Текст книги "The Ask and the Answer"
Автор книги: Patrick Ness
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 21 страниц)
I stand at the front of the tower and watch the stars come out, night covering the valley below.
And I'm thinking and I'm trying not to think cuz when I do, my stomach turns and I feel sick, or my throat clenches and I feel sick, or my eyes wet and I feel sick.
Cuz she's out there somewhere.
(please be out there somewhere)
(please be okay)
(please)
"Do you always have to be so bloody loud?" Mayor Ledger snaps. I turn to him, ready to snap back, and he holds up his hands in apology. "I'm sorry. I'm not like this." He starts fidgeting his fingers again. "It's difficult having one's cure taken away so abruptly."
I look back out over New Prentisstown as lights start coming on in people's houses. I ain't hardly seen no one out there the whole day, everyone staying indoors, probably under the Mayor's orders.
"They all going thru this out there, then?" I say.
"Oh, everyone will have their little stockpile at home," Mayor Ledger says. "They'll have to have it pried out of their hands, I imagine."
"I don't reckon that'll be a problem when the army gets here," I say.
The moons rise, crawling up the sky as if there was nothing to hurry about. They shine bright enough to light up New Prentisstown and I see how the river cuts thru town but that there ain't nothing much north of it except fields, empty in the moonlight, then a sharp rise of rocky cliffs that make up the north wall of the valley. To the north, you can also see a thin road coming outta the hills before cutting its way back into town, the other road that Viola and I didn't take after Farbranch, the other road the Mayor did take and got here first.
To the east, the river and the main road just carry on, going God knows where, round corners and farther hills, the town petering out as it goes. There's another road, not much paved, that heads south from the square and past more buildings and houses and into a wood and up a hill with a notch on the top.
And that's all there is of New Prentisstown.
Home to three thousand, three hundred people, allh iding in their houses, so quiet they might be dead.
Not one of them lifting a hand to save theirselves from what's coming, hoping if they're meek enough, if they're weak enough, then the monster won't eat 'em.
This is where we spent all our time running to.
I see movement down on the square, a shadow flitting, but it's only a dog. Home, home, home, I can just about hear him think. Home, home, home.
Dogs don't got the problems of people.
Dogs can be happy any old time.
I take a minute to breathe away the tightness that comes over my chest, the water in my eyes.
Take a minute to stop thinking bout my own dog. When I can look out again, I see someone not a dog at all.
He's got his head slumped forward and he's walking his horse slow across the town square, the hoofs clopping against the brick and, as he approaches, even tho Mayor Ledger's has started to become such a nuisance I don't know how I'm ever gonna sleep, I can still hear it out there. Noise.
Across the quiet of a waiting city, I can hear the man's Noise.
And he can hear mine.
Todd Hewitt? he thinks.
And I can hear the smile growing on his face, too.
Found something, Todd, Todd, he says, across the square, up the tower, seeking me out in the moonlight.
Found something of yers. I don't say nothing. I don't think nothing.
I just watch as he reaches behind him and holds something up toward me.
Even this far away, even by the light of the moons, I know what it is.
My ma's book.
Davy Prentiss has my ma's book.
2 THE FOOT UPON THE NECK
***
[TODD]
EARLY NEXT MORNING, a platform with a microphone on it gets built noisily and quickly near the base of the bell tower and, as the morning turns to afternoon, the men of New Prentisstown gather in front of it.
"Why?" I say, looking out over 'em.
"Why do you think?" Mayor Ledger says, sitting in a darkened corner, rubbing his temples, his Noise butt sawing away, hot and metallic. "To meet the new man in charge."
The men don't say much, their faces pale and grim, tho who can know what they're thinking when you can't hear their Noise? But they look cleaner than the men in my town used to, shorter hair, shaved faces, better clothes. A good number of em are rounded and soft like Mayor Ledger.
Haven musta been a comfortable place, a place where men weren't fighting every day just to survive.
Maybe too much comfort was the problem. Mayor Ledger snorts to himself but don't say nothing.
Mayor Prentiss's men are on horseback at strategic spots across the square, ten or twelve of 'em, rifles ready, to make sure everyone behaves tho the threat of an army coming seems to have done most of the work. I see Mr. Tate and Mr. Morgan and Mr. O'Hare, men I grew up with, men I used to see every day being farmers, men who were just men till suddenly they became something else.
I don't see Davy Prentiss nowhere and my Noise starts rumbling again at the thought of him.
He musta come back down the hillside from wherever his horse dragged him and found the rucksack. All it had in it anymore was a bunch of ruined clothes and the book.
My ma's book.
My ma's words to me.
Written when I was born. Written till just before she died.
Before she was murdered.
My wondrous son who I swear will see this world come good.
Words read to me by Viola cuz I couldn't – And now Davy Moody Prentiss-
"Can you please," Mayor Ledger says thru gritted teeth, "at least try–" He stops himself and looks at me apologetically. "I'm sorry," he says, for the millionth time since Mr. Collins woke us up with breakfast.
Before I can say anything back I feel the hardest, sudden tug on my heart, so surprising I nearly gasp.
I look out again.
The women of New Prentisstown are coming.
***
They start to appear farther away, in groups down side streets away from the main body of men, kept there by the Mayor's men patrolling on horseback.
I feel their silence in a way I can't feel the men's. It's like a loss, like great groupings of sorrow against the sound of the world and I have to wipe my eyes again but I press myself closer to the opening, trying to see 'em, trying to see every single one of 'em.
Trying to see if she's there.
But she ain't.
She ain't.
They look like the men, most of 'em wearing trousers and shirts of different cuts, some of 'em wearing long skirts, but most looking clean and comfortable and well fed. Their hair has more variety, pulled back or up or over or short or long and not nearly as many of 'em are blonde as they are in the Noise of the menfolk where I come from.
And I see that more of their arms are crossed, more of their faces looking doubtful.
More anger there than on the faces of the men.
"Did anyone fight you?" I ask Mayor Ledger while I keep on looking. "Did anyone not wanna give up?"
"This is a democracy, Todd," he sighs. "Do you know what that is?"
"No idea," I say, still looking, still not finding.
"It means the minority is listened to," he says, "but the majority rules."
I look at him. "All these people wanted to surrender?"
"The President made a proposal," he says, touching his split lip, "to the elected Council, promising that the city would be unharmed if we agreed to this."
"And you believed him?"
His eyes flash at me. "You are either forgetting or do not know that we already fought a great war, a war to end all wars, at just about the time you would have been born. If any repeat of that can be avoided–"
"Then yer willing to hand yerselves over to a murderer."
He sighs again. "The majority of the Council, led by myself, decided this was the best way to save the most lives." He rests his head against the brick. "Not everything is black and white, Todd. In fact, almost nothing is."
"But what if-"
Ker-thunk. The lock on the door slides back and Mr. Collins enters, pistol pointed.
He looks straight at Mayor Ledger. "Get up," he says.
I look back and forth twixt 'em both. "What's going on?" I say.
Mayor Ledger stands from his corner. "It seems the piper must be paid, Todd," he says, his voice trying to sound light but I hear his buzz rev up with fear. "This was a beautiful town," he says to me. "And I was a better man. Remember that, please."
"What are you talking about?" I say.
Mr. Collins takes him by the arm and shoves him out the door.
"Hey!" I shout, coming after them. "Where are you taking him?"
Mr. Collins raises a fist to punch me – And I flinch away, (shut up)
He laughs and locks the door behind him. Ker – thunk.
And I'm left alone in the tower.
And as Mayor Ledger's buzz disappears down the stairs, that's when I hear it.
March march march, way in the distance. I go to an opening. They're here.
The conquering army, marching into Haven.
They flow down the zigzag road like a black river, dusty and dirty and coming like a dam's burst. They march four or five across and the first of them disappear into the far trees at the base of the hill as the last finally crest the top. The crowd watches them, the men turning back from the platform, the women looking out from the side streets.
The march march march grows louder, echoing down the city streets. Like a clock ticking its way down. The crowd waits. I wait with them. And then, thru the trees, at the turning of the road-Here they are. The army.
Mr. Hammar at their front.
Mr. Hammar who lived in the petrol stayshun back home, Mr. Hammar who thought vile, violent things no boy should ever hear, Mr. Hammar who shot the people of Farbranch in the back as they fled. Mr. Hammar leads the army.
I can hear him now, calling out marching words to keep everyone in time together. The foot, he's yelling to the rhythm of the march.
The foot.
The foot upon the neck.
They march into the square and turn down its side, cutting twixt the men and the women like an unstoppable force. Mr. Hammar's close enough so I can see the smile, a smile I know full well, a smile that clubs, a smile that beats, a smile that dominates.
And as he gets closer, I grow more sure.
It's a smile without Noise.
Someone, one of those men on horseback maybe, has gone out to meet the army on the road. Someone carrying the cure with him. The army ain't making a sound except with its feet and with its chant.
The foot, the foot, the foot upon the neck.
They march round the side of the square to the platform. Mr. Hammar stops at a corner, letting the men start to make up formayshuns behind the platform, lining up with their backs to me, facing the crowd now turned to watch them.
I start to reckernize the soldiers as they line up. Mr. Wallace. Mr. Smith the younger. Mr. Phelps the storekeeper. Men from Prentisstown and many, many more men besides.
The army that grew as it came.
I see Ivan, the man from the barn at Farbranch, the man who secretly told me there were men in sympathy. He standsa t the head of one of the formayshuns and everything that proves him right is standing behind him, arms at attenshun, rifles at the ready.
The last soldier marches into place with a final chant.
The foot upon the NECK!
And then there ain't nothing but silence, blowing over New Prentisstown like a wind.
Till I hear the doors of the cathedral open down below me.
And Mayor Prentiss steps out to address his new city.
"Right now," he says into the microphone, having saluted Mr. Hammar and climbed his way up the platform steps, "you are afraid."
The men of the town look back up at him, saying nothing, making no sound of Noise nor buzzing.
The women stay in the side streets, also silent.
The army stands at attenshun, ready for anything.
I realize I'm holding my breath.
"Right now," he continues, "you think you are conquered. You think there is no hope. You think I come up here to read out your doom."
His back is to me but from speakers hidden in the four corners, his voice booms clear over the square, over the city, probably over the whole valley and beyond. Cuz who else is there to hear him talk? Who else is there on all of New World that ain't either gathered here or under the ground?
Mayor Prentiss is talking to the whole planet.
"And you're right," he says and I tell you I'm certain I hear the smile. "You are conquered. You are defeated. And I read to you your doom."
He lets this sink in for a moment. My Noise rumbles and I see a few of the men look up to the top of the tower. I try to keep it quiet but who are these people? Who are these clean and comfortable and not – at – all – hungry people who just handed theirselves over?
"But it is not I who conquered you," the Mayor says. "It is not I who has beaten you or defeated you or enslaved you."
He pauses, looking out over the crowd. He's dressed all in white, white hat, white boots, and with the white cloths covering the platform and the afternoon sun shining on down, he's practically blinding.
"You are enslaved by your idleness," says the Mayor. "You are defeated by your complacency. You are doomed"–and here his voice rises suddenly, hitting doomed so hard half the crowd jumps-"by your good intentions!"
He's working himself up now, heavy breaths into the microphone.
"You have allowed yourselves to become so weak, so feeble in the face of the challenges of this world that in a single generation you have become a people who would surrender to RUMOR!"
He starts to pace the stage, microphone in hand. Every frightened face in the crowd, every face in the army, turns to watch him move back and forth, back and forth.
I'm watching, too.
"You let an army walk into your town and instead of making them take it, you offer it willingly!"H e's still pacing, his voice still rising. "And so you know what I did. I took. I took you. I took your freedom. I took your town. I took your future." He laughs, like he can't believe his luck. "I expected a war," he says.
Some of the crowd look at their feet, away from each other's eyes.
I wonder if they're ashamed. I hope so.
"But instead of a war," the Mayor says, "I got a conversation. A conversation that began, Please don't hurt us and ended with Please take anything you want."
He stops in the middle of the platform.
"I expected a WAR!" he shouts again, thrusting his fist at them.
And they flinch.
If a crowd can flinch, they flinch.
More than a thousand men flinch under the fist of just one.
I don't see what the women do.
"And because you did not give me a war," the Mayor says, his voice light, "you will face the consequences.''
I hear the doors to the cathedral open again and Mr. Collins comes out pushing Mayor Ledger forward thru the ranks of the army, hands tied behind his back.
Mayor Prentiss watches him come, arms crossed. Murmurs finally start in the crowd of men, louder in the crowds of women, and the men on horseback do somew aving of their rifles to stop it. The Mayor don't even look back at the sound, like it's beneath his notice. He just watches Mr. Collins push Mayor Ledger up the stairs at the back of the platform.
Mayor Ledger stops at the top of the steps, looking out over the crowd. They stare back at him, some of them squinting at the shrillness of his Noise buzz , a buzz I realize is now starting to shout some real words, words of fear, pictures of fear, pictures of Mr. Collins giving him the bruised eye and the split lip, pictures of him agreeing to surrender and being locked in the tower.
"Kneel," Mayor Prentiss says and tho he says it quietly, tho he says it away from the microphone, somehow I hear it clear as a bell chime in the middle of my head, and from the intake of breath in the crowd, I wonder if that's how they heard it, too.
And before it looks like he even knows what he's doing, Mayor Ledger is kneeling on the platform, looking surprised that he's down there.
The whole town watches him do it.
Mayor Prentiss waits a moment.
And then he steps over to him.
And takes out a knife.
It's a big, no-kidding, death of a thing, shining in the sun.
The Mayor holds it up high over his head.
He turns slowly, so everyone can see what's about to happen. So that everyone can see the knife. My gut falls and for a second I think – But it ain't mine – It ain't-
And then someone calls, "Murderer!" from across the square.
A single voice, carrying above the silence. It came from the women. My heart jumps for a second-But of course it can't be her-
But at least there's someone. At least there's someone.
Mayor Prentiss walks calmly to the microphone. "Your victorious enemy addresses you," he says, almost politely, as if the person who shouted was simply not understanding. "Your leaders are to be executed as the inevitable result of your defeat."
He turns to look at Mayor Ledger, kneeling there on the platform. His face is trying to look calm but everyone can hear how badly he don't wanna die, how childlike his wishes are sounding, how loud his newly uncured Noise is spilling out all over the place.
"And now you will learn," Mayor Prentiss says, turning back to the crowd, "what kind of man your new President is. And what he will demand from you."
Silence, still silence, save for Mayor Ledger's mewling.
Mayor Prentiss walks over to him, knife glinting. Another murmur starts spreading thru the crowd as they finally get what they're about to see. Mayor Prentiss steps behind Mayor Ledger and holds up the knife again. He stands there,w atching the crowd watch him, watching their faces as they look and listen to their former Mayor try and fail to contain his Noise.
"BEHOLD!" Mayor Prentiss shouts. "YOUR FUTURE!" He turns the knife to a stabbing angle, as if to say again, behold–
The murmuring of the crowd rises – Mayor Prentiss raises his arm-
A voice, a female one, maybe the same one, cries out, "No!"
And then suddenly I realize I know exactly what's gonna happen.
In the chair, in the room with the circle of colored glass, he brought me to defeat, he brought me to the edge of death, he made me know that it would come–
And then he put a bandage on me.
And that's when I did what he wanted.
The knife swishes thru the air and slices thru the binds on Mayor Ledger's hands.
There's a town – sized gasp, a planet – sized one.
Mayor Prentiss waits for a moment, then says once more, "Behold your future," quietly, not even into the microphone.
But there it is again, right inside yer mind. He puts the knife away in a belt behind his back and returns to the microphone. And starts to put bandages on the crowd.
"I am not the man you think I am," he says. "I am not a tyrant come to slaughter his enemies. I am not a madman come to destroy even that which would save himself. I am not"–he looks over at Mayor Ledger–"your executioner."
The crowds, men and women, are so quiet now the square might as well be empty.
"The war is over," the Mayor continues. "And a new peace will take its place."
He points to the sky. People look up, like he might be conjuring something up there to fall on them.
"You may have heard a rumor," he says. "That there are new settlers coming."
My stomach twists again.
"I tell you as your President," he says. "The rumor is true."
How does he know? How does he ruddy know"?
The crowd starts to murmur at this news, men and women. The Mayor lets them, happily talking over them.
"We will be ready to greet them!" he says. "We will be a proud society ready to welcome them into a new Eden!" His voice is rising again. "We will show them that they have left Old World and entered PARADISE!"
Lots more murmuring now, talking everywhere.
"I am going to take your cure away from you," the Mayor says.
And boy, does the murmuring stop. The Mayor lets it, lets the silence build up, and then he says, "For now."
The men look at one another and back to the Mayor.
"We are entering a new era," Mayor Prentiss says. "You will earn my trust by joining me in creating a new society. As that new society is built and as we meet our first challenges and celebrate our first successes, you will earn the right to be called men again. You will earn the right to have your cure returned to you and that will be the moment all men truly will be brothers."
He's not looking at the women. Neither are the men in the crowd. Women got no use for the reward of a cure, do they?
"It will be difficult," he continues. "I don't pretend otherwise. But it will be rewarding." He gestures toward the army. "My deputies have already begun to organize you. You will continue to follow their instructions but I assure you they will never be too onerous and you will soon see that I am not your conqueror. I am not your doom. I am not," he pauses again, "your enemy."
He turns his head across the crowd of men one last time.
"I am your savior," he says.
And even without hearing their Noise, I watch the crowd wonder if there's a chance he's telling the truth, if maybe things'll be okay after all, if maybe, despite what they feared, they've been let off the hook.
You ain't, I think. Not by a long shot.
Even before the crowds have started to properly leave after the Mayor's finished, there's a ker – thunk at my door.
"Good evening, Todd," the Mayor says, stepping into theb ell – ringing jail and looking around him, wrinkling his nose a little at the smell. "Did you like my speech?"
"How do you know there are settlers coming?" I say. "Have you been talking to her? Is she all right?"
He don't answer this but he don't hit me for it neither. He just smiles and says, "All in good time, Todd."
We hear Noise coming up the stairs outside the door. Alive I'm alive it says alive, alive alive alive and into the room comes Mayor Ledger, pushed by Mr. Collins.
He pulls up his step when he sees Mayor Prentiss standing there.
"New bedding will arrive tomorrow," Mayor Prentiss says, still looking at me. "As will toilet privileges."
Mayor Ledger's moving his jaw but it takes a few tries before any words come out. "Mr. President–"
Mayor Prentiss ignores him. "Your first job will also begin tomorrow, Todd."
"Job?" I say.
"Everyone has to work, Todd," he says. "Work is the path to freedom. I will be working. So will Mr. Ledger."
"I will?" Mayor Ledger says. "But we're in jail," I say.
He smiles again and there's more amusement in it and I wonder how I'm about to be stung.
"Get some sleep," he says, stepping to the door and looking me in the eye. "My son will pick you up first thing in the morning."
3 THE NEW LIFE [TODD]
BUT IT TURNS OUT IT ain't Davy that worries me when I get dragged into the cold of the next morning in front of the cathedral. It ain't even Davy I look at.
It's the horse.
Boy colt, it says, shifting from hoof to hoof, looking down at me, eyes wide in that horse craziness, like I need a good stomping.
"I don't know nothing bout horses," I say.
"She's from my private herd," Mayor Prentiss says atop his own horse, Morpeth. "Her name is Angharrad and she will treat you well, Todd."
Morpeth is looking at my horse and all he's thinking is submit, submit, submit , making my horse even more nervous and that's a ton of nervous animal I'm sposed to ride.
"Whatsa matter?" Davy Prentiss sneers from the saddle of a third horse. "You scared?"
"Whatsa matter?" I say. "Daddy not give you the cure yet?"
His Noise immediately rises. "You little piece of-"
"My, my," says the Mayor. "Not ten words in and the fight's already begun."
"He started it," Davy says.
"And he would finish it, too, I wager," says the Mayor, looking at me, reading the red, jittery state of my Noise, filled with urgent red askings about Viola, with more askings I wanna take outta Davy Prentiss's hide. "Come, Todd," the Mayor says, reining his horse. "Ready to be a leader of men?"
"It's a simple division," he says as we trot thru the early morning, way faster than I'd like. "The men will move to the west end of the valley in front of the cathedral and the women to the east behind it."
We're riding east down the main street of New Prentisstown, the one that starts at the zigzag road by the falls, carries thru to the town square and around the cathedral and now out the back into the farther valley. Small squads of soldiers march up and down side roads and the men of New Prentisstown come past us the other way on foot, carrying rucksacks and other luggage.
"I don't see no women," Davy says.
"Any women," corrects the Mayor. "And no, Captain Morgan and Captain Tate supervised the transfer of the rest of the women last night."
"What are you gonna do with em?" I say, my knuckles gripping so hard on the saddle horn they're turning white. He looks back at me. "Nothing, Todd. They will be treated with the care and dignity that befits their importance to the future of New World." He turns away. "But for now, separate is best."
"You put the bitches in their place," Davy sneers.
"You will not speak that way in front of me, David," the Mayor says, calmly but in a voice that ain't joking. "Women will be respected at all times and given every comfort. Though in a nonvulgar sense you are correct. We all have places. New World made men forget theirs, and that means men must be away from women until we all remember who we are, who we were meant to be."
His voice brightens a little. "The people will welcome this. I offer clarity where before there was only chaos."
"Is Viola with the women?" I ask. "Is she okay?"
He looks back at me again. "You made a promise, Todd Hewitt," he says. "Need I remind you once more? Just save her and I'll do anything you want, I believe were your exact words."
I lick my lips nervously. "How do I know yer keeping yer end of the bargain?"
"You don't," he says, his eyes on mine, like he's peering right past every lie I could tell him. "I want your faith in me, Todd, and faith with proof is no faith at all."
He turns back down the road and I'm left with Davy snickering to my side so I just whisper "Whoa, girl," to my horse. Her coat is dark brown with a white stripe down her nose and a mane brushed so nice I'm trying not to grab onto it less it make her mad. Boy colt, she thinks.
She, I think. She. Then I think an asking I ain't neverh ad a chance to ask before. Cuz the ewes I had back on the farm had Noise, too, and if women ain't got Noise–
"Because women are not animals," the Mayor says, reading me. "No matter what anyone claims I believe. They are merely naturally Noiseless."
He lowers his voice. "Which makes them different."
It's mostly shops that line this part of the road, dotted twixt all the trees, closed, reopening who knows when, with houses stretching back from side streets both toward the river on the left and the hill of the valley on the right. Most of the buildings, if not all, are built a fair distance from one another, which I spose is how you'd plan a big town before you found a cure for the Noise.
We pass more soldiers marching in groups of five or ten, more men heading west with their belongings, still no women. I look at the faces of the men going by, most of them pointed to the road at their feet, none of them looking ready to fight.
"Whoa, girl," I whisper again cuz riding a horse is turning out to be powerfully uncomfortable on yer private parts.
"And there's Todd," Davy says, pulling up next to me. "Moaning already."
"Shut it, Davy," I say.
"You will address each other as Mr. Prentiss Jr. and Mr. Hewitt," the Mayor calls back to us.
"What?" Davy says, his Noise rising. "He ain't a man yet! He's just-"
The Mayor silences him with a look. "A body was discovered in the river in the early hours of this morning," hes ays. "A body with many terrible wounds to its flesh and a large knife sticking out of its neck, a body dead not more than two days."
He stares at me, looking into my Noise again. I put up the pictures he wants to see, making my imaginings seem like the real thing, cuz that's what Noise is, it's everything you think, not just the truth, and if you think hard enough that you did something, well, then, maybe you actually did.
Davy scoffs. "You killed Preacher Aaron? I don't believe
it."
The Mayor don't say nothing, just moves Morpeth along a little faster. Davy sneers at me, then kicks his own horse to follow.
"Follow," Morpeth nickers.
"Follow," Davy's horse whinnies back.
Follow, thinks my own horse, taking off after them, bouncing me even worse.
As we go, I'm on the constant lookout for her, even tho there's no chance of seeing her. Even if she's still alive, she'd still be too sick to walk, and if she weren't too sick to walk, she'd be locked up with the rest of the women.
But I keep looking-
(cuz maybe she escaped–)
(maybe she's looking for me–)
(maybe she's-)
And then I hear it.
I am the Circle and the Circle is me. C lear as a bell, right inside my head, the voice of the Mayor, twining around my own voice, like it's speaking direktly into my Noise, so sudden and real I sit up and nearly fall off my horse. Davy looks surprised, his Noise wondering what I'm reacting to.
But the Mayor just rides on down the road, like nothing happened at all.
The town gets less shiny the farther east we get from the cathedral and soon we're riding on gravel. The buildings get plainer, too, long wooden houses set at distances from each other like bricks dropped into clearings of trees.
Houses that radiate the silence of women.
"Quite correct," the Mayor says. "We're entering the new Women's Quarter."
My heart starts to clench as we go past, the silence rising up like a grasping hand.
I try to sit up higher on my horse.
Cuz this is where she'd be, this is where she'd be healing.
Davy rides up next to me again, his pathetic, half – there mustache bending into an ugly smile. I'll tell you where yer whore is, his Noise says.
Mayor Prentiss spins round in his saddle.
And there's the weirdest flash of sound from him, like a shout but quiet and away from me, not in the world at all, like a million words all said together, so fast I swear I feel my hair brush back like in a wind.
But it's Davy who reacts–H is head jerks back like he's been hit, and he has to catch his horse's reins so he don't fall off, spinning the horse round, his eyes wide and dazed, his mouth open, some drool dripping out.
What the hell-?
"He doesn't know, Todd," the Mayor says. "Anything his Noise tells you about her is a lie."
I look at Davy, still dazed and blinking with pain, then back to the Mayor. "Does that mean she's safe?"
