Cuckoo Song (42 page)

‘I haven’t had my tea,’ Pen muttered mournfully as supper smells seeped from dozens of houses.

‘We don’t have any money,’ Trista reminded her.

‘There’s snow! We could go carol singing, and people might give us food if we look sad.’ Without further ado, Pen began pulling at the underside of the jetty, so that the boat
began to swing out from beneath it.

‘Wait!’

‘You said we could get out of the boat when it snowed!’ protested Pen.

‘All right, but be careful getting out, and stay close to me!’ Trista helped Pen climb up on to the jetty, the smaller girl tottering slightly with stiffness. Triss wrapped the
blanket around the pair of them, so that it shrouded their heads and figures like a cloak. ‘Let’s keep this over us, so people don’t recognize us.’

At the back of the tea room, a kindly under-cook passed some leftover currant scones to the girls through the kitchen door, telling them that she shouldn’t really, but it was a shame for
them to go to waste. The girls stood in an alley and munched the scones, watching the whirl of white around them. The few scant gas lamps on the streets were now surging into solemn, flickering
life, each illuminating a halo of flurrying flakes.

‘I’m
cold.
’ Pen hiccuped down the last mouthful of her scone, then peered into the darkness. ‘I bet
they
would let us sit by their fire.’

Following the direction of Pen’s pointing finger, Trista made out a reddish gleam in the shadow of an abandoned auction house. Against the wall she could just see a stumpy black crate that
had been pressed into service as a brazier. Around it stood three figures, hunched against the cold.

‘All right,’ she whispered back. ‘But let’s creep over, in case they’re Besiders.’

‘Besiders like you, don’t they?’ Pen frowned.

‘They won’t when they hear I’m against the Architect,’ Trista muttered. ‘And they’ll find
that
out as soon as they talk to the Architect’s
people. They might know already.’

Trista and Pen padded down the powdered road, keeping to the darkest parts of the street and avoiding the pools of gaslight. Finally they found a shadowed doorway from which they could watch the
firelit group with more ease.

The murmur of voices from beside the brazier was subdued, but sounded human. There was no eerie overlaying, no sinister under-voice. The figures seemed to be dressed in ordinary jackets and
coats, furthermore, not the strange feather-garments the Besiders in the tea room had worn.

‘They seem—’ Trista began.

‘Shh!’ hissed Pen furiously.

Trista shushed, and a voice from the group at the brazier floated over to her.

‘They were definitely here. That much is certain.’

The speaker had his collar turned up and a scarf wrapped protectively around his chin, hiding most of his face. Nonetheless, there was no mistaking the voice of Mr Grace.

Chapter 39

‘The girls were in the tea room with Miss Parish,’ Mr Grace continued. ‘We are not likely to get a statement from
her
any time soon, of
course.’ He sighed. ‘I still think she might have been an innocent dupe in all of this. I did try to reason with her when we first met, but she wouldn’t listen.’

Trista’s heart gave a flip-flop of anxiety. What did he mean, Violet would not be giving a statement any time soon?
Please let him mean that she’s being stubborn, or just
unconscious! Don’t let her be dead!
She had been so sure that the snow meant Violet was alive. Now she felt the chill of doubt.

‘But everybody says the children left again,’ remarked a girl by the fire, rubbing her hands frenetically over the dull embers of the brazier. ‘In a yellow car.’ With a
shock Trista realized that it was Dot from the cottage. Dot of the eggshells.

‘Yes. Yes, they do.’ Mr Grace pensively pushed more lengths of wood into the fire. ‘Over and over again. In exactly the same words.’ The firelight made his face look
narrower and more haunted, a collage of sharp edges. ‘There is something odd about this place. Have you noticed that?’

‘Yes. It’s covered in snow. In September.’ The third figure at the brazier was a middle-aged man Trista had never seen before. He had shaky hands, thick eyebrows and a
moustache that made him look like a colonel. ‘Is that what you mean?’

‘No,’ answered Mr Grace, ‘though I dare say the snow is
their
doing as well. No, the snow seems to be falling all over Ellchester. But here,
right here
, there
is a feeling . . .’ He trailed off.

‘People here make my thumbs prick,’ muttered Dot.

‘Well put, Dot.’ The tailor gave her a smile softened by avuncular affection. ‘We are all feeling uneasy for a reason. There are Besiders in the Old Docks, I would lay money on
it – and we have probably spoken to some in the last hour.’

‘Well, if you think the story of the yellow car is bunkum, then what—’ The moustached man came to a halt abruptly, seeing Mr Grace raise one hand in warning.

‘Charles,’ the tailor said evenly, ‘it would seem we have guests.’

Trista stiffened, ready to grab Pen’s hand and run. However, she soon realized that Mr Grace’s gaze was not trained their way. Instead he was peering down the street towards two
figures who were hobbling with a stilted but relentless gait towards the light of the fire.

Both individuals wore the strange grey-brown feather-coats, and peeping out beneath them Trista glimpsed a plum-coloured hem and brown ribbon garters. It was the Besider couple they had met on
the jetty.

‘May we join you?’ asked the woman, as she advanced into the halo of the brazier. ‘Your fire has such a
gentle
light.’ Her wet-looking gaze flickered
disapprovingly towards the yellow aura of the gas lamps.

There was the briefest hesitation and exchange of glances among the huddled threesome before Mr Grace hurried forward.

‘Of course – let me find you something to sit on.’ He hastened around a corner and returned with a pair of crates which he set down as seats for the newly arrived
‘guests’. Trista was uncomfortably reminded of the way he had played gracious host to her, during her visit to his shop.

There was a growing knot of tension in Trista’s stomach. It was like watching a perilous scene in a play, and desperately wanting to call out a warning. At this moment, though, she was not
sure whom she wanted to warn.

Charles, the colonel-like man, passed a flask of brandy to everyone around the fire except Dot (who seemed a little disappointed). Everybody remarked on how peculiar the weather was.

‘So what brings you out into the snow?’ Mr Grace asked the couple after a pause.

‘We have just arrived in this town,’ answered the Besider man serenely. ‘We are waiting to be shown to our new home. The snow does not trouble us.’

‘Really?’ Mr Grace’s smile was perfectly charming. ‘Then welcome to Ellchester! Are you and your wife travelling alone?’

‘No,’ answered the woman in the plum dress. ‘We have . . . many . . .’ She trailed off, and locked gaze with her companion for several seconds in silent communion.
‘Friends,’ she hazarded at last. ‘Many . . . friends.’

At this revelation, Dot shot her human companions an alarmed glance. Charles paused in refastening the lid of his flask.

‘Well, at least you are better dressed for the weather than we are, with those warm-looking coats,’ remarked Mr Grace.

The Besiders’ oyster-like eyes glistened uneasily in the firelight.

‘You . . . noticed them?’ enquired the Besider man, in a tone that suggested that this was surprising and unwelcome news. ‘Yes. They are useful to us.’ He leaned forward,
and there was a new intensity and suspicion in his wet gaze. ‘And what brings the three of
you
out into this bitter night
without
such warm coats?’

Mr Grace hesitated only briefly, as if choosing a card at whist.

‘We are looking for a couple of children. Two little girls—’

‘They got into a yellow car,’ declared the Besider woman promptly, without waiting for him to finish.

‘And it drove away,’ finished her consort.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

‘You cannot even see your city now, can you?’ said the Besider man at last. It was true. The whirl of fat, feathery flakes hid anything more than twenty yards away. He pushed a stick
into the fire, stirring the embers so that they cracked and sent sparks in a panicky dance. ‘The snow has a thousand, thousand fingers. Imagine them pulling apart your city, piece by tiny
piece. Imagine that this little street is all that is left. Adrift. In darkness.’ He smiled, as though paying somebody a compliment.

‘In the old days folk would have told stories,’ remarked his companion. ‘By the fire. To hold back the dark. But the dark always finds its way
into
the stories, does
it not? The stories worth hearing, at least. The true lies.’

‘Everybody has dragged a tale to this fire,’ continued her male friend. ‘I can hear them whispering.’

Charles cleared his throat, perhaps in an attempt to relieve the tension. ‘I’ve never been good at story-telling – not even when it comes to telling jokes at my
club.’

‘Every person can recount their
own
story, even if they can tell no other,’ said the male Besider. His clammy gaze slithered to Dot’s face. ‘What is
your
story, little fox cub?’

Dot swallowed nervously. Her laugh was forced and breathless.

‘Me? Oh, you don’t want to hear about me!’

‘But I do,’ insisted the man in garters. ‘I want your story.
Give it to me.
’

With the last words, his expression changed to one of urgency and hunger. His eagerness tore through his false human facade like a fang through silk. In that instant, the tension of the scene
snapped, like an overwrought violin string.

Eyes wide with panic, Dot recoiled a step from the gartered stranger, and Charles pushed forward, taking up a hostile stance in front of her. Both Besiders leaped uncannily to their feet, like
two string puppets pulled up from a slump.

At the same time there was a faint silken
shunk
, like a sword being pulled from its sheath. It was not a sword that Mr Grace had drawn from beneath his coat, however, but a long, wicked
pair of blackened scissors. Trista’s stomach tingled as she recognized them from the dressmakers’.

At the sight of the scissors, both Besiders sprang backwards a step, making yowling noises like cats. The man flung out one hand as if sowing seeds, and the snowflakes around him started to fizz
and frenzy with new purpose, diving for the faces of the humans. His female companion gave a soundless wail that made Trista’s eardrums tingle and throb. Charles clutched at his ears and fell
to his knees.

One arm shielding his eyes, Mr Grace lunged forward, aiming the iron points at the face of the Besider man. The latter ducked and retreated, only to find the wall against his back. The tailor
lunged forward once again, this time halting so that the points of the scissors were just resting on the man’s chest. His captive gave a shriek like tortured chalk and froze against the wall,
quivering.

‘Tell that she-creature to stop singing!’ demanded Mr Grace. ‘Now!’

There was a short pause, and then the Besider woman closed her mouth and the terrible silent noise ended. She stood trembling like a flag in a breeze, her eyes fixed on the black metal of the
scissors. Snow settled on her cheeks without melting.

Charles remained on his knees, dabbing at his ear with a handkerchief.

‘It’s your turn to tell tales, I think,’ continued Mr Grace, regarding his prisoner without sympathy. ‘To begin with, how many of your friends are in the docks area
tonight?’

The man opened his mouth, but only terrified gargling noises emerged.

‘Two score,’ answered his female companion.

‘And what purpose do these coats serve?’ asked the tailor.

‘We were all ordered to wear them.’ The female Besider seemed to be hypnotized by the scissors. ‘They baffle the eye and mind. They let the wearer pass without
remark.’

‘And this home to which you are to be taken? Where is it?’

‘We do not know.’

A small, swift jab of the scissors poked two holes in her consort’s coat, as easily as needles through cobweb. The man gave a howl of pain and terror.

‘We do not know!’ protested the Besider woman again, twisting her fingers so fiercely it seemed they might snap. ‘They told us we had to wait until now because . . . because
the haven was not ready. But that is all we know! That is all!’

Mr Grace considered for a moment, then gave a small sigh.

‘I believe you,’ he said simply. Then, with all his strength, he drove the scissors into the Besider man’s chest.

Concealed in her doorway Trista gasped, feeling as if all the air had been sucked out of her. Beside her, Pen gave a muffled yelp, then stood with both hands over her own mouth as if she could
still hold the sound in.

There was no blood. The Besider man split like a cloud before the moon, and light spilled out, wet light that screamed as it came. His mouth opened wide and ghostly ribbons spiralled out into
the air, chittering forgotten tales. As they pulled away from him and vanished, he seemed to unravel, twitching. Soon there was nothing left but a grey-brown coat slumping to the cobbles.

The female Besider gave another of her soundless shrieks and flung herself wildly upon Charles. Her momentum bowled him over on to the brazier, where his coat caught fire and he flailed
helplessly under her weight. Then Mr Grace thrust the scissors into her back. There was a leaping of silver flame, one last inaudible cry that seemed to shake the frame of the world, and she too
was gone. Charles tumbled off the brazier, and Dot helped bat out the flames in his clothes.

Trista squeezed Pen’s shoulder. The smaller girl still had her mouth covered, and was panting with shock.

Mr Grace paused and looked up, staring out in the direction of the hidden girls. Perhaps he had heard Pen’s yelp.

We could run. But then he would
definitely
hear us. And he could follow our tracks.