The Ask and the Answer
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***
"You won't get away with this," the woman says, her voice almost steady.
Mr. Hammar cocks his rifle behind us and aims it at her head.
"You blind?" Davy says to the woman, voice a little too squeaky. "I'm getting away with it right now." Mr. Hammar laughs.
Davy twists the bolting tool with a hard turn. The band snaps into the woman's skin halfway up her forearm. She calls out, grabbing the band and falling forward, catching herself on the floor with her unhanded arm. She stops there a minute, panting.
Her hair is pulled back into a severe knot, blondy and brown mixed together, like the wire filaments in the back of a vid player. There's a small patch on the back where the hair is gray, all growing together, a river across a dusty land.
I stare at the gray patch, letting my eyes blur a little.
I am the Circle and the Circle is me.
"Get up," Davy says to the woman. "So the healers can treat you." He looks back at the line of women staring at us down the hall to the front of the dormitory, waiting their turn.
"The boy said get up," Mr. Hammar says, waving his rifle.
"We don't need you here," Davy snaps, his voice tight. "We're doing just fine without no babysitter."
"I ain't babysitting," Mr. Hammar smiles. "I'm protecting." The woman stands, her eyes on me.
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My own expresshun is dead, removed, not here if it don't have to be.
I am the Circle and the Circle is me.
"Where's your heart?" she asks. "Where is your heart if you can do these things?" And then she turns to where the healers, who we've already banded, wait to give her treatment.
I watch her go.
I don't know her name.
Her number, tho, is 1484.
"1485!" Davy calls out.
The next woman in line steps forward.
We spend the day riding from one women's dormitory to another, getting thru almost three hundred bands, much faster than we ever did the Spackle. We start for home when the sun begins to set, as New Prentisstown turns its thoughts to curfew.
We ain't saying much.
"What a day, eh, pigpiss?" Davy says, after a while. I don't say nothing but he don't want an answer. "They'll be all right," he says. "They got the healers to take away the pain and stuff." Clop, clop, along we go. I hear what he's thinking. Dusk is falling. I can't see his face. Maybe that's why he ain't covering it up. "When they cry, tho," he says. I keep quiet.
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"Ain't you got nothing to say?" Davy's voice gets a little harder. "All silent now, like you don't wanna talk no more, like I ain't worth talking to."
His Noise starts to crackle.
"Not like I got anyone else to talk to, pigpiss. Not like I got any choice in the situashun. Not like no matter what I effing do can I get moved up for it, given the good work, the fighting work. All that stupid Spackle babysitting crap. Then we turn right around and do the same thing to the women. And for what? For what?"
His voice gets low.
"So they can cry at us," he says. "So they can look at us like we ain't even human."
"We ain't," I say, surprised to find I said it out loud.
"Yeah, that's the new you, ain't it?" he says, sneering. "All Mister No-Feeling-I-Am-The-Circle Tough Guy. You'd put a bullet thru yer own ma's head if Pa told you to."
I don't say nothing but I grind my teeth together.
Davy's quiet for a minute, too. Then he says, "Sorry."
Then he says, "Sorry, Todd," using my name.
Then he says, "What the hell am I saying sorry for? Yer the stupid can't-read pigpiss all getting on my pa's good side. Who cares about you?"
I still don't say nothing and clop, clop, along we go.
"Forward," Angharrad neighs to Deadfall, who nickers back, "Forward."
Forward, I hear in her Noise and then B oy colt, Todd.
"Angharrad," I whisper twixt her ears. "Todd?" Davy says.
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"Yeah?" I say.
I hear him breathe out thru his nose. "Nothing." Then he changes his mind. "How d you do it?"
"Do what?"
I see him shrug in the dusk. "Be so calm bout it all. Be so, I don't know, unfeeling. I mean ..." He drifts off and says, almost too quietly to hear, one more time, "When they cry."
I don't say nothing cuz how can I help him? How can he not know about The Circle unless his pa don't want him to?
"I do know," he says, "but I tried that crap and it don't work for me and he won't--"
He stops abruptly, like he's said too much.
"Ah, screw it," he says.
We keep riding, letting the ROAR New Prentisstown
enfold us as we enter the main part of town, the horses calling their orders to each other, reminding theirselves of who they are.
"Yer the only friend I got, pigpiss," Davy finally says. "Ain't that the biggest tragedy you ever heard?"
"Tiring day?" Mayor Ledger says to me when I come into our cell. His voice is oddly light and he keeps his eyes on me.
"What do you care?" I sling my bag on the floor and flop down on the bed without taking my uniform off.
"I suppose it must be exhausting torturing women all day."
I blink in surprise. "I don't torture 'em," I growl. "You shut yer mouth about that."
"No, of course you don't torture them. What was I
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thinking? You just strap a corrosive metal band into their skin that can never be removed without them bleeding to death. How could that possibly be construed as torture"?"
"Hey!" I sit up. "We do it fast and without fuss. There are lots of ways to make it worse and we don't do that. If it's gotta be done, then it's best that it's done by us."
He crosses his arms, his voice still light. "That excuse going to help you sleep tonight?"
My Noise roars up. "Oh, yeah?" I snap. "Was that you the Mayor didn't hear shouting at the rally yesterday? Was that you who weren't making that brave stand against him?"
His face goes stormy and I hear a flash of gray resentment in his Noise. "And get shot?" he says. "Or dragged away to be Asked? How would that help anything?"
"And that's what yer doing?" I say. "Helping?"
He don't say nothing to that, just turns to look out one of the windows, out over the few lights that come on only in essenshul places, out over the ROAR of a town wondering when the Answer are gonna make their big move and from where and how bad it'll be and who's gonna save 'em.
My Noise is raised and red. I close my eyes and take in a deep, deep breath.
I am the Circle and the Circle is me.
Feeling nothing, taking nothing in.
"They were getting used to him again," Mayor Ledger says out the window. "They were uniting behind him because what're a few curfews against being blown up? But this is a tactical mistake."
I open my eyes at "tactical" cuz it seems a weird word to choose.
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"The men are terrified now," he's still saying. "Terrified they're going to be next." He looks down at his own forearm, rubbing a spot where a band might go. "Politically, he's made a mistake."
I squint at him. "What do you care if he's made a mistake?" I ask. "Whose side are you on?"
He turns to me as if I've insulted him, which I guess I have. "The town's," he steams. "Whose side are you on, Todd Hewitt?"
There's a knock on the door.
"Saved by the dinner bell," Mayor Ledger says.
"The dinner bell don't knock," I say, getting to my feet. I unlock the door with my key ker-thunk and open it.
It's Davy.
He don't say nothing at first, just looks nervous, eyes here and there. I figure there's a problem at the dormitories so I sigh and move back to my bed to get my few things. I ain't even had time to get my boots off.
"It'll take a minute," I say to him. "Angharrad'll still be eating. She won't like being saddled up again so soon."
He sti
ll ain't said nothing so I turn to look at him. He's still nervous, not meeting my eye. "What?" I say.
He chews on his upper lip and all I can see in his Noise is embarrassment and asking marks and anger at Mayor Ledger being there and more asking marks and there behind it all, a weird strong feeling, almost guilty, almost clear-Then he covers it up fast and the anger and embarrassment come foremost.
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"Effing pigpiss," he says to himself. He pulls angrily at a strap on his shoulder and I see he's carrying a bag. "Effing ..." he says again but don't finish the thought. He unsnaps the flap on it and takes something out.
"Here," he practically shouts, thrusting it at me.
My ma's book.
He's giving me back my ma's book. "Just take it!"
I reach out slowly, taking it twixt my fingers and pulling it away from him like it was a fragile thing. The leather of the cover is still soft, the gash still cut thru the front where Aaron stabbed me and it was stopped by the book. I run my hand over it.
I look up at Davy but he won't meet my eye.
"Whatever," he says and turns again, stomping back down the stairs and out into the night.
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32 FINAL PREPARATIONS
***
(Viola)
I HIDE BEHIND THE TREE, my heart pounding. I have a gun in my hand.
I listen hard for the snap of twigs, the sound of any footsteps, any sign that'll tell me where the soldier is. I know he's there because I can hear his Noise but it's so flat and wide I only get a general idea of the direction he's going to come after me.
Because he is coming for me. There's no doubt about that.
His Noise grows louder. My back is to the tree and I hear him off to my left.
I'm going to have to leap at just the right second. I ready my gun.
I see the trees around me in his Noise, along with asking marks wondering which one I'm hiding behind, narrowing it down to two, the one that I'm actually using and one a few feet away to my left.
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If he chooses that one, I've got him.
I hear his steps now, quiet against the damp forest floor. I close my eyes and try to concentrate solely on his Noise, on exactly where he's standing, where he's placing his feet.
Which tree he's approaching.
He steps. He hesitates. He steps again.
He makes his choice-
And I make mine-
I jump and I'm ducking and twisting and sweeping my leg at his feet and I'm catching him by surprise and he's falling to the ground, trying to aim his rifle at me, but I'm leaping on him and pinning his rifle arm down with my leg and throwing my weight on his chest and holding the barrel of my gun under his chin.
I've got him.
"Well done," Lee says, smiling up at me.
"Indeed, well done," Mistress Braithwaite says, stepping out of the darkness. "And now comes the moment, Viola. What do you do with the enemy under your mercy?"
I look down into Lee's face, breathing hard, feeling his warmth underneath me.
"What do you do?" Mistress Braithwaite asks again.
I look down at my gun.
"I do what I have to do," I say.
I do what I have to do to save him.
I do what I have to do to save Todd.
"You're sure you want to do this?" Mistress Coyle asks for the hundredth time as we leave the breakfast area the next
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morning, shaking off Jane's last insistences that we have more tea.
"I'm sure," I say.
"You've got one chance before we make our move. One."
"He came for me once," I say. "When I was captive, he came for me and made the biggest sacrifice he could make to do it."
She frowns. "People change, Viola."
"He deserves the same chance he gave me."
"Hmm," Mistress Coyle hmms. She's still not convinced. But I haven't given her any choice. "And when he joins us," I say, "think of the information he can provide."
"Yes." She looks away, looks out at the camp of the Answer preparing itself. Preparing itself for war. "Yes, so you keep saying."
Even with how well I know Todd, I can also see how anyone else would see him on horseback, would see him in that uniform, would see him riding with Davy, and they would think he's a traitor.
And in the dead of night, when I'm under my blankets, unable to sleep.
I think it, too.
(what's he doing?)
(what's he doing with Davy? )
And I try to put it out of my mind as best I can.
Because I'm going to save him.
She's agreed that I can. She's agreed I can risk myself and go to the cathedral the night before the Answer makes its final attack and try one last time to save him.
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She agreed because I said if she didn't, I wouldn't help her with anything more, not with the bombs, not with the final attack, not with the ships when they land, now eight weeks away and counting. Nothing, if I couldn't try for Todd.
Even with all that, I think the only reason she agreed is for what he could tell us when he got here.
Mistress Coyle likes to know things.
"You're brave to try," Mistress Coyle says. "Foolish, but brave." She looks me up and down once more, her face unknowable.
"What?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "Just how much of myself I see in you, you exasperating girl."
"Think I'm ready to lead my own army?" I say, almost smiling.
She just gives me a last look and starts walking off into the camp, ready to give more orders, make more preparations, put the final touches to the plans for our attack.
Which happens tomorrow.
"Mistress Coyle," I call after her.
She turns.
"Thank you," I say.
She looks surprised, her forehead furrowed. But she nods, accepting it.
"Got it?" Lee calls over the top of the cart.
"Got it," I say, twisting the final knot and locking the clamp into place.
'"At's all of 'em," Wilf says, smacking some dust off his
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hands. We look at the carts, eleven of them now, packed to bursting with supplies, with weapons, with explosives. Almost the entire stash of the Answer.
Eleven carts doesn't seem like much against an army of a thousand or more, but that's what we have.
"Bin done before," Wilf says, quoting Mistress Coyle, but he's always so dry you never know if he's making fun. "Only a matter a tactics."
And then he smiles the same mysterious smile Mistress Coyle always gives. It's so funny and unexpected, I laugh out loud.
Lee doesn't, though. "Yes, her top secret plan." He pulls a rope on the cart to test that it holds.
"I expect it has to do with him," I say. "Getting him, somehow, and then once he's gone-"
"His army will fall apart and the town will rise up against his tyranny and we'll save the day," Lee says, sounding unconvinced. He looks at Wilf. "What do you think?"
"She says it'll be the end." Wilf shrugs. "Ah want it to be done."
Mistress Coyle does keep saying that, that this could end the whole conflict, that the right blow in the right place right now could be all we need, that if even just the women of the town join us we could topple him before winter comes, topple him before the ships land, topple him before he finds us.
And then Lee says, "I know something I shouldn't."
Wilf and I both look at him.
"She passed by the kitchen window with Mistress Braithwaite," he says. "They were talking about where the attack will come from tomorrow."
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"Lee-" I say.
"Don't say it," Wilf says.
"It's from the hill to the south of town," he presses on, opening his Noise so we can't not hear it. "The one with the notch in it, the one with the smaller road that leads right into the town square."
Wilf's eyes bulge. "Yoo shouldn'ta said. If Hildy gets caught-"
And his Noise says, That's where you'll find me.
"And with burdened hearts, we commit you to the earth."
One by one, we throw a handful of dirt on the empty coffin that doesn't contain anything of the body of Mistress Forth, blown to pieces when a bomb went off too early as she was planting it on a grain house.
The sun is setting when we finish, dusk shining cold across the lake, a lake that had a layer of ice around the edges this morning that didn't melt all day. People start to spread out for the night's work, last-minute packing and orders to be received, all the women and men who will soon be soldiers, marching with weapons, ready to strike the final blow.
All they look like now are ordinary people.
I'll leave tonight as soon as it's fully dark.
They'll leave tomorrow at sunset, no matter what happens to me.
"It's time," Mistress Coyle says, coming to my side.
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She doesn't mean it's time to leave. There's something else that has to happen first. "Are you ready?" she asks. "As I'll ever be," I say, walking along with her. "This is a huge risk we're taking, my girl. Huge. If you're caught-"
"I won't be."
"But if you are." She stops us. "If you are, you know where the camp is, you know when we're attacking, and I'm going to tell you now that we're attacking from the east road, the one by the Office of the Ask. We're going to march into town and ram it down his throat." She takes both my hands and stares hard into my eyes. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
I do understand. I do. She's telling me wrong on purpose, she's telling me so I can truthfully give the wrong information if I'm caught, like she did before about the ocean.
It's what I'd do if I were her.