Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (41 page)

“No,” Ben says. “The story ain’t finished, ain’t even
half
finished.”

And I know it ain’t. And I know where it’s heading.

And I changed my mind. I don’t want it to finish.

But I do, too.

I look into Ben’s eyes, into his Noise.

“The war didn’t stop with the Spackle,” I say. “Not in Prentisstown.”

Ben licks his lips and I can feel unsteadiness in his Noise and hunger and grief at what he’s already imagining is our next parting.

“War is a monster,” he says, almost to himself. “War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows.” He’s looking at me now. “And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.”

“They couldn’t stand the silence,” Viola says, her voice still. “They couldn’t stand women knowing everything about them and them knowing nothing about women.”

“
Some
men thought that,” Ben says. “Not all. Not me, not Cillian. There were good men in Prentisstown.”

“But enough thought it,” I say.

“Yes,” he nods.

There’s another pause as the truth starts to show itself.

Finally. And forever.

Viola is shaking her head. “Are you saying . . . ?” she says. “Are you really saying . . . ?”

And here it is.

Here’s the thing that’s the centre of it all.

Here’s the thing that’s been growing in my head since I left the swamp, seen in flashes of men along the way, most clearly in Matthew Lyle’s but also in the reakshuns of everyone who even hears the word Prentisstown.

Here it is.

The truth.

And I don’t want it.

But I say it anyway.

“After they killed the Spackle,” I say, “the men of Prentisstown killed the women of Prentisstown.”

Viola gasps even tho she’s got to have guessed it, too.

“Not
all
the men,” Ben says. “But many. Allowing themselves to be swayed by Mayor Prentiss and the preachings of Aaron, who used to say that what was hidden must be evil. They killed all the women and all the men who tried to protect them.”

“My ma,” I say.

Ben just nods in confirmayshun.

I feel a sickness in my stomach.

My ma dying, being killed by men I probably saw every day.

I have to sit down on a gravestone.

I have to think of something else, I just do. I have to put something else in my Noise so I can stand it.

“Who was Jessica?” I say, remembering Matthew Lyle’s Noise back in Farbranch, remembering the violence in it, the Noise that now makes sense even tho it don’t make no sense at all.

“Some people could see what was coming,” Ben says. “Jessica Elizabeth was our Mayor and she could see the way the wind was blowing.”

Jessica Elizabeth, I think. New Elizabeth.

“She organized some of the girls and younger boys to flee across the swamp,” Ben continues. “But before she could go herself with the women and the men who hadn’t lost their minds, the Mayor’s men attacked.”

“And that was that,” I say, feeling numb all over. “New Elizabeth becomes Prentisstown.”

“Yer ma never thought it would happen,” Ben says, smiling sadly to himself at some memory. “So full of love that woman, so full of hope in the goodness of others.” He stops smiling. “And then there came a moment when it was too late to flee and you were way too young to be sent away and so she gave you to us, told us to keep you safe, no matter what.”

I look up. “How was staying in Prentisstown keeping me safe?”

Ben’s staring right at me, sadness everywhere around him, his Noise so weighted with it, it’s a wonder he can stay upright.

“Why didn’t you leave?” I ask.

He rubs his face. “Cuz we didn’t think the attack would really happen either. Or
I
didn’t, anyway, and we had put the farm together and I thought it would blow over before anything really bad happened. I thought it was just rumours and paranoia, including on the part of yer ma, right up to the last.” He frowns. “I was wrong. I was stupid.” He looks away. “I was wilfully blind.”

I remember his words comforting me about the Spackle.

We’ve all made mistakes, Todd. All of us.

“And then it was too late,” Ben says. “The deed was done and word of what Prentisstown had done spread like wildfire, starting with the few who’d managed to escape it. All men from Prentisstown were declared criminals. We couldn’t leave.”

Viola’s arms are still crossed. “Why didn’t someone come and get you? Why didn’t the rest of New World come after you?”

“And do what?” Ben says, sounding tired. “Fight another war but this time with heavily armed men? Lock us up in a giant prison? They laid down the law that if any man from Prentisstown crossed the swamp, he’d be executed. And then they left us to it.”

“But they must have . . .” Viola says, holding her palms to the air. “Something. I don’t know.”

“If it ain’t happening on yer doorstep,” Ben says, “it’s easier to think,
Why go out and
find
trouble
? We had the whole of the swamp twixt us and New World. The Mayor sent word that Prentisstown would be a town in exile. Doomed, of course, to a slow death. We’d agree never to leave and if we ever did, he’d hunt us down and kill us himself.”

“Didn’t people try?” Viola says. “Didn’t they try and get away?”

“They
tried,
” Ben says, full of meaning. “It wasn’t uncommon for people to disappear.”

“But if you and Cillian were innocent–” I start.

“We
weren’t
innocent,” Ben says strongly, and suddenly his Noise tastes bitter. He sighs. “We weren’t.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, raising my head. The sickness in my stomach ain’t leaving. “What do you mean you weren’t innocent?”

“You let it happen,” Viola says. “You didn’t die with the other men who were protecting the women.”

“We didn’t fight,” he says, “and we didn’t die.” He shakes his head. “Not innocent at all.”

“Why didn’t you fight?” I ask.

“Cillian wanted to,” Ben says quickly. “I want you to know that. He wanted to do whatever he could to stop them. He would have given his life.” He looks away once more. “But I wouldn’t let him.”

“Why not?”

“I get it,” Viola whispers.

I look at her, cuz I sure don’t. “Get what?”

Viola keeps looking at Ben. “They either die fighting for what’s right and leave you an unprotected baby,” she says, “or they become complicit with what’s wrong and keep you alive.”

I don’t know what complicit means but I can guess.

They did it for me. All that horror. They did it for me.

Ben and Cillian. Cillian and Ben.

They did it so I could live.

I don’t know how I feel about any of this.

Doing what’s right should be easy.

It shouldn’t be just another big mess like everything else.

“So we waited,” Ben says. “In a town-sized prison. Full of the ugliest Noise you ever heard before men started denying their own pasts, before the Mayor came up with his grand plans. And so we waited for the day you were old enough to get away on yer own, innocent as we could keep you.” He rubs a hand over his head. “But the Mayor was waiting, too.”

“For me?” I ask, tho I know it’s true.

“For the last boy to become a man,” Ben says. “When boys became men, they were told the truth. Or a version of it, anyway. And then they were made complicit themselves.”

I remember his Noise from back on the farm, about my birthday, about how a boy becomes a man.

About what complicity really means and how it can be passed on.

How it was waiting to be passed on to me.

And about the men who–

I put it outta my head.

“That don’t make no sense,” I say.

“You were the last,” Ben says. “If he could make every single boy in Prentisstown a man by his own meaning, then he’s God, ain’t he? He’s created all of us and is in complete control.”

“If one of us falls,”
I say.

“We all fall,”
Ben finishes. “That’s why he wants you. Yer a symbol. Yer the last innocent boy of Prentisstown. If he can make you fall, then his army is complete and of his own perfect making.”

“And if not?” I say, tho I’m wondering if I’ve already fallen.

“If not,” Ben says, “he’ll kill you.”

“So Mayor Prentiss is as mad as Aaron, then,” Viola says.

“Not quite,” Ben says. “Aaron is mad. But the Mayor knows enough to use madness to achieve his ends.”

“Which are what?” Viola says.

“This world,” Ben says calmly. “He wants all of it.”

I open my mouth to ask more stuff I don’t wanna know but then, as if there was never gonna be anything else that could ever happen, we hear it.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump
. Coming down the road, relentless, like a joke that ain’t ever gonna be funny.

“You’ve
got
to be kidding,” Viola says.

Ben’s already back on his feet, listening. “It sounds like just one horse.”

We all look down the road, shining a little in the moonlight.

“Binos,” Viola says, now right by my side. I fish ’em out without another word, click on the night setting and look, searching out the sound as it rings thru the night air.

Budda-thump budda-thump.

I search down the road farther and farther back till–

There it is.

There
he
is.

Who else?

Mr Prentiss Jr, alive and well and untied and back on his horse.

“Damn,” I hear from Viola, reading my Noise as I hand her the binos.

“Davy Prentiss?”
Ben says, also reading my Noise.

“The one and only.” I put the water bottles back in Viola’s bag. “We gotta go.”

Viola hands the binos to Ben and he looks for himself. He takes them away from his eyes and gives the binos a quick once over. “Nifty,” he says.

“We need to go,” Viola says. “As always.”

Ben turns to us, binos still in his hand. He’s looking from one of us to the other and I see what’s forming in his Noise.

“Ben–” I start.

“No,” he says. “This is where I leave you.”

“Ben–”

“I can handle Davy bloody Prentiss.”

“He has a gun,” I say. “You don’t.”

Ben comes up to me. “Todd,” he says.

“No, Ben,” I say, my voice getting louder. “I ain’t listening.”

He looks me in the eye and I notice he don’t seem to be having to bend down any more to do it.

“Todd,” he says again. “I atone for the wrong I’ve done by keeping you safe.”

“You can’t leave me, Ben,” I say, my voice getting wet (shut up). “Not again.”

He’s shaking his head. “I can’t come to Haven with you. You know I can’t. I’m the enemy.”

“We can
explain
what happened.”

But he’s still shaking his head.

“The horse is getting closer,” Viola says.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump.

“The only thing that makes me a man,” Ben says, his voice steady as a rock, “is seeing you safely into becoming a man yerself.”

“I ain’t a man yet, Ben,” I say, my throat catching (shut
up
). “I don’t even know how many days I got left.”

And then he smiles and it’s the smile that tells me it’s over.

“Sixteen,” he says. “Sixteen days till yer birthday.” He takes my chin and lifts it. “But you’ve been a man for a good while now. Don’t let
no one
tell you otherwise.”

“Ben–”

“Go,” he says and he comes up to me and hands Viola the binos behind my back and takes me in his arms. “No father could be prouder,” I hear him say by my ear.

“No,” I say, my words slurring. “It ain’t fair.”

“It ain’t.” He pulls himself away. “But there’s hope at the end of the road. You remember that.”

“Don’t go,” I say.

“I have to. Danger’s coming.”

“Closer and closer,” Viola says, binos to her eyes.

Budda-thump budda-THUMP.

“I’ll stop him. I’ll buy you time.” Ben looks at Viola. “You take care of Todd,” he says. “I have yer word?”

“You have my word,” Viola says.

“Ben, please,” I whisper. “Please.”

He grips my shoulders for a last time. “Remember,” he says.
“Hope.”

And he don’t say nothing more and he turns and runs down the hill from the sematary to the road. When he gets to the bottom, he looks back and sees us still watching him.

“What are you waiting for?” he shouts. “Run!”

I won’t say what I feel when we run down the other side of the hill and away from Ben, for ever this time cuz how is there any life after this?

Life equals running and when we stop running maybe that’s how we’ll know life is finally finished.

“Come on, Todd,” Viola calls, looking back over her shoulder. “Please, hurry.”

I don’t say nothing.

I run.

We get down the hill and back by the river. Again. With the road on our other side.
Again
.

Always the same.

The river’s louder than it was, rushing by with some force, but who cares? What does it matter?

Life ain’t fair.

It ain’t.

Not never.