Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (61 page)

Our heads turn as we watch ’em pass by, parcels held close, and they carry on down the road back to the Women’s Quarter and my chest tightens and my throat clenches.

Cuz
none
of ’em is
her
.

And I realize–

I realize all over again how much–

And my Noise goes all muddy.

Mayor Prentiss has used her to control me.

Duh.

Any effing idiot would know it. If I don’t do what they say, they kill her. If I try to escape, they kill her. If I do anything to Davy, they kill her.

If she ain’t dead already.

My Noise gets blacker.

No.

No,
I think.

Cuz she might not be.

She mighta been out here, on this very street, in another group of four.

Stay alive,
I think.
Please please please stay alive.

(
please be alive
)

I stand at an opening as me and Mayor Ledger eat our dinners, looking for her again, trying to close my ears against the
ROAR
.

Cuz Mayor Ledger was right. There’s so many men that once the cure left their systems, you stopped being able to hear individual Noise. It’d be like trying to hear one drop of water in the middle of a river. Their Noise became a single loud wall, all mushed together so much it don’t say nothing but

But it’s actually something you can sorta get used to. In a way, Mayor Ledger’s words and thoughts and feelings bubbling round his own personal grey Noise are more distracting.

“Quite correct,” he says, patting his stomach. “A man is capable of thought. A crowd is not.”

“An army is,” I say.

“Only if it has a general for a brain.”

He looks out the opening next to mine as he says it. Mayor Prentiss is riding across the square, Mr. Hammar, Mr. Tate, Mr. Morgan and Mr. O’Hare riding behind him, listening to the orders he’s giving.

“The inner circle,” Mayor Ledger says.

And for a second, I wonder if his Noise sounds jealous.

We watch the Mayor dismount, hand his reins to Mr. Tate and disappear into the cathedral.

Not two minutes later,
ker-thunk,
Mr. Collins opens our door.

“The President wants you,” he says to me.

“One moment, Todd,” the Mayor says, opening up one of the crates and looking inside.

We’re in the cellar of the cathedral, Mr. Collins having pushed me down the stairs at the back of the main lobby. I stand there waiting, wondering how much of my dinner Mayor Ledger will eat before I can get back.

I watch Mayor Prentiss look thru another crate.

“
President
Prentiss,” he says, without looking up. “Do try to remember that.” He stands up straight. “Used to be wine stored down here. Far more than was ever needed for communion.”

I don’t say nothing. He looks at me, curious. “You aren’t going to ask, are you?”

“Bout what?” I say.

“The cure, Todd,” he says, thumping one of the crates with his fist. “My men have retrieved every last trace of it from every home in New Prentisstown and here it all is.”

He reaches in and takes out a phial of the cure pills. He pops the lid off and takes out a small white pill twixt his finger and thumb. “Do you never wonder why I haven’t given the cure to you or David?”

I shift from foot to foot. “Punishment?”

He shakes his head. “Does Mr. Ledger still fidget?”

I shrug. “Sometimes. A little.”

“They made the cure,” the Mayor says. “And then they made themselves
need
it.” He indicates row after row of crates and boxes. “And if I have
all
of what they need . . .”

He puts the pill back in the phial and turns more fully to me, smiling wider.

“You wanted something?” I mumble.

“You really don’t know, do you?” he asks.

“Know what?”

He pauses again, and then he says, “Happy birthday, Todd.”

I open my mouth. Then I open it wider.

“It was four days ago,” he says. “I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.”

I don’t believe it. I completely forgot.

“No celebrations,” the Mayor says, “because of course we both know you are
already
a man, now, aren’t you?”

And again I raise the pictures of Aaron.

“You have been very impressive these past two weeks,” he says, ignoring them. “I know it’s been a great struggle for you, not knowing what to believe about Viola, not knowing exactly how you should behave to keep her safe.” I can feel his voice buzzing in my head, searching around. “But you have worked hard nonetheless. You have even been a good influence on David.”

I can’t help but think of the ways I’d like to beat Davy Prentiss into a bloody pulp but Mayor Prentiss just says, “As a reward, I bring you two belated birthday presents.”

My Noise rises. “Can I see her?”

He smiles like he expected it. “You may not,” he says, “but I will promise you this. On the day that you can bring yourself to trust me, Todd, truly bring yourself to understand that I mean good for this town and good for you, then on that day, you will see that I am indeed trustworthy.”

I can hear myself breathing. It’s the closest he’s come to saying she’s all right.

“No, your first birthday present is one you’ve earned,” he says. “You’ll have a new job starting tomorrow. Still with our Spackle friends, but added responsibility and an important part of our new process.” He looks me hard in the eye again. “It’s a job that could take you far, Todd Hewitt.”

“All the way up to be a leader of men?” I say, my voice a bit more sarcastic than he’d probably like.

“Indeed,” he says.

“And the second present?” I say, still hoping it might be her.

“My second present to you, Todd, surrounded by all this cure.” He gestures at the crates again. “Is not to give you any at all.”

I screw up my mouth. “Huh?”

But he’s already walking towards me as if we’re thru talking.

And as he passes me–

I
AM THE
C
IRCLE
AND THE
C
IRCLE IS ME
.

Rings thru my head, just the once, coming right from the centre of me, of who I am.

I jump from the surprise of it.

“Why can I hear it if yer taking the cure?” I say.

But he just gives me a sly smile and disappears up the staircase, leaving me there.

Happy late birthday to me.

I am Todd Hewitt,
I think, as I lie in bed, staring up into the dark.
I am Todd Hewitt and four days ago I was a man.

Sure don’t feel no different, tho.

All that reaching for it, all that importance on the date, and I’m still the same ol’ stupid effing Todd Hewitt, powerless to do anything, powerless to save myself much less her.

Todd effing Hewitt.

And lying here in the dark, Mayor Ledger snoring away over on his mattress, I hear a faint
pop
outside, somewhere in the distance, some stupid soldier firing off his gun at who knows what (or who knows who) and that’s when I think it.

That’s when I think getting thru it ain’t enough.

Staying alive ain’t enough if yer barely living.

They’ll play me as long as I let ’em.

And she coulda been out there.

She coulda been out there
today
.

I’m gonna find her–

First chance I get, I’m gonna take it and I’m gonna find her–

And when I do–

And then I notice Mayor Ledger ain’t snoring no more.

I raise my voice into the dark. “You got something to say?”

But then he’s snoring again and his Noise is grey and muzzy and I wonder if I imagined it.

{V
IOLA
}

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

I don’t take the cup of root coffee he offers.

“Please, Viola,” he says, holding it out towards me.

I take it. My hands are still shaking.

They haven’t stopped since last night.

Since I watched her fall.

First to her knees, then onto her side down to the gravel, her eyes still open.

Open, but already unseeing.

I watched her fall.

“Sergeant Hammar will be punished.” The Mayor takes a seat across from me. “He was by no means and under no circumstances following my orders.”

“He killed her,” I say, hardly any sound to my voice. Sergeant Hammar dragged me back to the house of healing, pounding on the door with the butt of his rifle, waking everyone up, sending them out after Maddy’s body.

I couldn’t speak, I could barely even cry.

They wouldn’t look at me, the mistresses, the other apprentices. Even Mistress Coyle refused to meet my eye.

What did you think you were doing? Where did you think you were taking her?

And then Mayor Prentiss summoned me here this morning to his cathedral, to his home, to God’s house.

And then they
really
wouldn’t look at me.

“I’m sorry, Viola,” he says. “Some of the men of Prentisstown,
old
Prentisstown, still bear grudges against women over what happened all those years ago.”

He sees my look of horror. “The story you think you know,” he says, “is not the story that’s true.”

I’m still gaping at him. He sighs. “The Spackle War was in Prentisstown, too, Viola, and it was a terrible thing, but women and men fought side by side to save ourselves.” He puts his fingertips together in a triangle, his voice still calm, still gentle. “But there was division in our little outpost even as we were victorious. Division between men and women.”

“I’ll say there was.”

“They made their own army, Viola. They splintered off, not trusting men whose thoughts they could read. We tried to reason with them, but eventually, they wanted war. And I’m afraid they got it.”

He sits up, looking at me sadly. “An army of women is still an army with guns, still an army that can defeat you.”

I can hear myself breathing. “You killed every single one.”

“I did not,” he says. “Many of them died in battle, but when they saw the war was lost, they spread the word that we were their murderers and then they killed themselves so that the remaining men would be doomed either way.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say, remembering that Ben told us a different version. “That’s not how it happened.”

“I was there, Viola. I remember it all far more clearly than I want to.” He catches my eye. “I am also the one most keen that history doesn’t repeat itself. Do you understand me?”

I think I do understand him and my stomach sinks and I can’t help it– I start to cry, thinking of how they brought Maddy’s body back, how Mistress Coyle insisted I be the one to help her prepare the body for burial, how she wanted me to see up close the cost of trying to find the tower.

“Mistress Coyle,” I say, fighting to control myself. “Mistress Coyle wanted me to ask if we can bury her this afternoon.”

“I’ve already sent word that she can,” the Mayor says. “Everything Mistress Coyle requires is being delivered to her as we speak.”

I set the coffee down on a little table next to my chair. We’re in a huge room, bigger than any place indoors I’ve ever seen except for the launch hangars of my ship. Too large for just a pair of comfortable chairs and a wooden table. The only light shines down through a round window of coloured glass showing this world and its two moons.

Everything else is in shadow.

“How are you finding her?” the Mayor asks. “Mistress Coyle.”

The weight on my shoulders, the weight of Maddy being gone, the weight of Todd still out there, sits so heavily I’d forgotten for a minute he was even there. “What do you mean?”

He shrugs a little. “How is she to work with? How is she as a teacher?”

I swallow. “She’s the best healer in Haven.”

“And now the best healer in New Prentisstown,” he corrects. “People tell me she used to be quite powerful around here. A force to be reckoned with.”

I bite my lip and look back at the carpet. “She couldn’t save Maddy.”