Chaos Walking

by Patrick Ness

  “I don’t see no women,” Davy says.

  “Any women,” corrects the Mayor. “And no, Captain Morgan and Captain Tate supervised the transfer of the rest of the women last night.”

  “What are you gonna do with ’em?” I say, my knuckles gripping so hard on the saddle horn they’re turning white.

  He looks back at me. “Nothing, Todd. They will be treated with the care and dignity that befits their importance to the future of New World.” He turns away. “But for now, separate is best.”

  “You put the bitches in their place,” Davy sneers.

  “You will not speak that way in front of me, David,” the Mayor says, calmly but in a voice that ain’t joking. “Women will be respected at all times and given every comfort. Though in a non-vulgar sense you are correct. We all have places. New World made men forget theirs, and that means men must be away from women until we all remember who we are, who we were meant to be.”

  His voice brightens a little. “The people will welcome this. I offer clarity where before there was only chaos.”

  “Is Viola with the women?” I ask. “Is she okay?”

  He looks back at me again. “You made a promise, Todd Hewitt,” he says. “Need I remind you once more? Just save her and I’ll do anything you want, I believe were your exact words.”

  I lick my lips nervously. “How do I know yer keeping yer end of the bargain?”

  “You don’t,” he says, his eyes on mine, like he’s peering right past every lie I could tell him. “I want your faith in me, Todd, and faith with proof is no faith at all.”

  He turns back down the road and I’m left with Davy snickering to my side so I just whisper “Whoa, girl,” to my horse. Her coat is dark brown with a white stripe down her nose and a mane brushed so nice I’m trying not to grab onto it less it make her mad. Boy colt, she thinks.

  She, I think. She. Then I think an asking I ain’t never had a chance to ask before. Cuz the ewes I had back on the farm had Noise, too, and if women ain’t got Noise–

  “Because women are not animals,” the Mayor says, reading me. “No matter what anyone claims I believe. They are merely naturally Noiseless.”

  He lowers his voice. “Which makes them different.”

  It’s mostly shops that line this part of the road, dotted twixt all the trees, closed, re-opening who knows when, with houses stretching back from side streets both towards the river on the left and the hill of the valley on the right. Most of the buildings, if not all, are built a fair distance from one another, which I spose is how you’d plan a big town before you found a cure for the Noise.

  We pass more soldiers marching in groups of five or ten, more men heading west with their belongings, still no women. I look at the faces of the men going by, most of them pointed to the road at their feet, none of them looking ready to fight.

  “Whoa, girl,” I whisper again cuz riding a horse is turning out to be powerfully uncomfortable on yer private bits.

  “And there’s Todd,” Davy says, pulling up next to me. “Moaning already.”

  “Shut it, Davy,” I say.

  “You will address each other as Mr. Prentiss Jr and Mr. Hewitt,” the Mayor calls back to us.

  “What?” Davy says, his Noise rising. “He ain’t a man yet! He’s just–”

  The Mayor silences him with a look. “A body was discovered in the river in the early hours of this morning,” he says. “A body with many terrible wounds to its flesh and a large knife sticking out of its neck, a body dead not more than two days.”

  He stares at me, looking into my Noise again. I put up the pictures he wants to see, making my imaginings seem like the real thing, cuz that’s what Noise is, it’s everything you think, not just the truth, and if you think hard enough that you did something, well, then, maybe you actually did.

  Davy scoffs. “You killed Preacher Aaron? I don’t believe it.”

  The Mayor don’t say nothing, just gees Morpeth along a little faster. Davy sneers at me, then kicks his own horse to follow.

  “Follow,” Morpeth nickers.

  “Follow,” Davy’s horse whinnies back.

  Follow, thinks my own horse, taking off after them, bouncing me even worse.

  As we go, I’m on the constant look out for her, even tho there’s no chance of seeing her. Even if she’s still alive, she’d still be too sick to walk, and if she weren’t too sick to walk, she’d be locked up with the rest of the women.

  But I keep looking–

  (cuz maybe she escaped–)

  (maybe she’s looking for me–)

  (maybe she’s–)

  And then I hear it.

  I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

  Clear as a bell, right inside my head, the voice of the Mayor, twining around my own voice, like it’s speaking direktly into my Noise, so sudden and real I sit up and nearly fall off my horse. Davy looks surprised, his Noise wondering what I’m reacting to.

  But the Mayor just rides on down the road, like nothing happened at all.

  The town gets less shiny the farther east we get from the cathedral and soon we’re riding on gravel. The buildings get plainer, too, long wooden houses set at distances from each other like bricks dropped into clearings of trees.

  Houses that radiate the silence of women.

  “Quite correct,” the Mayor says. “We’re entering the new Women’s Quarter.”

  My heart starts to clench as we go past, the silence rising up like a grasping hand.

  I try to sit up higher on my horse.

  Cuz this is where she’d be, this is where she’d be healing.

  Davy rides up next to me again, his pathetic, half-there moustache bending into an ugly smile. I’ll tell you where yer whore is, his Noise says.

  Mayor Prentiss spins round in his saddle.

  And there’s the weirdest flash of sound from him, like a shout but quiet and away from me, not in the world at all, like a million words all said together, so fast I swear I feel my hair brush back like in a wind.

  But it’s Davy who reacts–

  His head jerks back like he’s been hit, and he has to catch his horse’s reins so he don’t fall off, spinning the horse round, his eyes wide and dazed, his mouth open, some drool dripping out.

  What the hell–?

  “He doesn’t know, Todd,” the Mayor says. “Anything his Noise tells you about her is a lie.”

  I look at Davy, still dazed and blinking with pain, then back to the Mayor. “Does that mean she’s safe?”

  “It means he doesn’t know. Do you, David?”

  No, Pa, says Davy’s Noise, still shaky.

  Mayor Prentiss raises his eyebrows.

  I see Davy clench his teeth. “No, Pa,” he says out loud.

  “I know my son is a liar,” the Mayor says. “I know he is a bully and a brute and ignorant of the things I hold dear. But he is my son.” He turns back down the road. “And I believe in redemption.”

  Davy’s Noise is quiet as we follow on but there’s a dark red seething in it.

  New Prentisstown fades in the distance and the road becomes almost free of buildings. Farm fields start showing up red and green thru the trees and up the hills, with crops I reckernize and others I don’t. The silence of the women starts to ease a little and the valley becomes a wilder place, flowers growing in the ditches and waxy squirrels chattering insults to each other and the sun shining clear and cool like nothing else was going on.

  At a bend in the river, we curve round a hill and I see a large metal tower poking out the top of it, stretching up into the sky.

  “What’s that?” I say.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Davy says, tho it’s obvious he don’t know neither. The Mayor don’t answer.

  Just past the tower, the road bends again and follows a long stone wall emerging outta the trees. Down a little farther, the wall connects to a big arched gate with a huge set of wooden doors. It’s the only opening in the long, long wall I see. The road beyond is d
irt, like we’ve come to the end.

  “New World’s first and last monastery,” the Mayor says, stopping at the gate. “Built as a refuge of quiet contemplation for our holiest of men. Built when there was still faith we could beat the Noise germ through self-denial and discipline.” His voice goes hard. “Abandoned before it was even properly finished.”

  He turns to face us. I hear a strange spark of happiness rising in Davy’s Noise. Mayor Prentiss gives him a warning look.

  “You are wondering,” he says to me, “why I appointed my son as your overseer.”

  I cast a look over to Davy, still smiling away.

  “You need a firm hand, Todd,” the Mayor says. “Your thoughts even now are of how you might escape at the first opportunity and try to find your precious Viola.”

  “Where is she?” I say, knowing I won’t get no answer.

  “And I have no doubt,” the Mayor continues, “that David here will be quite a firm hand for you indeed.”

  Davy’s face and Noise both smirk.

  “And in return, David will learn what real courage looks like.” Davy’s smirk vanishes. “He will learn what it’s like to act with honour, what it’s like to act like a real man. What it’s like, in short, to act like you, Todd Hewitt.” He gives his son a last glance and then turns Morpeth in the road. “I shall be exceedingly eager to hear how your first day together went.”

  Without another word, he sets off back to New Prentisstown. I wonder now why he came in the first place. Surely he’s got more important things to do.

  “Surely I do,” the Mayor calls, not turning back. “But don’t underestimate yourself, Todd.”

  He rides off. Davy and I wait till he’s well outta hearing distance.

  I’m the one who speaks first.

  “Tell me what happened to Ben or I’ll rip yer effing throat out.”

  “I’m yer boss, boyo,” Davy says, smirking again, jumping off his horse and throwing his rucksack to the ground. “Best treat me with respect or pa ain’t gonna–”

  But I’m already off Angharrad and hitting him as hard as I can in the face, aiming right for that sad excuse for a moustache. He takes the punch but comes back fast with his own. I ignore the pain, he does, too, and we fall to the ground in a heap of fists and kicks and elbows and knees. He’s still bigger than me but only just, only in a way that don’t feel like much of a difference no more, but still enough so that after a bit he’s got me on my back with his forearm pressed into my throat.

  His lip’s bleeding, so’s his nose, the same as my own poor face but that ain’t concerning me now. Davy reaches behind him and pulls a pistol from a holster strapped to his back.

  “Ain’t no way yer pa’s gonna let you shoot me,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says, “but I still got a gun and you don’t.”

  “Ben beat you,” I grunt, underneath his arm. “He stopped you on the road. We got away from you.”

  “He didn’t stop me,” Davy sneers. “I took him prisoner, didn’t I? And I took him back to Pa and Pa let me torture him. Let me torture him right to death.”

  And Davy’s Noise–

  I–

  I can’t say what’s in Davy’s Noise (he’s a liar, he’s a liar) but it makes me strong enough to push him away. We fight more, Davy fending me off with the butt of the gun till finally, with an elbow to his throat, I knock him down.

  “You remember that, boy,” Davy says, coughing, gun still gripped. “When my pa says all those nice things about you. He’s the one who had me torture yer Ben.”

  “Yer a liar,” I say. “Ben beat you.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Davy says. “Where is he now then? Coming to rescue you?”

  I step forward, my fists up, cuz of course he’s right, ain’t he? My Noise surges with the loss of Ben, like it’s happening all over again right here.

  Davy’s laughing, scrambling back away from me till he’s against the huge wooden door. “My pa can read you,” he says, then his eyes widen into a taunt. “Read you like a book.”

  My Noise gets even louder. “You give me that book! Or I swear, I’ll kill you!”

  “You ain’t gonna do nothing to me, Mr. Hewitt,” Davy says, rising, his back still against the door. “You wouldn’t wanna put yer beloved bitch at risk now, would you?”

  And there it is.

  They know they got me.

  Cuz I won’t put her in no more danger.

  My hands are ready to do more damage to Davy Prentiss, like they did before when he hurt her, when he shot her–

  But they won’t now–

  Even tho they could–

  Cuz he’s weak.

  And we both know it.

  Davy’s smile drops. “Think yer special, do you?” he spits. “Think Pa’s got a treat for you?”

  I clench my fists, unclench them.

  But I keep my place.

  “Pa knows you,” Davy says. “Pa’s read you.”

  “He don’t know,” I say. “You don’t neither.”

  Davy sneers again. “That so?” His hand reaches for the cast iron handle of the door. “Come and meet yer new flock then, Todd Hewitt.”

  His weight opens the door behind him and he steps into the paddock and outta the way, giving me a clear view.

  Of a hundred or more Spackle staring right back at me.

  [TODD]

  My first thought is to turn and run. Run and run and run and never stop.

  “I’d like to see that,” Davy says, standing inside the gate, smiling like he just won a prize.

  There’s so many of ’em, so many long white faces looking back at me, their eyes too big, their mouths too small and toothy and high on their faces, their ears looking nothing like a man’s.

  But you can still see a man’s face in there, can’t you? Still see a face that feels and fears–

  And suffers.

  It’s hard to tell which are male and which are female cuz they all got the same lichen and moss growing right on their skins for clothing but there seem to be whole Spackle families in there, larger spacks protecting their spack children and what must be spack husbands protecting spack wives, arms wrapped round each other, heads pressed close together. All of them silently–

  Silently.

  “I know!” Davy says. “Can you believe they gave the cure to these animals?”

  They look at Davy now and a weird clicking starts passing twixt ’em all with glances and nods moving along the crowd. Davy raises his pistol and steps further into the monastery grounds. “Thinking of trying something?” he spits. “Give me a reason! Go on! GIVE ME A REASON!”

  The Spackle huddle closer together in their little groups, backing away from him where they can.

  “Get in here, Todd,” Davy says. “We got work to do.”

  I don’t move.

  “I said, get in here! They’re animals. They ain’t gonna do nothing.”

  I still don’t move.

  “He murdered one of y’all,” Davy says to the Spackle.

  “Davy!” I shout.

  “Cut its head right off with a knife. Sawed and sawed–”

  “Stop it!” I run at him to get him to shut his effing mouth. I don’t know how he knows but he knows and he’s gotta shut up right effing now.

  The Spackle nearest the gate scoot way back at my approach, getting outta my way as fast as they can, looking at me with frightened faces, parents getting their children behind them. I push Davy hard but he just laughs and I realize I’m inside the monastery walls now.

  And I see just how many Spackle there are.

  The stone wall of the monastery surrounds a huge bit of land but only one little building, some kind of storehouse. The rest is divided up into smaller fields, separated by old wooden fences with low gates. Most of ’em are badly overgrown and you can see heavy grass and brambles stretching all the way to the back walls a good hundred metres away.

  But mostly you can see Spackle.

  Hundreds and hundreds of ’em sp
read out over the grounds.

  Maybe even more than a thousand.

  They’re pushing themselves against the monastery wall, huddling behind the rotting fences, sitting in groups or standing in rows.

  But all watching me, silent as the grave, as my Noise spills out all over the place.

  “He’s a liar!” I say. “It weren’t like that! It weren’t like that at all!”

  But what was it like? What was it like that I can explain?

  Cuz I did do it, didn’t I?

  Not how Davy said but nearly as bad and completely as big in my Noise, too big to cover with all their eyes looking back at me, too big to surround with lies and confuse the truth, too big to not think about as a crowd of Spackle faces just stare.

  “It was an accident,” I say, my voice trailing off, looking from face to weird face, not seeing no pictures of Spackle Noise, not understanding the clicking they make, so doubly not knowing what’s happening. “I didn’t mean it.”

  But not one of ’em says a thing back. They don’t do nothing but stare.

  There’s a creak as the gate behind us opens up again. We turn to look.

  It’s Ivan from Farbranch, the one who joined the army rather than fight it.

  And look how right he was. He’s wearing an officer’s uniform and he’s got a group of soldiers with him.

  “Mr. Prentiss Jr,” he says, nodding at Davy, who nods back. Ivan turns to me, a look in his eye I can’t read and no Noise to be heard. “It’s good to see you well, Mr. Hewitt.”

  “You two know each other?” Davy says, sharp-like.

  “We’ve had past acquaintance,” Ivan says, still looking at me.

  But I ain’t saying a word to him.

  I’m too busy putting up pictures in my Noise.

  Pictures of Farbranch. Pictures of Hildy and Tam and Francia. Pictures of the massacre that happened there. The massacre that didn’t include him.

  A look of annoyance crosses his face. “You go where the power is,” he says. “That’s how you stay alive.”

  I put up a picture of his town burning, men and women and children burning with it.

  He frowns harder. “These men will stay here as guards. Your orders are to set the Spackle a-clearing the fields and make sure they’re fed and watered.”