Chapter 8: The Cuckoo that Got the Cat’s Tongue
The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten
--H.P. Lovecraft, “The Cats of Ulthar”
Agent Grammery placed—really threw—Grace inside the chamber between Fox and Diana, after first confiscating her paperclip. The cell made Grace’s original closet seem well-furnished. There were no fluorescent lights above to trouble her eyes, but also no bench, blanket, or pillow. Just padded floor with matching walls and ceiling.
While locking her in, Agent Grammery promised that the Director would soon reprimand the girl. Grace checked her arms for splinters, but only found fingernail marks. A cuckoo clock ticked below.
“Hey, pigeon girl,” Fox whispered through their shared wall. “You’re crazy, right? Why else would you be here.” This last part sounded like a statement, not a question. Then, she asked “Well, did you ever start thinking maybe your parents weren’t your parents? Like, I hoped to be the princess of some foreign country, and one day my real family would rescue me.”
“I thought there’d be a special place I’d fit in,” Diana spoke through her own wall. “Where the ways I thought and acted turned out to be normal for once. I don’t know how, but the Director found me. It seemed like he agreed, with his theory about changelings.”
Grace felt glad no one could see her shocked expression. Another adult—in the government, no less—who took that fairy tale seriously. “My grandmam…grandmother believed the same thing growing up in Ireland. Her sisters said she was this fairy creature switched with a normal baby. Even used the same word!”
“You don’t look very Irish.” Even through a wall, it seemed obvious Fox was smirking. “Would have taken you for a colored girl.”
“Doesn’t everyone have a color?” rejoinded Grace. “Sure, my parents are two different colors. But they’re just mom and dad.”
“I don’t even remember what color my parents were,” admitted Diana. “That really makes me blue.”
“Welcome to Ward Eight…” said Fox, “It’s really s…”
An explosive “Coo-coo” interrupted.
When the orderly came for Grace, the clock noise had petered to a “meeeewwwwww” really more appropriate for a cat. She was not taken directly to Director Ambrosius. Instead, they wound up at the showers. She was not to be hosed this time. Instead, the orderly stripped her while Agent Grammery watched. With an electric hairclipper, the man set to shaving the girl’s skull bare.
“In case you planned on hiding anything else in that ugly bird’s nest you call hair,” explained Agent Grammery. She would have sneered if her face was not still so wooden.
***
“Love the hair cut! Shows what a big brain you had under that nappiness,” was the first thing Director Ambrosius said after Grace entered the room where they normally performed experiments. There were no bird cages on the table this time. “Just been drafting letters to my associates. You know, other heads of Project ARTICHOKE just think about truth serums. So far, they’ve only invented a chemical that, when injected in fatty food, makes victims laugh till their faces turn green. I truly believe we can accomplish so much more here! Together.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Grace figured some punishment must be forthcoming. “I wasn’t trying to escape. I just felt bored being stuck in that tiny room, and wanted to, er, do some exploring. Please don’t get angry like Agent Grammery.”
“Of course I’m not angry about your little field trip,” Director Ambrosius smiled, making crinkles around his eyes. “You have the makings of a great spy, Miss Grey. You just need the proper mentorship steering you down the right path. It’s easy: just follow instructions. Happily, without resistance. Trust that the grown-ups know what’s best for you. Note this isn’t a punishment, but you’ll no longer get those little Friday visits with your parents.”
Grace started from her seat. Eyes filled with wet rage.
“Simply no time with our increasingly tight schedule.” The Director’s smile did not reach his eyes this time. “You’ll understand. Besides, it shouldn’t make much difference now you have friends, right? Please get acquainted with Miss Levinson and…the other one. All goes well, we might see you traveling the world someday. Acquiring intel through all kinds of exotic birds! For now, though, you must prove your trustworthiness. Never try some silly stunt like escaping. Why, if you left this sanctuary, you might run into someone nasty like Mr. Aitvaras. On your own, you could get very, very lost indeed.”
Experiments were cancelled that day, as were the girl’s regular meals of gruel. Grace tried adjusting to this new chamber of hers, where on one side there was crying, and the other falling rocks. Things became a bit more peaceful at night, except for a sudden scratching that started at her door. Peeking out the wire mesh, she saw nothing. The scratches continued, keeping pace with the cuckoo clock ticking however many floors down.
She stepped away when she heard the lock click, and moved further back when the door slowly creaked inwards. Grace hoped Ragamuffin had proved good as her word, and found a way to set her free. The girl doubted any bird would send a cat, though.
Animal eyes never glowed on their own. They only reflected light. Nobody seemed to have told this cat, because even in full shade, they glowed bright green. He made no sound, whether growl, hiss, or meow. Just quietly strolled over and dropped something from his mouth. The cat exited the cell with equally silent padding.
Cautiously, Grace moved forward on hands and knees. The object was too small and thin to be a mouse. She poked it, and felt cold metal. A paperclip! Exactly like the one she used to escape her old cell. Grace stuck her head—and only her head—out her now ajar door.
The cat was now pawing at Fox’s cell. Turning to Grace, he gestured to the far-left chamber.
“You want me to get Diana out, then?” Grace mumbled half-jokingly. When the cat with glowing eyes nodded, she exclaimed “No way, I don’t want to get in any more trouble!”
The cat cocked his head to the side at an extreme angle. Except for an owl, most any other animal’s head would have fallen off. Little matter that Grace never employed the paperclip, because Diana opened the chamber herself. The copper door didn’t even have a lock! Maybe an orderly forgot to install one, or perhaps Director Ambrosius was not concerned the bag-headed girl would try escaping.
“Grace?” Diana moaned, but did not weep. “Were you serious about how I should take off my bag? Were you just making fun of me? Now Tatum’s asleep, you can be honest…”
“Mmmmmrrrrrraaaaaahhhhhhhoowwwwwwwwwwww!” The clock far below them went off. It resembled the kind of caterwauling only heard during the worst weather, when feral felines forcibly endured driving sleet with nothing to provide them cover.
“Does it have to sound that loud?” A thumping started in Fox’s cell.
The cat turned to Grace and paused. When she made no sign of turning her paperclip into a lockpick, he opened Fox’s door with his claw. Fox took in what was going on and swore. She wore her padded coat, its hood pulled over her forehead. Goggles hung out of one pocket. Still silent, the cat weaved between the girls’ legs, nudging their calves in the direction of a stairwell at the far end of the hall.
Fox blew a bit of hair out of her face and trotted over. “If only so you’ll quit bugging me.” Diana and the cat followed together. The single lightbulb illuminating the stairs fizzled in-and-out, keeping pace with the clock howls that never ceased. Grace could go along or be left alone. She shrugged.
For all they knew, Agent Grammery was down there. Waiting to taking more than Grace’s hair. So far, there were just some very dirty stairs. Dust stuck to Grace’s bare feet, but what she really looked out for was any of the stones Fox left behind. The most un-cuckoo-like cuckoo noises made it impossible to count steps.
Then, Grace was at the bottom, and the clock’s caterwauling stopped. Like it had been waiting for the last of this improvised party. Even Fox sighed with relief. The machine responsible stood much taller than an average cuckoo clock. Greater than most grandfather clocks, actually. Its bronze color tarnished, its body dented, it still had more life in it than the skeleton building it was buried in.
Visible through a crystal ribcage was a heart as good as any that ever pumped blood: a gold pendulum swinging on a silver chain. Chimes and gongs moved in response—the clock’s own throat and lungs. Beneath, over a hundred grinding gears served as internal organs.
Eight molded brass eagle claws supported the colossus. Every side of its body had been decorated with dragons and chimeras. Grace would not have thought such different mythologies could exist together, yet here they lived in harmony. On its back were six angel wings, each silver quill no doubt sculpted individually.
The clock’s face had twenty-four dials, instead of the usual twelve dials forced to work in two separate shifts just to cover the span of a day. On its edge, thirteen constellations were painted. There were the three standard hands: hour, minute, and second, but others Grace could only speculate as to what they were meant to keep track of. Perhaps one measured the year, another a decade. This left three unaccounted for.
Who could have built this? Grace thought. All parts fit so well together; it did not seem like the product of any collaboration. While he or she remained stubbornly faceless in her mind, she figured this genius must have had both a keen eye for detail and enough free time to put it to use. She eventually looked away to take in the rest of the basement.
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That word is generally associated with filth and darkness. But, in fact, this basement seemed the least dirty and most brightly lit room in the whole Ambrosius Institute. Every inch of wall was occupied by oak bookcases. On every shelf were dozens of leather-bound tomes. The place was a library, but with no place to sit other than a labyrinth-patterned rug. The catch was all the books were behind glass, and each shelf padlocked.
What good’s a library where everything’s locked up?
The clock had one more feature: a voice of its own. The cuckoo mechanism suddenly stuck out, like a rude tongue. What it had to say made the girls yearn for simple caterwauling.
“Hey you,” said the mechanical bird. “Took long enough to get here! Didn’t you broads hear my invitation? You dumb or just deaf?”
“The only birds I ever heard speak were made of meat, not metal.” Grace was the only one not totally caught off-guard. She thought back to the Stymphalian bird, whom she never had a chance to speak to before it was melted. No doubt, it would not have had anything nice to say, either.
“How you know I’m metal, ’stead of meat?” The cuckoo had to speak fast, as he kept being drawn back into the clock. “Could just as easily be Spam….” in, then out “…Ya’ wouldn’t know lest ya’ looked.”
“I’m sure this is some gag.” Fox enunciated perfectly, despite her words having to get past clenched teeth. “A prank with a radio. Whatever. But I can easily break this clock to pieces.” She stuck out her hands to catch some of her falling stones. Well, “catch” is not the exact word. They floated an inch or two above her palms, and looked sharp. Closer to flints than pebbles.
“Go ahead an’ knock me down!” The rude metal cuckoo kept egging Fox on. Until, with a yell and a curse, she threw a rock so hard it broke the see-sawing metal slide in half. All without having to physically touch it. The robotic cuckoo landed on the rug, then split apart.
Inside was something thin, pink, and wrinkled.
It was not an old piece of gum.
Before anyone else could react, the cat raced over. In the extra lighting, Grace noticed he was a tabby. He caught the pink piece of meat. First, it seemed like he was trying to eat it, but then it stuck out, producing his first sound since he appeared. It is best written out as “Dhcmrlchtdj.”
Finally getting the hang of having a tongue, he said “Oh, I really missed talking. And sushi.” To the girls, he said, “Apologies for the insulting language I used during my little ventriloquist act just now. I’d have broken the automaton open myself, but that brass behemoth’s too slippery to scale. Young lady,” he specifically addressed Fox, “I owe a debt to you and your lithobolia.”
“Don’t even know what litho-whatever means.” Fox somehow managed to both sigh and snarl at the same time. “That’s not even the most ridiculous thing, because cats don’t talk.”
“Not usually, no,” agreed the talking cat. “For simplicity’s sake, think of me as the idea of a cat rather than a flesh-and-blood specimen. Granted, I still eat the occasional mouse now and then. I’m alive, after all.”
“How can an idea live?” asked Grace.
“Hrm, much better than a watery bag of meat, thankyouverymuch!” The cat began licking his right paw. “No offense, but mortal bodies are so frightfully fragile. Spirits get to move from head to head, depending on who’s dream you’re in. Doesn’t it seemed strange the word for your dearest hopes is the same for weird pictures that play inside your brains at night? What tricky fun language is.”
“It’s happened.” Fox batted a stone away from her forehead. “This place has finally driven me crazy.”
“Not at all,” disagreed the cat. “This is a place meant to drive people sane. Complete waste of time if you ask me. If you want to ask me, I’ll first introduce myself. My name is Schrodinger, part-time muse, full-time librarian at the Croatoan Archives.”
As presumably neither of her companions had experience with things like this, Grace introduced them as well as herself. “You say you’re a muse. My friend Bennu was…is a muse. Doesn’t that mean you work to inspire people?”
“The real work’s trying to distill something useful out of dreams. There’s just so much of the stuff lying around. I’m sure you know firsthand that humans dream, but you might not be aware every other mammal species does, too. Plus, some birds, a couple reptiles, and I think even a cuttlefish. Notice how a dog’s tail wiggles while it sleeps? Its legs flex, nostrils flare, lips curl, and teeth bare. These aren’t mere body reflexes, the dog’s having a dream about chasing something. Or someone.”
“Okay,” said Grace, who was not sure it was. “Does that help explain how an idea can live?”
“Yes.” Schrodinger purred, as if nothing gave more pleasure than explaining something. “Like a dog, a cat might appear to do nothing during the hours they spend at rest. In fact, they are soaking. Soaking sunlight when they can, but also knowledge, as when sitting on an owner’s lap while the person reads. Best place for a cat to rest is a library. Actually, libraries are the best place for most things, expect racquetball, arson, and yodeling.
“Knowledge, dreams, and ideas might not be physical things, but they have a substance of their own. They clump together, Like dust bunnies from your brain. Eventually, thoughts start thinking about themselves, resulting in a bestiary’s worth of magical creatures. Like my race, the grimalkins, who sprung from the collected dreams of every cat in the whole world. When not journeying to the waking world, as I have now, we make our homes in the Astral.”
“Astral.” Grace knew that word at least. It was where Bennu also once lived. “Has to do with stars, right?”
“Yes, it can be that large in scale, but it also exists in the smallest things.” Schrodinger switched to his left paw. “The physical, waking world is generally a solid place. More than the Astral, at least, where small things can appear big, and big things appear small, and middle things can appear as both. You can exploit that to move from one world into another. Those in the right state of mind can never be held in place.”
“Not even this Institute?” Grace placed a hand on one of the glass-protected shelves. It felt refreshingly cool.
“There are plenty ways to leave without going to the trouble of physically walking out.” Schrodinger leapt to the shelf just above Grace. Only a thin strip of wood protruded beyond the glass, but the cat easily found space to stretch in a manner impossible for an animal with a normal spine. “Plenty ways to get in, too, like I did tonight in order to reclaim my tongue.
Now that’s done, I’m mostly concerned with getting my gold scroll back.”
“The scroll is yours?” Grace remembered something. “Wait, that day Bennu crashed into the crow’s hollow, I almost tripped over a tabby. That was you?”
“You curtsied, as I recall.” Schrodinger nodded, somehow not falling off the bookshelf. “Or tried to. After the arson in the woods, but before the arson at the church, I tried contacting you. But without a tongue, or ink and paper to compose a letter with my tail, there were frustrating limits to how far I could communicate. I’m not as Rubenesque as when you met me because I’ve been a bit harried looking for William Henry. He was a dear friend. At least, until he switched his focus from physics to engineering.” The tabby stuck out his bristly, pink tongue. It stayed attached.
“Oh,” said Diana. “Who’s Henry?”
“He’s this scientist who found out about this dangerous mold, or mushroom,” Grace spoke excitedly. Many things that once seemed mysterious were starting to make a bit more sense. “My friend Bennu found a gold scroll he thought might cure the spores (because they make bird’s heads explode)” she was suddenly whispering, “But no one in the city he’s from—
Nephel… Niff…a place starting with ‘N’ understood the scroll to be sure. So they want Henry’s help.”
“Wait, their heads explode?” The cloud of stones above Fox vanished. “That’s awful keen.”
“Your bird friend was correct.” Schrodinger acted as if Fox had not interjected. “The fungus is a parasite that once grew on Yggdrasil, the largest tree in the universe…before it burnt down. Radixomniummalorum bokor is its scientific name. Those exposed to its spores become as zombies, and their minds can be controlled. For a little why. Victims die very quickly. Before William Henry broke my seventh or eighth heart deciding to waste his short life building robots, I loaned the gold scroll to him. The Croatoan Archives would now like their property restored, Grace Grey. I’ll even waive the fine.”
“I don’t, um, have it,” Grace admitted. “Bennu was hurt, so I helped make him a pyre. He turned back into an egg, and the scroll he had went to a raven and a Murder I knew real well. I’ve met some of those crows since then, but they left, and I’m not sure where I’d find them. Sorry, Mr. Schroder...”
“Something I want to know,” interrupted Diana, “why was your tongue inside that clock?”
“Aitvaras—an old enemy—must have put it there as a joke. The joke, however, was on him, for he tried selling the zombifying spores to the humans in charge here.” Schrodinger leapt to the ground in one fluid arc. “Now the Director wants to stop him from selling them to anyone else, such as another government. Ambrosius will kill Aitvaras if he can. What’s more, I hear the employer Aitvaras stole the spores from knows what he did, and if she didn’t live so far away, would have fried that chicken by now.”
“I didn’t care about most of that.” Fox put on her goggles. Pebbles started dropping around her again. “But you said there were secret ways to leave here. Like what?”
“To you, facilitator of my speech,” Schrodinger paid Fox his full attention (which, if you ever owned a cat, know is a rare occurrence) “I owe a boon. If your desire happens to be escaping this asylum, I’ll show you the surest way out. Your friends, too, if they want the same.”
“Yes!” Grace sprung in the air, even knowing how embarrassing it probably made her look. “I’ve missed the world, the sun, my par…” she blinked in the direction of Fox and Diana. She meant to say “parents” but considered how the other girls did not seem to have any. Nobody came to visit them on Friday afternoons, at least. “…My pair of overalls. Yeah, denim! I hate this breezy gown. We can get your scroll back, Mr. Schrodinger, but please let Bennu have it long enough to translate the cure.”
Schrodinger flicked his tail. “I’ll do you one better, Grace Grey. I’ll decipher the scroll, personally. Of course, we’ll need to find it first. Afterwards, the avian residents of Nephelokokkygia might feel so grateful, they’ll let me have them over for dinner.”
“This Niffle-something sounds like a sneeze,” said Fox. “Totally cuckoo, and we should know. But heads exploding, that I gotta see! Okay Schrohumdinger, my wish is for you to take us up in the clouds to see this city.”
“It’s not a wish.” Schrodinger sighed. “It’s a boon. A favor more than anything. I may be magical, but I’m not a witch…or god. My power is limited, and grimalkins are more than a little bit intimidated by heights—much less places in the sky. Still, over centuries I’ve learnt the best shortcuts to places on Earth, whether in Astral or waking worlds. But there’s someone you two have forgotten. Where might you like to go, Diana Hemlock?”
“Well.” Diana shook her bag-head to one side, then the other. “I figure I can be unhappy in this dank, beige asylum, or I could be unhappy outside. Here, I already know all the things that make me miserable, but out there I might have plenty more reasons to suffer.” Her voice sounded, not happy, but inexplicably excited.
“You’re free to unhappiness on your own terms,” said Schrodinger. “The three of you think on what I’ve offered. We can’t just leave now. To teach my methods of secret traveling might take weeks, and Institute workers will come searching for you if you’re not back where they left you soon.”
The girls returned to their chambers before dawn. They said nothing about what they experienced in the basement. Not the morning before testing, nor the three meals of gruel they now ate together. Even at night, they said nothing. Grace suspected the other girls did not seriously believe they had met a talking cat from a world of dreams. Before Bennu and Mr. Aitvaras, she probably would not have either. Her Grandmam’s fairy tales and mother’s Anansi stories seemed so terribly distant from the average world where birds and people talked.
She had left the cat’s paperclip in the giant cuckoo clock, but Schrodinger managed to open her cell with his claw. Fox was freed too, and Diana trailed behind. Grace thought they would return to the basement. Instead, Schrodinger led them to a mostly bare room just a floor below Ward Eight. The orderly had lied. Nothing on this side had been demolished. A mirror took up an entire wall. On the opposite side of the room, a window with metal bars on the inside and outside.
“I don’t think we’re thin enough to squeeze through those,” Diana pointed out. She slapped her bandaged hands against her round middle.
“In my experience,” said Schrodinger, “the most effective way to escape this asylum is to make it appear as if you never left. Should you simply vanish, the Director would likely spare no expense tracking you down. What you need, then, are some identical replacements.”