Cuckoo Song

Chapter 23. SHIFTS AND SHIMMERS

Not-Triss told herself that she was walking along the top of a bridge, not the underside. That was the only way to stay calm. The path before her was so broad that thirty men could have stood shoulder to shoulder across it. There were curve-topped walls to either side, and they threw the walkway into ever-deepening shadow. Beyond these side walls the sky had a dull lustre like oiled lead, and against it shapes could be seen circling and skimming. They were swift as ice skates and called with their almost-gull voices.

And ahead…

‘What’s that?’ whispered Pen.

About thirty yards away, the shadowy path disappeared into a large dark mound that blocked the way entirely, like a giant molehill. Or a housemartin’s nest under the eaves, thought Not-Triss as she remembered for an instant which way was up. It was so dark that she seemed to hear the hiss as it sucked light out of the air. Its mass was irregular in shape, its outline knobbly and bristling with spikes.

As they drew closer though, the inkiness seemed to drain away. The opaque mound resolved itself into a cluster of small, dun-coloured buildings, which clustered and jostled and sat on each other’s shoulders, as if somebody had piled them into a cairn. The windows were squint-thin and without glass, the roofs sagged and dimpled like damp bread, and some had steps cut into them so that one could reach other huts further up the mound. Ladders leaned and ropes dangled, so that the whole vista looked like a strange brownish Snakes and Ladders board. There were spires, not lofty like those on a church, but wickedly slender and topped with weathervanes that moved independent of the wind. There were flagpoles too, from which drooped tattered banners, their colours too faded and grimy to be recognizable.

‘It’s a village,’ Not-Triss answered, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.

‘But we’re under the bridge, aren’t we?’ Pen scowled. ‘Why is there a village under Father’s bridge? Does he know?’

It was a surprisingly good question.

‘I don’t know,’ Not-Triss answered. ‘But I wish I did.’

There was motion in the house-mound. It was not a single flash of activity to draw the eye, but rather a universal stirring, like the subtle seething of an anthill, or the heat-shimmer of a summer day. Now and then pennants flapped with idle deliberation, like horse tails slapping at a gnat’s bite. The outlines of the roofs shifted, as if low, scarcely seen shapes were scurrying along them. There were faces at the windows too. Not-Triss never saw any of them directly – they were too quick for her – but their fleeting appearances left a smudge upon her eye.

‘I think there are people looking at us,’ hissed Pen. ‘Who are they?’

Not-Triss recalled what the captive bird-thing had said about the Architect. Of all the Besiders in these parts, he is the most powerful and dangerous. Mr Grace had used the same term back in the cottage, when he had talked of throwing her in the fire. The only way to show the Besiders that we mean business. He had believed that Not-Triss herself was a child of the Besiders, or a doll of their creation. If the Shrike had made her, then presumably he was a Besider too.

‘Besiders,’ she said aloud, trying out the word.

‘What does that mean?’ demanded Pen.

Not-Triss shrugged, trying to seem calm despite the hammering of her heart. ‘I think we’re about to find out.’

The wind’s tone changed and rippled, and now there was music riding on its back. Not-Triss had known at blood level that there would be, but the sound of it still surprised her. She realized now that she had been expecting old-fashioned instruments – pipes, fifes, fiddles and tinny drums. Instead there came the cocksure, brassy warble of a saxophone, the blare of a cornet and the squeak and trill of a clarinet being made to work for its living.

Not-Triss had heard jazz with neatly wiped shoes and jazz with gritty soles and a grin. And this too was jazz, but barefoot on the grass and blank-eyed with bliss, its musical strands irregular as wind gusts and unending as ivy vines. It was not human music; she could tell that in an instant. This was truer, purer and more chaotic, but also… colder. Human jazz was a clumsy imitation of this music, but it had blood, breath and warmth to it.

The melodies called to her, but she knew she should not answer. Her feet were full of pins, but if she let them twitch even an inch she would start dancing and never be able to stop.

Pay no heed to any music that you hear playing, the bird-thing had told her.

‘Don’t listen to the music!’ she whispered. ‘Don’t dance!’

In spite of her determination, however, her pace was increasing, trying to find a match in the rhythm of the music. Pen was speeding up beside her as well, until they were pelting along at a syncopated sprint. And then, all of a sudden, they were no longer approaching the village, they were in the midst of it, and Not-Triss had the eerie feeling they had been there for some time.

A man bowed low to them, as if thanking them for a dance. Not-Triss caught only a glimpse of his face as he straightened. His long, pointed nose and chin met and merged, making a loop like a cup handle. Then he had moved away, losing himself in a crowd that was full of cheerful noise but baffled her eye when she tried to gaze upon any part of it. The throng flowed around the two girls, apparently unconcerned by their presence. Not-Triss felt her determination waver, dissolving into the shyness and uncertainty of a child lost in the adult whirl of an unknown town.

Her everyday mind tried to tell her that she was in an ordinary street, clean and gleaming with sunlight after rain. However, her sharp eyes noticed the strangeness in the puddles, the way individual drops would swell on the surface and then fly ‘upward’, obeying the call of thwarted gravity. Her everyday mind was dazzled by the brilliant displays in the shop windows and the sweet, crimson smiles of the immaculate shop girls. However, her eyes noted the bizarreness of the wares, the gold clocks whose hands moved backwards, the arrays of tiny arrowheads made of flint, silver and glass, the cages of goats as small as mice.

None of this was wasted on Pen either.

‘Look!’ The younger girl surged towards the nearest shop window, nearly pulling Not-Triss off balance as she did so.

A moment before, Not-Triss could have sworn that the shop had been an ironmongers. Now the window display held angel cakes, strawberry puffs and glossy Bakewell puddings clustered obsequiously around vast iced creations in the shape of sleeping swans and full-skirted maidens glittering with candied fruits. Beyond them were great jars of gleaming, multicoloured sweets – gobstoppers, lollipops, barley sugars, fruit bonbons, caramels, liquorice allsorts and the floury, jelly blobs of Peace Babies. There were other sweets that were unfamiliar, however – tiny silvery eggs, mint-freckled pebbles and what looked like pale yellow strawberries with black leaves.

‘Look,’ Pen said again, in tones of awe, her eyes as large and round as Ferris wheels. ‘Triss – do you have any money?’

‘No – and we don’t have time to go shopping!’ Not-Triss could have kicked herself for letting the easily distracted Pen come with her. That the younger girl had absent-mindedly fallen back into calling her ‘Triss’ again did not reassure her much either.

‘I’m really hungry,’ declared Pen stubbornly, resisting Not-Triss’s attempts to draw her away. ‘I could go in and… you could make a distraction out here. Pretend to be ill, or—’

‘No!’ hissed Not-Triss, scandalized. ‘I’m not helping you steal sweets!’ She cast a glance over her shoulder to make sure that nobody was listening. ‘Pen – things aren’t the same here. If they catch you stealing, they won’t just call your parents or the police. They’ll…’ She trailed off, sure of her instincts but not her facts. ‘They’ll… eat you!’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ mumbled Pen, but the seeds of doubt had been sown. A moment later she flinched back from the window, eyes bright with shock. Not-Triss glanced back towards the display, and a motion caught her eye. The caramels in one of the great jars were in scuttling motion, their foil wrappers gleaming like beetle carapaces. Face reddening, Pen at last let herself be dragged away from the sweet shop.

‘Where are we?’ asked Pen. ‘What is this place? What’s wrong with it?’

‘I don’t think any of it is real,’ Not-Triss whispered back. ‘Or maybe it’s real, but isn’t the way it looks. I think everything and everybody here is… strange and dangerous. Like the Architect. And the cinema screen that tried to eat you. And like me. We need to hurry—’

Before she could finish her sentence, Pen let go of her hand and sprinted away through the crowd. When Not-Triss caught up with her, Pen was stooping to peer at a game of dice two boys were playing in the dust. When the dice tumbled to a halt, Not-Triss could see that instead of spots they had faces etched on them, all with their mouths open as if trying to call out.

‘Don’t!’ Not-Triss caught Pen’s hand as she was reaching for the dice. ‘Remember that cinema screen?’

But Pen’s attention had already moved on, closely followed by the rest of her. It was all that Not-Triss could do to keep up, and more than she could do to stop Pen tugging on ropes, straining to pluck peaches from iron trees or leaning into brine barrels and splashing the water, so that she could watch the sky-blue fish within leap and shimmer.

With every new distraction that drew Pen on, Not-Triss felt a creeping and increasing sense of panic. The pins and needles of a hundred gazes prickled across her skin. She knew in her blood that she and Pen were perches in a pond full of pike, and that every thoughtless word or action from her small companion was drawing in grinning predators. Soon they would cast off all friendly disguise…

But we’ve been noticed from the start, she realized. It’s all a lie and a game. The people around us, they’re only pretending to go about their business. The truth is, they’re watching us. All of them.

What had the bird-thing said about staying safe in the Underbelly?

Pay no heed to any music that you hear playing. And whatever happens, remember why you are there.

‘Pen, we mustn’t get distracted!’ she exclaimed. Pushing through the crowd, she found Pen standing before an imp-adorned fountain, staring at its crystal arcs of water with mute fascination. Not-Triss grabbed at the smaller girl’s hand for the tenth time and tried to pull her away.

Pen did not move. She continued to gaze straight ahead, as if mesmerized.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ whispered Not-Triss, with rising alarm and concern. ‘Oh, please, please, please, Pen – we have to stay on the move! They’re closing in – I can feel it!’ She dragged on Pen’s arm with increased urgency. Her efforts were of no avail. Pen stirred not a step, not a muscle.

Pen’s hand was very cold. Not-Triss realized that the smaller girl was neither blinking nor breathing.

Not-Triss’s thoughts somersaulted, and fell into place. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly for a few seconds. When she opened them again, her vision was clear. She was standing in the street unaccompanied, and firmly gripping the handle of an old pump. In height and bulk it was almost the same size as Pen, and was painted the same blue as her jacket.

She spun around, and was just in time to see the real Pen disappearing around the corner of the street, following a tall and stately woman in a long green coat. Not-Triss pursued at a sprint, and caught up with them just as the woman was opening the front door of a honeysuckle-draped house. Warmth and the smell of a roast dinner drifted from within.

‘Where are you taking her?’ Not-Triss seized Pen’s shoulder, bringing her to a halt at the very threshold. Pen wore a puzzled frown, as she often did when she was not completely awake.

‘My little girl is tired and hungry,’ said the woman. She was taller than Triss’s father, and yet her height did not look freakish. Her smile was sunlight on the skin. Her grey, summer-mist eyes understood everything, forgave everything. ‘I am just taking her home to supper, and then a nice, long sleep in a goose-feather bed.’

Not-Triss could hear the gulls laughing and laughing.

Seven years’ slavery, they mocked. Seven years scrubbing her floors and grinding her flour. Seven years nursing her brats as they bite and scratch.

‘She’s not your little girl,’ Not-Triss declared, dragging the sleepwalking Pen away from the door, ‘and we’re not here to see you!’

The woman gave the kindest of smiles, and without moving or changing she became taller. Or perhaps Not-Triss was becoming smaller, frailer, fading away before the warmth of that smile like steam on a window.

‘Triss?’ Pen blinked, still sounding sleepy. ‘What’s happening? Where are we?’

All around the false city sounds became muted, as if the crowd had ceased all pretence at milling and had halted in their tracks to gaze silently on the two girls. The buildings lost their cheerful, daylight appearance and once again became the strange toadstool tumble Not-Triss had first glimpsed, drab as old bones. She was gripped by a terrible fear.

A cold and stinging pain tore through her side. With a short shriek she spun around, and as she did so, a few dead leaves fluttered to her feet like brown confetti.

Looking down, she saw a tear in her dress, where it covered her flank. To her horror, she realized that through the rip she could see no skin, only dead leaves, fern fronds and twists of paper. Something had torn right into her, and her stuffing was falling out.

As she clapped her free hand to her side, she felt a similar rending pain in her other flank. She turned in time to catch a couple of child-sized figures stooped to peer at her exposed insides, teasing out leaves with their long fingers. She could feel the scrape of their fingernails like glass shards in her stomach.

‘Get away from me!’ She backed away, helplessly shrill. But the crowd was closing in now, weary of watching and laying traps. Her gaze still would not settle on their faces, but she could see and feel their eyes – hard, childlike and multicoloured, like toy marbles. No matter which way she turned, there were always wicked fingers behind her, tugging at her wounds. One of her arms was taken up with gripping the rooster bundle, so it was impossible to defend herself properly.

A long, dry vine was tweaked from her flank and carried away by a cackling figure. The pain was shocking, but worse was the dizzy weakness that followed, the sense of having lost part of her very self.

They’re all monsters. I’m going to be torn apart by monsters.

But I’m a monster too.

As cruel fingers plucked and poked at her once more, she rounded on her tormentors and hissed as loudly as she could, showing her thorn-teeth.

‘Don’t touch me!’ Not-Triss raised her voice for the benefit of the surrounding crowd. ‘I bite!’ She felt the tingle of her thorn-claws pushing out through her fingertips.

The throng around her receded sharply, like chaff before a breeze. The cold, hard eyes around her lost their glitter, and became wary, appraising. For a moment she thought she had them at bay, but then an insistent whisper hissed its way through the crowd.

‘They know how to enter!’

‘They know where we are!’

‘They will tell everybody! We cannot let them leave!’

The throng started to close in once more. Not-Triss knew that she had only seconds to act. She pulled the drowsy Pen behind her, turned to face the crowd… and pulled the cloth from the head of rooster. Finding itself abruptly returned to the world, it bucked, flapped and crowed.

The sound was deafening, and set the very streets shuddering like a struck bell. On all sides rose an unearthly howl as Not-Triss’s erstwhile foes doubled up, hands clamped to their ears, and shrieked as if in torment.

‘We want to see the Shrike!’ Not-Triss shouted, fighting to make herself heard over the din.

These were not human screams. This was like the sound she had heard leave her own mouth during her worst anguish, but multiplied a hundredfold.

‘Get out!’ bayed the mob. ‘Get out, or we’ll tear you! We’ll fay you!’

Not-Triss realized that the hostile crowd was parting, offering her a route of escape. Up ahead, she could even see the tempting arc of the bridge-road she and Pen had used to reach the village. Behind her, she could feel Pen trembling. Small hands were clutching at her sleeve.

But Not-Triss had not come all this way just to flee. She gritted her teeth.

‘We want to see the Shrike!’ she shouted again.

The din became so terrible that her ears ached. The crowd surged to envelop the two girls, and Not-Triss was pinched, poked, scraped, scratched, clawed and nipped on all sides. Around her whirled a crazy mosaic of half-seen faces. Pointed features with conker skin.

Puckered bat-faces with human eyes. Colourless girls with wet hair.

It took every ounce of Not-Triss’s will to stop herself breaking into a run. It took all her strength to hold on to the legs of the cockerel. But hold on she did, while the bird stretched its neck to crow, and crow, and crow.

The cockerel’s feathers gleamed a brilliant bronze and its comb was flame. It shook its plumage, scattering sunbeams. Those whom the beams touched screamed and backed away, as if singed by embers.

All around, the buildings shivered and shuddered like a coop full of frightened hens. Stray tiles and lumps of thatch shook themselves free and fell upward, leaving ragged holes in the roofs. Cracks appeared in the street, leaking gravel and loose cobbles, which also flew up and disappeared. Puddles flung themselves upward in a brown rain. Some of the smaller figures were hurled from the ground and had to clutch at house eaves to stop themselves rising out of view.

Not-Triss could feel her own body becoming weightless, giddy. There was a perilous drop somewhere above, beckoning to her. She clenched her eyes shut.

‘We want,’ she bellowed at the top of her lungs, ‘to speak to the Shrike!’

A voice cut through the uproar. It was not loud, but it made itself heard, like a cello note through the roar of a storm.

‘Leave them be. I’ll talk to the ladies… if they’ll hood their bird.’

The pinching and scratching stopped abruptly, and Not-Triss opened her eyes to the see the crowd withdrawing from her with a reluctant hiss. With a shaking hand, she flung the cloth over the cockerel’s head once more.

It took a second or two for the world to settle on its axis with a jerk and a rattle. When her head stopped spinning, Not-Triss found that she was staring down a deserted street, haunted only by flickers of movement at windows and street corners. Pen was clinging to her arm and taking tiny, rapid, terrified breaths.

Further down the street, Not-Triss could see a workshop with an open door. Just outside it stood a short, stocky man in a bowler hat. He was in his shirtsleeves, for all the world as if he had just stepped out for a smoke. As she stared he raised a hand in a casual-looking wave, then beckoned.

Warily, and with Pen gripping her arm, Not-Triss advanced towards the hatted figure.