Cuckoo Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

out into the landing and passed out of her parents’ view, however, she halted. It was happening again. A
conversation was waiting to be had behind her back.
    Chewing her lip, she opened the nearest door and then closed it again, so that it would sound as if she had withdrawn into her room. Leaning against the wall she waited, and sure enough was soon
rewarded with the sound of voices.
    ‘Piers, do you mean
those
letters? I thought we agreed not to read anything else sent by that man—’
    ‘I know, but right now we need to understand whether he was the one that attacked Triss. If he
is
trying to bully me, then perhaps there will be a letter from the man himself,
instead of the usual. If he has written to us with demands or threats, at least then we will know.’
    Hearing steps on the stairs, Triss turned to flee, and felt panic creeping into her soul like cold water into her socks.
    Which room is mine?
    There was no time to lose, however. The steps were reaching the head of the stairs. Triss jerked open the nearest door and slipped within, closing it quickly but quietly behind her.
    The room beyond was dim, illuminated only by the little sunlight soaking through the thick amber curtains. The air smelt tired, like old clothes packed away for a special occasion that had never
come.
    Triss held her breath and pressed her ear to the door. Outside she could hear footsteps striding along the landing, heavy steps that she easily identified as belonging to her father. Soon she
could hear the muffled sounds of him talking in the study, using his loud, careful telephone voice. The telephone was a relatively recent addition to the house, and still jarred with its newness
and brashly insistent bell. Sometimes it seemed that Triss’s father felt he had to overbear it with force of personality, in case it had a mind to take over the house.
    Triss felt a slow wash of relief.
He didn’t hear me. But where am I? This isn’t my room. This is too big to be my room.
    Her eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, and with a wash of alarm she realized how badly she had mistaken her way.
    Oh no – not here! I’m not supposed to be here!
    She knew the room now, of course. Nothing had changed since she had last seen it. Nothing had been moved.
    The bed was made, with clean sheets. The dinted surface of the desk had been dusted and polished. A telescope moped in a corner, its tripod folded in like the legs of a dead crane fly. The top
shelf held books on Arctic exploration, astronomy and fighter planes, with a cluster of peeling green-and-yellow detective novels at the end. On the bottom shelf a series of photographs had been
carefully arranged edge to edge. As her eye glided across, boy became youth became man, the last photo showing him in a military uniform, his face wearing the slightly tense expression of one who
is waiting his moment to ask something very important.
    Sebastian.
    Occasionally Triss had been brought in to see this room, as if it was a sick relative. Entering without permission, on the other hand, would be the worst kind of trespass, almost a
blasphemy.
    Triss knew she should leave at once, but found herself overwhelmed by a guilty fascination. She moved further into the room.
    The bedroom had a churchy feel. You could tell that this was a sacred place full of rules you might break. Sebastian was a lot like church, with everyone solemnly knowing what they were meant to
feel and when.
    We will now consider mercy. We will now pity the poor. We will now forgive our enemies.
    We all loved Sebastian very much. We are all very sad he has gone. We all remember him daily.
    But do I?
Triss ran a curious fingertip over the glass of the uniformed photo. It left no smudge of dust on her finger.
Do I love him? Am I sad? Do I remember him?
    Triss did have a strong but unfocused sense that everything had once been better, and that everyone had once been happier. Sebastian was tied in her mind to that betterness and happiness.
    She