Page 11 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Seven

A Bird Trapped

The more Birdie works, the more she feels like a fist is in her chest, squeezing tighter and tighter.

Magpie isn’t here.

Magpie isn’t here.

The words repeat in her head like a cruel children’s song, taunting her. Everything she did to get here, and she’s just another maid in another house.

She doesn’t even have her friend to comfort her.

After that first night in the minister’s house, when she felt so alone and so terrified anticipating what she was there to do, that barred door on the abandoned third floor became her refuge.

Where she comes from, people look out for each other and help with what little they can.

Whoever was behind that door had drawings, and Birdie had stories, and they traded them back and forth as comfort and companionship until the night Birdie left.

“ Come with me ,” she had whispered, and, as ever, there was no answer. Only a final drawing.

Just as well her friend didn’t escape with her. Because Birdie didn’t escape at all. She just traded the cage of one grand house for another.

Birdie is so tired and so sad, and that fist keeps squeezing so hard she can barely breathe.

She cleans the bathrooms and then goes room to room building fires with the smelly briquettes.

Minnow didn’t bother. As far as she can tell, Minnow hasn’t done anything.

And Rabbit hasn’t reappeared from the House Wife’s room, either.

Birdie knocks on a door because she hasn’t learned yet which bedrooms are occupied. She should have done this work while the residents were all at breakfast, anyway. She won’t make the same mistake tomorrow.

Tomorrow. It stretches in front of her, vast and relentless and empty.

The door opens. Sky glares down at her, his lip curling in hatred. Birdie dips a curtsy and begins backing away. “Sorry, I’m lighting the fires, I’ll—”

“Come in.” He steps aside. It surprises her so much that she does as requested.

Sky stays where he is, posture rigid, one hand behind his back.

He watches Birdie as she lays the peat briquettes.

Nimbus’s father never bothered maids, and the minister didn’t seem to realize she existed until it was too late, but Birdie’s heard enough stories to be wary.

She keeps him in view out of the corner of her eye.

Sky begins pushing the door shut, slowly, so it won’t make any noise and draw her attention.

Birdie stands. Sky pushes the door harder, but it bounces off a shoe. Forest is looming in the way, but he doesn’t look at her. Only at Sky.

“Get out,” Sky snaps at him.

Forest doesn’t move.

Birdie won’t pass up this chance. “Forgot matches, so sorry,” she says. She dips another quick curtsy and squeezes out past Forest, who hasn’t moved an inch. He’s still staring at Sky, eyes narrowed.

Forest’s issues with Sky just saved her from something. She doesn’t know what, and she doesn’t want to find out. And now, on top of everything else, she’ll have to avoid Sky while cleaning his room every day and living in the same house. This cursed house. This house where her sister isn’t.

Birdie can’t take it. That feeling in her chest isn’t sadness. It’s anger. She’s livid . She has to release it before someone notices. Her bedroom is too far away, and if she gets caught up there, she’ll be accused of shirking her duties. Not that any other maids seem to care about those.

She rushes toward the glass door next to the stairs and finds it unlocked.

But instead of being outside, she’s in a steamy glass room filled with plants.

Birdie flees to the far corner. Tucked between two potted trees, she crouches, wraps her arms around her legs, presses her mouth against her knees, and screams.

She screams and screams until her throat is raw. Six months. Six months, looking for the right material to use against the minister so she could get a recommendation for this position, and Magpie isn’t here .

Maybe Magpie never came to the House of Quiet at all. Maybe her parents lied about Magpie being taken away. Maybe she died, and they knew it would break Birdie to find out.

If she lets herself believe that, though, she’ll sink to the floor and never get up again. No, Magpie’s out there, somewhere. Dr. Bramble was confident Magpie had been sent here. This is still the best place to find information on where Magpie ended up after treatment.

Look for the warm places , Magpie says in her memory.

It’s what Magpie would say on the grayest, coldest days, when the factory smoke choked out the sun and dirty ice crept in under the windows.

Magpie could always find the one spot in their tiny apartment that the sun hit just right.

The one spot they could curl up together and be comfortable.

Birdie’s repeated that saying to herself for years.

There’s always something good to find, in any situation.

The warm place in the minister’s house was visiting her friend.

Telling them stories through the door and always receiving a drawing slid underneath when it was time to go.

She had to leave her friend behind, but she’ll always have those memories.

Someone who listened when Birdie felt the most scared and alone.

Someone she was able to help a little even though no one else in the house seemed to care that they existed.

The warm place in Nimbus’s house was Nimbus himself and his generosity. He can be her warm place here, too. Her chance to return the favor of his kindness. If she can do a little good for him while she tries to figure out where Magpie went, she should.

It’s what her people do: find ways to ease each other’s burdens. Other people’s children fed when there’s any food to spare. A coin from the neighborhood junk dealer, Mare, when things were most desperate. Factory or laundry shifts picked up when someone was too sick to report themselves.

She knows Nimbus isn’t from her neighborhood or even her class, but he’s one of them. He has been since the first day he left his workbooks out for her.

So: She’ll work, and she’ll do what she can for Nimbus, and she’ll be a spy in the House of Quiet, looking for the informationthat will lead her on the next part of her journey to findingMagpie.

She’d hoped this was the destination. It’s not. But it’s not a dead end. She refuses to let it be.

Feeling better with a plan—and after the scream, another trick Cricket taught her long ago—Birdie checks the perimeter of the greenhouse extension.

The glass enclosure has been built right against the exterior wall, and there’s a fuzzy layer of green on the rocks thanks to the continuous moisture and warmth.

Most of the plants are fruits and vegetables, but there are some that are merely decorative.

A cushioned bench hides between bows of dense, spiky green trees.

Birdie pats the pillows. They’re at least a couple of years old, the velvet worn down where a procession of bodies sat. More confirmation that rich people have been visiting or staying here long before this new twist of their children needing treatment. Why?

And how is she supposed to snoop and find information while cleaning a house this size with so many residents and so little staff?

And why can’t she find a door that leads outside?

If the front door is always locked, she needs alternatives.

Just in case. She pushes on one of the glass panels, wondering if there are hinges she’s missed.

“I wouldn’t,” a voice says from behind her.

Birdie whirls to see Minnow standing in the center of the greenhouse. “Wouldn’t what?”

“Try to go outside. It’s a peat bog. Impassable, unless you know where you’re going.

Even then, they’re treacherous. One step wrong and you’re sunk up to your neck, trapped until you starve to death.

Who builds a grand house in the middle of a peat bog?

” She tilts her head as though waiting for Birdie to supply an answer.

Birdie shrugs, irritated. “I only build grand houses on the moon. That way I can look down on everyone.”

To her surprise, Minnow laughs. It’s like a flash of barely glimpsed silver beneath a calm surface, much like her name. Minnow turns to leave, then pauses. “I suppose this means the rumors are true, then.”

Birdie’s intrigued. “What rumors?”

“That whatever the procedure does is contagious. You haven’t heard that? No whispers in Sootcity?”

“That’s impossible,” Birdie scoffs.

Minnow gestures toward the house. “You really think any of their parents paid to have their children’s minds pried open like tin cans just to see what might come out?”

“They could have sneaked out. Got it done on their own.”

Minnow lifts a doubtful eyebrow and sits on the edge of a planter.

Seeing her do that is like the fire bells ringing through the quarter, clanging a warning that something is wrong.

Even when Birdie was in here alone, she wouldn’t have dreamed of sitting.

There’s no pretending to be working if you’re caught sitting.

“I’ll bet that’s why they didn’t have any maids when we got here,” Minnow continues. “They figured it out and left. Probably why they hired Rabbit, too. Can’t be infected if she’s already had the procedure. Did they tell you anything before you came? Warn you?”

Birdie shakes her head. The risk of infection doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about herself. She can’t. She can only focus on Magpie, or this will all fall apart.

“Ever heard of anything like this before?” Minnow presses. “We don’t have a lot of kids get the procedure where I’m from.”

“Families save up for it for years, sometimes lifetimes. If there were another way to gain abilities, if you could be infected just by proximity, everyone I know would be trying to make it happen that way.” But what if Minnow’s right and none of the residents have gotten the procedure?

Birdie can’t even begin to grasp the implications.

“What’s the procedure like?” Minnow asks.

Birdie frowns. Everyone knows that. Minnow’s town must be incredibly small and isolated.

And why wouldn’t she ask Rabbit, who’s actually been through it?

The more Birdie is around Minnow, the less sense the other maid makes.

Birdie gives the most basic answer she can.

“There’s a building in the center of Sootcity, between all the other Ministry buildings.

Inside is a machine, bigger than this whole house.

You save and save and hope and wait, and if you’re very lucky, your name comes up and you go inside and get changed forever. ”

“So it can’t happen by accident.”

“No, it can’t happen by accident.”

“Infection, then. Unless you have another explanation.”

Birdie shrugs. “I don’t. And it’s not my job to. Are you leaving? So you don’t get infected?”

Minnow shakes her head and sighs. Her eyes drift to the windows, looking for something neither of them can see in the impenetrable landscape of fog. “I can’t.”

“Neither can I. Let’s get back to work.”

“Floors first?” Minnow asks.

Birdie waits for Minnow to laugh or indicate she was joking. They can’t clean floors during the day when the residents are walking around. It inconveniences them and makes the maids unavoidable. Another thing Minnow should know.

“Bedrooms. Then the kitchen,” Birdie says. “And then everything else.”

She walks out, hoping against hope that cleaning this place top to bottom will reveal its secrets. But also resolving to keep an extra eye on Minnow. Because Birdie’s certain now she’s not a maid.