Cuckoo Song (15 page)

I have to find out what’s going on. Then maybe I can discover what’s wrong with me. Maybe I can find a way to rescue the real Triss, and help Sebastian. And maybe . . . maybe . .
. maybe . . . if I do that, then they won’t mind there being two Trisses.

But she could not believe it, and when at last the Crescent home came into view, her emotions leaped and flapped like washing in a tornado.

I can’t let them know what I am, I can’t, I can’t! But Pen knows! How can I stop her telling everybody? No, Pen won’t tell. She can’t, not without admitting
what she did.

I hurt her. I hurt Pen. Maybe I hurt her badly.

Not-Triss stared at her fingertips again, still uncertain how she had managed to draw blood. Perhaps she had claws that hid, like those of a cat. She did not want to think about hurting Pen, or
consider the possibility that she had scarred her small face. Even as her stomach squirmed at the thought, a more fearful, selfish concern slipped into her mind. What if Pen had run home and been
interrogated about her injuries? What if she had broken down in pain and terror and told the truth? What if her parents were waiting, even now, for the imposter?

Not-Triss had the presence of mind to enter by the back door. Thankfully it was still unlocked. Cook had finished washing up but had evidently retreated to her own room in the basement.
Not-Triss crept in, slid off her boots and tiptoed through the kitchen. The house was silent, so she eased her way back up the stairs, and hurried to Triss’s room.

She was just reaching for the handle of the door, when it opened and her mother stepped out.

‘Triss.’ Her mother’s voice had a tone she had never heard before, faint and winded-sounding. ‘Where in the
world
have you been?’

Not-Triss boggled at her. Somehow, amid the torrent of fears and feelings, she had not thought to put together a story that would serve if she was caught.

‘I . . .’ Not-Triss thought about claiming that she had seen Pen sneaking out, and had gone after her to bring her back. But what if they asked Pen to corroborate? ‘I . . . was
sleepwalking.’ She could feel her face becoming hot.

‘Sleepwalking?’ whispered her mother, in the same tense, breathless voice. ‘Did you say sleepwalking?’ She swallowed, then held the door fully open. ‘Then what is
that?’ Not-Triss was treated to a view of her own bed, and her heart sank as her eye fell on the covers, still clumped to look like a sleeping figure.

Not-Triss had no answer. Her own precaution had incriminated her.

‘I . . . don’t know,’ were the words she mouthed, but she seemed to have no voice for them. It was a baby’s excuse, transparent as gauze.

‘You went
outside.
Without telling anybody. Why would you do that, Triss? Why would you betray my trust in you? Look at me!’ Not-Triss risked only the briefest glance at her
mother, and was stricken to see that she was actually trembling, a great tear gleaming under one of her eyes. Not-Triss dropped her gaze again, fearful that her mother might look into her eyes and
see a monster lurking there.

‘I said, look at me!’ Large hands took a firm grip on her shoulders. ‘Did Pen talk you into this? Where has she run off to now?’

So Pen had not returned after all, and Not-Triss had a chance to blame the whole escapade on the younger girl. She could even feel the right words curling into shape on her tongue, and her
mother’s ear waiting for them. But instead, quite unexpectedly, amid the pity, guilt and alarm, a tiny spark of outrage managed to flare in Not-Triss’s mind.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t Pen.’

There was a pause, and a gasp, then Not-Triss felt herself shaken slightly by the shoulders.

‘You know it was! You would
never
treat me this way unless Pen had made you do it!’ There was almost a tone of pleading in her mother’s voice.

‘It wasn’t her!’ Not-Triss felt choked by claustrophobia. ‘I just . . . felt better. And . . . I really wanted to go for a walk. And . . . I knew you wouldn’t let
me go. You
never
let me go anywhere.’ The words were out before she could do anything about them.

‘Triss!’ Her mother’s voice had a choked, tear-mangled tone. ‘Enough! You are
ill
! Now . . . go back to bed. You’ve made me very unhappy, Triss, and you
knew
I already felt under par.’

There was nothing Not-Triss wanted to do more than to leap into the woman’s arms, but there was no safety there, no hope.

Help me
, she begged her silently as the door closed between them.
Help me, help me, help me . . .

Chapter 14

There was no help. There was no help from anybody. Not-Triss had nobody to trust but herself.

She wiped the cobwebs from her eyes with the heel of her hand and listened. Her mother’s steps were moving into the study at the end of the landing. The door closed, and then she could
make out the very faint sound of her voice.

The telephone. Her mother was using the family telephone. After a moment’s confusion, Not-Triss realized that this was to be expected. Pen was missing again. Her mother would doubtless
wish to tell their father. But would she report their other daughter’s disgrace at the same time?

Not-Triss crept out and along the landing. She was aware now of the ease with which she softened her steps. The floorboards were her accomplices, swallowing their creaks as her soles pressed
them. Her breath made no more sound than a flower petal falling.

With her ear to the door she could make out her mother’s half of the conversation in the room beyond. Her tearful tone tugged at Not-Triss’s heart. But was it really her heart that
was tugged? Did she even have one? She could not be sure.

‘. . . oh, I know that I should not be calling you like this, while you are at work. Believe me, I would not have done so, if I were not quite, quite desperate. I
must
talk to
you.’

Pause.

‘Yes . . . yes, it is! And I am completely at my wits’ end. I thought . . . I thought she seemed better. I really did. But . . . there is something terribly wrong. Ever since the
fever. And as time goes by, I am ever more certain of it.’

Not-Triss stiffened against the door. Whatever she had in the place of blood ran cold. Her mother had not phoned her father to report Pen’s disappearance. She had called to talk about
Triss.

‘What makes me certain? A hundred things!’ her mother went on, now sounding almost hysterical. ‘I would be anxious enough if it were just the weight loss, or the way she eats,
eats, eats like a mad thing – like a plague of locusts! But . . . there’s something more than that. She is
different
. There’s something slow and strange about the way she
talks to me. It’s as if she is pausing to listen to somebody else before she answers. It’s more than just a worrying symptom, it’s . . .
eerie.

‘She never used to have a temper, and now she does. Sometimes in her eyes I see this . . . this wild thing I don’t recognize! I don’t know what it is! I don’t know what
it is doing in the face of my little girl!

‘And she
creeps
everywhere.’ Her mother’s voice dropped to a hushed, oppressed almost-whisper. ‘Over and over she startles me half to death by turning up
unexpectedly without a sound. Even now . . . Even now I almost want to go the door to make sure she is not behind it, listening.’

Behind it, listening, Not-Triss held her breath, remembering Pen’s words.

You’re doing everything just a little bit wrong. And sooner or later they’ll notice.

‘And this afternoon,’ her mother continued, ‘she crept out of the house. She claimed that she had a headache and was taking a nap. Then she made this . . . this lump out of her
bedclothes, so if anybody peered in through the door it would look as if she was still sleeping, and she sneaked out into the cold and wind. I don’t know why. I don’t know where. I
caught her coming back, but she wouldn’t tell me where she had been. She just stared at her feet with this cold, stony expression . . .’ There was a pause while Triss’s mother
gulped down tears. ‘And when she finally looked at me, there was such anger in her eyes . . . This . . . This just isn’t like her. This isn’t Triss at all.’

Every sobbed word was caught by the girl who wasn’t Triss at all. The eavesdropper would have given every dress in Triss’s wardrobe to hear the other end of the conversation. Was her
father agreeing? Was he soothing her mother’s fears, or laughing at them?

‘Oh yes . . . that would be . . . I really can’t go on like this.’ Pause. ‘Yes. Yes, please do. When?’ Pause. ‘Could you not leave work a little early? Just
today?’ Pause. ‘I . . . I see. Yes. No, I do appreciate that. Thank . . . Thank you. Yes. Yes, I . . . I might have a little tonic to settle myself. We will talk this evening
then.’

Not-Triss was back in her room before her mother had set the earpiece back on its hook. She listened as steps creaked unsteadily back down the landing again, and the door of her mother’s
bedroom closed.

She knows! She knows I’m not the real Triss!

No. She suspects something, that’s all. She doesn’t know what she suspects. And she’s a bit hysterical and she’s been drinking her wine tonic. So maybe Father
won’t have taken her seriously.

It was small comfort. Over and over, Not-Triss kept remembering the fear and distress in her mother’s voice. She was torn between utter misery at being the cause of her mother’s
unhappiness, and selfish panic at the prospect of discovery.

I have to be normal. I have to be as normal as normal can be, just until I know what’s going on.

But I’m so scared. I’m so confused. I’m so . . . hungry.

Oh no, oh no! I can’t afford to be hungry again! I can’t afford to start eating like a plague of locusts, not now!

But there was no hiding from it. The clawing hole in Not-Triss’s stomach was back. What could she eat? The panic seemed to make it more intense. Her eyes turned involuntarily towards the
wardrobe, where she had hurriedly thrown the rest of her dolls. She took a few hesitant steps towards it, even reached for the wardrobe door, then flinched back as within it she heard a rattle like
the gnashing of wooden teeth.

‘I can’t!’ she whispered in despair. ‘I can’t! Oh, isn’t there something else here I can eat? Something that doesn’t scream?’ She tugged open
drawers, dragging out the contents and throwing them on the floor. At last, amid the heaps of clothes, she saw a small box shaped like a wooden treasure chest. As she flipped the catch open, the
hunger inside her stirred, like a deep-lurking pike sensing a ripple on the surface.

The box was filled with small glittering treasures, a tangle of brooches, ribbons and glass beads. Her borrowed memories told her that they had been gifts from school friends, cousins and
Sunday-school acquaintances.

She could almost smell the real Triss’s love for them, like steam from a cooking pot.

Not-Triss drew a long necklace from the box, fascinated by blue-ish pallor of the mock pearls. She closed her eyes and tipped back her head, slowly lowering the string into her mouth, then
swallowed once, twice. The beads were hard as gobstoppers against her tongue, and mint-cold. Then the whole string of them vanished down her throat with a swoop, as if they had found a life of
their own.

A brooch followed shortly afterwards, its glass jewels fizzing on her tongue like champagne. Then she was snatching up a bracelet with one tiny boat-shaped charm. A part of her cried out that
she
couldn’t
eat that, anything but that, even as she was gulping it down, the tarnished silver like sugar frosting.

Her frenzy ebbed. A wave of terrible sadness took its place. She had devoured things that could never be replaced, she realized. With a shaking finger she stirred the remaining items in the box.
So many gifts, so many friends. But how many of these friends were still in Triss’s life? None, she realized. Her mother had considered some ‘too exuberant’ for Triss’s
health, and her father had argued with the parents of others. Somehow, every time Triss had formed a connection, it had been severed. These gifts were the stumps of friendships hacked short.

The little silver boat, however, had been a present from Sebastian.

It had been a promise as well. Sebastian had told Triss that when he got back from France he would take her out boating again. To her surprise, Not-Triss found she had cloudy recollections of
bright days out on the estuary in a little wooden boat, Sebastian rowing while Pen and Triss giggled and splashed each other with river water. How had that laughing girl become Triss of the
sniffles, who needed to be protected from every breeze?

The box held the relics of a dozen dead friendships and one dead brother. Not-Triss closed it with a sting of self-loathing and guilt, knowing how much the little treasures meant to Triss. But,
she realized, that was precisely why they were so irresistible. They were soaked with an essence of Trissness that made them delicious, and Not-Triss almost wept with relief when she realized that
her hunger was now sated. Perhaps she did not need screaming dolls to satisfy her appetite after all.

‘I’m ready,’ she told her ashen reflection in the dresser mirror. ‘I’m ready to be normal now.’

Father came home at the usual time, and as she heard the Sunbeam draw up Not-Triss felt her stomach twist with anxiety. She peered down from her window as he walked from his
car through the increasing rain, but she could not tell from his face how he had reacted to the afternoon’s telephone call.

After he had entered the house, Not-Triss could just make out the sound of a conversation below. She pressed her ear to the floor of her bedroom, hoping to make out what was being said, but the
voices remained a bee hum, just recognizable as the tones of her parents. They went on for over an hour, her father’s voice sometimes rising in volume, but not enough for her to make out what
he was saying.

By the time she was called down to supper, Not-Triss was almost trembling with apprehension. To her surprise she found her father seated quite calmly at the table and her mother absent. She had
expected to find both her parents waiting side by side, ready for an inquisition.