The Knife of Never Letting Go

13. VIOLA

I don’t say nothing to this for a minute. Neither does she. The fire burns, the smoke rises, Manchee’s tongue hangs out in a stunned pant, till finally I say, “Viola.”

She nods.

“Viola,” I say again.

She don’t nod this time.

“I’m Todd,” I say.

“I know,” she says.

She’s not quite meeting my eye.

“So you can talk then?” I say, but all she does is look at me again quickly and then away. I turn to the still burning bridge, to the smoke turning into a fogbank twixt us and the other side of the river, which I don’t know if it makes me feel safer or not, if not seeing the Mayor and his men is better than seeing them. “That was—” I start to say, but she’s getting up and holding out her hand for her bag.

I realize I’m still holding it. I hand it to her and she takes it.

“We should go on,” she says. “Away from here.”

Her accent’s funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown’s. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they’re swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say. In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they’re sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind.

Manchee’s just in awe of her. “Away,” he says lowly, staring up at her like she’s made of food.

There’s this moment now where it feels like I could start asking her stuff, like now she’s talking, I could just hit her with every asking I can think of about who she is, where she’s from, what happened, and them askings are all over my Noise, flying at her like pellets, but there’s so much stuff wanting to come outta my mouth that nothing is and so my mouth don’t move and she’s holding her bag over her shoulder and looking at the ground and then she’s walking past me, past Manchee, on up the trail.

“Hey,” I say.

She stops and turns back.

“Wait for me,” I say.

I pick up my rucksack, hooking it back over my shoulders. I press my hand against the knife in its sheath against my lower back. I make the rucksack comfortable with a shrug, say “C’mon, Manchee”, and off we go up the trail, following the girl.

On this side of the river the path makes a slow turn away from the cliffside, heading into what looks like a landscape of scrub and brush, making its way around and away from the larger mountain, looming up at us on the left.

At the place where the trail turns, we both stop and look back without saying that we’re gonna. The bridge is still burning like you wouldn’t believe, hanging on the opposite cliff like a waterfall on fire, flames having leapt up the entire length of it, angry and greenish yellow. The smoke’s so thick, it’s still impossible to tell what the Mayor and his men are doing, have done, if they’re gone or waiting or what. There could be a whisper of Noise coming thru but there could also not be a whisper of Noise, what with the fire blazing and the wood popping and the whitewater below. As we watch, the fire finishes its business on the stakes on the other side of the river and with a great snap, the burning bridge falls, falls, falls, clattering against the cliffside, splashing into the river, sending up more clouds of smoke and steam, making everything even foggier.

“What was in that box?” I say to the girl.

She looks at me, opens her mouth, but then closes it again, turning away.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m not gonna hurt ya.”

She looks at me again and my Noise is full of just a few minutes ago when I was just about to hurt her, when I was just about to–

Anyway.

We don’t say no more. She turns back onto the path and me and Manchee follow her into the scrub.

Knowing she can speak don’t help with the silence none. Knowing she’s got words in her head don’t mean nothing if you can only hear ’em when she talks. Looking at the back of her head as she’s walking, I still feel my heart pull towards her silence, still feel like I’ve lost something terrible, something so sad I want to weep.

“Weep,” Manchee barks.

The back of her head just keeps on walking.

The path is still pretty wide, wide enough for horses, but the terrain around us is getting rockier, the path twistier. We can hear the river down below us to our right now but it feels like we’re tending away from it a bit, getting ourselves deep into an area that feels almost walled, rockface sometimes coming up on both sides, like we’re walking at the bottom of a box. Little prickly firs grow out of every crevice and yellow vines with thorns wrapping themselves around the firs’ trunks and you can see and hear yellow razor lizards hissing at us as we pass. Bite! they say, as a threat. Bite! Bite!

Anything you might want to touch here would cut you.

After maybe twenty, thirty minutes the path gets to a bit where it widens out, where a few real trees start growing again, where the forest looks like it might be about to restart, where there’s grass and stones low enough for sitting on. Which is what we do. Sit.

I take some dried mutton outta my rucksack and use the knife to cut strips for me, for Manchee, and for the girl. She takes them without saying anything and we sit quietly apart and eat for a minute.

I am Todd Hewitt, I think, closing my eyes and chewing, embarrassed for my Noise now, now that I know she can hear it, now that I know she can think about it.

Think about it in secret.

I am Todd Hewitt.

I will be a man in twenty-nine days’ time.

Which is true, I realize, opening my eyes. Time goes on, even when yer not looking.

I take another bite. “I ain’t never heard the name Viola before,” I say after a while, looking only at the ground, only at my strip of mutton. She don’t say nothing so I glance up in spite of myself.

To find her looking back at me.

“What?” I say.

“Your face,” she says.

I frown. “What about my face?”

She makes both of her hands into fists and mimes punching herself with them.

I feel myself redden. “Yeah, well.”

“And from before,” she says. “From—” She stops.

“Aaron,” I say.

“Aaron,” Manchee barks and the girl flinches a little.

“That was his name,” she says. “Wasn’t it?”

I nod, chewing on my mutton. “Yep,” I say. “That’s his name.”

“He never said it out loud. But I knew what it was.”

“Welcome to New World.” I take another bite, having to tear an extra-chewy bit off with my teeth, which catches one sore spot among many in my mouth. “Ow.” I spit out the bit of mutton and a whole lot of extra blood.

The girl watches me spit and then sets down her food. She picks up her bag, opens it, and finds a little blue box, slightly larger than the green campfire one. She presses a button on the front to open it and takes out what looks like a white plastic cloth and a little metal scalpel. She gets up from her rock and walks over to me with them.

I’m still sitting but I lean back when she brings her hands to my face.

“Bandages,” she says.

“I’ve got my own.”

“These are better.”

I lean back farther. “Yer…” I say, blowing out air thru my nose. “Yer quiet kinda…” I shake my head a little.

“Bothers you?”

“Yes.”

“I know,” she says. “Hold still.”

She looks closer at the area around my swollen eye and then cuts off a piece of bandage with the little scalpel. She’s about to put it over my eye but I can’t help it and I move back from her touch. She don’t say nothing, just keeps her hands up, like she’s waiting. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and offer up my face.

I feel the bandage touch the swollen area and immediately it gets cooler, immediately the pain starts to edge back, like it’s all being swept away by feathers. She puts another one on a cut I have at my hairline and her fingers brush my face as she puts another one just below my lower lip. It all feels so good I haven’t even opened my eyes yet.

“I don’t have anything for your teeth,” she says.

“’S okay,” I say, almost whispering it. “Man, these are better than mine.”

“They’re partially alive,” she says. “Synthetic human tissue. When you’re healed, they die.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, acting like I might know what that means.

There’s a longer silence, long enough to make me open my eyes again. She’s stepped back, back to a rock she can sit down on, watching me, watching my face.

We wait. Cuz it seems like we should.

And we should cuz after a little bit of waiting, she begins to talk.

“We crashed,” she starts quietly, looking away. Then she clears her throat and says it again. “We crashed. There was a fire and we were flying low and we thought we’d be okay but something went wrong with the safety flumes and—” She holds open her hands to explain what follows the and. “We crashed.” She stops.

“Was that yer ma and pa?” I ask, after a bit.

But she just looks up into the sky, blue and spare, with clouds that look like bones. “And when the sun came up,” she says, “that man came.”

“Aaron.”

“And it was so weird. He would shout and he would scream and then he’d leave. And I’d try to run away.” She folds her arms. “I kept trying so he wouldn’t find me, but I was going in circles and wherever I hid, there he’d be, I don’t know how, until I found these sort of hut things.” “The Spackle buildings,” I say but she ain’t really listening.

She looks at me. “Then you came.” She looks at Manchee. “You and your dog that talks.”

“Manchee!” Manchee barks.

Her face is pale and when she meets my eyes again, her own have gone wet. “What is this place?” she asks, her voice kinda thick. “Why do the animals talk? Why do I hear your voice when your mouth isn’t moving? Why do I hear your voice a whole bunch over, piled on top of each other like there’s nine million of you talking at once? Why do I see pictures of other things when I look at you? Why could I see what that man…” She fades off. She draws her knees up to her chest and hugs them. I feel like I better start talking right quick or she’s gonna start rocking again.

“We’re settlers,” I say. She looks up at this, still hugging her knees but at least not rocking. “We were settlers,” I continue. “Landed here to found New World about twenty years ago or so. But there were aliens here. The Spackle. And they… didn’t want us.” I’m telling her what every boy in Prentisstown knows, the history even the dumbest farm boy like yours truly knows by heart. “Men tried for years to make peace but the Spackle weren’t having it. And so war started.” She looks down again at the word war. I keep talking.

“And the way the Spackle fought, see, was with germs, with diseases. That was their weapons. They released germs that did things. One of them we think was meant to kill all our livestock but instead it just made every animal able to talk.” I look at Manchee. “Which ain’t as much fun as it sounds.” I look back at the girl. “And another was the Noise.” I wait. She don’t say nothing. But we both sorta know what’s coming cuz we been here before, ain’t we?

I take a deep breath. “And that one killed half the men and all the women, including my ma, and it made the thoughts of the men who survived no longer secret to the rest of the world.”

She hides her chin behind her knees. “Sometimes I can hear it clearly,” she says. “Sometimes I can tell exactly what you’re thinking. But only sometimes. Most of the time it’s just—”

“Noise,” I say.

She nods. “And the aliens?”

“There ain’t no more aliens.”

She nods again. We sit for a minute, ignoring the obvious till it can’t be ignored no longer.

“Am I going to die?” she asks quietly. “Is it going to kill me?”

The words sound different in her accent but they mean the same damn thing and my Noise can only say probably but I make it so my mouth says, “I don’t know.”

She watches me for more.

“I really don’t know,” I say, kinda meaning it. “If you’d asked me last week, I’d have been sure, but today—” I look down at my rucksack, at the book hiding inside. “I don’t know.” I look back at her. “I hope not.” But probably, says my Noise. Probably yer gonna die, and tho I try to cover it up with other Noise it’s such an unfair thing it’s hard not to have it right at the front.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She don’t say nothing.

“But maybe if we get to the next settlement—” I say, but I don’t finish cuz I don’t know the answer. “You ain’t sick yet. That’s something.”

“You must warn them,” she says, down into her knees.

I look up sharply. “What?”

“Earlier, when you were trying to read that book—”

“I wasn’t trying,” I say, my voice a little bit louder all of a sudden.

“I could see the words in your whatever,” she says, “and it’s ‘You must warn them’.”

“I know that! I know what it says.”

Of course it’s bloody You must warn them. Course it is. Idiot.

The girl says, “It seemed like you were—”

“I know how to read.”

She holds up her hands. “Okay.”

“I do!”

“I’m just saying—”

“Well, stop just saying,” I frown, my Noise roiling enough to get Manchee on his feet. I get to my feet as well. I pick up the rucksack and put it back on. “We should get moving.”

“Warn who?” asks the girl, still sitting. “About what?”

I don’t get to answer (even tho I don’t know the answer) cuz there’s a loud click above us, a loud clang-y click that in Prentisstown would mean one thing.

A rifle being cocked.

And standing on a rock above us, there’s someone with a freshly-cocked rifle in both hands, looking down the sight, pointing it right at us.

“What’s foremost in my mind at this partickalar juncture,” says a voice rising from behind the gun, “is what do two little pups think they’re doing a-burning down my bridge?”

14. THE WRONG END OF A GUN

“Gun! Gun! Gun!” Manchee starts barking, hopping back and forth in the dust.

“I’d quieten down yer beastie there,” says the rifle, his face obscured by looking down the sight straight at us. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, now wouldja?”

“Quiet, Manchee!” I say.

He turns to me. “Gun, Todd?” he barks. “Bang, bang!”

“I know. Shut up.”

He stops barking and it’s quiet.

Aside from my Noise, it’s quiet.

“I do believe I sent out an asking to a partickalar pair of pups,” says the voice, “and I am a-waiting on my answer.”

I look back at the girl. She shrugs her shoulders, tho I notice we both have our hands up. “What?” I say back up to the rifle.

The rifle gives an angry grunt. “I’m asking,” it says, “what exactly gives ye permisshun to go a-burning down other people’s bridges?”

I don’t say nothing. Neither does the girl.

“D’ye think this is a stick I’m a-pointing at ye?” The rifle bobs up and down once.

“We were being chased,” I say, for lack of nothing else.

“Chased, were ye?” says the rifle. “Who was a-chasing ye?”

And I don’t know how to answer this. Would the truth be more dangerous than a lie? Is the rifle on the side of the Mayor? Would we be bounty? Or would rifle man have even heard of Prentisstown?

The world’s a dangerous place when you don’t know enough.

Like why is it so quiet?

“Oh, I heard of Prentisstown, all right,” says the rifle, reading my Noise with unnerving clarity and cocking the gun again, making it ready to shoot. “And if that’s where yer from—”

Then the girl speaks up and says that thing that suddenly makes me think of her as Viola and not the girl any more.

“He saved my life.”

I saved her life.

Says Viola.

Funny how that works.

“Did he now?” says the rifle. “And how do you know he don’t aim to just be a-saving it for himself?”

The girl, Viola, looks at me, her forehead creased. It’s my turn to shrug.

“But no.” The rifle’s voice changes. “No, huh-uh, no, I’m not a-seeing that in ye, am I, boy? Cuz yer just a boy pup still, ain’t ye?”

I swallow. “I’ll be a man in 29 days.”

“Not something to be proud of, pup. Not where yer from.”

And then he lowers the gun away from his face.

And that’s why it’s so quiet.

He’s a woman.

He’s a grown woman.

He’s an old woman.

“I’ll thank ye kindly to call me she,” the woman says, still pointing the rifle at us from chest level. “And not so old I won’t still shoot ye.”

She’s looking at us more closely now, reading me up and down, seeing right into my Noise with a skill I’ve only ever felt in Ben. Her face is making all kindsa shapes, like she’s considering me, like Cillian’s face does when he tries to read me to see if I’m lying. Tho this woman ain’t got no Noise at all so she might be singing a song in there for all I know.

She turns to Viola and pauses for another long look.

“As pups go,” she says, looking back at me, “ye are as easy to read as a newborn, m’boy.” She turns her face to Viola. “But ye, wee girl, yer story’s not a usual one, is it?”

“I’d be happy to tell you all about it if you’d stop pointing a gun at us,” Viola says.

This is so surprising even Manchee looks up. I turn to Viola with my mouth open.

We hear a chuckle from up on the rock. The old woman is laughing to herself. Her clothes seem a real dusty leather, worn and creased for years and years with a rimmed hat and boots for ignoring mud. Like she ain’t nothing more than a farmer, really.

She’s still pointing the gun at us, tho.

“Ye were a-running from Prentisstown, were ye?” she asks, looking into my Noise again. There’s no point in hiding it so I go ahead and put forward what we were running from, what happened at the bridge, who was chasing us. She sees all of it, I know she does, but all I see her do is wrinkle up her lips and squint her eyes a bit.

“Well, now,” she says, crooking the rifle in her arm and starting to make her way down from the rocks to where we’re standing. “I can’t rightly say that I’m not peeved bout ye blowing up my bridge. Heard the boom all the way back at the farm, oh, yeah.” She steps off the last rock and stands a little ways away from us, the force of her grown-up quiet so large I feel myself stepping back without even knowing I decided to do it. “But the only place it led to ain’t been worth a-going to for a decade nor more. Only left it up outta hope.” She looks us over again. “Who’s to say I weren’t right?” We still have our hands in the air cuz she ain’t making much sense, is she?

“I’ll ask ye this once,” the woman says, lifting the rifle again. “Am I gonna need this?”

I exchange a glance with Viola.

“No,” I say.

“No, mam,” Viola says.

Mam? I think.

“It’s like sir, bonny boy.” The woman slings the rifle over her shoulder by its strap. “For if yer a-talking to a lady.” She squats down to Manchee’s level. “And who might ye be, pup?” “Manchee!” he barks.

“Oh, yeah, that’s definitely who ye be, innit?” says the woman, giving him a vigorous rubbing. “And ye two pups?” she asks, not looking up. “What might yer good mothers have dubbed ye?”

Me and Viola exchange another glance. It seems like a price, giving up our names, but maybe it’s a fair exchange for the gun being lowered.

“I’m Todd. That’s Viola.”

“As surely true as the sun a-coming up,” says the woman, having succeeded in getting Manchee on his back for a tummy rub.

“Is there another way over that river?” I ask. “Another bridge? Cuz those men—”

“I’m Mathilde,” the old woman interrupts, “but people who call me that don’t know me, so you can call me Hildy and one day ye may even earn the right to shake my hand.”

I look at Viola again. How can you tell if someone with no Noise is crazy?

The old woman cackles. “Yer a funny one there, boy.” She stands up from Manchee who rolls back over and stares at her, already a worshipper. “And to answer yer asking, there’s shallow crossings a couple days’ travelling upstream but there ain’t no bridges for a good distance more either way.” She turns her gaze back to me, steady and clear, a small smile on her lips. She’s gotta be reading my Noise again but I can’t feel no prodding like I do when men try it.

And the way she keeps on looking I start to realize a few things, put a few things together. It must be right that Prentisstown was quarantined cuz of the Noise germ, huh? Cuz here’s a grown-up woman who ain’t dead from it, who’s looking at me friendly but keeping her distance, a woman ready to greet strangers from my direkshun with a rifle.

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.

15. BROTHERS IN SUFFERING

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.” “But she’s safe from me?” I ask, making a point of not looking at “Vi”.

“Well, she’s definitely safe from catching yer Noise,” Hildy says, a smile breaking out. “What other safety she can get from ye is all down to aknowing ye better.”

I want her to be right but I also want to say she’s wrong and so I don’t say nothing at all.

“C’mon,” Tam says, breaking the pause, “let’s get to some feasting.”

“No!” I say, remembering it all over again. “We ain’t got time for feasting.” I look at Viola. “There’s men after us, in case you forgot. Men who ain’t interested in our well-beings.” I look up at Hildy. “Now, I’m sure yer feastings would be fine and all—” “Todd pup—” Hildy starts.

“I ain’t a pup!” I shout.

Hildy purses her lips and smiles with her eyebrows. “Todd pup,” she says again, a little lower this time. “No man from any point beyond that river would ever set foot across it, do ye understand?” “Yep,” says Tam. “That’s right.”

I look from one to the other. “But—”

“I been guardian here of that bridge for ten plus years, pup,” Hildy says, “and keeper of it for years before that. It’s part of who I am to watch what comes.” She looks over to Viola. “No one’s coming. Ye all are safe.” “Yep,” Tam says again, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“But—” I say again but Hildy don’t let me finish.

“Time for feasting.”

And that’s that, it seems. Viola still don’t look at me, still has her arms crossed and is now under the arm of Hildy as they walk on again. I’m stuck back with Tam who’s waiting for me to start. I can’t say as I feel much like walking any more but everyone else goes so I go, too. We carry on up Tam and Hildy’s private little path, Tam chattering away, making enough Noise for a whole town.

“Hildy says ye blew up our bridge,” he says.

“My bridge,” Hildy says from in front of us.

“She did build it,” Tam says to me. “Not that anyone’s used it in forever.”

“No one?” I say, thinking for a second of all those men who disappeared outta Prentisstown, all the ones who vanished while I was growing up. Not one of them got this far.

“Nice bit of engineering, that bridge was,” Tam’s going on, like he didn’t hear me and maybe he didn’t, what with how loud he’s talking. “Sad to hear it’s gone.”

“We had no choice,” I say.

“Oh, there’s always choices, pup, but from what I hear, ye made the right one.”

We walk on quietly for a bit. “Yer sure we’re safe?” I ask.

“Well, ye can’t never be sure,” he says. “But Hildy’s right.” He grins, a little sadly, I think. “There’s more than bridges being out that’ll keep men that side of the river.”

I try and read his Noise to see if he’s telling the truth but it’s almost all shiny and clean, a bright, warm place where anything you want could be true.

Nothing at all like a Prentisstown man.

“I don’t understand this,” I say, still gnawing on it. “It’s gotta be a different kinda Noise germ.”

“My Noise sound different from yers?” Tam asks, seeming genuinely curious.

I look at him and just listen for a second. Hildy and Prentisstown and russets and sheep and settlers and leaky pipe and Hildy.

“You sure think about yer wife a lot.”

“She’s my shining star, pup. Woulda lost myself in Noise if she hadn’t put a hand out to rescue me.”

“How so?” I ask, wondering what he’s talking about. “Did you fight in the war?”

This stops him. His Noise goes as grey and featureless as a cloudy day and I can’t read a thing off him.

“I fought, young pup,” he says. “But war’s not something ye talk about in the open air when the sun is shining.”

“Why not?”

“I pray to all my gods ye never find out.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. I don’t shake it off this time.

“How do you do that?” I ask.

“Do what?”

“Make yer Noise so flat I can’t read it.”

He smiles. “Years of practise a-hiding things from the old woman.”

“It’s why I can read so good,” Hildy calls back to us. “He gets better at hiding, I get better at finding.”

They laugh together yet again. I find myself trying to send an eyeroll Viola’s way about these two but Viola ain’t looking at me and I stop myself from trying again.

We all come outta the rocky bit of the path and round a low rise and suddenly there’s a farm ahead of us, rolling up and down little hills but you can see fields of wheat, fields of cabbage, a field of grass with a few sheep on it.

“Hello, sheep!” Tam shouts.

“Sheep!” say the sheep.

First on the path is a big wooden barn, built as watertight and solid as the bridge, like it could last there forever if anyone asked it.

“Unless ye go a-blowing it up,” Hildy says, laughing still.

“Like to see ye try,” Tam laughs back.

I’m getting a little tired of them laughing about every damn thing.

Then we come round to the farmhouse, which is a totally different thing altogether. Metal, by the looks of it, like the petrol stayshun and the church back home but not nearly so banged up. Half of it shines and rolls on up to the sky like a sail and there’s a chimney that curves up and out, folding down to a point, smoke coughing from its end. The other half of the house is wood built onto the metal, solid as the barn but cut and folded like—“Wings,” I say.

“Wings is right,” Tam says. “And what kinda wings are they?”

I look again. The whole farmhouse looks like some kinda bird with the chimney as its head and neck and a shiny front and wooden wings stretching out behind, like a bird resting on the water or something.

“It’s a swan, Todd pup,” Tam says.

“A what?”

“A swan.”

“What’s a swan?” I say, still looking at the house.

His Noise is puzzled for a second, then I get a little pulse of sadness so I look at him. “What?”

“Nothing, pup,” he says. “Memories of long ago.”

Viola and Hildy are up ahead still, Viola’s eyes wide and her mouth gulping like a fish.

“What did I tell ye?” Hildy asks.

Viola rushes up to the fence in front of it. She stares at the house, looking all over the metal bit, up and down, side to side. I come up by her and look, too. It’s hard for a minute to think of anything to say (shut up).

“Sposed to be a swan,” I finally say. “Whatever that is.”

She ignores me and turns to Hildy. “Is it an Expansion Three 500?”

“What?”

“Older than that, Vi pup,” Hildy says. “X Three 200.”

“We got up to X Sevens,” Viola says.

“Not surprised,” says Hildy.

“What the ruddy hell are you talking about?” I say. “Expanshun whatsits?”

“Sheep!” we hear Manchee bark in the distance.

“Our settler ship,” Hildy says, sounding surprised that I don’t know. “An Expanshun Class Three, Series 200.”

I look from face to face. Tam’s Noise has a spaceship flying in it, one with a front hull that matches the upturned farmhouse.

“Oh, yeah,” I say, remembering, trying to say it like I knew all along. “You build yer houses with the first tools at hand.”

“Quite so, pup,” Tam says. “Or ye make them works of art if yer so inclined.”

“If yer wife is an engineer who can get yer damn fool sculptures to stay standing up,” Hildy says.

“How do you know about all this?” I say to Viola.

She looks at the ground, away from my eyes.

“You don’t mean—” I start to say but I stop.

I’m getting it.

Of course I’m getting it.

Way too late, like everything else, but I’m getting it.

“Yer a settler,” I say. “Yer a new settler.”

She looks away from me but shrugs her shoulders.

“But that ship you crashed in,” I say, “that’s way too tiny to be a settler ship.”

“That was only a scout. My home ship is an Expansion Class Seven.”

She looks at Hildy and Tam, who ain’t saying nothing. Tam’s Noise is bright and curious. I can’t read nothing from Hildy. I get the feeling somehow, tho, that she knew and I didn’t, that Viola told her and not me, and even if it’s cuz I never asked, it’s still as sour a feeling as it sounds.

I look up at the sky.

“It’s up there, ain’t it?” I say. “Yer Expanshun Class Seven.”

Viola nods.

“Yer bringing more settlers in. More settlers are coming to New World.”

“Everything was broken when we crashed,” Viola says. “I don’t have any way to contact them. Any way to warn them not to come.” She looks up with a little gasp. “You must warn them.”

“That can’t be what he meant,” I say, fast. “No way.”

Viola scrunches her face and eyebrows. “Why not?”

“What who meant?” Tam asks.

“How many?” I ask, still looking at Viola, feeling the world changing still and ever. “How many settlers are coming?”

Viola takes a deep breath before she answers and I’ll bet you she’s not even told Hildy this part.

“Thousands,” she says. “There’s thousands.”

16. THE NIGHT OF NO APOLOGIES

“They won’t be a-getting here for months,” Hildy says, passing me another serving of mashed russets. Viola and I are stuffing our faces so much it’s been Hildy and Tam doing all the talking.

All the a-talking.

“Space travel ain’t like ye see it in vids,” Tam says, a stream of mutton gravy tracking down his beard. “Takes years and years and years to get anywhere at all. Sixty-four to get from Old World to New World alone.” “Sixty-four years?” I say, spraying a few mashed blobs off my lips.

Tam nods. “Yer frozen for most of it, time passing you right on by, tho that’s only if ye don’t die on the way.”

I turn to Viola. “Yer sixty-four years old?”

“Sixty-four Old World years,” Tam says, tapping his fingers like he’s adding something up. “Which’d be… what? Bout fifty-eight, fifty-nine New World—”

But Viola’s shaking her head. “I was born on board. Never was asleep.”

“So either yer ma or yer pa musta been a caretaker,” Hildy says, snapping off a bite of a turnipy thing then giving me an explanashun. “One of the ones who stays awake and keeps track of the ship.” “Both of them were,” Viola says. “And my dad’s mother before him and granddad before that.”

“Wait a minute,” I say to her, two steps behind as ever. “So if we’ve been on New World twenty-odd years—”

“Twenty-three,” says Tam. “Feels like longer.”

“Then you left before we even got here,” I say. “Or your pa or grandpa or whatever.”

I look around to see if anyone’s wondering what I’m wondering. “Why?” I say. “Why would you come without even knowing what’s out here?”

“Why did the first settlers come?” Hildy asks me. “Why does anyone look for a new place to live?”

“Cuz the place yer a-leaving ain’t worth staying for,” Tam says. “Cuz the place yer a-leaving is so bad ye gotta leave.”

“Old World’s mucky, violent and crowded,” Hildy says, wiping her face with a napkin, “a-splitting right into bits with people a-hating each other and a-killing each other, no one happy till everyone’s miserable. Least it was all those years ago.” “I wouldn’t know,” Viola says, “I’ve never seen it. My mother and father…” She drifts off.

But I’m still thinking about being born on a spaceship, an honest to badness spaceship. Growing up while flying along the stars, able to go wherever you wanted, not stuck on some hateful planet which clearly don’t want you. You could go anywhere. If one place didn’t suit, you’d find another. Full freedom in all directions. Could there possibly be anything cooler in the whole world than that?

I don’t notice there’s a silence fallen at the table. Hildy’s rubbing Viola’s back again and I see that Viola’s eyes are wet and leaking and she’s started to rock a little back and forth.

“What?” I say. “What’s wrong now?”

Viola’s forehead just creases at me.

“What?” I say.

“I think maybe we talked enough about Vi’s ma and pa for now,” Hildy says softly. “I think maybe it’s time for boy and girl pups to get some shut-eye.”

“But it’s hardly late at all.” I look out a window. The sun ain’t even hardly set. “We need to be getting to the settlement—”

“The settlement is called Farbranch,” Hildy says, “and we’ll get ye there first thing in the morning.”

“But those men—”

“I been a-keeping the peace here since before you were born, pup,” Hildy says, kindly but firmly. “I can handle whatever is or ain’t a-coming.”

I don’t say nothing to this and Hildy ignores my Noise on the subject.

“Can I ask what yer business in Farbranch might be?” Tam says, picking at his corncob, making his asking sound less curious than his Noise says it is.

“We just need to get there,” I say.

“Both of ye?”

I look at Viola. She’s stopped crying but her face is still puffy. I don’t answer Tam’s asking.

“Well there’s plenty of work going,” Hildy says, standing and taking up her plate. “If that’s what yer after. They can always use more hands in the orchards.”

Tam stands and they clear the table, taking the dishes into their kitchen and leaving me and Viola sitting there by ourselves. We can hear them chatting in there, lightly enough and Noise-blocked enough for us not to be able to make it out.

“Do you really think we oughta stay the whole night?” I say, keeping my voice low.

But she answers in a violent whisper, like I didn’t even ask an asking. “Just because my thoughts and feelings don’t spill out into the world in a shout that never stops doesn’t mean I don’t have them.” I turn to her, surprised. “Huh?”

She keeps whispering something fierce. “Every time you think, Oh, she’s just emptiness, or, There’s nothing going on inside her, or, Maybe I can dump her with these two, I hear it, okay? I hear every stupid thing you think, all right? And I understand way more than I want to.” “Oh, yeah?” I whisper back, tho my Noise ain’t a whisper at all. “Every time you think something or feel something or have some stupid thought, I don’t hear it, so how am I sposed to know any effing thing about you, huh? How am I sposed to know what’s going on if you keep it secret?” “I’m not keeping it secret.” She’s clenching her teeth now. “I’m being normal.”

“Not normal for here, Vi.”

“And how would you know? I can hear you being surprised by just about everything they say. Didn’t they have a school where you’re from? Didn’t you learn anything?”

“History ain’t so important when yer just trying to survive,” I say, spitting it out under my breath.

“That’s actually when it’s most important,” Hildy says, standing at the end of the table. “And if this silly argument twixt ye two ain’t enough to prove yer tired, then yer tired beyond all sense. C’mon.” Viola and I glare at each other but we get up and follow Hildy into a large common room.

“Todd!” Manchee barks from a corner, not getting up from the mutton bone Tam gave him earlier.

“We’ve long since took over our guest rooms for other purposes,” Hildy says. “Ye’ll have to make do on the settees.”

We help her make up some sheets and beds, Viola still scowling, my Noise a buzzy red.

“Now,” Hildy says when we’re all done. “Apologize to each other.”

“What?” Viola says. “Why?”

“I don’t see how this is any of yer business,” I say.

“Never go to sleep on an argument,” Hildy says, hands on hips, looking like she ain’t never gonna budge and would be pleased to see someone try and make her. “Not if ye want to stay friends.”

Viola and I don’t say nothing.

“He saved yer life?” Hildy says to Viola.

Viola looks down before finally saying, “Yeah.”

“That’s right, I did,” I say.

“And she saved yers at the bridge, didn’t she?” Hildy says.

Oh.

“Yes,” Hildy says. “Oh. Don’t ye both think that counts for something?”

We still don’t say nothing.

Hildy sighs. “Fine. Any two pups so close to adulthood could maybe be left to their own apologies, I reckon.” She makes her way out without even saying good night.

I turn my back on Viola and she turns her back on me. I take off my shoes and get myself under the sheet on one of Hildy’s “settees” which seems to be just a fancy word for couch. Viola does the same. Manchee leaps up on my settee and curls himself by my feet.

There’s no sound except my Noise and a few crackles from a fire it’s too hot for. It can’t be much later than dusk but the softness of the cushions and the softness of the sheet and the too-warm of the fire and I’m already pretty much closing my eyes.

“Todd?” Viola says from her settee across the room.

I swim up from sinking down to sleep. “What?”

She don’t say nothing for a second and I guess she must be thinking of her apology.

But no.

“What does your book say you’re supposed to do when you get to Farbranch?”

My Noise gets a bit redder. “Never you mind what my book says,” I say. “That’s my property, meant for me.”

“You know when you showed me the map back in the woods?” she says. “And you said we had to get to this settlement? You remember what was written underneath?”

“Course I do.”

“What was it?”

There ain’t no poking in her voice, not that I can hear, but that’s gotta be what it is, ain’t it? Poking?

“Just go to sleep, will ya?” I say.

“It was Farbranch,” she says. “The name of the place we’re meant to be heading.”

“Shut up.” My Noise is getting buzzy again.

“There’s no shame in not being able to—”

“I said, shut up!”

“I could help you—”

I get up suddenly, dumping Manchee off the settee with a thump. I grab my sheets and blanket under my arm and I stomp off to the room where we ate. I throw them on the floor and lay down, a room away from Viola and all her meaningless, evil quiet.

Manchee stays in there with her. Typical.

I close my eyes but I don’t sleep for ages and ages.

Till I finally do, I guess.

Cuz I’m on a path and it’s the swamp but it’s also the town and it’s also my farm and Ben’s there and Cillian’s there and Viola’s there and they’re all saying, “What’re you doing here, Todd?” and Manchee’s barking “Todd! Todd!” and Ben’s grabbing me by the arm to drag me out the door and Cillian’s got his arm round my shoulders pushing me up the path and Viola’s setting the campfire box by the front door of our farmhouse and the Mayor’s horse rides right thru our front door and smashes her flat and a croc with the face of Aaron is rearing up behind Ben’s shoulders and I’m yelling “No!” and — And I’m sitting up and I’m sweating everywhere and my heart’s racing like a horse and I’m expecting to see the Mayor and Aaron standing right over me.

But it’s only Hildy and she’s saying, “What the devil are ye a-doing in here?” She’s standing in the doorway, morning sun flooding in behind her so bright I have to raise my hand to block it out.

“More comfortable,” I mumble but my chest is thumping.

“I’ll bet,” she says, reading my just-waking Noise. “Breakfast is on.”

The smell of the mutton-strip bacon frying wakes Viola and Manchee. I let Manchee out for his morning poo but Viola and I don’t say nothing to each other. Tam comes in as we eat, having I guess been out feeding the sheep. That’s what I’d be doing if I were home.

Home, I think.

Anyway.

“Buck up, pup,” Tam says, plonking a cup of coffee down in front of me. I keep my face way down as I drink it.

“Anybody out there?” I say into my cup.

“Not a whisper,” Tam says. “And it’s a beautiful day.”

I glance up at Viola but she ain’t looking at me. In fact, we get all the way thru the food, thru washing our faces, thru changing our clothes and repacking our bags, all without saying nothing to each other.

“Good luck to ye both,” Tam says, as we’re about to leave with Hildy towards Farbranch. “It’s always nice when two people who don’t got no one else find each other as friends.”

And we really don’t say nothing to that.

“C’mon, pups,” Hildy says. “Time’s a-wasting.”

We get back on the path, which before too long reconnects with the same road that musta gone across the bridge.

“Used to be the main road from Farbranch to Prentisstown,” Hildy says, hoisting her own small pack. “Or New Elizabeth, as it was then.”

“As what was then?” I ask.

“Prentisstown,” she says. “Used to be called New Elizabeth.”

“It never did,” I say, raising up my eyebrows.

Hildy looks at me, her own eyebrows mocking mine. “Was it never? I must be mistaken then.”

“Must be,” I say, watching her.

Viola makes a scoffing sound with her lips. I send her a look of death.

“Will there be somewhere we can stay?” she asks Hildy, ignoring me.

“I’ll take ye to my sister,” Hildy says. “Deputy Mayor this year, don’t ye know?”

“What’ll we do then?” I say, kicking at the dirt as we walk on.

“Reckon that’s up to ye two,” Hildy says. “Ye’ve gotta be the ones in charge of yer own destinies, don’t ye?”

“Not so far,” I hear Viola say under her breath and it’s so exactly the words I have in my Noise that we both look up and catch each other’s eyes.

We almost smile. But we don’t.

And that’s when we start hearing the Noise.

“Ah,” Hildy says, hearing it too. “Farbranch.”

The road comes out on the top of a little vale.

And there it is.

The other settlement. The other settlement that wasn’t sposed to be.

Where Ben wanted us to go.

Where we might be safe.

The first thing I see is where the valley road winds down thru orchards, orderly rows of well-tended trees with paths and irrigashun systems, all carrying on down a hill towards buildings and a creek at the bottom, flat and easy and snaking its way back to meet the bigger river no doubt.

And all thru-out are men and women.

Most are scattered working in the orchard, wearing heavy work aprons, all the men in long sleeves, the women in long skirts, cutting down pine-like fruits with machetes or carrying away baskets or working on the irrigashun pipes and so on.

Men and women, women and men.

A coupla dozen men, maybe, is my general impression, less than Prentisstown.

Who knows how many women.

Living in a whole other place.

The Noise (and silence) of them all floats up like a light fog.

Two, please and The way I see it is and Weedy waste and She might say yes, she might not and If service ends at one, then I can always and so on and so on, never ending, amen.

I just stop in the road and gape for a second, not ready to walk down into it yet.

Cuz it’s weird.

It’s more than weird, truth to tell.

It’s all so, I don’t know, calm. Like normal chatter you’d have with yer mates. Nothing accidental nor abusive.

And nobody’s hardly longing for nothing.

No awful, awful, despairing longing nowhere I can hear or feel.

“We sure as ruddy heck ain’t in Prentisstown no more,” I say to Manchee under my breath.

Not a second later, I hear Prentisstown? float in from a field right next to us.

And then I hear it in a coupla different places. Prentisstown? and Prentisstown? and then I notice that the men in the orchards nearby ain’t picking fruit or whatever any more. They’re standing up. They’re looking at us.

“Come on,” Hildy says. “Keep on a-walking. It’s just curiosity.”

The word Prentisstown multiplies along the fields like a crackling fire. Manchee brings hisself in closer to my legs. We’re being stared at on all sides as we carry on. Even Viola steps in a bit so we’re a tighter group.

“Not to worry,” Hildy says. “There’ll just be a lot of people who’ll want to meet—”

She stops mid-sentence.

A man has stepped onto the path in front of us.

His face don’t look at all like he wants to meet us.

“Prentisstown?” he says, his Noise getting uncomfortably red, uncomfortably fast.

“Morning, Matthew,” Hildy says, “I was just a-bringing—”

“Prentisstown,” the man says again, no longer an asking, and he’s not looking at Hildy.

He’s looking straight at me.

“Yer not welcome here,” he says. “Not welcome at all.”

And he’s got the biggest machete in his hand you ever seen.

17. ENCOUNTER IN AN ORCHARD

My hand goes right behind my rucksack to my own knife.

“Leave it, Todd pup,” Hildy says, keeping her eyes on the man. “That’s not how this is gonna go.”

“What do ye think yer a-bringing into our village, Hildy?” the man says, hefting his machete in his hand, still looking at me and there’s real surprise in his asking and–

And is that hurt?

“I’m a-bringing in a boy pup and a girl pup what’s lost their way,” Hildy says. “Stand aside, Matthew.”

“I don’t see a boy pup nowhere,” Matthew says, his eyes starting to burn. He’s massively tall, shoulders like an ox and a thickened brow with lots of bafflement but not much tenderness. He looks like a walking, talking thunderstorm. “I see me a Prentisstown man. I see me a Prentisstown man with Prentisstown filth all over his Prentisstown Noise.” “That’s not what yer a-seeing,” Hildy says. “Look close.”

Matthew’s Noise is already lurching on me like hands pressing in, forcing its way into my own thinking, trying to ransack the room. It’s angry and asking and Noisy as a fire, so uneven I can’t make hide nor hair of it.

“Ye know the law, Hildy,” he says.

The law?

“The law is for men,” Hildy says, her voice staying calm, like we were standing there talking bout the weather. Can’t she see how red this man’s Noise is getting? Red ain’t yer colour if you wanna have a chat. “This here pup ain’t a man yet.” “I’ve still got twenty-eight days,” I say, without thinking.

“Yer numbers don’t mean nothing here, boy,” Matthew spits. “I don’t care how many days away ye are.”

“Calm yerself, Matthew,” Hildy says, sterner than I’d want her to. But to my surprise, Matthew looks at her all sore and steps back a step. “He’s a-fleeing Prentisstown, pup,” she says, a little softer. “He’s a-running away.” Matthew looks at her suspiciously and back to me but he’s lowering the machete. A little.

“Just like ye did yerself once,” Hildy says to him.

What?

“Yer from Prentisstown?” I blurt out.

Up comes the machete and Matthew steps forward again, threatening enough to start Manchee barking, “Back! Back! Back!”

“I was from New Elizabeth,” Matthew growls, twixt clenched teeth. “I’m never from Prentisstown, boy, not never, and don’t ye forget it.”

I see clearer flashes in his Noise now. Of impossible things, of crazy things, coming in a rush, like he can’t help it, things worse than the worst of the illegal vids Mr Hammar used to let out on the sly to the oldest and rowdiest of the boys in town, the kind where people seemed to die for real but there was no way of ever knowing for sure. Images and words and blood and screaming and—“Stop that right this second!” Hildy shouts. “Control yerself, Matthew Lyle. Control yerself right now.”

Matthew’s Noise subsides, sudden-like but still roiling, without quite so much control as Tam but still more than any man in Prentisstown.

But as soon as I think it, his machete raises again. “Ye’ll not say that word in our town, boy,” he says. “Not if ye know what’s good for ye.”

“There’ll be no threats to guests of mine as long as I’m alive,” Hildy says, her voice strong and clear. “Is that understood?”

Matthew looks at her, he don’t nod, he don’t say yes, but we all understand that he understands. He ain’t happy bout it, tho. His Noise still pokes and presses at me, slapping me if it could. He finally looks over to Viola.

“And who might this be then?” he says, pointing the machete at her.

And it happens before I even know I’m doing it, I swear.

One minute I’m standing there behind everyone and the next thing I know, I’m between Matthew and Viola, I have my knife out pointing at him, my own Noise falling like an avalanche and my mouth saying, “You best take two steps away from her and you best be taking ’em right quick.” “Todd!” Hildy shouts.

And “Todd!” Manchee barks.

And “Todd!” Viola shouts.

But there I am, knife out, my heart thumping fast like it’s finally figured out what I’m doing.

But there ain’t no stepping back.

Now how do you suppose that happened?

“Give me a reason, Prentissboy,” Matthew says, hoisting the machete. “Just give me one good reason.”

“Enough!” Hildy says.

And her voice has got something in it this time, like the word of rule, so much so that Matthew flinches a little. He’s still holding up his machete, still glaring at me, glaring at Hildy, his Noise throbbing like a wound.

And then his face twists a little.

And he begins, of all things, to cry.

Angrily, furiously trying not to, but standing there, big as a bullock, machete in hand, crying.

Which ain’t what I was expecting.

Hildy’s voice pulls back a bit. “Put the knife away, Todd pup.”

Matthew drops his machete to the ground and puts an arm across his eyes as he snuffles and yowls and moans. I look over at Viola. She’s just staring at Matthew, probably as confused as I am.

I drop the knife to my side but I don’t let it go. Not yet.

Matthew’s taking deep breaths, pain Noise and grief Noise dripping everywhere, and fury, too, at losing control so publicly. “It’s meant to be over,” he coughs. “Long over.”

“I know,” Hildy says, going forward and putting a hand on his arm.

“What’s going on?” I say.

“Never you mind, Todd pup,” Hildy says. “Prentisstown has a sad history.”

“That’s what Tam said,” I say. “As if I don’t know.”

Matthew looks up. “Ye don’t know the first bit of it, boy,” he says, teeth clenched again.

“That’s enough now,” Hildy says. “This boy ain’t yer enemy.” She looks at me, eyes a bit wide. “And he’s putting away his knife for that very reason.”

I twist the knife in my hand a time or two but then I reach behind my rucksack and put it away. Matthew’s glaring at me again but he’s starting to back off for real now and I’m wondering who Hildy is that he’s obeying her.

“They’re both innocent as lambs, Matthew pup,” Hildy says.

“Ain’t nobody innocent,” Matthew says bitterly, sniffing away his last bits of weepy snot and hefting up his machete again. “Nobody at all.”

He turns his back and strides into the orchard, not looking back.

Everyone else is still staring at us.

“The day only ages,” Hildy says to them, turning round in a circle. “There’ll be time enough for ameeting and a-greeting later on.”

Me and Viola watch as the workers start returning to their trees and their baskets and their whatevers, some eyes still on us but most people getting back to work.

“Are you in charge here or something?” I ask.

“Or something, Todd pup. C’mon, ye haven’t even seen the town yet.”

“What law was he talking about?”

“Long story, pup,” she says. “I’ll tell ye later.”

The path, still wide enough for men and vehicles and horses, tho I only see men, curves its way down thru more orchards on the hillsides of the little vale.

“What kind of fruit is that?” Viola asks, as two women cross the road in front of us with full baskets, the women watching us as they go.

“Crested pine,” Hildy says. “Sweet as sugar, loaded with vitamins.”

“Never heard of it,” I say.

“No,” Hildy says. “Ye wouldn’t have.”

I look at way too many trees for a settlement that can’t have more than fifty people in it. “Is that all you eat here?”

“Course not,” Hildy says. “We trade with the other settlements down the road.”

The surprise is so clear in my Noise that even Viola laughs a little.

“Ye didn’t think it was just two settlements on all of New World, did ye?” Hildy asks.

“No,” I say, feeling my face turn red, “but all the other settlements were wiped out in the war.”

“Mmm,” Hildy says, biting her bottom lip, nodding but not saying nothing more.

“Is that Haven?” Viola says quietly.

“Is what Haven?” I ask.

“The other settlement,” Viola says, not quite looking at me. “You said there was a cure for Noise in Haven.”

“Ach,” Hildy psshts. “That’s just rumours and speckalashuns.”

“Is Haven a real place?” I ask.

“It’s the biggest and first of the settlements,” Hildy says. “Closest New World’s got to a big city. Miles away. Not for peasants like us.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” I say again.

No one says nothing to this and I get the feeling they’re being polite. Viola’s not really looked at me since the weirdness back there with me and Matthew and the knife. To be honest, I don’t know what to make of it neither.

So everyone just keeps walking.

There’s maybe seven buildings total in Farbranch, smaller than Prentisstown and just buildings after all but somehow so different, too, it feels like I’ve wandered right off New World into some whole other place altogether.

The first building we pass is a tiny stone church, fresh and clean and open, not at all like the darkness Aaron preached in. Farther on is a general store with a mechanic’s garage by it, tho I don’t see much by way of heavy machinery around. Haven’t even seen a fissionbike, not even a dead one. There’s a building that looks like a meeting hall, another with a doctor’s snakes carved into the front, and two barn-like buidings that look like storage.

“Not much,” Hildy says. “But it’s home.”

“Not yer home,” I say. “You live way outside.”

“So do most people,” Hildy says. “Even when yer used to it, it’s nice to only have the Noise of yer most beloved a-hanging round yer house. Town gets a bit rackety.”

I listen out for rackety but it still ain’t nothing like Prentisstown. Sure there’s Noise in Farbranch, men doing their usual boring daily business, chattering their thoughts that don’t mean nothing, Chop, chop, chop and I’ll only give seven for the dozen and Listen to her sing there, just listen and That coop needs fixing tonight and He’s gonna fall right off of that and on and on and on, so heedless and safe-sounding to me it feels like taking a bath in comparison to the black Noise I’m used to.

“Oh, it gets black, Todd pup,” Hildy says. “Men still have their tempers. Women, too.”

“Some people would call it impolite to always be listening to a man’s Noise,” I say, looking round me.

“Too true, pup.” She grins. “But ye aren’t a man yet. Ye said so yerself.”

We cross the central strip of the town. A few men and women walk to and fro, some tipping their hats to Hildy, most just staring at us.

I stare back.

If you listen close, you can hear where the women are in town almost as clear as the men. They’re like rocks that the Noise washes over and once yer used to it you can feel where their silences are, dotted all about, Viola and Hildy ten times over and I’ll bet if I stopped and stood here I could tell exactly how many women are in each building.

And mixed in with the sound of so many men, you know what?

The silence don’t feel half so lonesome.

And then I see some teeny, tiny people, watching us from behind a bush.

Kids.

Kids smaller than me, younger than me.

The first I ever seen.

A woman carrying a basket spies them and makes a shooing movement with her hands. She frowns and smiles at the same time and the kids all run off giggling round the back of the church.

I watch ’em go. I feel my chest pull a little.

“Ye coming?” Hildy calls after me.

“Yeah,” I say, still watching where the kids went. I turn and keep on following, my head still twisted back.

Kids. Real kids. Safe enough for kids and I find myself wondering if Viola would be able to feel at home here with all these nice-seeming men, all these women and children. I find myself wondering if she’d be safe, even if I’m obviously not.

I’ll bet she would.

I look at Viola and catch her looking away.

Hildy’s led us to the house farthest along the buildings of Farbranch. It’s got steps that go up the front and a little flag flying from a pole out front.

I stop.

“This is a mayor’s house,” I say. “Ain’t it?”

“Deputy Mayor,” Hildy says, walking up the steps, clomping her boots loud against the wood. “My sister.”

“And my sister,” says a woman opening the door, a plumper, younger, frownier version of Hildy.

“Francia,” Hildy says.

“Hildy,” Francia says.

They nod at each other, not hug or shake hands, just nod.

“What trouble d’ye think yer bringing into my town?” Francia says, eyeing us up.

“Yer town, is it now?” Hildy says, smiling, eyebrows up. She turns to us. “Like I told Matthew Lyle, it’s just two pups a-fleeing for safety, seeking their refuge.” She turns back to her sister. “And if Farbranch ain’t a refuge, sister, then what is it?” “It’s not them I’m a-talking about,” Francia says, looking at us, arms crossed. “It’s the army that’s a-following them.”

18. FARBRANCA

“Army?” I say, my stomach knotting right up. Viola says it at the same time I do but there’s nothing funny bout it this time.

“What army?” Hildy frowns.

“Rumours a-floating down from the far fields of an army a-gathering on the other side of the river,” Francia says. “Men on horseback. Prentisstown men.”

Hildy purses her lips. “Five men on horseback,” she says. “Not an army. Those were just the posse sent after our young pups here.”

Francia don’t look too convinced. I never seen arms so crossed.

“And the river gorge crossing is down anyhow,” Hildy continues, “so there ain’t gonna be anyone a-coming into Farbranch any time soon.” She looks back at us. “An army,” she says, shaking her head. “Honestly.” “If there’s a threat, sister,” Francia says, “it’s my duty—”

Hildy rolls her eyes. “Don’t be a-talking to me about yer duty, sister,” she says, stepping past Francia and opening the front door to the house. “I invented yer duty. C’mon, pups, let’s get ye inside.” Viola and I don’t move. Francia don’t invite us to neither. “Todd?” Manchee barks by my feet.

I take a deep breath and go up the front steps. “Howdy, mim,” I say.

“Mam,” Viola whispers behind me.

“Howdy, mam,” I say, trying not to miss a beat. “I’m Todd. That’s Viola.” Francia’s arms are still crossed, like there’s a prize for it. “There really were only five men,” I say, tho the word army is echoing round my Noise.

“And I should just trust ye?” Francia says. “A boy who’s a-being chased?” She looks down to Viola, still waiting on the bottom step. “I can just imagine why ye were running.”

“Oh, stuff it, Francia,” Hildy says, still holding the door open for us.

Francia turns and shooshes Hildy outta the way. “I’ll be in charge of entry into my own house, thank ye very much,” Francia says, then to us, “Well, c’mon if yer coming.”

And that’s how we first see the hospitality of Farbranch. We go inside. Francia and Hildy bickering twixt themselves about whether Francia’s got a place to put us in for however long we might wanna stay. Hildy wins the bickering and Francia shows me and Viola to separate small rooms next to each other one floor up.

“Yer dog has to sleep outside,” Francia says.

“But he’s—”

“That wasn’t a question,” Francia says, leaving the room.

I follow her out to the landing. She don’t turn back as she goes downstairs. In less than a minute, I can hear her and Hildy arguing again, trying to keep their voices down. Viola comes outta her room to listen, too. We stand there for a second, wondering.

“Whaddya think?” I say.

She don’t look at me. Then it’s like she decides to look at me and does.

“I don’t know,” she says. “What do you think?”

I shrug my shoulders. “She don’t seem too happy to see us,” I say, “but it’s still safer than I’ve felt in a while. Behind walls and such.” I shrug again. “And Ben wanted us to get here and all.” Which is true but I still ain’t sure if it feels right.

Viola’s clutching her arms to herself, just like Francia but not like Francia at all. “I know what you mean.”

“So I guess it’ll do for now.”

“Yes,” Viola says. “For now.”

We listen to a bit more arguing.

“What you did back there—” Viola says.

“It was stupid,” I say, real fast. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

My face is starting to burn so I step back in my little room. I stand there and chew my lip. The room looks like it used to belong to an old person. Kinda smells that way, too, but at least it’s a real bed. I go to my rucksack and I open it.

I look round to make sure no one’s followed me in and I pull out the book. I open it to the map, to the arrows that point down thru the swamp, to the river on the other side. No bridge on the map but there’s the settlement. With a word underneath it.

“Fayre,” I say, to myself. “Fayre braw nk.”

Which I guess is Farbranch.

I breathe loud thru my nose as I look at the page of writing on the back of the map. You must warn them (of course, of course, shut up) still underlined at the bottom. Like Viola said, tho, warn who? Warn Farbranch? Warn Hildy?

“About what?” I say. I thumb thru the book and there’s pages of stuff, pages and pages of it, words on words on words on words, like Noise shoved down onto paper till you can’t make no sense from it. How can I warn anybody about all this?

“Aw, Ben,” I say under my breath. “What were you thinking?”

“Todd?” Hildy calls from downstairs. “Vi?”

I close the book and look at its cover.

Later. I’ll ask about it later.

I will.

Later.

I put it away and I go downstairs. Viola’s already waiting there. Hildy and Francia, arms crossed again, waiting, too.

“I’ve got to get back to my farm, pups,” Hildy says. “Work to do for the good of all but Francia’s agreed to look after ye for today and I’ll come back tonight to see how yer a-getting on.”

Viola and I look at each other, suddenly not wanting Hildy to leave.

“Thank ye for that,” Francia says, frowning. “Despite what my sister may have told ye two about me, I’m hardly an ogre.”

“She didn’t say—” I start to say before I stop myself, even tho my Noise finishes it up for me. Anything about you.

“Yeah, well, that’s typical,” Francia says, glaring at Hildy but not seeming too put out. “Ye can stay here for the time being. Pa and Auntie are long dead and there’s not too much call for their rooms these days.” I was right. Old person’s room.

“But we’re a working town here in Farbranch.” Francia looks from me to Viola and back again. “And ye’ll be expected to earn yer keep, even if it’s just for a day or two while ye make whatever plans yer going to make.” “We’re still not sure,” Viola says.

“Hmmph,” Francia hmmphs. “And if ye two stay on past this first cresting of the orchards, there’ll be a-schooling for ye to do.”

“School?” I say.

“School and church,” Hildy says. “That’s if ye stay long enough.” I’m guessing she’s reading my Noise again. “Are ye going to stay long enough?”

I don’t say nothing and Viola don’t say nothing and Franica hmmphs again.

“Please, Mrs Francia?” Viola says as Francia turns to talk to Hildy.

“Just Francia, child,” Francia says, looking surprised. “What is it?”

“Is there somewhere I can send a message back to my ship?”

“Yer ship,” Francia says. “This a-being that settler ship way out in the dark black yonder?” Her mouth draws thin. “With all them people on it?”

Viola nods. “We were supposed to report back. Let them know what we found.”

Viola’s voice is so quiet and her face so looking and hopeful, so open and wide and ready for disappointment that I feel that familiar tug of sadness again, pulling all Noise into it like grief, like being lost. I put a hand on the back of a settee to steady myself.

“Ah, girl pup,” Hildy says, her voice getting suspiciously gentle again. “I’m guessing ye tried to contact us folks down here on New World when ye were a-scouting the planet?”

“Yeah,” Viola says. “No one answered.”

Hildy and Francia exchange nods. “Yer a-forgetting we were church settlers,” Francia says, “getting away from worldly things to set up our own little utopia, so we let that kinda machinery go to rack and ruin as we got on with the business of surviving.” Viola’s eyes get a little wider. “You have no way of communicating with anyone?”

“We don’t have communicators for other settlements,” Francia says, “much less the beyond.”

“We’re farmers, pup,” Hildy says. “Simple farmers, looking for a simpler way of life. That was the whole point we were a-trying for in flying all this ridiculous way to get here. Setting down the things that caused such strife for people of old.” She taps her fingers on a table-top. “Didn’t quite work out that way, tho.” “We weren’t really expecting no others,” Francia says. “Not the way Old World was when we left.”

“So I’m stuck here?” Viola says, her voice a little shaky.

“Until yer ship arrives,” Hildy says. “I’m afraid so.”

“How far out are they?” Francia asks.

“System entry in 24 weeks,” Viola says quietly. “Perihelion four weeks later. Orbital transfer two weeks after that.”

“I’m sorry, child,” Francia says. “Looks like yer ours for seven months.”

Viola turns away from all of us, obviously taking this news in.

A lot can happen in seven months.

“Well, now,” Hildy says, making her voice bright, “I hear tell they got all kindsa things in Haven. Fissioncars and city streets and more stores than ye can shake a stick at. Ye might try there before ye really start a-worrying, yes?” Hildy makes an eye towards Francia and Francia says, “Todd pup? Why don’t we get you a-working in the barn? Yer a farm boy, ain’t ye?”

“But—” I start to say.

“All kinds of work to be done on a farm,” Francia says, “as I’m sure ye know all too well—”

Chattering away like this, Francia gets me out the back door. Looking over my shoulder, I can see Hildy comforting Viola in soft words, unhearable words, things being said that I don’t know yet again.

Francia closes the door behind us and leads me and Manchee across the main road to one of the big storage houses I saw when we were walking in. I can see men pulling handcarts up to the main front door and another man unloading the baskets of orchard fruit.

“This is east barn,” Francia says, “where we store things ready to be traded. Wait here.”

I wait and she walks up to the man unloading the baskets from the cart. They talk for a minute and I can hear Prentisstown? clear as day in his Noise and the sudden surge of feeling behind it. It’s a slightly different feeling than before but it fades before I can read it and Francia comes back.

“Ivan says ye can work in the back a-sweeping up.”

“Sweeping up?” I say, kinda appalled. “I know how farms work, mim, and I—”

“I’m sure ye do but ye may have noticed that Prentisstown ain’t our most popular neighbour. Best to keep ye away from everyone till we’ve all had a chance to get used to ye. Fair enough?”

She’s still stern, still arms crossed, but actually, yeah, this seems sensible and tho her face ain’t kind exactly maybe it sorta is.

“Okay,” I say.

Francia nods and takes me over to Ivan, who looks about Ben’s age, but short, dark-haired and arms like effing tree trunks.

“Ivan, this is Todd,” Francia says.

I hold out my hand to shake. Ivan doesn’t take it. He just eyeballs me something fierce.

“You’ll work in back,” he says. “And you’ll keep yerself and yer dog outta my way.”

Francia leaves us and Ivan takes me inside, points out a broom, and I get to work. And that’s how I start my first day in Farbranch: inside a dark barn, sweeping dust from one corner to another, seeing one single stitch of blue sky out a door at the far end.

Oh, the joy.

“Poo, Todd,” Manchee says.

“Not in here, you don’t.”

It’s a pretty big barn, seventy-five to eighty metres from end to end, maybe, and about half full of baskets of crested pine. There’s a section with big rolls of silage, too, packed up to the ceiling with thin rope, and another section with huge sheaves of wheat ready to be ground into flour.

“You sell this stuff on to other settlements?” I call out to Ivan.

“Time for chatter later,” he calls back from the front.

I don’t say nothing to this but something kinda rude shows up in my Noise before I can stop it. I hurry and get back to sweeping.

The morning waxes on. I think about Ben and Cillian. I think about Viola. I think about Aaron and the Mayor. I think about the word army and how it’s making my stomach clench.

I don’t know.

It don’t feel right to be stopped. Not after all that running.

Everyone’s acting like it’s safe here but I don’t know.

Manchee wanders in and out the back doors as I sweep, sometimes chasing the pink moths I stir from faint corners. Ivan keeps his distance, I keep mine, but I can see all the people who come to his door and drop off goods taking a deep, long look to the back of the barn, sometimes squinting into the darkness to see if they can find me there, the Prentisstown boy.

So they hate Prentisstown, I got that. I hate Prentisstown but I got more cause for grief than any of them.

I start noticing things, too, as the morning gets older. Like that tho men and women both do the heavy labour, women give more orders that more men follow. And with Francia being Deputy Mayor and Hildy being whoever she is in Farbranch, I’m beginning to think it’s a town run by women. I can often hear their silences as they walk by outside and I can hear men’s Noise responding to it, too, sometimes with chafing but usually in a way that just gets on with things.

Men’s Noise here, too, is a lot more controlled than what I’m used to. With so many women around and from what I know of the Noise of Prentisstown, you’d think the sky would be full of Noisy women with no clothes doing the most remarkable things you could think of. And sure you hear that sometimes here, men are men after all, but more of the time it’s songs or it’s prayers or it’s directed to the work at hand.

They’re calm here in Farbranch but they’re a little spooky.

Once in a while, I see if I can hear (not hear) Viola.

But no.

At lunchtime, Francia comes to the back of the barn with a sandwich and a jug of water.

“Where’s Viola?” I ask.

“Yer welcome,” Francia says.

“For what?”

Francia sighs and says, “Viola’s in the orchards, gathering dropped fruits.”

I want to ask how she is but I don’t and Francia refuses to read it in my Noise.

“How ye getting on?” she asks.

“I know how to do a lot more than ruddy sweep.”

“Mind yer language, pup. There’ll be time enough to get ye to real work.”

She don’t stay, walking back towards the front, having another word with Ivan and then she’s off to do whatever Deputy Mayors fill their days with.

Can I say? It makes no sense but I sorta like her. Probably cuz she reminds me of Cillian and all the things that used to drive me crazy about him. Memory is stupid, ain’t it?

I dig into my sandwich and I’m chewing my first bite when I hear Ivan’s Noise approaching.

“I’ll sweep up my crumbs,” I say.

To my surprise, he laughs, kinda roughly. “I’m sure ye will.” He takes a bite of his own sandwich. “Francia says there’s a village meeting tonight,” he says after a minute.

“Bout me?” I ask.

“Bout ye both. Ye and the girl. Ye and the girl what escaped Prentisstown.”

His Noise is strange. It’s cautious but strong, like he’s checking me out. I don’t read no hostility, not towards me, anyway, but something’s percolating in it.

“We gonna meet everyone?” I say.

“Ye might. We’ll all be a-talking bout ye first.”

“If there’s a vote,” I say, chomping on the sandwich, “I think I lose.”

“Ye’ve got Hildy a-speaking for yer side,” he says. “That counts for more than aught in Farbranch.” He swallows his own bite. “And the people here are kind people and good. We’ve taken in Prentisstown folk before. Not for a while but from way back in the bad times.” “The war?” I say.

He looks at me, his Noise sizing me up, what I know. “Yeah,” he says, “the war.” He turns his head round the barn, casual-like, but I get the feeling he’s looking to see if we’re alone. He turns back and fixes his eye on me. An eye that’s really looking for something. “And then, too,” he says, “not all of us feel the same.” “Bout what?” I say, not liking his look, not liking his buzz.

“Bout history.” He’s talking low, his eyes still poring into me, leaning a little closer.

I lean back a little. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Prentisstown’s still got allies,” he whispers, “hidden away in surprising places.”

His Noise gets pictures in it, small ones, like Noise speaking just to me and I’m starting to see them clearer and clearer, bright things, wet things, fast things, the sun shining down on red–

“Puppies! Puppies!” Manchee barks in the corner. I jump and even Ivan startles and his Noise pictures fade right quick. Manchee keeps barking and I hear a whole raft of giggling that ain’t him at all. I look.

A group of kids is kneeling down, peeking in thru a torn-away board, smiling, laughing with daring, pushing each other closer to the hole.

Pointing at me.

And all so small.

So small.

I mean, look at ’em.

“Get outta here, ye rats!” Ivan calls but there’s humour in his voice and Noise, all trace of what was before hidden again. There’s squeals of laughter outside the hole in the wall as the kids scatter.

And that’s it, they’re gone.

Like I mighta made ’em up.

“Puppies, Todd!” Manchee barks. “Puppies!”

“I know,” I say, scratching his head when he comes over. “I know.”

Ivan claps his hands together. “That’s lunch then. Back to work.” He gives me one more important look before he heads back to the front of the barn.

“What was that all about?” I say to Manchee.

“Puppies,” he murmurs, digging his face into my hand.

And so there follows an afternoon pretty much exactly like my morning. Sweeping, folks stopping by, a break for water where Ivan don’t say nothing to me, more sweeping.

I spend some time trying to think about what we might do next. If it’s even we who’s doing it. Farbranch’ll have its meeting about us and they’ll definitely keep Viola till her ship arrives, anyone can see that, but will they want me?

And if they do, do I stay?

And do I warn them?

I get a burning in my stomach every time I think about the book so I keep changing the subject.

After what seems like forever, the sun starts to set. There’s no more damn sweeping I can do. I’ve already covered the whole barn more than once, counted the baskets, re-counted them, made an attempt to fix the loose board in the wall even tho no one asked me to. There’s only so much you can ruddy well do if no one lets you leave a barn.

“Ain’t that the truth?” Hildy says, standing there suddenly.

“You shoudn’t sneak up on people like that,” I say. “All you quiet folk.”

“There’s some food over at Francia’s house for ye and for Viola. Why don’t ye go on there, get something to eat?”

“While you all have yer meeting?”

“While we all have our meeting, yes, pup,” Hildy says. “Viola’s already in the house, no doubt eating all yer dinner.”

“Hungry, Todd!” Manchee barks.

“There’s food for ye, too, puppup,” Hildy says, leaning down to pet him. He flops right over on his back for her, no dignity whatsoever.

“What’s this meeting really about?” I ask.

“Oh, the new settlers that are a-coming. That’s big news.” She looks up from Manchee to me. “And introducing ye around, of course. Getting the town used to the idea of a-welcoming ye.”

“And are they gonna a-welcome us?”

“People are scared of what they don’t know, Todd pup,” she says, standing. “Once they know ye, the problem goes away.”

“Will we be able to stay?”

“I reckon so,” she says. “If ye want to.”

I don’t say nothing to that.

“Ye get on up to the house,” she says. “I’ll come collect ye both when the time is right.”

I only nod in response and she gives a little wave and leaves, walking back across a barn that’s growing ever darker. I take the broom back to where it was hanging, my steps echoing. I can hear the Noise of men and the silence of women gathering across the town in the meeting hall. The word Prentisstown filters in most heavily and my name and Viola’s name and Hildy’s name.

And I gotta say, tho there’s fear and suspishun in it, I don’t get a feeling of overwhelming non-welcome. There’s more askings than there is anger of the Matthew Lyle sort.

Which, you know, maybe. Maybe that ain’t so bad after all.

“C’mon, Manchee,” I say, “let’s go get some food.”

“Food, Todd!” he barks along at my heels.

“I wonder how Viola’s day was,” I say.

And as I step towards the entrance to the barn I realize one bit of Noise is separating itself from the general murmuring outside.

One bit of Noise lifting from the stream.

And heading for the barn.

Coming up right outside it.

I stop, deep in the dark of the barn.

A shadow steps into the far doorway.

Matthew Lyle.

And his Noise is saying, Ye ain’t going nowhere, boy.

19. FURTHER CHOICES OF A KNIFE

“Back! Back! Back!” Manchee immediately starts barking.

The moons glint off Matthew Lyle’s machete.

I reach behind me. I’d hidden the sheath under my shirt while I worked but the knife is definitely still there. Definitely. I take it and hold it out at my side.

“No old mama to protect ye this time,” Matthew says, swinging his machete back and forth, like he’s trying to cut the air into slices. “No skirts to hide ye from what ye did.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” I say, taking a step backwards, trying to keep my Noise from showing the back door behind me.

“Don’t matter,” Matthew says, walking forward as I step back. “We got a law here in this town.”

“I don’t have no quarrel with you,” I say.

“But I’ve got one with ye, boy,” he says, his Noise starting to rear up and there’s anger in it, sure, but that weird grief’s in it, too, that raging hurt you can almost taste on yer tongue. There’s also nervousness swirling about him, edgy as you please, much as he’s trying to cover it.

I step back again, farther in the dark.

“I ain’t a bad man, you know,” he says, suddenly and kinda confusingly but swinging the machete. “I have a wife. I have a daughter.”

“They wouldn’t be wanting you to hurt no innocent boy, I’m sure—”

“Quiet!” he shouts and I can hear him swallow.

He ain’t sure of this. He ain’t sure of what he’s about to do.

What’s going on here?

“I don’t know why yer angry,” I say, “but I’m sorry. Whatever it is—”

“What I want you to know before you pay,” he says over me, like he’s forcing himself not to listen to me. “What you need to know, boy, is that my mother’s name was Jessica.”

I stop stepping back. “Beg pardon?”

“My mother’s name,” he growls, “was Jessica.”

This don’t make no sense at all.

“What?” I say. “I don’t know what yer—”

“Listen, boy!” he yells. “Just listen.”

And then his Noise is wide open.

And I see–

And I see–

And I see–

I see what he’s showing.

“That’s a lie,” I whisper. “That’s a ruddy lie.”

Which is the wrong thing to say.

With a yell, Matthew leaps forward, running towards me the length of the barn.

“Run!” I shout to Manchee, turning and making a break for the back doors. (Shut up, you honestly think a knife is a match for a machete?) I hear Matthew still yelling, his Noise exploding after me, and I reach the back door and fling it open before I realize.

Manchee’s not with me.

I turn round. When I said “run”, Manchee’d run the other way, flinging himself with all his unconvincing viciousness towards the charging Matthew.

“Manchee!” I yell.

It’s ruddy dark in the barn now and I can hear grunts and barks and clanks and then I hear Matthew cry out in pain at what must surely be a bite.

Good dog, I think, Good effing dog.

And I can’t leave him, can I?

I run back into the darkness, towards where I can see Matthew hopping around and the form of Manchee dancing twixt his legs and swipes of the machete, barking his little head off.

“Todd! Todd! Todd!” he’s barking.

I’m five steps away and still running when Matthew makes a two-handed strike down at the ground, embedding the tip of the machete into the wooden floor. I hear a squeal from Manchee that don’t have no words, just pain, and off he flies into a dark corner.

I let out a yell and crash right into Matthew. We both go flying, toppling to the floor in a tumble of elbows and kneecaps. It hurts but mostly I’m landing on Matthew so that’s okay.

We roll apart and I hear him call out in pain. I get right back up to my feet, knife in hand, a few metres away from him, far from the back door now and with Matthew blocking the front. I hear Manchee whimpering in the dark.

I also hear some Noise rising from across the village road in the direkshun of the meeting hall but there ain’t time to think about that now.

“I’m not afraid to kill you,” I say, tho I totally am but I’m hoping my Noise and his Noise are now so rackety and revved up that he won’t be able to make any sense from it.

“That makes two of us then,” he says, lunging for his machete. It don’t come out first tug, or the second. I take the chance to jump back into the dark, looking for Manchee.

“Manchee?” I say, frantically looking behind the sheaves and the piles of fruit baskets. I can still hear Matthew grunting to get his machete outta the floor and the ruckus from the town is growing louder.

“Todd?” I hear from deep in the darkness.

It’s coming from beside the silage rolls, down a little nook that opens up next to them back to the wall. “Manchee?” I call, sticking my head down it.

I look back real quick.

With a heave, Matthew gets his machete outta the floor.

“Todd?” Manchee says, confused and scared. “Todd?”

And here comes Matthew, coming on in slow steps, like he no longer has to hurry, his Noise reaching forward in a wave that don’t brook no argument.

I have no choice. I wedge myself back into the nook and hold out my knife.

“I’ll leave,” I say, my voice rising. “Just let me get my dog and we’ll leave.”

“Too late for that,” Matthew says, getting closer.

“You don’t wanna do this. I can tell.”

“Shut yer mouth.”

“Please,” I say, waving the knife. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Do I look concerned, boy?”

Closer, closer, step by step.

There’s a bang outside somewhere, off in the distance. People really are running and shouting now but neither of us look.

I press myself back into the little nook but it’s really not wide enough for me. I glance round, seeing where escape might lie.

I don’t find nothing much.

My knife’s gonna have to do it. It’s gonna have to act, even if it is against a machete.

“Todd?” I hear behind me.

“Don’t worry, Manchee,” I say. “It’s gonna be all right.”

And who knows what a dog believes?

Matthew’s almost on us now.

I grip my knife.

Matthew stops a metre from me, so close I can see his eyes glinting in the dark.

“Jessica,” he says.

He raises his machete above his head.

I flinch back, knife up, steeling myself–

But he pauses–

He pauses–

In a way I reckernize–

And that’s enough–

With a quick prayer that it ain’t the same stuff from the bridge, I swing my knife in an arc to my side, slicing right thru (thank you thank you) the ropes holding up the silage rolls, cutting the first lot clean away. The other ropes snap right quick from the sudden shift in weight and I cover my head and press myself away as the silage rolls start to tumble.

I hear thumps and clumps and an “oof” from Matthew and I look up and he’s buried in silage rolls, his arm out to one side, the machete dropped. I step forward and kick it away, then turn to find Manchee.

He’s back in a dark corner behind the now-fallen rolls. I race over to him.

“Todd?” he says when I get close. “Tail, Todd?”

“Manchee?” It’s dark so I have to squat down next to him to see. His tail’s two thirds shorter than it used to be, blood everywhere, but God bless him, still trying to wag.

“Ow, Todd?”

“It’s okay, Manchee,” I say, my voice and Noise near crying from relief that it’s just his tail. “We’ll get you fixed right up.”

“Okay, Todd?”

“I’m okay,” I say, rubbing his head. He nips my hand but I know he can’t help it cuz he’s in pain. He licks me in apology then nips me again. “Ow, Todd,” he says.

“Todd Hewitt!” I hear shouted from the front of the barn.

Francia.

“I’m here!” I call, standing up. “I’m all right. Matthew went crazy—”

But I stop cuz she ain’t listening to me.

“Ye gotta get yerself indoors, Todd pup,” Francia says in a rush. “Ye gotta—”

She stops when she sees Matthew under the silage.

“What happened?” she says, already starting to tug away the rolls, getting the one off his face and leaning down to see if he’s still breathing.

I point to the machete. “That happened.”

Francia looks at it, then a long look up at me, her face saying something I can’t read nor even begin to figure out. I don’t know if Matthew’s alive nor dead and I ain’t never gonna find out.

“We’re under attack, pup,” she says, standing.

“Yer what?”

“Men,” she says, rising. “Prentisstown men. That posse that’s after ye. They’re attacking the whole town.”

My stomach falls right outta my shoes.

“Oh, no,” I say. And then I say it again, “Oh, no.”

Francia’s still looking at me, her brain thinking who knows what.

“Don’t give us to them,” I say, backing away again. “They’ll kill us.”

Francia frowns at this. “What kinda woman do ye think I am?”

“I don’t know,” I say, “that’s the whole problem.”

“I’m not gonna give ye to them. Honestly, now. Nor Viola. In fact the feeling of the town meeting, as far along as it got, was how we were a-deciding to protect ye both from what was almost certainly a-coming.” She looks down at Matthew. “Tho maybe that’s a promise we couldn’t keep.” “Where’s Viola?”

“Back at my house,” Francia says, suddenly all active again. “C’mon. We gotta get ye inside.”

“Wait.” I squeeze back behind the silage rolls and find Manchee still in his corner, licking his tail. He looks up at me and barks, just a little bark that’s not even a word. “I’m gonna pick you up now,” I say to him. “Try not to bite me too hard, okay?” “Okay, Todd,” he whimpers, yelping each time he wags his stumpy tail.

I reach down, put my arms under his tummy and hoist him up to my chest. He yelps and bites hard at my wrist, then licks it.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I say, holding him as best I can.

Francia’s waiting for me at the doors to the barn and I follow her out into the main road.

There are people running about everywhere. I see men and women with rifles running up towards the orchards and other men and women scooting kids (there they are again) into houses and such. In the distance I can hear bangs and shouts and yelling.

“Where’s Hildy?” I yell.

Francia don’t say nothing. We reach her front steps.

“What about Hildy?” I ask again as we climb up.

“She went off to fight,” Francia says, not looking at me, opening the door. “They would have reached her farm first. Tam was still there.”

“Oh, no,” I say again stupidly, like my “oh nos” will do any good.

Viola comes flying down from the upper floor as we enter.

“What took you so long?” she says, her voice kinda loud, and I don’t know which one of us she’s talking to. She gasps when she sees Manchee.

“Bandages,” I say. “Some of those fancy ones.”

She nods and races back up the stairs.

“Ye two stay here,” Francia says to me. “Don’t come out, whatever ye hear.”

“But we need to run!” I say, not understanding this at all. “We need to get outta here!”

“No, Todd pup,” she says. “If Prentisstown wants ye, then that’s reason enough for us to keep ye from them.”

“But they’ve got guns—”

“So do we,” Francia says. “No posse of Prentisstown men is going to take this town.”

Viola’s back down the stairs now, digging thru her bag for bandages.

“Francia—” I say.

“Stay right here,” she says. “We’ll protect ye. Both of ye.”

She looks at both of us, hard, like seeing if we agree, then she turns and is out the door to protect her town, I guess.

We stare at the closed door for a second, then Manchee whimpers again and I have to set him down. Viola gets out a square bandage and her little scalpel.

“I don’t know if these’ll work on dogs,” she says.

“Better than nothing,” I say.

She cuts off a little strip and I have to hold Manchee’s head down while she loops it around the mess of his tail. He growls and apologizes and growls and apologizes until Viola’s covered the whole wound up tight. He immediately sets to licking it when I let him go.

“Stop that,” I say.

“Itches,” Manchee says.

“Stupid dog.” I scratch his ears. “Stupid ruddy dog.”

Viola pets him, too, trying to keep him from licking off the bandage.

“Do you think we’re safe?” she asks quietly, after a long minute.

“I don’t know.”

There’s more bangs out in the distance. We both jump. More people shouting. More Noise.

“No sign of Hildy since this started,” Viola says.

“I know.”

Another bit of silence as we over-pet Manchee. More ruckus from up in the orchards above town.

It all seems so far away, as if it’s not even happening.

“Francia told me that you can find Haven if you keep following the main river,” Viola says.

I look at her. I wonder if I know what this means.

I think I do.

“You wanna leave,” I say.

“They’ll keep coming,” she says. “We’re putting the people around us in danger. Don’t you think they’ll keep coming if they’ve already come this far?”

I do. I do think this. I don’t say it but I do.

“But they said they could protect us,” I say.

“Do you believe that?”

I don’t say nothing to this neither. I think of Matthew Lyle.

“I don’t think we’re safe here any more,” she says.

“I don’t think we’re safe anywhere,” I say. “Not on this whole planet.”

“I need to contact my ship, Todd,” she says, almost pleading. “They’re waiting to hear from me.”

“And you wanna run off into the unknown to do it?”

“You do, too,” she says. “I can tell.” She looks away. “If we went together…”

I look up at her at this, trying to see, trying to know, to know real and true.

All she does is look back.

Which is enough.

“Let’s go,” I say.

We pack without any more words, and fast. I get my rucksack on, she gets her bag round her shoulders, Manchee’s on his feet again and walking, and out the back door we go. As simple as that, we’re going. Safer for Farbranch, definitely, safer for us, who knows? Who knows if this is the right thing to do? After what Hildy and Francia seemed to promise, it’s hard leaving.

But we’re leaving. And that’s what we’re doing.

Cuz at least it’s us who decided it. I’d rather not have no one else tell me what they’ll do for me, even when they mean well.

It’s full dark night outside now, tho both moons are shining bright. Everyone in town’s attenshun is behind us so there’s no one to stop us from running. There’s a little bridge that crosses the creek that runs thru town. “How far is this Haven?” I ask, whispering as we cross.

“Kinda far,” Viola whispers back.

“How far is kinda far?”

She don’t say nothing for a second.

“How far?” I say again.

“Coupla weeks’ walk,” she says, not looking back.

“Coupla weeks!”

“Where else do we have?” she says.

And I don’t have an answer so we keep on walking.

Across the creek, the road heads up the far hill of the valley. We decide to take it as the fastest way outta town then find our way back south to the river and follow that. Ben’s map ends at Farbranch so the river’s all we got for direkshuns from here on out.

There’s so many askings that come with us as we run outta Farbranch, askings that we’ll never know the answers to: Why would the Mayor and a few men go miles outta their way to attack a whole ruddy town on their own? Why are they still after us? Why are we so important? And what happened to Hildy?

And did I kill Matthew Lyle?

And was what he showed me in his Noise right there at the end a true thing?

Was that the real history of Prentisstown?

“Was what the real history?” Viola asks as we hurry on up the path.

“Nothing,” I say. “And quit reading me.”

We get to the top of the far hill of the valley just as another rattle of gunfire echoes across it. We stop and look.

And then we see.

Boy, do we see.

“Oh, my God,” Viola says.

Under the light of the two moons, the whole valley kinda shines, across the Farbranch buildings and back up into the hills where the orchards are.

We can see the men and women of Farbranch running back down that hill.

In retreat.

And marching over the top, are five, ten, fifteen men on horseback.

Followed by rows of men five across, carrying guns, marching in a line behind what has to be the Mayor’s horses in front.

Not a posse. Not a posse at all.

It’s Prentisstown. I feel like the world’s crumbling at my feet. It’s every ruddy man in Prentisstown.

They have three times as many people as even live in Farbranch.

Three times as many guns.

We hear gunshots and we see the men and women of Farbranch fall as they run back to their houses.

They’ll take the town easily. They’ll take it before the hour is thru.

Cuz the rumours were true, the rumours that Francia heard.

The word was true.

It’s an army.

A whole army.

There’s a whole army coming after me and Viola.