by Patrick Ness
I look up.
There are women coming out of a store.
Four of ’em, together in a group. We knew they were being let out but it’s always daylight hours, always while me and Davy are at the monastery, so we always return to a city of men, like the women are just phantoms and rumour.
It’s been ages since I even seen one more than just thru a window or from up top of the tower.
They’re wearing longer sleeves and longer skirts than I saw before and they each got their hair tied behind their heads the same way. They look nervously at the soldiers that line the streets, at me and Davy, too, all of us watching ’em come down the store’s front steps.
And there’s still the silence, still the pull at my chest and I have to wipe my eyes when I’m sure Davy ain’t looking.
Cuz none of ’em is her.
“They’re late,” Davy says, his voice so quiet I guess he ain’t seen a woman for weeks neither. “They’re all sposed to be in way before sundown.”
Our heads turn as we watch ’em pass by, parcels held close, and they carry on down the road back to the Women’s Quarter and my chest tightens and my throat clenches.
Cuz none of ’em is her.
And I realize–
I realize all over again how much–
And my Noise goes all muddy.
Mayor Prentiss has used her to control me.
Duh.
Any effing idiot would know it. If I don’t do what they say, they kill her. If I try to escape, they kill her. If I do anything to Davy, they kill her.
If she ain’t dead already.
My Noise gets blacker.
No.
No, I think.
Cuz she might not be.
She mighta been out here, on this very street, in another group of four.
Stay alive, I think. Please please please stay alive.
(please be alive)
I stand at an opening as me and Mayor Ledger eat our dinners, looking for her again, trying to close my ears against the ROAR.
Cuz Mayor Ledger was right. There’s so many men that once the cure left their systems, you stopped being able to hear individual Noise. It’d be like trying to hear one drop of water in the middle of a river. Their Noise became a single loud wall, all mushed together so much it don’t say nothing but
But it’s actually something you can sorta get used to. In a way, Mayor Ledger’s words and thoughts and feelings bubbling round his own personal grey Noise are more distracting.
“Quite correct,” he says, patting his stomach. “A man is capable of thought. A crowd is not.”
“An army is,” I say.
“Only if it has a general for a brain.”
He looks out the opening next to mine as he says it. Mayor Prentiss is riding across the square, Mr. Hammar, Mr. Tate, Mr. Morgan and Mr. O’Hare riding behind him, listening to the orders he’s giving.
“The inner circle,” Mayor Ledger says.
And for a second, I wonder if his Noise sounds jealous.
We watch the Mayor dismount, hand his reins to Mr. Tate and disappear into the cathedral.
Not two minutes later, ker-thunk, Mr. Collins opens our door.
“The President wants you,” he says to me.
“One moment, Todd,” the Mayor says, opening up one of the crates and looking inside.
We’re in the cellar of the cathedral, Mr. Collins having pushed me down the stairs at the back of the main lobby. I stand there waiting, wondering how much of my dinner Mayor Ledger will eat before I can get back.
I watch Mayor Prentiss look thru another crate.
“President Prentiss,” he says, without looking up. “Do try to remember that.” He stands up straight. “Used to be wine stored down here. Far more than was ever needed for communion.”
I don’t say nothing. He looks at me, curious. “You aren’t going to ask, are you?”
“Bout what?” I say.
“The cure, Todd,” he says, thumping one of the crates with his fist. “My men have retrieved every last trace of it from every home in New Prentisstown and here it all is.”
He reaches in and takes out a phial of the cure pills. He pops the lid off and takes out a small white pill twixt his finger and thumb. “Do you never wonder why I haven’t given the cure to you or David?”
I shift from foot to foot. “Punishment?”
He shakes his head. “Does Mr. Ledger still fidget?”
I shrug. “Sometimes. A little.”
“They made the cure,” the Mayor says. “And then they made themselves need it.” He indicates row after row of crates and boxes. “And if I have all of what they need . . .”
He puts the pill back in the phial and turns more fully to me, smiling wider.
“You wanted something?” I mumble.
“You really don’t know, do you?” he asks.
“Know what?”
He pauses again, and then he says, “Happy birthday, Todd.”
I open my mouth. Then I open it wider.
“It was four days ago,” he says. “I’m surprised you didn’t mention it.”
I don’t believe it. I completely forgot.
“No celebrations,” the Mayor says, “because of course we both know you are already a man, now, aren’t you?”
And again I raise the pictures of Aaron.
“You have been very impressive these past two weeks,” he says, ignoring them. “I know it’s been a great struggle for you, not knowing what to believe about Viola, not knowing exactly how you should behave to keep her safe.” I can feel his voice buzzing in my head, searching around. “But you have worked hard nonetheless. You have even been a good influence on David.”
I can’t help but think of the ways I’d like to beat Davy Prentiss into a bloody pulp but Mayor Prentiss just says, “As a reward, I bring you two belated birthday presents.”
My Noise rises. “Can I see her?”
He smiles like he expected it. “You may not,” he says, “but I will promise you this. On the day that you can bring yourself to trust me, Todd, truly bring yourself to understand that I mean good for this town and good for you, then on that day, you will see that I am indeed trustworthy.”
I can hear myself breathing. It’s the closest he’s come to saying she’s all right.
“No, your first birthday present is one you’ve earned,” he says. “You’ll have a new job starting tomorrow. Still with our Spackle friends, but added responsibility and an important part of our new process.” He looks me hard in the eye again. “It’s a job that could take you far, Todd Hewitt.”
“All the way up to be a leader of men?” I say, my voice a bit more sarcastic than he’d probably like.
“Indeed,” he says.
“And the second present?” I say, still hoping it might be her.
“My second present to you, Todd, surrounded by all this cure.” He gestures at the crates again. “Is not to give you any at all.”
I screw up my mouth. “Huh?”
But he’s already walking towards me as if we’re thru talking.
And as he passes me–
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
Rings thru my head, just the once, coming right from the centre of me, of who I am.
I jump from the surprise of it.
“Why can I hear it if yer taking the cure?” I say.
But he just gives me a sly smile and disappears up the staircase, leaving me there.
Happy late birthday to me.
I am Todd Hewitt, I think, as I lie in bed, staring up into the dark. I am Todd Hewitt and four days ago I was a man.
Sure don’t feel no different, tho.
All that reaching for it, all that importance on the date, and I’m still the same ol’ stupid effing Todd Hewitt, powerless to do anything, powerless to save myself much less her.
Todd effing Hewitt.
And lying here in the dark, Mayor Ledger snoring away over on his mattress, I hear a faint pop out
side, somewhere in the distance, some stupid soldier firing off his gun at who knows what (or who knows who) and that’s when I think it.
That’s when I think getting thru it ain’t enough.
Staying alive ain’t enough if yer barely living.
They’ll play me as long as I let ’em.
And she coulda been out there.
She coulda been out there today.
I’m gonna find her–
First chance I get, I’m gonna take it and I’m gonna find her–
And when I do–
And then I notice Mayor Ledger ain’t snoring no more.
I raise my voice into the dark. “You got something to say?”
But then he’s snoring again and his Noise is grey and muzzy and I wonder if I imagined it.
{VIOLA}
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
I don’t take the cup of root coffee he offers.
“Please, Viola,” he says, holding it out towards me.
I take it. My hands are still shaking.
They haven’t stopped since last night.
Since I watched her fall.
First to her knees, then onto her side down to the gravel, her eyes still open.
Open, but already unseeing.
I watched her fall.
“Sergeant Hammar will be punished.” The Mayor takes a seat across from me. “He was by no means and under no circumstances following my orders.”
“He killed her,” I say, hardly any sound to my voice. Sergeant Hammar dragged me back to the house of healing, pounding on the door with the butt of his rifle, waking everyone up, sending them out after Maddy’s body.
I couldn’t speak, I could barely even cry.
They wouldn’t look at me, the mistresses, the other apprentices. Even Mistress Coyle refused to meet my eye.
What did you think you were doing? Where did you think you were taking her?
And then Mayor Prentiss summoned me here this morning to his cathedral, to his home, to God’s house.
And then they really wouldn’t look at me.
“I’m sorry, Viola,” he says. “Some of the men of Prentisstown, old Prentisstown, still bear grudges against women over what happened all those years ago.”
He sees my look of horror. “The story you think you know,” he says, “is not the story that’s true.”
I’m still gaping at him. He sighs. “The Spackle War was in Prentisstown, too, Viola, and it was a terrible thing, but women and men fought side by side to save ourselves.” He puts his fingertips together in a triangle, his voice still calm, still gentle. “But there was division in our little outpost even as we were victorious. Division between men and women.”
“I’ll say there was.”
“They made their own army, Viola. They splintered off, not trusting men whose thoughts they could read. We tried to reason with them, but eventually, they wanted war. And I’m afraid they got it.”
He sits up, looking at me sadly. “An army of women is still an army with guns, still an army that can defeat you.”
I can hear myself breathing. “You killed every single one.”
“I did not,” he says. “Many of them died in battle, but when they saw the war was lost, they spread the word that we were their murderers and then they killed themselves so that the remaining men would be doomed either way.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, remembering that Ben told us a different version. “That’s not how it happened.”
“I was there, Viola. I remember it all far more clearly than I want to.” He catches my eye. “I am also the one most keen that history doesn’t repeat itself. Do you understand me?”
I think I do understand him and my stomach sinks and I can’t help it– I start to cry, thinking of how they brought Maddy’s body back, how Mistress Coyle insisted I be the one to help her prepare the body for burial, how she wanted me to see up close the cost of trying to find the tower.
“Mistress Coyle,” I say, fighting to control myself. “Mistress Coyle wanted me to ask if we can bury her this afternoon.”
“I’ve already sent word that she can,” the Mayor says. “Everything Mistress Coyle requires is being delivered to her as we speak.”
I set the coffee down on a little table next to my chair. We’re in a huge room, bigger than any place indoors I’ve ever seen except for the launch hangars of my ship. Too large for just a pair of comfortable chairs and a wooden table. The only light shines down through a round window of coloured glass showing this world and its two moons.
Everything else is in shadow.
“How are you finding her?” the Mayor asks. “Mistress Coyle.”
The weight on my shoulders, the weight of Maddy being gone, the weight of Todd still out there, sits so heavily I’d forgotten for a minute he was even there. “What do you mean?”
He shrugs a little. “How is she to work with? How is she as a teacher?”
I swallow. “She’s the best healer in Haven.”
“And now the best healer in New Prentisstown,” he corrects. “People tell me she used to be quite powerful around here. A force to be reckoned with.”
I bite my lip and look back at the carpet. “She couldn’t save Maddy.”
“Well, let’s forgive her for that, shall we?” His voice is low, soft, almost kind. “Nobody’s perfect.”
He sets down his cup. “I’m sorry about your friend,” he says again. “And I’m sorry it has taken this long for us to speak again. There has been much work to do. I look to stop the suffering on this planet, which is why your friend’s death grieves me so. That’s been my whole mission. The war is over, Viola, it truly is. Now is the time for healing.”
I don’t say anything to that.
“But your mistress doesn’t see it that way, does she?” he asks. “She sees me as the enemy.”
In the early hours of this morning, as we dressed Maddy in her white burial cloths, she said, If he wants a war, he’s got a war. We haven’t even started fighting.
But then when I was summoned here, she said to tell him no such thing, to ask only about the funeral.
And to find out what I could.
“You see me as the enemy, too,” he says, “and I truly wish that weren’t the case. I am so disappointed that this terrible incident has made you even more suspicious of me.”
I feel Maddy rising again in my chest. I feel Todd rising, too. I have to breathe through my mouth for a minute.
“I know how appealing it seems that there should be sides, that you should be on her side,” he says. “I don’t blame you. I haven’t even asked you about your ships because I know you would lie to me. I know she would have asked you to. If I were in Mistress Coyle’s position, I would do exactly the same thing. Push you to help me. Use an asset that’s fallen into my lap.”
“She’s not using me,” I say quietly.
You can be so valuable to us, I remember, if you choose.
He leans forward. “Can I tell you something, Viola?”
“What?” I ask.
He cocks his head. “I really do wish you would call me David.”
I look back down to the carpet. “What is it, David?”
“Thank you, Viola,” he says. “It really does mean something to me.” He waits until I look up again. “I’ve met the Council that ran Haven as was. I’ve met the former Mayor of Haven. I’ve met the former police chief and the chief medical officer and the head of education. I’ve met everyone of any importance in this town. Some of them now work for me. Some of them don’t fit into the new administration and that’s fine, there’s plenty of work to be done rebuilding this city, making it ready for your people, Viola, making it the proper paradise that they need and want and expect.”
He’s still looking right into my eyes. I notice how dark blue his own are, like water running over a slate.
“And of all the people I’ve met in New Prentisstown, your Mistress Coyle is the only one who truly knows what lead
ing is like. Leadership isn’t grown, Viola. It’s taken, and she may be the only person on this entire planet besides myself who has enough strength, enough will to take it.”
I keep looking at his eyes and a thought comes.
His Noise is still silent as the black beyond and his face and eyes give away nothing either.
But I do begin to wonder–
Right there, just at the back of my thinking–
Is he afraid of her?
“Why do you think I had you taken to her for your gunshot wound?” he asks.
“She’s the best healer. You said it yourself.”
“Yes, but she’s far from the only one. Bandages and medicine do most of the work. Mistress Coyle just applies them especially skilfully.”
My hand goes unconsciously to my front scar. “It’s not just that.”
“It is not, you’re correct.” He leans even farther forward. “I want her on my side, Viola. I need her on my side if I’m going to make this new society any kind of success. If we worked together, Mistress Coyle and I,” he leans back, “well, what a world we could make.”
“You locked her up.”
“But I wasn’t going to keep her locked up. The borders between men and women had become blurred, and the reintroduction of those borders is a slow and painful process. The formation of mutual trust takes time, but the important thing to remember is, as I’ve said, the war is over, Viola. It truly is. I want no more fighting, no more bloodshed.”
For something to do, I pick up the cooling cup of coffee. I put it to my lips but I don’t drink it.
“Is Todd okay?” I ask, not looking at him.
“Happy and healthy and working in the sun,” the Mayor says.
“Can I see him?”
He’s silent, as if he’s considering it. “Will you do something for me?” he asks.
“What?” Another idea begins to form in my head. “You want me to spy on her for you.”
“No,” he says. “Not spying, not at all. I just want your help in convincing her that I’m not the tyrant she thinks, that history isn’t as she knows it, that if we work together, we can make this place into the home we both wanted when our people left Old World all those many years ago. I am not her enemy. And I am not yours.”