Cuckoo Song (3 page)

It was not very interesting. It described Meadowsweet, the new suburb her father was working upon, just outside Ellchester but reachable by the new tramline. There were even diagrams showing how
it would look, with all the houses in rows down the hill, facing out across the Ell estuary. Triss’s father was helping to design the roads, the new boating lake and the
‘terracing’ of the hillside. The article said that this was ‘a departure’ for an engineer ‘best known for his large and innovative constructions’. However, it
certainly didn’t mention Piers Crescent throwing off gangster contacts, and Triss could not help but think that if it had, the story would probably have been nearer the front page.

Perhaps I misheard him. Perhaps I imagined the whole thing. Perhaps . . . Perhaps I’m not well yet.

That night Triss lay awake, watching the dim flickering of the lowered lights and the chocolate-brown spiders edging across the ceiling. Every time she closed her eyes she
could sense dreams waiting at the mousehole of her mind’s edge, ready to catch her up in their soft cat-mouth and carry her off somewhere she did not want to go.

Suddenly the world was full of secrets, and she could feel them in her stomach like knots. She was frightened. She was confused. And she was
hungry
, too hungry to sleep. Too hungry,
after a while, to think or worry about anything else. Several times she reached tentatively for the bell, but then recalled her mother’s worried face watching as Triss wolfed down her supper,
wild with hunger as she had been at lunch.
No more now, froglet. Nothing more until breakfast, understand?

But she was starving! How could she sleep like this? She thought of sneaking to the kitchen to raid the larder. The food would be missed, but for an unworthy, desperate moment she wondered if
she could blame the theft on Pen. No, Triss had begged so hard for more food, her parents would surely suspect her.

Then what could she do? She sat up, gnawing at her nails, then jumped a little as the wind-swung foliage outside clattered against the window. In her mind’s eye she saw the bough of the
tree beyond, lush with leaves and heavy with apples . . .

The window had not been opened in years, but Triss gave the sash a frantic yank and it juddered upwards, spitting a fine spray of dust and paint flakes. Cold air rushed in, rippling the
newspaper by her bedside, but she had no thought for anything but the young apples bobbing among the leaves, glossy with the dim gaslight behind her. She snatched at them, tearing them from their
stems and cramming them into her mouth one by one, feeling her teeth cleave into them with a shuddering relief. They were unripe and so sharp that her tongue went numb, but she did not care. Soon
she was staring at nothing but stripped stems, and her hunger was still thundering its demands, a raw gaping chasm at her core.

The bedroom was on the ground floor, and there was nothing more natural, more necessary, than clambering her way out to sit on the sill and dropping the short distance to the ground. The grass
was downy-pale with dew. The cold of it stung the skin of her feet, but it did not seem important.

Only a few boughs were low enough for her to snatch the fruit from them, but when these were bare she dropped to all fours and scrabbled at the early windfalls. Some were recent, merely speckled
with rot, others caramel-coloured and slack, riddled with insect holes. Their pulp squeezed between her fingers as she caught them up and crammed them into her mouth. They were sweet and bitter and
mushy in the wrong ways and she did not care.

Only when at long last there were no more rotten apples to be found nestling in the grass did the frenzy start to fade, so that Triss became aware of her own shivering, her scraped knees, the
taste in her mouth. She sat back on her haunches, gasping in deep ragged breaths, not knowing whether to retch or sob as her shaky hands wiped the sour stickiness from her cheeks, chin and tongue.
She dared not look at the half-guzzled windfalls, in case she saw white shapes writhing in the pulp.

What’s wrong with me?
Even now, after this wild glut, she knew that another surge of hunger was hanging somewhere like a wave, just waiting for its chance to break over her.

Her unsteady steps took her to the garden wall. It was crumbling and old, and all too easy for her to climb and sit upon, knees knocking under her thin nightdress. Before her was the grainy,
gravelly road which passed the cottage, and following it with her eye she could see it curve and dwindle down the rough, tussocky hillside until it reached the distant village, now not much more
than a cluster of lights. Before them, though, she could see the triangle of the village green, dull pencil grey in the moonlight. Beyond it quivered a faint floss of pale willows, and behind them
. . . a narrow streak of deeper blackness, like an open seam.

The Grimmer.

She felt as if she was falling apart. All the little patches and pieces of how-to-be-Triss that she had been carefully fitting together all day were coming unpinned again, all at once.

Something happened to me at the Grimmer. I have to see it. I have to remember.

She took the shortcut down the hill over the hummocky grass, rather than following the wide swing of the road. Harsh stems and thistles spiked at her foot-soles and ankles as she stumbled down
the uneven slope, but she had no thought for anything but the Grimmer.

With every step the Grimmer grew closer and clearer, black as perdition and narrow as a half-closed eye. Her knees weakened, but now the downward slope seemed to be carrying her forward of its
own accord. The Grimmer grew and grew, and by the time she reached the green it was no longer a mere slit in the land but a lean lake, long enough to swallow four buses whole. Over its waters the
willows drooped their long hair, bucking in the gusts as if with sobs. Against the dark surface she could make out the white water-lily buds, like small hands reaching up from beneath the
surface.

There were occasional stealthy rustles and clicks in the undergrowth. Birds. Surely birds. Surely not would-be attackers who had been waiting in the bushes for her, knowing somehow she would
have no choice but to return . . .

Shaky steps took her across the green to the water’s edge, where she halted and felt the cold properly for the first time. This was where they had dunked witches, hundreds of years ago.
This is was where suicides had used to drown themselves.

At one place on the bank the mud was ravaged, tussocks of the grass pulled away, the earth finger-gouged.
That’s where I dragged myself out. It must be. But why did I fall in?

She had hoped that if she found memories here, they would provide solid ground at last under her feet. But when memory came it brought no comfort. Here was only fear and falling.

Triss recalled an icy darkness, cold water choking her nose, mouth and throat. It seemed that she remembered looking up through a shifting brown murk, while her limbs slowly flailed, and seeing
two dark shapes above her, their outlines wavering and wobbling with the motion of the water. Two figures standing on the bank above, one taller than the other. But there was another memory trying
to surface, something that had happened just before that . . .

Something bad happened here, something that should never have taken place.

I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to remember.

But it was too late, she was there and the Grimmer was watching her with its vast, lightless slit of an eye, as if it might open it wide and stare into her gaze at any moment. Then, as the panic
rose, her mind flapped shut like a book and instinct took over. She turned and ran, fleeing from the water, sprinting across the green and tearing back up the hill to the cottage with all the speed
and panic of a coursed hare.

Chapter 3

Six days
, came the laughter.
Six days
, it snickered like old paper in a draught. As Triss woke, however, the words melted once more and became nothing but the
whisper of leaves against the window.

Triss’s eyes opened. Something scratchy was touching her cheek. She reached up, pulled the dead leaf out of her hair and stared at it. One by one, she recalled her actions the previous
evening. Had she really climbed out of her window, gobbled windfalls and then stood on the banks of the Grimmer, feeling that it might speak to her? She picked her way through the memories with
disbelief, like a householder surveying rubbish scattered by foxes overnight.

There were more dead leaves in her hair, so she hastily pulled them out and pushed them out through the window. Her muddy feet she wiped clean with a handkerchief. Her nightdress was grimy and
grass-stained, but perhaps she could smuggle it into the laundry without anybody knowing.

Nobody saw me. Nobody knows what I did. And so if I don’t tell anyone, it’s like it didn’t happen. And I won’t do it again – I’m better this morning.
I’ll get dressed and go down to breakfast, and everybody will say how much better I’m looking today . . . and that’ll make it true.

Sure enough, as she creaked her way down the stairs she was met with relief and joy in her mother’s voice.

‘Triss! You’re up! Oh, it’s so good to see you looking better . . .’

Hunger had finally broken Pen’s siege. She scraped her chair as far from the rest of the family as she could, and sat with her head bowed resentfully over the plate. She ate with all the
good humour of a condemned prisoner.

Fresh eggs from the farm had been brought in and boiled, and now sat freckled in their cups beside the racks of toast. The pack of wolves that seemed to have taken over Triss’s stomach was
still baying for food, but she managed to eat slowly and steadily, and stop when she had finished her share.

There. See? I’m better today.

They were going home after breakfast. Everything would be normal once they were home.

Back in her room Triss quickly piled her possessions into her little red travelling case and last of all stooped to pick up Angelina, her doll. Angelina was a fine, large,
German-made doll, about the size of a human baby. Her bisque skin was not glossy like porcelain, but with a dull shine like real skin, and she had carefully painted lashes and gracefully curved
brows. Her painted lips were parted to show tiny white teeth. Her curling hair was light brown, like Triss’s own, and she wore a green-and-white dress with an ivy-pattern print.

Triss’s mind performed an odd little twist, so that she seemed to see her possessions as a stranger might. An unfamiliar thought crept unbidden into her mind.
It’s as if
I’m still six years old. It’s as if I’m still the age I was when Sebastian died.

She stared down at Angelina with a slight squirming in her stomach, a tiny worm of shame and wonder.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked under her breath. ‘I’m eleven. Why do I still carry a doll around?’

And it was while these words were still hanging in the air that the doll moved in her hands.

The first things to shift were the eyes, the beautiful grey-green glass eyes. Slowly they swivelled, until their gaze was resting on Triss’s face. Then the tiny mouth moved, opened to
speak.

‘What are you doing here?’ It was an echo of Triss’s words, uttered in tones of outrage and surprise, and in a voice as cold and musical as the clinking of cups. ‘Who do
you think you are? This is
my
family.’

All the breath had left Triss’s lungs. Her whole body had frozen, otherwise the doll would doubtless have dropped from her hands.
It’s a trick
, she told herself frantically.
Pen must have done this somehow, it’s a trick.

She felt the doll move in her grasp as it gripped at her sleeves with its delicate hands and hauled itself a little more upright, jutting its head forward to peer at her more closely. Its glass
eyes seemed to come into proper focus, and then the doll flinched and started to shake. Its mouth fell open, emitting a low, eerie mewl of horror and fear.

‘No,’ it moaned, and then started to thrash, its voice rising to a wail. ‘You’re not right! Don’t touch me! Help! Help! Get her away from me!’ It flailed at
her with tiny china fists, its scream rising to a single eerie note that went on and on like a siren. Through the window, Triss saw the house martins burst in terror from their nest in the eaves,
and the wall plaster crack slightly, spitting powder into the air. The doll’s jaw dropped wider and its scream became ear-rending, until Triss was sure that everybody in the house and beyond
must be stopping to stare and wonder.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ She shook the doll, but to no avail. ‘Please!’ In panic she tried to smother the small screaming face with a fistful of woollen shawl, but it only
muffled the sound a little. At last, in sheer desperation, she threw the doll across the room as hard as she could. It hit the wall head first with a crack like a gunshot, and the scream cut out,
leaving a chilling silence.

Triss walked over to Angelina. Tump, thump, thump went her heart, like a policeman beating at a criminal’s door. She turned the doll over with her foot. Angelina’s face was cracked
from one side to the other. Her mouth was still open, as were her eyes.

Triss dropped to her knees. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered uselessly. ‘I . . . I didn’t mean to . . .’

She would be found kneeling over Angelina like a murderer over a corpse. Panicking, she pulled a couple of logs out of the basket by the hearth, pushed the broken doll into the basket’s
base and piled the wood back on top. Perhaps nobody would find her until after the family had left.

The door opened unexpectedly, just as Triss was straightening again. She spun around guiltily, mouth dry. Somebody had come to investigate the terrible screaming, of course they had. What
explanation could she possibly give them?

‘Are you nearly ready?’ Her father wore his coat and driving gloves.

Triss nodded mutely.

He glanced towards the window. ‘Birds have been making quite a racket this morning, haven’t they?’