Page 4 of The House of Quiet

It looks a little like where the minister’s country manor was.

Birdie tenses, half expecting the minister of finance himself to appear, that oily smile on his face.

The same one that seeped across his features when Birdie informed him that she’d stolen a letter plotting against the minister of defense and demanded he recommend her to a position in the House of Quiet.

That smile has haunted her. Why wasn’t he upset?

The driver holds out a canteen and three mismatched mugs. “Tea,” he says. As soon as Birdie takes the offering, the door closes once more.

“Least he could have done is tell us how much longer,” Rabbit grumbles. She pours for herself, then offers the canteen to Birdie.

“None for me, thanks.” Birdie’s stomach is still unsettled by the ride, and she’d prefer it empty. Maids aren’t allowed inconvenient bodily functions.

Minnow and Rabbit split the rest. Within minutes, their heads bob in unison.

Birdie wishes she could join them. Sleeping during the day is a luxury she’s never imagined for herself.

She used to indulge in dreams of working in a shop, only ten or twelve hours a day, leaving her time to meet up with Magpie for a pastry or sweet.

Listen to the details of Magpie’s day doing important work wherever the government assigned her.

A whole life, planned around Magpie’s procedure. Birdie never stopped to wonder if Magpie wanted the procedure at all. None of them did. They were all too focused on saving to pay for it, in the hopes that Magpie would lift them all out of poverty.

Birdie hates her parents for what they did, but she hates herself, too.

The carriage jolts and bumps. Neither girl so much as startles awake, and Birdie eyes their empty mugs with suspicion. Nimbus’s mother had a special tea that rendered her unconscious every afternoon. Why would the driver want to do that to them, though?

When the carriage stops again, Birdie closes her eyes, just in case, every muscle tense and ready to run. She doesn’t want to leave Rabbit and Minnow behind, but if this is the trap, it’s for her, not them.

The door opens. Someone grunts in approval. Not the minister, then. Birdie can’t imagine him doing something as unsophisticated as grunting.

“Delivery tomorrow, too?” the driver asks.

“Busy season,” a second man says. His voice is new. Where did he come from?

The driver speaks again. “Where is the house?” There’s a long pause before the driver forces a laugh and says, “None of my concern, I know. Just curious.”

“I wouldn’t be, if I were you,” the second man says. It’s less a threat than a weary warning. The door clicks shut. No one has come for Birdie, but she doesn’t relax until the carriage begins moving once more.

Birdie pops a few of the curtain stitches and gets the corner open.

The twilight world around them is unfamiliar.

She’d expected well-tended countryside like the minister’s estate.

Instead, she finds a flat and near-featureless landscape.

She wishes she’d been able to take Nimbus’s lessons on geography.

It’s upsetting that she has no idea where they might be.

The sun’s last rays illuminate surprising pools of water.

Not contained and orderly rivers or lakes, but a mess of ponds and quagmires dominating the ground all around them.

The carriage slows, then slows more, until Birdie could walk faster.

Even though the land is perfectly flat, their path is winding and strange.

Finally, in the distance, Birdie sees a darker black against the nighttime horizon.

It looks more like an absence than a presence. A hole, waiting to swallow them.

But as the carriage tugs them ever closer, the lines resolve into something comprehensible: a building, standing sentinel.

It’s at least three stories tall, with ornamental towers on both sides.

The structure feels forbidding, like the mausoleums on the hills overlooking the city, where the wealthy families inter their dead.

A reminder that even their rotting corpses deserve better than people like Birdie.

The House of Quiet, at last. Birdie shouldn’t be surprised they wanted it far, far away from the city.

After all, sometimes the passageways the procedure opens in young brains are weak, like Rabbit’s.

But sometimes they’re too powerful for the mind to stand, or too dangerous for anyone to be around.

“ Too much noise ,” Dr.Bramble had said when Birdie asked about it. “The House of Quiet eases the discomfort. A kindness, provided by the Ministry of Health and Progress. You’ll find your sister there; I’m sure of it. We just have to get you inside . ”

A kindness. That phrase jabs Birdie like a thorn in her shoe. There are no kindnesses. Not for people like Birdie and Magpie.

At the minister’s house, there was a footman.

Footboy, really. The minister wanted his heavy trunk brought down to his carriage, but of course he couldn’t see it being taken there.

So little Herring did his best to balance it as he navigated the dark, treacherous servants’ stairs.

When he fell, breaking too many bones to easily fix, the minister dismissed him to die at home.

Instead of sending his own personal doctor, or payment, or even just condolences, he sent Herring’s family a bill for the cost of the damaged trunk.

That was the type of man who ran this country.

He had no kindness in him. And, even more troubling, the Ministry of Health and Progress paid Birdie’s parents an astonishing sum in place of returning Magpie after her procedure.

If anything, the Ministry should have demanded Birdie’s family raise another impossible sum in order to fix her.

The carriage comes to a stop. Rabbit and Minnow nearly tip over with the movement, but they’re still out cold.

Birdie peers at the house. On the first floor, in the corner, a dark figure stands behind a window.

Waiting…and watching. Birdie pushes the curtain hastily back in place, hoping she wasn’t noticed.

Birdie’s here. She made it. And she’s not leaving until she’s stolen her sister back from the House of Quiet.