Chaos Walking

by Patrick Ness

  “Not really,” I say, watching him. “It’s his father in there.”

  “Not his real father,” says the Mayor, frowning

  “Real enough.”

  The Mayor keeps pacing, his face hard and cold.

  “Unless you mean–” I say.

  “If they ever do emerge,” he says, nodding at the tent where Ben and Todd are talking, where we can hear and see a cloud of Noise spinning denser and more intricately than any usual man’s Noise, “please send Todd to retrieve me.”

  And off he goes, Captain O’Hare and Captain Tate following him.

  “What’s with him?” Bradley asks, watching the Mayor leave.

  It’s Wilf who answers. “He thinks he’s lost his son.”

  “His son?” Bradley asks.

  “The Mayor’s somehow got it into his head that Todd’s a replacement for Davy,” I say. “You saw how he was talking to him.”

  “I heard some of it through the crowd,” Lee says, from where he’s sitting by Wilf. “Something about Todd transforming him.”

  “And now Todd’s real father’s here,” I say.

  “At the worst possible moment,” Lee says.

  “Or just in the nick of time,” I say.

  The curtain of the tent opens and Todd pokes his head out.

  “Viola?” he says.

  And I turn to look at him–

  And when I do, I can hear everything he’s thinking.

  Everything.

  Clearer than before, clearer than seems possible–

  And I’m not even sure I’m supposed to, but I look him in the eyes and I see it–

  In the middle of everything he’s feeling–

  Even after we fought-

  Even after I doubted him-

  Even after I hurt him–

  I see how much he loves me.

  But I see more, too.

  [TODD]

  “So what happens now?” Viola says to Ben, sitting next to me on my cot. I’ve taken her hand. Didn’t say nothing about it, just took it, and she let me and we sit side by side.

  Peace is what happens, Ben says. The Sky sent me to find out about the explosion, to see if peace was still possible. He smiles and again it’s thru his whole Noise, reaching out to us so that it’s hard not to smile yerself. And it is possible. That’s what the Return is telling the Sky right now.

  “What makes you think 1017 is trustworthy?” I say. “He attacked Viola.”

  I squeeze Viola’s hand.

  She squeezes it back.

  Because I know him, Ben says. I can hear his voice, hear the conflict in it, hear the good that wants to come. He’s like you, Todd. He can’t kill.

  I look at the floor at that.

  “I think you need to talk to the Mayor,” Viola says to Ben. “I don’t think he’s too happy that you’re back.”

  No, Ben says. I got that impression too, though he is very difficult to read, isn’t he? He stands. “But he needs to know the war is over,” he rasps in his spoken voice.

  He looks at me and Viola sitting there, gives another little smile, and then leaves us in the tent.

  We don’t say nothing for a minute.

  Or for another minute more.

  And then I tell her the thought that’s been coming ever since I saw Ben.

  {VIOLA}

  “I wanna go back to old Prentisstown,” Todd says.

  “What?” I say, surprised, even though I’d seen it swirling in his Noise.

  “Maybe not old Prentisstown itself,” he says. “But not here.”

  I sit up. “Todd, we’ve barely started–”

  “But we will start and soon,” he says, still holding my hand. “The ships’ll come and the settlers will wake up and then there’ll be a new city. With all new people.” He looks away. “After living in one for a while, I don’t think I like cities much.”

  His Noise is getting quieter now that Ben’s left, but I can still see him imagining life after the convoy, things getting back to normal, people spreading up the river again. “And you want to go,” I say.

  He looks back to me. “I want you to come with me. And Ben. And Wilf and Jane, maybe. Bradley, too, if he wants, and that Mistress Lawson seems nice. Why couldn’t we all make a town of it? A town far away from all this.” He sighs. “A town far from the Mayor.”

  “But he needs to be watched–”

  “There’ll be 5000 new people who’ll know all about what he is.” He looks down at the ground again. “Besides, I think maybe I’ve done all I can for him,” he says. “And I’m tired.”

  The way he says it makes me realize how tired I am, too, how tired I am of all of this, and how tired he must be, how tired he looks, how worn out and through with it all, and my throat starts to clench with the feeling of it.

  “I want to go away from here,” he says. “And I want you to come with me.”

  And we sit there in silence for a good long while.

  “He’s in your head, Todd,” I finally say. “I saw him there. Like you’re connected somehow.”

  Todd sighs again at the word connected. “I know,” he says. “That’s why I wanna go. I came close but I ain’t forgot who I am. Ben reminded me of all I ever need to know. And, yeah, I’m connected to the Mayor, too, but I’ve pulled him away from all this war stuff.”

  “Did you see what he did with the crowd?”

  “It’s almost over,” Todd says. “We’ll have peace, he’ll have his victory, and he won’t need me, even tho he thinks he does. The convoy’ll come, he’ll be the hero but he’ll be outnumbered, and we’ll get the hell outta here, okay?”

  “Todd–”

  “It’s almost over,” he says again. “And I can hang on till it is.”

  And then he looks at me in a different way.

  His Noise keeps getting quieter, but I can see it there still–

  See how he feels the skin of my hand against his, see how he wants to take it and press it to his mouth, how he wants to breathe in the smell of me and how beautiful I look to him, how strong after all that illness, and how he wants to just lightly touch my neck, just there, and how he wants to take me in his arms and–

  “Oh, God,” he says, looking away suddenly. “Viola, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

  But I just put my hand up to the back of his neck–

  And he says, “Viola–?”

  And I pull myself towards him–

  And I kiss him.

  And it feels like, finally.

  [TODD]

  “I’m in complete agreement,” the Mayor says to Ben.

  You are? Ben says, surprised.

  We’re all gathered round the campfire, Viola sitting next to me.

  Holding my hand again.

  Holding like she ain’t never gonna let it go.

  “Of course I am,” the Mayor says. “As I’ve said many times, peace is what I want. It’s what I genuinely want. Believe it out of self-interest if nothing else.”

  Excellent then, Ben says. We’ll continue with the council as planned. That is, if your injuries will allow you to take part?

  The Mayor’s eyes spark a little. “What injuries would those be, Mr Moore?”

  There’s a stillness as we all see the burn gel covering his face and the bandages on the back of his neck and head.

  But no, he don’t look like he’s feeling any injuries at all.

  “In the meantime,” the Mayor says, “there are certain things that need to be done right away, certain assurances to be made.”

  “Assurances to who?” Viola asks.

  “The people on the far hilltop, for one,” the Mayor says. “They may not be gathering themselves into the Army of the Martyress just yet, but I would feel no surprise if Mistress Coyle had left instructions with Mistress Braithwaite should she fail. Someone needs to go back up there and settle things.”

  “I’ll go,” Mistress Lawson says, frowning. “The mistresses will listen to me.”

  “Me, too,” says Le
e, aiming his Noise away from me and Viola.

  “And our friend Wilf to drive them,” says the Mayor.

  We all look up at that. “I’ll fly them,” Bradley says.

  “And be gone all night?” the Mayor asks, looking at him hard (and I wonder if I hear the hum–) “Not to return until morning with a burn unit far surpassing anything we have in the city? Plus, I think you, Bradley, need to go back to the Spackle today, right now, with Ben and Viola.”

  “What?” Viola says. “But we agreed on tomorrow–”

  “By tomorrow, the schism Mistress Coyle wanted may have taken firmer hold,” the Mayor says. “How much better if you, hero of the first talks, come back tonight with matters already settled? With, for example, a river flowing slowly down the banks?”

  “I wanna go with Ben,” I say. “I don’t–”

  “I’m sorry, Todd,” the Mayor says, “I really am, but you have to stay here with me, as usual, and make sure I don’t do anything anyone would disapprove of.”

  “No,” Viola says, surprisingly loud.

  “All this time and you’re worried now?” the Mayor says to her, smiling. “It’s only a few hours, Viola, and with Mistress Coyle gone, the credit for winning this war falls solely to me. I’ve got plenty of reason to behave, believe me. The convoy may just crown me king.”

  There’s a long pause where everyone looks at each other, considering this.

  I have to say that all sounds rather sensible, Ben finally says. Aside from the king part, obviously.

  And I watch the Mayor as everyone starts talking it thru. He looks right back at me. I expect to see anger.

  But all I see is sadness.

  And I realize–

  He’s saying goodbye.

  {VIOLA}

  “That Ben’s Noise is amazing,” Lee says, as I help him up on the cart that will take them back to the hilltop. “It’s like the whole world in there, and everything is so clear.”

  We decided, after a bit more debate, to go with the Mayor’s plan. Me, Bradley and Ben will ride up to the Spackle now. Lee, Wilf and Mistress Lawson will go to the hilltop to calm things down. Todd and the Mayor will stay in town to hold things together here. And we’ll all try to get back together as fast as we can.

  Todd says he thinks the Mayor just wants to say goodbye to him in private, now that Ben’s come back, and that it would probably be more dangerous for Todd not to be there. I still argued against it until Ben agreed with Todd, saying it was the last hours before real peace and whatever good influence Todd had over the Mayor, now was when it would be needed most.

  I’m still worried, though.

  “He says it’s how all the Spackle talk,” I say to Lee. “How all the Spackle are, how they evolved. To fit the planet perfectly.”

  “And us not so much?”

  “He said we could learn if he did.”

  “And the women?” Lee asks. “What about them?”

  “What about the Mayor? He doesn’t have Noise any more.”

  “Neither does Todd,” Lee says, and he’s right. The farther Todd gets away from Ben, the quieter he is. And then I see Todd in Lee’s Noise, see me and Todd in Todd’s tent, see me and Todd–

  “Hey!” I say, blushing red. “That didn’t happen!”

  “Something did,” he mumbles. “You were in there for ages.”

  I don’t say anything, just watch Wilf yoke up oxes to the front of the cart and Mistress Lawson fuss over supplies she wants to take back to the hilltop.

  “He asked me to go away with him,” I say, after a long minute.

  “When?” Lee asks. “Where?”

  “When this is all over,” I say. “As soon as we can.”

  “And will you?”

  I don’t answer.

  “He loves you, you idiot,” Lee says, not unkindly. “Even a blind man can see that.”

  “I know,” I whisper, looking back over to the campfire where Todd’s saddling up Angharrad for Bradley to ride.

  “We’re ready,” Wilf says, coming over.

  I embrace him. “Good luck, Wilf,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yoo too, Viola.”

  I embrace Lee as well who whispers in my ear, “I’ll miss you when you go.”

  I pull away and even hug Mistress Lawson. “You’re looking so healthy,” she says. “Like a new girl.”

  Then Wilf strikes the reins and the cart starts making its way around the ruins of the cathedral, around the lonely bell tower, still standing after all this time.

  I watch them until they disappear.

  And then a snowflake lands on the tip of my nose.

  [TODD]

  I’m smiling like a loon as I hold out my hand to catch the flakes as they fall. They land like perfect little crystals before almost instantly melting on my palm, where the skin from my burns is still red.

  “First time in years,” the Mayor says, looking up like every­one else, into the snow dropping down like white feathers, everywhere and everywhere and everywhere.

  “Ain’t that something?” I say, still smiling. “Hey, Ben!” I start over to where he’s introducing Angharrad to his battlemore.

  “Wait for a moment, Todd,” the Mayor says.

  “What?” I say, a little impayshuntly cuz I’d much rather be sharing snow with Ben than the Mayor.

  “I think I know what happened to him,” the Mayor says and we both look over to Ben again, still talking to Angharrad and the other horses now, too.

  “Nothing happened to him,” I say. “He’s still Ben.”

  “Is he?” the Mayor asks. “He’s been opened up by the Spackle. We don’t really know what that will do to a man.”

  I frown and feel a roil in my stomach. It’s anger.

  But there’s a little bit of fear there, too.

  “He’s fine,” I say.

  “I say this out of concern for you, Todd,” he says, sounding sincere. “I can see how happy you are to have him back. How much it means to have your father again.”

  I stare at him, trying to figure him out, keeping my own Noise light, so we’re just two stones giving nothing away to each other.

  Two stones getting slowly covered in snow.

  “You think he may be in danger?” I finally say.

  “This planet is information,” the Mayor says. “All the time, never-ceasing. Information it wants to give you, information it wants to take from you to share with everyone else. And I think you can respond to that in two ways. You can control how much you give it, like you and I have done in shutting off our Noise–”

  “Or you can open yourself up to it completely,” I say, looking back at Ben, who catches my eye and smiles back.

  “And which way is the proper way,” the Mayor says, “well, we’ll have to see. But I’d keep an eye on your Ben if I were you. For his own good.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” I say, turning back to him. “I’ll be keeping an eye on him the rest of his life.”

  And I’m smiling as I say it, still warm from Ben’s smile to me, but I catch a glint in the eye of the Mayor, brief and vanishing, but there.

  And it’s a glint of pain.

  But then it’s gone.

  “I hope you’ll be around to keep an eye on me, too,” he says, his own smile returning. “Keep me on the straight and narrow.”

  I swallow. “You’ll do fine,” I say. “With or without me.”

  And there’s the pain again. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I expect I will.”

  {VIOLA}

  “You look like you’ve rolled in flour,” I say down to Todd as he approaches.

  “So do you,” he says.

  I give my head a shake and bits of snow fall down around me. I’m already up on Acorn and I can hear the horses greeting Todd, Angharrad especially, standing underneath Bradley.

  She’s a beauty, Ben says, next to us on his battlemore. And I think she’s got a little crush.

  Boy colt, Angharrad says, ducking her he
ad at the battlemore and looking away.

  “I suggest your first order of business be reassurance,” the Mayor says, coming over. “Tell the Spackle we’re more committed to peace than ever. And then see if you can get some demonstrable action from them right away.”

  “Like the river being released,” Bradley says. “I agree. Show the people they’ve got something to hope for.”

  “We’ll do our best,” I say.

  “I’m sure you will, Viola,” the Mayor says. “You always have.”

  But I notice he keeps his eyes steady on Todd and Ben as they say their goodbyes.

  It’s only a few hours, I hear Ben say, his Noise bright and warm and reassuring.

  “You keep yerself safe,” Todd says. “I ain’t losing you a third time.”

  Well that would just be terrible bad luck, wouldn’t it? Ben smiles.

  And they embrace, warm and strong, like a father and son.

  I keep watching the Mayor’s face.

  “Good luck,” Todd says, coming up to my saddle. He lowers his voice. “You keep thinking bout what I said. You just keep thinking bout the future.” He grins shyly. “Now that we actually have one.”

  “Are you sure about this?” I ask. “Because I can stay. Bradley can–”

  “I told you,” he says. “I think he just wants to say goodbye. That’s why it all feels so weird. It’s actually over.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Todd says. “I’ve managed all this time with him. I can last a couple more hours.”

  And we squeeze hands again, holding it a second longer.

  “I’ll do it, Todd,” I whisper. “I’ll come with you.”

  And he doesn’t say anything, just squeezes my hand harder and brings it up to his face like he wants to breathe me in.

  [TODD]

  “The snow’s getting thicker,” I say.

  Viola and Ben and Bradley have been on the road for a little while now and I’m watching the projeckshun as they start up the hill to the Spackle, riding slowly in the weather. Viola said she’d call me when she got there but there ain’t no harm in checking their progress, is there?