Chaos Walking

by Patrick Ness

  (shut up)

  That’s what I tell myself.

  And I don’t wanna say no more about it.

  (just effing shut the hell up)

  By the time I get back in the tower, it’s nearly morning and Mayor Ledger’s waiting up for me and even tho I’m in no fitness to do anything, I’m wondering if maybe he played a part in all this somehow but his instant concern for me, his horror at the shape I’m in, it all sounds true in his Noise, so true that I just lay slowly down on the mattress and don’t know what to think.

  “They barely even came in,” he says, standing behind me. “Collins just opened the door, took a look, then locked me in again. It’s like they knew.”

  “Yeah,” I say into my pillow. “It sure is like they knew.”

  “I had nothing to do with it, Todd,” he says, reading me. “I swear to you. I’d never help that man.”

  “Just leave me be,” I say.

  And he does.

  I don’t sleep.

  I burn.

  I burn with the stupidity of how easy they trapped me, how easy it was to use her against me. I burn with the shame of crying at the beating (shut up). I burn with the ache of being taken from her again, the ache of her promise to me, the ache of not knowing what’s going to happen to her now.

  I don’t care nothing bout what they do to me.

  Eventually, the sun rises and I find out my punishment.

  “Put yer back into it, pigpiss.”

  “Shut it, Davy.”

  Our new job is putting the Spackle to work in groups, digging up foundayshuns for new buildings in the monastery grounds, new buildings that’ll house the Spackle for the coming winter.

  My punishment is, I’m working right down there with ’em.

  My punishment is, Davy’s in complete charge.

  My punishment is, he’s got a new whip.

  “C’mon,” he says, slashing it against my shoulders. “Work!”

  I spin round, every bit of me sore and aching. “You hit me with that again, I’ll tear yer effing throat out.”

  He smiles, all teeth, his Noise a joyous shout of triumph. “Like to see you try, Mr. Hewitt.”

  And he just laughs.

  I turn back to my shovel. The Spackle in my group are all staring at me. I ain’t had no sleep and my fingers are cold in the sharp, morning sun and I can’t help myself and I shout at ’em. “Get back to work!”

  They make a few clicking sounds one to another and start digging at the ground again with their hands.

  All except one, who looks at me a minute longer.

  I stare him out, seething, my Noise riled and raging right at him. He just takes it silently, his breath steaming from his mouth, his eyes daring me to do something. He holds up his wrist, like he’s identifying himself, as if I don’t know which one he is, then he returns to working the cold earth as slowly as he can.

  1017 is the only one who ain’t afraid of us.

  I take my shovel and stab it hard into the ground.

  “Enjoying yerself?” Davy calls.

  I put something in my Noise, rude as I can think of.

  “Oh, my mother’s long dead,” he says. “Just like yers.” Then he laughs. “I wonder if she talked as much in real life as she wrote in her little book.”

  I straighten up, my Noise rising red. “Davy–”

  “Cuz boy, don’t she go on for pages.”

  “One of these days, Davy,” I say, my Noise so fierce I can almost see it bending the air like a heat shimmer. “One of these days, I’m gonna–”

  “You’re going to what, dear boy?” the Mayor says, riding thru the entrance on Morpeth. “I can hear you two arguing from out on the road.” He turns his gaze to Davy. “And arguing is not working.”

  “Oh, I got ’em working, Pa,” Davy says, nodding out to the fields.

  And it’s true. Me and the Spackle are all separated into teams of ten or twenty, spread out among the whole enclosed bit of the monastery, removing stones from the low internal walls and pulling up the sod in the fields. Others are piling the dug-up dirt in other fields and my group here near the front have already dug parts of the trenches for the foundayshuns of the first building. I’ve got a shovel. The Spackle have to use their hands.

  “Not bad,” the Mayor says. “Not bad at all.”

  Davy’s Noise is so pleased it’s embarrassing. Nobody looks at him.

  “And you, Todd?” The Mayor turns to me. “How is your morning progressing?”

  “Please don’t hurt her,” I say.

  “Please don’t hurt her,” Davy mocks.

  “For the last time, Todd,” the Mayor says, “I’m not going to hurt her. I’m just going to talk with her. In fact, I’m on my way to speak with her right now.”

  My heart jumps and my Noise raises.

  “Oh, he don’t like that, Pa,” Davy says.

  “Hush,” the Mayor says. “Todd, is there anything you’d like to tell me that might make my visit with her go more quickly, more pleasantly for everyone?”

  I swallow.

  And the Mayor’s just staring at me, staring into my Noise, and words form in my brain, PLEASE DON’T HURT HER said in my voice and his voice all twisted together, pressing down on the things I think, the things I know and it’s different from the Noise slap, this voice pokes around where I don’t want him, trying to open locked doors and turn over stones and shine lights where they shouldn’t never be shone and all the while saying PLEASE DON’T HURT HER and I can feel myself starting to want to tell (ocean), starting to want to unlock those doors (the ocean), starting to want to do just exactly what he says, cuz he’s right, he’s right about everything and who am I to resist–

  “She don’t know nothing,” I say, my voice wobbly, almost gasping.

  He arches an eyebrow. “You seem distressed, Todd.” He angles Morpeth to approach. Submit, Morpeth says. Davy watches the Mayor’s attenshuns on me and even from here I can hear him getting jealous. “Whenever my passions need calming, Todd, there’s something I like to do.”

  He looks into my eyes.

  I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

  Hatched right in the middle of my brain, like a worm in an apple.

  “Reminds me who I am,” the Mayor says. “Reminds me of how I can control myself.”

  “What does?” Davy says and I realize he’s not hearing it.

  I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.

  Again, right on the inside of me.

  “What does it mean?” I almost gasp cuz it’s sitting so heavy in my brain I’m finding it hard to speak.

  And then we hear it.

  A whining in the air, a buzzing that ain’t Noise, a buzz more like a fat purple bee coming in to sting you.

  “What the–?” Davy says.

  And then we’re all turning, looking at the far end of the monastery, looking up over the heads of the soldiers along the top of the wall.

  Buzzzz–

  It’s in the sky, a shape making an arc, high and sharp, coming up thru some trees behind the monastery, trailing smoke behind it, but the buzzing is getting louder and the smoke is starting to thicken into black.

  And then the Mayor pulls Viola’s binos out of his shirt pocket to get a closer look.

  I stare at them, my Noise churning, slopping out with asking marks that he ignores.

  Davy musta brought them back down the hill, too.

  I clench my fists.

  “Whatever it is,” Davy says, “it’s coming this way.”

  I look back round. The thing has reached the high point of its arc and is heading back down to earth.

  Down towards the monastery where we’re all standing.

  Buzzzz–

  “I’d get out of the way if I were you,” the Mayor says. “That’s a bomb.”

  Davy runs so fast back to the gate he drops the whip. The soldiers on the wall start jumping off to the outside. The Mayor readies his horse but he don’t move yet, waiting to see where the b
omb’s gonna land.

  “Tracer,” he’s saying, his voice full of interest. “Antiquated, practically useless. We used them in the Spackle War.”

  The buzzzzzz is getting louder. The bomb’s still falling, but picking up speed.

  “Mayor Prentiss?”

  “President,” he corrects but he’s still looking thru the binos almost like he’s hypnotized. “The sound and the smoke,” he says. “Far too obvious for covert use.”

  “Mayor Prentiss!” My Noise is getting higher with nerves.

  “The city’s all been bush bombs, so why–”

  “RUN!” I yell.

  Morpeth starts and the Mayor looks at me.

  But I ain’t talking to him.

  “RUN!” I’m yelling and waving my hands and the shovel at the Spackle nearest me, the Spackle in my field.

  The field the bomb is heading right for.

  Buzzzzz–

  They don’t understand. Most of ’em are just watching the bomb coming right for them. “RUN!” I keep shouting and I’m sending explozhuns out in my Noise, showing ’em what’ll happen when that bomb lands, imagining blood and guts and the BOOM that’s on its way. “RUN, GODDAMMIT!”

  It finally gets thru and some start to scatter, maybe just to get away from me screaming and waving my shovel, but they run and I chase them further up the field. I look back. The Mayor’s moved to the entrance of the monastery, ready to ride further if necessary.

  But he’s watching me.

  “RUN!” I keep yelling, getting the Spackle to move up and away, fleeing from the centre of this field. The last few hop over the nearest internal wall and I hop over with ’em, gasping for breath and turning round again to watch it land–

  And I see 1017, still there in the middle of the field, just staring up at the sky.

  At the bomb that’s gonna kill him where he stands.

  I’m jumping back over the internal wall before I even know it–

  My feet pounding over the grass–

  Leaping over the trenches we’ve dug–

  Running so hard there ain’t nothing in my Noise–

  Just the BUZZ of the bomb–

  Getting louder and lower–

  And 1017 raising up his hand to shield his eyes from the sun–

  Why ain’t he running?

  And pound pound go my feet–

  And I’m chanting “Damn you, damn you”–

  BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ–

  And 1017 don’t see me coming–

  I slam into him hard enough to lift him off his feet, feeling the air punched from his lungs as we fly across the grass, as we hit the ground rolling, as we go end over end across the dirt and into a shallow trench, as one titanic–

  eats the entire planet in a single bite of sound

  blasting away every thought and bit of Noise

  picking up yer brain and shattering it into pieces

  and every bit of air is sucked up and blown past us

  and dirt and grass hits us in hard, heavy clods

  and smoke fills our lungs

  And then there’s silence.

  Loud silence.

  “Are you hurt?” I hear the Mayor shout, as if he’s miles and miles away and deep under water.

  I sit back up in the trench, see the huge smoking crater in the middle of the field, smoke already thinning cuz there’s nothing to burn, row upon row of Spackle watching huddled from the far fields.

  I’m breathing but I can’t hear it.

  I turn back to 1017, still mostly under me in the trench, scrabbling to get up, and I’m opening my mouth to ask him if he’s all right even tho there’s no way for him to answer–

  And he hits me in a hard slap that leaves a rake of scratches across my face.

  “Hey!” I shout, tho I can barely hear myself–

  He’s twisting out from under me and I reach out a hand to hold him there–

  And he bites it hard with his rows of little sharp teeth–

  And I pull it back, already bleeding–

  And I’m ready to punch him, ready to pound him–

  And he’s out from under me, running away across the crater, back towards the other Spackle–

  “Hey!” I shout again, my Noise rising into red.

  He’s just running and staring back and the rows of Spackle are all looking back at me, too, their stupid silent faces with less expresshun than the dumbest sheep I ever had back on the farm and my hand is bleeding and my ears are ringing and my face is stinging from the scratches and I saved his stupid life and this is the thanks I get?

  Animals, I think. Stupid, worthless, effing animals.

  “Todd?” says the Mayor again, riding over to me. “Are you hurt?”

  I turn my face up towards him, not even sure if I’m calm enough to answer, but when I open my mouth–

  The ground heaves.

  My hearing’s still gone so I feel it more than hear it, feel the rumble thru the dirt, feel the air pulse with three hard vibrayshuns, one right after the other, and I see the Mayor turn his head suddenly back towards town, see Davy and all the Spackle do the same.

  More bombs.

  In the distance, towards the city, the biggest bombs that’ve ever exploded in the history of this world.

  {VIOLA}

  I’m so stupidly undone after the Mayor and his soldiers take Todd away Corinne finally has to give me something for it, though I feel the prick of the needle in my arm as little as I feel her hand on my back, not moving, not caressing, not doing anything to make it feel better, just holding me there, keeping me to earth.

  I’m sorry to say, I’m not grateful.

  When I wake in my bed, it’s only just dawn, the sun so low it’s not quite over the horizon yet, everything else in morning shadow.

  Corinne is in the chair next to me.

  “As much as it would do you good to sleep longer,” she says, “I’m afraid you can’t.”

  I lean forward in the bed until I’m almost bent in half. There’s a weight in my chest so heavy, it’s like I’m being pulled into the ground. “I know,” I whisper. “I know.”

  I don’t even know why he collapsed. He was dazed, nearly unconscious, foam coming from his mouth, and then the soldiers lifted him to his feet and dragged him away.

  “They’ll come for me,” I say, having to swallow away the tightness in my throat. “After they’re done with Todd.”

  “Yes, I expect they will,” Corinne says simply, looking at her hands, at the cream-coloured calluses raised on her fingertips, at the ash-coloured skin that flakes off the top of her hands because of so much time under hot water.

  The morning is cold, surprisingly, harshly so. Even with my window closed, I can feel a shiver coming. I wrap my arms around my middle.

  He’s gone.

  He’s gone.

  And I don’t know what’ll happen now.

  “I grew up in a settlement called the Kentish Gate,” Corinne suddenly says, keeping her eyes off mine, “on the edge of a great forest.”

  I look up. “Corinne?”

  “My father died in the Spackle War,” she presses on, “but my mother was a survivor. From the time I could stand, I worked with her in our orchards, picking apples and crested pine and roisin fruit.”

  I stare at her, wondering why now, why this story now?

  “My reward for all that hard work,” she continues, “was a camping trip every year after final harvest, just me and my mother, as deep in the forest as we dared to go.” She looks out into the dark dawn. “There’s so much life here, Viola. So much, in every corner of every forest and stream and river and mountain. This planet just hums with it.”

  She runs a fingertip over her calluses. “The last time we went, I was eight. We walked south for three whole days, a present for how grown-up I was getting. God only knows how many miles away we were, but we were alone, just me and her and that was all that mattered.”

  She lets a long pause go by. I don’t break it.

/>   “She was bitten by a Banded Red, on her heel, as she cooled her feet in a stream.” She’s rubbing her hands again. “It’s fatal, red snake venom, but slow.”

  “Oh, Corinne,” I say, under my breath.

  She stands suddenly, as if my sympathy is almost rude. She walks over to my window. “It took her seventeen hours to die,” she says, still not looking at me. “And they were awful and painful and when she went blind, she grabbed onto me and begged me to save her, begged me over and over to save her life.”

  I remain silent.

  “What we know now, what the healers have discovered, is that I could have saved her life just by boiling up some Xanthus root.” She crosses her arms. “Which was all around us. In abundance.”

  The ROAR of New Prentisstown is only just starting to rise with the sun. Light shoots in from the far horizon, but we stay silent for a moment longer.

  “I’m sorry, Corinne,” I finally say. “But why–?”

  “Everyone here is someone’s daughter,” she says quietly. “Every soldier out there is someone’s son. The only crime, the only crime is to take a life. There is nothing else.”

  “And that’s why you don’t fight,” I say.

  She turns to me sharply. “To live is to fight,” she snaps. “To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.” She takes an angry huff of air. “And now her, too, with all the bombs. I fight them every time I bandage the blackened eye of a woman, every time I remove shrapnel from a bomb victim.”

  Her voice has raised but she lowers it again. “That’s my war,” she says. “That’s the war I’m fighting.”

  She walks back to her chair and picks up a bundle of cloth sat next to it. “And to that end,” she says, “I need you to put these on.”

  She doesn’t give me time to argue or even ask about her plan. She takes my apprentice robes and my own few much-washed clothes and has me put on poorer rags, a long-sleeved blouse, a long skirt, and a headscarf that completely covers my hair.

  “Corinne,” I say, tying up the scarf.

  “Shut up and hurry.”