by Patrick Ness
“Ah brought Acorn back from town,” Wilf says to me. “Stabled him wi’ my oxes.”
“Thank you, Wilf,” I say.
He nods. “And young Lee there,” he says. “If ya ever need me to see for ya, ya just gotta say.”
There’s a flood of surprised and touched feeling in Lee’s Noise, bright enough for Wilf to see his answer.
“Hey, Wilf?” I say, getting an idea, one that feels better by the second.
“Yeh?” he says.
“How would like you be on the new council?”
[TODD]
“It’s a ruddy great idea,” I say, watching Viola’s face in my comm. “Every time they wanna do something stupid, Wilf won’t even say no, he’ll just say what we should obviously do instead.”
“That’s what I thought,” she says and doubles up coughing again.
“How are them tests coming along?” I say.
“The women who’ve taken it haven’t shown any problems so far, but Mistress Coyle wants to do more checks.”
“She ain’t never gonna approve it, is she?”
Viola don’t disagree. “What do you think about it?”
I take a long deep breath. “I don’t trust him,” I say, “no matter how much he says he’s redeemed.”
“He says that?”
I nod.
“Well, that’s exactly the kind of thing he would say.”
“Yeah.”
She waits for me to say more. “But?”
I look back into her eyes, back thru the comm to her, there, on the hilltop, on this same world as me but so far away. “He seems to need me, Viola. I don’t know why, but it’s like I’m important to him somehow.”
“He called you his son once before, when we were fighting him. Said you had power.”
I nod. “I don’t trust him to do any of this outta the goodness of the heart he ain’t got.” I swallow. “But I think he’d do it to get me on his side.”
“Is that enough reason to risk it?”
“Yer dying,” I say, and then keep talking cuz she’s already talking over me. “Yer dying and yer lying to me that yer not and if something happened to you, Viola, if something happened–”
My throat chokes up hard, like I really can’t breathe.
And I can’t say nothing more for a second.
(I am the Circle–)
“Todd?” she finally says, for the first time not denying she’s sicker than she’s said. “Todd, if you tell me to take it, I will. I won’t wait for Mistress Coyle.”
“But I don’t know,” I say, my eyes still flooded.
“We fly in tomorrow morning,” she says. “To ride up for the first council.”
“Yeah?”
“If you want me to do it,” she says, “I want you to put the bandages on me yourself.”
“Viola–”
“If it’s you doing it, Todd,” she says, “nothing can go wrong. If it’s you doing it, I know I’m safe.”
And I wait for a long minute.
And I don’t know what to say.
And I don’t know what to do.
{VIOLA}
“So you’re taking it, too, then?” Mistress Coyle says from the doorway after I click off with Todd.
I’m about to complain about her listening to a private conversation again but she’s done it so often I’m not even really mad. “It’s not decided yet.”
I’m alone with her. Simone and Bradley are preparing for tomorrow’s meeting, and Lee is out with Wilf, learning about the oxes, whose Noise he can see.
“How are the tests coming?” I ask.
“Excellent,” she says, not uncrossing her arms. “Aggressive antibiotics combined with an aloe Prentiss says he found in the weapons of the Spackle that allows for a dispersal of the medicine ten or fifteen times faster than we’d been doing it. Hitting it so fast it doesn’t have time to regroup. It’s quite brilliant, really.” She looks me square in the eye, and I swear I see sadness there. “A real breakthrough.”
“But you still don’t trust it?”
She sits down next to me with a heavy sigh. “How can I? After all he’s done? How can I not just sit here in despair at all the women who keep reaching for the cure, all the while sick with worry that they’re just walking into a trap.” She bites her lip. “And now you.”
“Maybe,” I say.
She takes a long breath and lets it out. “Not all the women are taking it, you know. There are some, a good number, who’d rather trust me to find a better cure for them. And I will, you know. I will.”
“I believe you,” I say. “But fast enough?”
She gets a look on her face so unusual for her it takes me a second to realize what it is.
She looks almost defeated.
“You’ve been so sick,” she says, “trapped in this little room, that you don’t really realize what a hero you are out there.”
“I’m not a hero,” I say, surprised.
“Please, Viola. You faced down the Spackle and won. You’re everything they want to be themselves. A perfect symbol for the future.” She shifts her weight. “Not like those of us left in the past.”
“I don’t think that’s true–”
“You went up a girl and came down a woman,” she says. “I get asked five hundred times a day how the Peacemaker is doing.”
And it’s only then I see the importance of what she’s saying.
“If I take the cure,” I say, “you think everyone else will, too.”
Mistress Coyle says nothing.
“And he’ll have completely won,” I continue. “That’s what you think.”
She still says nothing, looking at the floor. When she does speak, it’s unexpected. “I miss the ocean,” she says. “On a fast horse, I could leave right now and make it there by sundown, but I haven’t even seen it since we failed to make a fishing village. I moved to Haven and never looked back.” Her voice is quieter than I’ve ever heard it. “I thought that life was over. I thought in Haven there were things worth fighting for.”
“You still can fight for them,” I say.
“I think I may be already beaten, Viola,” she says.
“But–”
“No, I’ve had power slip away from me before, my girl. I know what it feels like. But I always knew I’d come back.” She turns to me, her eyes sad but otherwise unreadable. “But you aren’t beaten, are you, my girl? Not yet.”
She nods, as if to herself, then she does it again and gets up.
“Where are you going?” I call after her.
But she keeps on and doesn’t look back.
[TODD]
I hold up my ma’s book. “I wanna read the end.”
The Mayor looks up from his reports. “The end?”
“I wanna find out what happened to her,” I say. “In her own words.”
The Mayor leans back. “And you think I’m afraid to have you hear it?”
“Are you?” I say, keeping his gaze.
“Only in how sad it will be for you, Todd.”
“Sad for me?”
“Those were terrible times,” he says. “And there’s no version of that history, not mine, not Ben’s, not your mother’s, where there’s a happy ending.”
I keep staring at him.
“All right,” the Mayor says. “Open it to the end.”
I look at him for another second, then I open her book, flipping thru the pages till I get to the last entry, my heart skipping a little at what I’ll find there. The words are the usual scramble, spilling out everywhere like a rockslide (tho I’m getting better at picking some of ’em out, it’s true) and my eyes go right to the end, the very last paragraphs, to the very last things she ever wrote to me–
And then suddenly, almost before I’m ready–
This war, my dearest son–
(there she is–)
This war that I hate because of how it threatens all yer days to come, Todd, this war that was bad enough when we were just fighting t
he Spackle, but now there are divisions forming, divisions twixt David Prentiss, the head of our little army here, and Jessica Elizabeth, our Mayor, who’s been rallying the women and many of the men to her side, Ben and Cillian included, over how the war’s being conducted.
“You were dividing the town?” I say.
“I wasn’t the only one,” the Mayor says.
And oh it makes my heart sick, Todd, to see us split like this, split before we’ve even made peace, and I wonder how this can be a real New World when all we do is bring our old quarrels to it.
The Mayor’s breathing is light and I can somehow tell he ain’t struggling half as hard as he used to.
(and the faint hum there, too–)
(that I know is him connecting us–)
But then there’s you, son, as of right now the youngest boy in town, maybe even in this whole world, and yer gonna have to be the one who makes it come right, you hear? Yer a native born New Worlder, so you don’t have to repeat our mistakes. You can shake off the past and maybe, just maybe, you’ll bring paradise to this place.
And my stomach pulls a little cuz she’s wished that for me from the very first page.
But that’s probably enough responsibility for one day, huh? I have to leave now for that secret meeting Mayor Elizabeth’s called.
And oh, my beautiful boy, I’m afraid of what she’s going to suggest.
And that’s it.
After that, it’s just blank.
Nothing more.
I look up to the Mayor. “What did Mayor Elizabeth suggest?”
“She suggested the attack on me and my army, Todd,” he says. “An attack which they lost, as much as we tried not to make it a dangerous fight. And then they killed themselves to ensure our doom. I’m sorry, but that’s what happened.”
“No, it ain’t,” I say, starting to boil. “My ma wouldn’t do that to me. Ben said–”
“I can’t convince you, Todd,” he says, frowning sadly. “There’s nothing I can say that ever will, I know that. And I’m certain I made mistakes back then, maybe even mistakes that led to worse consequences than I’d ever intended. Maybe that’s even true.” He leans forward. “But that was before, Todd. That’s not now.”
My eyes are still wet, thinking of my ma, signing off.
Being afraid of what was to come.
Whatever it was.
Cuz the answer ain’t there. What really happened ain’t there. I know as much about the Mayor as before.
“I am a bad man, Todd,” the Mayor says. “But I’m getting better.”
I touch my fingertips to the cover of my ma’s journal, feeling along the knife mark. I don’t believe his verzhun of the story, I just don’t and never will.
I believe he believes it tho.
I believe he might even be sorry.
“If you ever hurt Viola,” I say, “you know I’d kill you.”
“One of the many reasons why I never would.”
I swallow. “The cure will make her well? It’ll save her life?”
“Yes, Todd, it will.” And that’s all he says.
I look up into the sky, into another freezing night, cloudy still, but no snow yet. Another night with little or no sleep, the night before the first big council meeting. The night before we start making the new world for real.
Just like my ma said.
“Bring me the bandages,” I say. “I’ll put ’em on her myself.”
He makes a low sound, almost as if in his Noise, and his face is holding back a smile, a real, true and feeling smile.
“Thank you, Todd,” he says.
And he sounds like he means it.
I wait a long time before I say it–
But I do finally say it.
“Yer welcome.”
“Mr President?” we hear. Mr O’Hare’s come up to us, waiting to interrupt.
“What is it, Captain?” the Mayor says, still looking at me.
“There’s a man here,” Mr O’Hare says, “been hassling the men all night about a meeting with you. Wants to pledge his support.”
The Mayor don’t even try to hide his impayshunce. “If I have to listen to every man on this planet pledge his support–”
“Said to tell you his name is Ivan Farrow,” Mr O’Hare says.
And the Mayor looks surprised.
And then he gets a different kinda smile on his face.
Ivan Farrow. Who goes where the power is.
{VIOLA}
“Look how beautiful,” Simone says over the comm system as we feel the scout ship rise slowly into the air. There’s a click and all the screens in the healing room show the sun, rising pink over the far ocean.
It’s only there for a brief moment before the clouds cover it away again.
“Sunrise,” Bradley says, his Noise reaching out to Lee to show it to him.
“A good omen,” Lee says. “Sun peeking through on a grey morning.”
“We fly down to make a new world,” Bradley says, his Noise warm and excited. “A real new world this time.” He smiles and the room fills up with it.
Wilf is the only one not with us, because he’s riding Acorn down to town for me and will meet us there. Mistress Coyle is sitting on the chair next to my bed. She was gone all night, no doubt off thinking of the best way to get back on top in her fight with the Mayor.
Or maybe accepting her defeat.
Which makes me surprisingly sad.
“Have you decided if you’ll take the cure yet, Viola?” she asks, just to me, keeping her voice low.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ll talk to Todd about it. But it won’t be because I’m trying to spite you. It doesn’t have to change anything–”
“But it will, my girl.” She turns to me. “Don’t misunderstand me. I’ve made my peace with it. Part of being a leader is knowing when to hand over the reins.”
I try and sit up. “I don’t want to take anyone’s reins–”
“You’ve got the people’s goodwill, Viola. With a little skill, you could easily turn that into strength.”
I cough. “I’m not really feeling up to–”
“This world needs you, my girl,” she says. “If you’re the face of opposition, then that’s fine with me. As long as the opposition has a face.”
“I’m just trying to make the best world we can.”
“Well, you keep on doing that,” she says, “and everything will be fine.”
She doesn’t say anything more, and we land shortly after, the ramp dropping down into the square, the ROAR of the crowd rising up to greet us.
“The Spackle are expecting us at midday,” Simone says as we walk out, Bradley helping me along. “The President’s promised horses for us all and good time this morning to talk through the agenda.”
“Todd says the Mayor’s agreed to keep the speeches to the crowd short,” I say, turning to Mistress Coyle. “And to make sure you’ve got a chance to say something this time.”
“Thank you very much, my girl,” she says. “Though you might also want to think of what you’re planning on saying.”
“Me?” I say. “But I don’t–”
“And there he is,” she says, looking down the ramp.
Todd is coming towards us through the crowd.
And he’s carrying a roll of bandages under his arm.
Under her breath, I hear Mistress Coyle say, “So be it.”
[TODD]
“I don’t really know what I’m doing,” I say, unrolling the bandages the Mayor gave me.
“You just wrap them round like a cloth,” Viola says. “Tight, but not too tight.”
We’re in my tent, sitting on my cot and the world outside is going on with its loud, ROARing business. The Mayor and Mistress Coyle and Bradley and Simone and Wilf and Lee, who’s sorta invited himself on the council, too, are all arguing about who’s gonna talk first to the Spackle and what they’re gonna say and blah blah blah.
“What are you thinking?” Viola asks, staring
at me hard.
I smile a little. “I’m thinking, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
She smiles a little back. “If this is you now, I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.”
“You don’t hate it no more?”
“Yeah, but that’s my problem, not yours.”
“I’m still me,” I say. “I’m still Todd.”
She looks away, letting her eyes fall to the bandages. “Are you sure about this?” she asks. “You’re sure none of this is a lie?”
“He knows I’d kill him if he hurt you,” I say. “And the way he’s been acting-”
She looks up. “But it probably is just acting–”
“I think I’m the one changing him, Viola,” I say. “Enough for him to want to save you for me, anyway.”
She keeps looking, keeps trying to read me.
I don’t know what she sees.
And after a minute, she holds out her arm.
“Okay,” I say. “Here we go.”
I start unwinding the old bandages still on the wound. I take off one, then another, and then there’s the band, 1391, exposed to the air. It looks bad, worse than I even expected, the skin around it red and raw and pulled tight in an ugly-looking way and the skin beyond is darkened in wrong shades of purple and yellow and there’s a smell, too, a smell of sickness and badness.
“Jesus, Viola,” I whisper.
She don’t say nothing but I see her swallow so I just take the first new bandage and wrap it right over the top of the band. She gives out a little gasp as the first jolt of medicine enters her system.
“Does it hurt?” I say.
She bites her lip and nods quickly, then gestures for me to do more. I unroll the second bandage and the third, wrapping them round the edges of the first like the Mayor told me, and she gasps again.
“Look, Todd,” she says, her breathing fast and shallow. The bruises and darkness on her arm are already fading and you can actually see the medicine moving thru her, doing battle with the infeckshun right there under her skin.
“How does it feel?” I ask.