‘We’re here.’ She could force no triumph into her voice. She realized that she had no idea what to do next.

‘Triss,’ said Pen in a small voice, looking back down the slope.

Not-Triss followed her gaze and felt a tingle of panic pass through her whole frame. The following lights were closer now. She could even make out the dark shapes of figures behind them. So what if their pursuers could not hear them over the rain? They knew that the girls had nowhere to head but the road.

Not-Triss stared up and down the lane, searching blindly for inspiration, but it was Pen who spoke first, through the dripping fuzz of her hair.

‘We need to catch a lift. We need a car.’

As if Pen had spoken some summoning spell, Not-Triss realized that near the bend in the road the puddles were brightening. A moment later, two circular yellow headlights swung round the corner, their radiance dimpled by the rain.

Both girls desperately waved their arms at the oncoming car, and Pen whooped to get the driver’s attention. The car showed no sign of slowing, however, and swerved to the other side of the road.

Before Not-Triss could stop her, Pen broke away from her and sprinted into the road, so that she was standing in the middle of it as the sedan sliced past—

Bang.

There was a high-pitched, childish scream. Not-Triss stood gasping amid the rain as the car screeched to a halt ten yards on. There was a small figure lying behind it on the road, face up. Not-Triss’s skin seemed to be covered in ants and she could not feel her insides.

It was a few seconds before she recovered the use of her limbs, and by then the driver was getting out and staring in horror at Pen’s fallen form.

‘She… She ran out…’ he stammered helplessly.

‘She’s got a pulse!’ Not-Triss had insides again, though they seemed to have been jumbled and turned over like the contents of a manhandled crate. ‘She needs a hospital! You need to take her to a hospital!’

The driver crouched to examine Pen. He was young, with a nice-enough face, somewhat crumpled by uncertainty.

‘Where are your parents?’ he asked.

‘They’re not here! There’s just you, and you have to do something! She’s cold and she’s got rain falling on her face and she’s been hit by a car!’ Not-Triss could feel herself losing control. If she was not careful, soon her screams would be tearing the forests apart like a cyclone. ‘We need to take her to a hospital!’

‘Yes – yes, we will. Don’t be scared.’ The driver smoothed back his wet hair as if ordering his thoughts, then carefully scooped up Pen in his arms. He put her in the back seat, and Not-Triss climbed in next to her.

This car did not have a starter button like the Sunbeam, and Not-Triss had to watch while the driver wrestled with a crank handle on the front of the car, to get the engine started again. She was close to breaking by the time he climbed back into the driver’s seat.

As the car drove away, Not-Triss saw two lights emerge from the woods and pan after them. Her mind was so full of Pen that it took her a moment to even realize what they had been, and by then they were disappearing around the darkened bend.

Don’t you dare die, Pen. It was all Not-Triss could think, over and over. I’ll never forgive you if you die.

‘There’s a hospital near Ellchester,’ the driver said, obviously fighting to keep his voice calm. ‘It’s about twenty miles. Just twenty miles. It won’t take long.’

He kept up a countdown as he drove. Each time they passed a signpost, he let Not-Triss know how close they were.

‘Three miles,’ he said at last. ‘We’re just passing Bobbeck Ridge…’

It was at this point that something completely unexpected happened. Pen suddenly sat bolt upright, peered out through the wet glass at the signpost, then thumped the back of the driver’s seat.

‘Here! You can let us out here! I’m… feeling better now.’

The driver jumped out of his skin, and nearly hit the signpost. He pulled the car up by the side of the road and turned to stare over his shoulder.

‘What?’

Pen looked meek.

‘I’m all right now. I just fainted. And now I’m better. And we live down there.’ She pointed to a cluster of seedy-looking buildings on the banks of the estuary. ‘Thank you for the lift!’

‘Hey!’ The driver’s face reddened. ‘Were you faking back there?’

Pen did not wait to continue the conversation, but opened the door and leaped out into the rain with no obvious sign of injury. Not-Triss followed as quickly as she could. They splashed quickly away from the car as the driver gave them a suspicious scowl and began the slow and awkward task of wrestling his vehicle back on to the road.

‘You were faking!’ exclaimed Not-Triss in disbelief. ‘But… there was a bang!’

Pen shrugged. ‘I threw a rock at the side of the car, then I screamed. Cars always stop when they think they’ve hit you. You don’t know anything, do you?’ Her determinedly complacent look faded a little after a second, and her teeth started to chatter. ‘I need to use the bathroom,’ she announced without preamble, then turned and started slithering her unsteady way down the wet wooden steps to the riverside.

Not-Triss stared after her, the rain beating drums on the boardwalk before her. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to laugh.

Pen, she thought in the quiet of her own head, you’re amazing.