by Patrick Ness
“I said, thanks.”
And then I hear it.
It’s hard to catch in the ROAR of everyone else’s Noise, even James’s, which is thinking about how he used to live upriver with his pa and his brother and how he joined the army when it marched past cuz it was either that or die fighting and now here he is, in a war with the Spackle, but he’s happy now, happy to be fighting, happy to be serving the President–
“Aren’t you, soldier?” says the Mayor, taking another sip of his coffee.
“I am,” James says, still not blinking. “Very happy.”
Cuz underneath it all lies the little vibrating buzz of the Mayor’s Noise, seeping into James’s, twining round it like a snake, pushing it into a shape that ain’t too disagreeable to James but still ain’t quite his own.
“You may go,” the Mayor says.
“Thank you, sir,” James blinks, dropping his hands. He gives me a funny little smile and then walks back into the thick of the camp.
“You can’t,” I say to the Mayor. “Not all of ’em. You said you just started being able to control people. That’s what you said.”
He don’t answer, just turns back up to the hill.
I stare at him, figuring it out some more. “But yer getting stronger,” I say. “And if they’re cured–”
“The cure turned out to mask everything,” he says. “It made them, shall we say, harder to reach. You need a lever to work a man. And Noise turns out to be a very good one.”
I look round us again. “But you don’t have to,” I say. “They’re already following you.”
“Well, yes, Todd, but that doesn’t mean they’re not open to suggestion. It can’t have escaped your attention how quickly they follow my orders in battle.”
“Yer working up to controlling a whole army,” I say. “A whole world.”
“You make it sound so sinister.” He smiles that smile. “I’d only ever use it for the good of us all.
And then there’s a sound behind us, fast footsteps. It’s Mr O’Hare, outta breath, his face blazing.
“They’ve attacked our spies,” he pants at the Mayor. “Only one man each returned from north and south. Obviously left so they could tell us what happened. The Spackle slaughtered the rest.”
The Mayor grimaces and turns back to the hilltop. “So,” he says. “That’s how they’re playing the game.”
“What’s that sposed to mean?” I say.
“Attacks from the northern road and the southern hills,” he says. “The first steps towards the inevitable.”
“The inevitable what?”
He raises his eyebrows. “They’re surrounding us, of course.”
{VIOLA}
Girl colt, Acorn greets me as I give him an apple I stole from the food tent. He stables in an area at the treeline where Wilf’s taken all the Answer’s animals.
“He giving you any trouble, Wilf?” I ask.
“Nah, ma’am,” Wilf says, attaching feedbags to a pair of oxes next to Acorn. Wilf, they say, while they eat. Wilf, Wilf.
Wilf, Acorn says, nudging in my pockets for another apple.
“Where’s Jane?” I ask, looking around.
“Helpin hand out food with the mistresses,” Wilf says.
“That sounds like Jane,” I say. “Listen, have you seen Simone? I need to talk to her.”
“She’s off huntin with Magnus. Ah heard Mistress Coyle suggestin it to her.”
Ever since the townsfolk started showing up, food has been our most pressing issue. Mistress Lawson, as usual, is in charge of inventory and has set up regular food chains to feed the people who are arriving, but the Answer’s food stocks aren’t going to last for ever. Magnus has been leading hunting parties to supplement it.
Mistress Coyle, meanwhile, has been deep in the medical tents, working on women with infected arms. There’s been a huge variation in how bad they are. Some of the women are so sick they’re barely able to stand; for others it’s nothing more than a bad rash. It does seem to affect every woman somehow, though. Todd says the Mayor’s giving medical help to the few women down there, too, all concerned now about the bands he put there, saying he’ll do whatever it takes to help them, not having intended this at all.
It’s enough to make me feel even sicker.
“I must have been in the healing room when she left,” I say, feeling the burning in my arm, wondering if my fever’s back again. “I guess it’ll have to be Bradley then.”
I head off back to the scout ship, but I hear Wilf say, “Good luck” as I go.
I listen out for Bradley’s Noise, still louder than any other man here, until I find his feet sticking out of a section on the front of the ship, a panel laying on the ground and tools everywhere.
Engine, he’s thinking. Engine and war and missile and food shortage and Simone won’t even look at me and Someone there?
“Someone there?” he asks, scooting his way out.
“Only me,” I say as he emerges.
Viola, he thinks. “Something I can help you with?” he says, way shorter than I’d like.
I tell him what Todd told me about the Spackle and the Mayor’s spies, about the Spackle maybe being on the move.
“I’ll see what I can do to make the probes more effective,” he sighs. He looks out at the camp that now completely surrounds the scout ship, out to all sides of the clearing, with other makeshift tents up beyond the line of trees, too. “We have to protect them now,” he says. “It’s our duty, now that we’ve upped the stakes.”
“I’m sorry, Bradley,” I say. “I couldn’t have done any other thing.”
He looks up sharply. “Yes, you could have.” He pulls himself to his feet and says it again, more firmly. “Yes, you could have. Choices may be unbelievably hard but they’re never impossible.”
“What if it’d been Simone down there instead of Todd?” I say.
And Simone is all over his Noise, his deep feelings for her, feelings I don’t think are returned. “You’re right,” he says. “I don’t know. I hope I’d make the right choice, but Viola it is a choice. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that’s not how a person with integrity acts.” A child, his Noise says, A CHILD, and his voice softens. “And I do believe you’re a person with integrity.”
“You do?” I say.
“Of course I do,” he says. “What’s important is taking responsibility for it. Learning from it. Using it to make things better.”
And I remember Todd saying, It’s not how we fall. It’s how we get back up again.
“I know,” I say. “I’m trying to make things right.”
“I believe you,” he says. “I’m trying, too. You fired the missile, but we made it possible for you to do it.” And I hear Simone in his Noise again, with some spikes of difficulty around it. “You tell Todd to tell the Mayor we’ll only help with things that save lives, that we’re working for peace and nothing else.”
“I already have.”
And I must look so sincere about it, he smiles. It’s so much what I’ve been waiting for that I feel a little leap in my chest. Because his Noise is smiling, too. A little bit.
We see Mistress Coyle coming out of a healing tent, blood on her smock.
“Unfortunately,” Bradley says, “I think the road to peace lies through her.”
“Yeah, but she’s always acting so busy. Too busy to talk.”
“Maybe you should get busy, too, then,” he says. “If you’re feeling up to it.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m not feeling up to it. It’s something I have to do.” I look back over to where Wilf is working the animals. “I think I know just who to ask, too.”
[TODD]
My dearest son, I read. My dearest son.
The words my ma uses at the top of every page of her journal, words written to me just before and after I was born, saying everything that happened to her and my pa. I’m inside my tent, trying to read ’em.
My dearest son.
/> But they’re pretty much the only words I can make out in the whole stupid thing. I run my fingers down the page and then the next one over, too, looking at the scrawl of words stretching everywhere.
My ma, talking and talking.
And I can’t hear her.
I reckernize my name here and there. And Cillian’s. And Ben’s. And my heart starts to hurt a bit. I wanna hear my ma talking about Ben, Ben who raised me, Ben who I lost, twice. I wanna hear his voice again.
But I can’t–
(stupid effing idiot)
And then Food? I hear.
I put down the journal and poke my head outta the tent. Angharrad’s looking at me. Food, Todd?
I’m immediately up, immediately over to her, immediately agreeing.
Cuz it’s the first time she’s said my name since–
“Of course, girl,” I say. “I’ll get you some right now.”
She nudges her nose against my chest, almost playful, and my eyes go wet with relief. “I’ll be right back,” I say. I look round but don’t see James nowhere. I head over past the campfire, where the Mayor’s frowning over yet more reports with Mr Tate.
He didn’t have many men to spare but after the attacks on the spies this morning, he said he didn’t have no choice about sending small squadrons of men to the north and south with orders to press on till they heard the Spackle ROAR, then to camp there, far enough away so the Spackle knew we weren’t just gonna let ’em march into town and steamroll over us. They’ll tell us when the invasion is coming, at least, even if they won’t be able to stop it.
I head out into the army, glancing cross the square to where you can just see the top point of the water tank peeking up over the foodstore, buildings I never bothered noticing till they turned into life or death.
I see James coming away from ’em, into the square.
“Hey, James,” I greet him. “Angharrad needs some more feed.”
“More?” He looks surprised. “She’s already been fed today.”
“Yeah, but she’s still only coming outta the shock of the battle and all that. Besides,” I say, scratching my ear, “for the first time, she’s actually asking.”
He gives a knowing smile. “You gotta watch out for that, Todd. Horses know where to take their advantage. You start feeding her every time she asks, she’s gonna start asking all the time.”
“Yeah, but–”
“You need to show her who’s boss. Tell her she’s had her feed today and that she’ll get some in the morning like she’s sposed to.”
He’s still smiling, his Noise is still friendly, but I’m finding my own self getting a bit annoyed. “Show me where it is and I’ll get some myself.”
He frowns a little. “Todd–”
“She needs it,” I say, my voice raising. “She’s recovering from a wound–”
“So am I.” He lifts up the hem of his shirt. There’s a burn all the way cross his belly. “And I only ate once today.”
And I can see what he’s saying and I can see how friendly he means to be by it but there’s Boy colt? running thru my Noise and I remember how she cried out when she was hit and then the silence that followed and the few words I’ve been able to get from her since but still barely nothing compared with how she used to be and if she wants to eat then I’m damned if I’m not gonna feed her and this annoying little pigpiss needs to get it for me cuz I am the Circle and the Circle is me–
“I’ll get it for you,” he says–
And he’s looking at me–
And he ain’t blinking–
And I can feel something twisting, some winding curling invisible cord in the air–
And it’s twixt my Noise and his Noise–
And there’s a little buzz–
“I’ll go get it right now,” he says, not blinking. “I’ll just bring it on over.”
And he turns and starts walking back to the foodstore.
I can feel the buzz still bouncing thru my Noise, hard to follow, hard to pin down, like a shadow that’s just left the spot wherever I turn to look–
But it don’t matter–
I wanted him to do it, I wanted it to happen–
And it did.
I controlled him. Just like the Mayor.
I watch him go, still walking to the foodstore, like it was his own idea.
My hands are shaking.
Bloody hell.
{VIOLA}
“You’re the one here who knows the most about the truce,” I say. “You were a leader of New Prentisstown then and there’s no way–”
“I was a leader of Haven, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says, not looking up from where we’re handing out food to a long queue of townspeople. “I have nothing at all to do with New Prentisstown.”
“Here ya go!” Jane practically shouts next to us, putting the small rations of vegetables and dried meat into whatever containers people have brought with them. The queue stretches right across the hilltop, where there’s barely a handkerchief of free space to be seen. It’s practically become its own frightened and hungry town.
“But you said you knew about the truce,” I say.
“Of course I know about the truce,” Mistress Coyle says. “I helped negotiate it.”
“Well, then you could do it again. Tell me at least how you started.”
“A bit too much talking?” Jane says, leaning over towards us, concern on her face. “Not enough handing out the food?”
“Sorry,” I say.
“Only, the mistresses get mad when you talk too much,” Jane says. She turns to the next person in the queue, a mother holding the hand of her young daughter. “I get in trouble all the time.”
Mistress Coyle sighs and lowers her voice. “We started by beating the Spackle so badly they had to negotiate, my girl. That’s how these things work.”
“But–”
“Viola,” she turns to me. “Do you remember the fear you felt run through the people when they heard the Spackle were attacking?”
“Well, yes, but–”
“It’s because we came so close to being wiped out last time. That’s not something you ever forget.”
“All the more reason to stop it from happening again,” I say. “We’ve shown the Spackle how much power we have–”
“Matched by the power they have to release the river and destroy the town,” she says. “Making the rest of us easy pickings for an invasion. It’s a stalemate.”
“But we can’t just sit here and wait for another battle. That’s giving the Spackle more advantage, that’s giving the Mayor more advantage–”
“That’s not what’s happening, my girl.”
And her voice has a funny note to it.
“What do you mean by that?” I say.
I hear a little moan beside me. Jane has stopped handing out food, distress all over her face. “Yer gonna get in trouble,” she whispers loudly to me.
“I’m sorry, Jane, but I’m sure it’s okay if I talk to Mistress Coyle.”
“She’s the one who gets maddest.”
“Yes, Viola,” Mistress Coyle says. “I am the one who gets maddest.”
I pull my lips tight. “What did you mean?” I say, under my breath for Jane’s sake. “What’s happening with the Mayor?”
“You just wait,” Mistress Coyle says. “You just wait and see.”
“Wait and see while people die?”
“People aren’t dying.” She gestures to the queue, to the line of hungry faces looking back at us, mostly women, but some men, too, and children, all haggard and dirtier than I expect they’re used to being, but Mistress Coyle’s right, they’re not dying. “On the contrary,” she says, “people are living, surviving together, depending on each other. Which is exactly what the Mayor needs.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you saying?”
“Look around you,” she says. “Here’s half the human planet right here, the half that isn’t down there with him.”
“And?”<
br />
“And he’s not going to leave us here, is he?” She shakes her head. “He needs us to have complete victory. Not just the weapons on your ship, but the rest of us to rule afterwards and no doubt the convoy, too. That’s how he thinks. He’s been down there waiting for us to come to him, but you watch. There will come a day, there will come a day soon when he comes to us, my girl.”
She smiles and goes back to handing out food.
“And when he does,” she says. “I’ll be waiting.”
[TODD]
By the middle of the night, I’ve had enough tossing and turning and I go out to the campfire to warm up. I can’t sleep after the weird thing with James.
I controlled him.
For a minute there, I did.
I ain’t got no idea how.
(but it felt–)
(it felt powerful–)
(it felt good–)
(shut up)
“Can’t sleep, Todd?”
I make an annoyed sound. I hold my hands out to the fire and I can see him watching me across it.
“Can’t you just leave me alone for once?” I say.
He laughs a single time. “And miss out on what my son got?”
My Noise squawks outta sheer surprise. “Don’t you talk to me about Davy,” I say. “Don’t you even dare.”
He holds up his hands in a make-peace kinda way. “I only meant the way you redeemed him.”
I’m still raging but the word catches me. “Redeemed?”
“You changed him, Todd Hewitt,” he says, “as much as anyone could. He was a wastrel, and you nearly made him a man.”
“We’ll never know,” I growl. “Cuz you killed him.”
“That’s how war goes. You have to make impossible decisions.”
“You didn’t have to make that one.”
He looks into my eyes. “Maybe I didn’t,” he says. “But if I didn’t, it’s you who’s showing that to me.” He smiles. “You’re rubbing off on me, Todd.”
I frown hard. “Ain’t nothing on this earth can redeem you.”
And it’s just then that all the lights in the city go off.
From where we’re standing we can see ’em in a cluster cross the square, keeping the townsfolk feeling safe–