Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (16 page)

And if I’m contagious that means Viola’s probably definitely caught it by now, could be dying as we speak, and that I’m probably definitely not gonna be welcome in the settlement, probably definitely gonna be told to keep way way out and that that’s probably the end of that, ain’t it? My journey ended before I even found anywhere to go.

“Oh, ye won’t be welcome in the settlement,” the woman says. “No probably about it. But,” she winks at me, actually winks, “what ye don’t know won’t kill ye.”

“Wanna bet?” I say.

She turns back and steps up the rocks the way she came. We just watch her go till she gets to the top and turns around again.

“Ye all a-coming?” she says, as if she’s invited us along and we’re keeping her waiting.

I look at Viola. She calls up to the woman, “We’re meant to be heading for the settlement.” Viola looks at me again. “Welcome or not.”

“Oh, ye’ll get there,” says the woman, “but what ye two pups need first is a good sleeping and a good feeding. Any blind man could see that.”

The idea of sleep and hot food is so tempting, I forget for a second that she ever pointed a gun at us. But only for a second. Cuz there’s other things to think about. I make the decision for us. “We should keep on the road,” I say to Viola quietly.

“I don’t even know where we’re going,” she says, also quietly. “Do you? Honestly?”

“Ben said–”

“Ye two pups come to my farm, get some good eatings in ye, sleep on a bed – tho it ain’t soft, I grant ye that – and in the morning, we’ll go to the
settlement
.” And that’s how she says it, opening her eyes wide on it, like a word to make fun of us for calling it that.

We still don’t move.

“Look at it thusly,” the old woman says. “I got me a gun.” She waves it. “But I’m
asking
ye to come.”

“Why don’t we go with her?” Viola whispers. “Just to see.”

My Noise rises a little in surprise. “See what?”

“I could use a bath,” she says. “I could use some sleep.”

“So could I,” I say, “but there’s men who’re after us who probably ain’t gonna let one fallen bridge stop them. And besides, we don’t know nothing about her. She could be a killer for all we know.”

“She seems okay.” Viola glances up at the woman. “A little crazy, but she doesn’t seem
dangerous
crazy.”

“She don’t
seem
anything.” I feel a little vexed, if I’m honest. “People without Noise don’t seem like nothing at all.”

Viola looks at me, her brows suddenly creased and her jaw set a little.

“Well, not
you,
obviously,” I say.

“Every time . . .” she starts to say but then she just shakes her head.

“Every time what?” I whisper, but Viola just scrunches her eyes and turns to the woman.

“Hold on,” she says, her voice sounding annoyed. “Let me get my stuff.”

“Hey!” I say. What happened to her remembering I saved her life? “Wait a minute. We gotta follow the road. We gotta get to the settlement.”

“Roads is never the fastest way to get nowhere,” the woman says. “Don’t ye know that?”

Viola don’t say nothing, just picks up her bag, frowning all over the place. She’s ready to go, ready to head off with the first quiet person she sees, ready to leave me behind at the first sweet beckoning.

And she’s missing the thing I don’t wanna say.

“I
can’t
go, Viola,” I say, low, thru clenched teeth, hating myself a little as I say it, my face turning hot, which weirdly makes a bandage fall off. “I carry the germ. I’m dangerous.”

She turns to me and there’s a sting in her voice. “Then maybe you shouldn’t come.”

My jaw drops open. “You’d do that? You’d just
leave
?”

Viola looks away from my eyes but before she can answer, the old woman speaks. “Boy pup,” she says, “if it’s being infeckshus yer worried about, then yer girl mate can come a-walking up ahead with ol’ Hildy while ye stay back a little ways with the puppup to guard ye.”

“Manchee!” Manchee barks.

“Whatever,” Viola says, turning and starting to climb the rocks to where the old woman stands.

“And I told ye,” the woman says, “it’s
Hildy,
not
old woman
.”

Viola reaches her and they walk off outta sight without another word. Just like that.

“Hildy,” Manchee says to me.

“Shut up,” I say.

And I don’t got no choice but to climb the rocks after them, do I?

So that’s how we make our way, along a much narrower path thru rocks and scrub, Viola and old Hildy keeping close together when they can, me and Manchee miles back, tripping our way towards who knows what further danger and the whole time I’m looking back over my shoulder, expecting to see the Mayor and Mr Prentiss Jr and Aaron all coming after us.

I don’t know. How can you know? How can Ben and Cillian have expected me to be prepared for this? Sure, the idea of a bed and hot food sounds like something worth getting shot for but maybe it’s a trick and we’re being so stupid we deserve to get caught.

And there’s people after us and we should be running.

But maybe there really ain’t another way over that river.

And Hildy could have forced us and she didn’t. And Viola said she seems okay and maybe one Noise-less person can read another.

You see? How can you know?

And who cares what Viola says?

“Look at ’em up there,” I say to Manchee. “They fell together right quick. Like they’re long-lost family or something.”

“Hildy,” Manchee says again. I swat after his rump but he runs on ahead.

Viola and Hildy are talking together but I can only hear the murmurings of words here and there. I don’t know what they’re saying at all. If they were normal Noisy people, it wouldn’t matter how far back on the trail I was, we could all talk together and nobody’d have no automatic secrets. Everybody’d be jabbering, whether they wanted to or not.

And nobody’d be left out. Nobody’d be left on his own at the first chance you had.

We all walk on.

And I’m starting to think some more.

And I’m starting to let them get a little farther ahead, too.

And I’m thinking more.

Cuz as time passes, it’s all starting to sink in.

Cuz maybe now we found Hildy, maybe she
can
take care of Viola. They’re clearly peas in a pod, ain’t they? Different from me, anyway. And so maybe Hildy could help her back to wherever she’s from cuz obviously I can’t. Obviously I ain’t got nowhere I can be except Prentisstown, do I? Cuz I’m carrying a germ that’ll kill her, may kill her still, may kill everybody else I meet, a germ that’ll forever keep me outta that settlement, that’ll probably even leave me sleeping in Hildy’s barn with the sheep and the russets.

“That’s it, ain’t it, Manchee?” I stop walking, my chest starting to feel heavy. “There ain’t no Noise out here, less I’m the one who brings it.” I rub some sweat off my forehead. “We got nowhere to go. We can’t go forward. We can’t go back.”

I sit down on a rock, realizing the truth of it all.

“We got nowhere,” I say. “We got nothing.”

“Got Todd,” Manchee says, wagging his tail.

It ain’t fair.

It just ain’t fair.

The only place you belong is the place you can never go back.

And so yer always alone, forever and always.

Why’d you do it, Ben? What did I do that was so bad?

I wipe my eyes with my arm.

I wish Aaron and the Mayor
would
come and get me.

I wish it would just be over already.

“Todd?” Manchee barks, coming up to my face and trying to sniff it.

“Leave me alone,” I say, pushing him away.

Hildy and Viola are getting still farther away and if I don’t get up, I’ll lose the trail.

I don’t get up.

I can still hear them talking, tho it gets steadily quieter, no one looking back to see if I’m still following.

Hildy,
I hear, and
girl pup
and
blasted leaky pipe
and
Hildy
again and
burning bridge
.

And I lift my head.

Cuz it’s a new voice.

And I ain’t hearing it. Not with my ears.

Hildy and Viola are getting farther away, but there’s someone coming towards them, someone raising a hand in greeting.

Someone whose Noise is saying
Hello
.

It’s an old man, also carrying a rifle but way down at his side, pointing to the ground. His Noise rises as he approaches Hildy, it stays risen as he puts an arm around her and kisses her in greeting, it buzzes as he turns and is introduced to Viola who stands back a little at being greeted so friendly.

Hildy is married to a man with Noise.

A full grown man, walking around Noisy as you please.

But how–?

“Hey, boy pup!” Hildy shouts back at me. “Ye going to sit there all day picking yer nose or are ye going to join us for supper?”

“Supper, Todd!” Manchee barks and takes off running towards them.

I don’t think nothing. I don’t know
what
to think.

“Another Noisy fella!” shouts the old man, stepping past Viola and Hildy and coming towards me. He’s got Noise pouring outta him like a bright parade, all full of unwelcome welcome and pushy good feeling.
Boy pup
and
bridges falling
and
leaky pipe
and
brother in suffering
and
Hildy, my Hildy
. He’s still carrying his rifle but as he reaches me, his hand’s out for me to shake.

I’m so stunned that I actually shake it.

“Tam’s my name!” the old man more or less shouts. “And who might ye be, pup?”

“Todd,” I say.

“Pleasedtameetya, Todd!” He puts an arm around my shoulders and pretty much drags me forward up the path. I stumble along, barely keeping my balance as he pulls us to Hildy and Viola, talking all the way. “We haven’t had guests for dinner in many a moon, so ye’ll have to be a-scusing our humble shack. Ain’t been no travellers thisaway for nigh on ten years nor more but yer welcome! Yer all welcome!”

We get to the others and I still don’t know what to say and I look from Hildy to Viola to Tam and back again.

I just want the world to make sense now and then, is that so wrong?

“Not wrong at all, Todd pup,” Hildy says kindly.

“How can you not have caught the Noise?” I ask, words finally making their way outta my head via my mouth. Then my heart suddenly rises, rises so high I can feel my eyes popping open and my throat start to clench, my own Noise coming all high hopeful white.

“Do you have a cure?” I say, my voice almost breaking. “Is there a cure?”

“Now if there were a cure,” Tam says, still pretty much shouting, “d’ye honestly think I’d be subjecting ye to all this here rubbish a-floating outta my brain?”

“Heaven help ye if ye did,” Hildy says, smiling.

“And heaven help
ye
if ye couldn’t tell me what I was meant to be thinking.” Tam smiles back, love fuzzing all over his Noise. “Nope, boy pup,” he says to me. “No cure that I know of.”

“Well, now,” Hildy says, “Haven’s meant to be a-working on one. So people say.”

“Which people?” Tam asks, sceptical.

“Talia,” Hildy says. “Susan F. My sister.”

Tam makes a
pssht
sound with his lips. “I rest my case. Rumours of rumours of rumours. Can’t trust yer sister to get her own name right much less any useful info.”

“But–” I say, looking back and forth again and again, not wanting to let it go. “But how can you be alive then?” I say to Hildy. “The Noise kills women.
All
women.”

Hildy and Tam exchange a look and I hear, no, I
feel
Tam squash something in his Noise.

“No, it don’t, Todd pup,” Hildy says, a little too gently. “Like I been telling yer girl mate Viola here. She’s safe.”

“Safe? How can she be safe?”

“Women are immune,” Tam says. “Lucky buggers.”

“No, they’re not!” I say, my voice getting louder. “No, they’re
not
! Every woman in Prentisstown caught the Noise and every single one of them
died
from it! My
ma
died from it! Maybe the version the Spackle released on us was stronger than yers but–”

“Todd pup.” Tam puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

I shake him off but I don’t know what to say next. Viola’s not said a word in all of this so I look at her. She don’t look at me. “I know what I know,” I say, even tho that’s been half the trouble, ain’t it?

How can this be true?

How can this be
true
?

Tam and Hildy exchange another glance. I look into Tam’s Noise but he’s as expert as anyone I’ve met at hiding stuff away when someone starts poking. What I see, tho, is all kind.

“Prentisstown’s got a sad history, pup,” he says. “A whole number of things went sour there.”

“Yer wrong,” I say, but even my voice says I ain’t sure what I’m saying he’s wrong about.

“This ain’t the place for it, Todd,” Hildy says, rubbing Viola on the shoulder, a rub that Viola don’t resist. “Ye need to get some food in ye, some sleep in ye. Vi here says ye ain’t slept hardly at all in many miles of travelling. Everything will be a-looking better when yer fed and rested.”