Текст книги "The Ask and the Answer"
Автор книги: Patrick Ness
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"It means he doesn't know. Do you, David?"
No, Pa, says Davy's Noise, still shaky.
Mayor Prentiss raises his eyebrows.
I see Davy clench his teeth. "No, Pa," he says out loud.
"I know my son is a liar," the Mayor says. "I know he is a bully and a brute and ignorant of the things I hold dear. But he is my son." He turns back down the road. "And I believe in redemption."
Davy's Noise is quiet as we follow on but there's a dark red seething in it.
New Prentisstown fades in the distance and the road becomes almost free of buildings. Farm fields start showing up red and green thru the trees and up the hills, with crops I reckernize and others I don't. The silence of the women starts to ease a little and the valley becomes a wilder place, flowers growing in the ditches and waxy squirrels chattering insults to each other and the sun shining clear and cool like nothing else was going on.
At a bend in the river, we curve round a hill and I see al arge metal tower poking out the top of it, stretching up into the sky.
"What's that?" I say.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Davy says, tho it's obvious he don't know neither. The Mayor don't answer.
Just past the tower, the road bends again and follows a long stone wall emerging outta the trees. Down a little farther, the wall connects to a big arched gate with a huge set of wooden doors. It's the only opening in the long, long wall I see. The road beyond is dirt, like we've come to the end.
"New World's first and last monastery," the Mayor says, stopping at the gate. "Built as a refuge of quiet contemplation for our holiest of men. Built when there was still faith we could beat the Noise germ through self – denial and discipline." His voice goes hard. "Abandoned before it was even properly finished."
He turns to face us. I hear a strange spark of happiness rising in Davy's Noise. Mayor Prentiss gives him a warning look.
"You are wondering," he says to me, "why I appointed my son as your overseer."
I cast a look over to Davy, still smiling away.
"You need a firm hand, Todd," the Mayor says. "Your thoughts even now are of how you might escape at the first opportunity and try to find your precious Viola."
"Where is she?" I say, knowing I won't get no answer.
"And I have no doubt," the Mayor continues, "that David here will be quite a firm hand for you indeed."
Davy's face and Noise both smirk.
"And in return, David will learn what real courage looksl ike." Davy's smirk vanishes. "He will learn what it's like to act with honor, what it's like to act like a real man. What it's like, in short, to act like you, Todd Hewitt." He gives his son a last glance and then turns Morpeth in the road. "I shall be exceedingly eager to hear how your first day together went."
Without another word, he sets off back to New Prentisstown. I wonder now why he came in the first place. Surely he's got more important things to do.
"Surely I do," the Mayor calls, not turning back. "But don't underestimate yourself, Todd."
He rides off. Davy and I wait till he's well outta hearing distance.
I'm the one who speaks first.
"Tell me what happened to Ben or I'll rip yer effing throat out."
"I'm yer boss, boyo," Davy says, smirking again, jumping off his horse and throwing his rucksack to the ground. "Best treat me with respect or Pa ain't gonna-"
But I'm already off Angharrad and hitting him as hard as I can in the face, aiming right for that sad excuse for a mustache. He takes the punch but comes back fast with his own. I ignore the pain, he does, too, and we fall to the ground in a heap of fists and kicks and elbows and knees. He's still bigger than me but only just, only in a way that don't feel like much of a difference no more, but still enough so that after a bit he's got me on my back with his forearm pressed into my throat.
His lip's bleeding, so's his nose, the same as my own poorf ace but that ain't concerning me now. Davy reaches behind him and pulls a pistol from a holster strapped to his back.
"Ain't no way yer pa's gonna let you shoot me," I say.
"Yeah," he says, "but I still got a gun and you don't."
"Ben beat you," I grunt, underneath his arm. "He stopped you on the road. We got away from you."
"He didn't stop me," Davy sneers. "I took him prisoner, didn't I? And I took him back to Pa and Pa let me torture him. Let me torture him right to death."
And Davy's Noise-
I-
I can't say what's in Davy's Noise (he's a liar, he's a liar) but it makes me strong enough to push him away. We fight more, Davy fending me off with the butt of the gun till finally, with an elbow to his throat, I knock him down.
"You remember that, boy," Davy says, coughing, gun still gripped. "When my pa says all those nice things about you. He's the one who had me torture yer Ben."
"Yer a liar," I say. "Ben beat you."
"Oh, yeah?" Davy says. "Where is he now then? Coming to rescue you?"
I step forward, my fists up, cuz of course he's right, ain't he? My Noise surges with the loss of Ben, like it's happening all over again right here.
Davy's laughing, scrambling back away from me till he's against the huge wooden door. "My pa can read you," he says, then his eyes widen into a taunt. "Read you like a book."
My Noise gets even louder. "You give me that book! Or I swear, I'll kill you!"
"You ain't gonna do nothing to me, Mr. Hewitt," Davy says, rising, his back still against the door. "You wouldn't wanna put yer beloved bitch at risk now, would you?"
And there it is.
They know they got me.
Cuz I won't put her in no more danger.
My hands are ready to do more damage to Davy Prentiss, like they did before when he hurt her, when he shot her-
But they won't now-Even tho they could-
Cuz he's weak.
And we both know it.
Davy's smile drops. "Think yer special, do you?" he spits. "Think Pa's got a treat for you?"
I clench my fists, unclench them. But I keep my place.
"Pa knows you," Davy says. "Pa's read you."
"He don't know," I say. "You don't neither."
Davy sneers again. "That so?" His hand reaches for the cast – iron handle of the door. "Come and meet yer new flock then, Todd Hewitt."
His weight opens the door behind him and he steps into the paddock and outta the way, giving me a clear view.
Of a hundred or more Spackle staring right back at me.
4 THE MAKING OF A NEW WORLD
***
[TODD]
MY FIRST THOUGHT is to turn and run. Run and run and run and never stop.
"I'd like to see that," Davy says, standing inside the gate, smiling like he just won a prize.
There's so many of 'em, so many long white faces looking back at me, their eyes too big, their mouths too small and toothy and high on their faces, their ears looking nothing like a man's.
But you can still see a man's face in there, can't you? Still see a face that feels and fears-And suffers.
It's hard to tell which are male and which are female cuz they all got the same lichen and moss growing right on their skins for clothing but there seem to be whole Spackle families in there, larger spacks protecting their spack children and what must be spack husbands protecting spackw ives, arms wrapped round each other, heads pressed close together. All of them silently– Silently.
"I know!" Davy says. "Can you believe they gave the cure to these animals'?"
They look at Davy now and a weird clicking starts passing twixt 'em all with glances and nods moving along the crowd. Davy raises his pistol and steps farther into the monastery grounds. "Thinking of trying something?" he yells. "Give me a reason! Go on! GIVE ME A REASON!"
The Spackle huddle closer together in their little groups, backing away from him where they can.
"Get in here, Todd," Davy says. "We got work to do."
I don't move.
"I said, get in here! They're animals. They ain't gonna do nothing."
I still don't move.
"He murdered one of y'all," Davy says to the Spackle. "Davy!" I shout.
"Cut its head right off with a knife. Sawed and sawed–"
"Stop it!" I run at him to get him to shut his effing mouth. I don't know how he knows but he knows and he's gotta shut up right effing now.
The Spackle nearest the gate scoot way back at my approach, getting outta my way as fast as they can, looking at me with frightened faces, parents getting their children behind them. I push Davy hard but he just laughs and I realize I'm inside the monastery walls now.
And I see just how many Spackle there are.
***
The stone wall of the monastery surrounds a huge bit of land but only one little building, some kind of storehouse. The rest is divided up into smaller fields, separated by old wooden fences with low gates. Most of 'em are badly overgrown and you can see heavy grass and brambles stretching all the way to the back walls a good hundred yards away. But mostly you can see Spackle.
Hundreds and hundreds of 'em spread out over the grounds.
Maybe even more than a thousand.
They're pushing themselves against the monastery wall, huddling behind the rotting fences, sitting in groups or standing in rows.
But all watching me, silent as the grave, as my Noise spills out all over the place.
"He's a liar!" I say. "It weren't like that! It weren't like that at all!"
But what was it like? What was it like that I can explain? Cuz I did do it, didn't I?
Not how Davy said but nearly as bad and completely as big in my Noise, too big to cover with all their eyes looking back at me, too big to surround with lies and confuse the truth, too big to not think about as a crowd of Spackle faces just stare.
"It was an accident," I say, my voice trailing off, looking from face to weird face, not seeing no pictures of Spackle Noise, not understanding the clicking they make, so doubly not knowing what's happening. "I didn't mean it."
But not one of 'em says a thing back. They don't do nothing but stare.
***
There's a creak as the gate behind us opens up again. We turn to look.
It's Ivan from Farbranch, the one who joined the army rather than fight it.
And look how right he was. He's wearing an officer's uniform and he's got a group of soldiers with him.
"Mr. Prentiss Jr.," he says, nodding at Davy, who nods back. Ivan turns to me, a look in his eye I can't read and no Noise to be heard. "It's good to see you well, Mr. Hewitt."
"You two know each other?" Davy says, sharplike.
"We've had past acquaintance," Ivan says, still looking at me.
But I ain't saying a word to him.
I'm too busy putting up pictures in my Noise.
Pictures of Farbranch. Pictures of Hildy and Tam and Francia. Pictures of the massacre that happened there. The massacre that didn't include him.
A look of annoyance crosses his face. "You go where the power is," he says. "That's how you stay alive."
I put up a picture of his town burning, men and women and children burning with it.
He frowns harder. "These men will stay here as guards. Your orders are to set the Spackle a – clearing the fields and make sure they're fed and watered."
Davy rolls his eyes. "Well, we know that–"
But Ivan's already turning and heading out the gate, leaving behind ten men with rifles. They take up stayshuns standing on top of the monastery wall, already getting tow ork unrolling coils of barbed wire along its edge.
"Ten men with rifles and us against all these Spackle," I say, under my breath but all over my Noise.
"Ah, we'll be okay," Davy says. He raises his pistol at the Spackle nearest him, maybe a female, holding a Spackle baby. She turns the baby away so her body's protecting it. "They ain't got no fight in 'em anyway."
I see the face of the Spackle protecting her baby.
It's defeated, I think. They all are. And they know it.
I know how they feel.
"Hey, pigpiss, check it out," Davy says. He raises his arms in the air, getting all the Spackle eyes on him. "People of New Prentisstown!" he shouts, waving his arms about. "I read to you yer dooooooom?"
And he just laughs and laughs and laughs.
Davy decides to oversee the Spackle clearing the fields of scrub but that's only cuz that means I'm the one who'll have to shovel out the fodder from the storehouse for all of 'em to eat and then fill troughs for 'em to drink from.
But it's farmwork. I'm used to it. All the chores Ben and Cillian set me to doing every day. All the chores I used to complain about.
I wipe my eyes and get on with it.
The Spackle keep their distance from me as best they can while I work. Which, I gotta say, is okay by me. Cuz I find I can't really look 'em in the eyes. I keep my head down and carry on shoveling. Davy says his pa told him the Spackle worked as servantso r cooks but one of the Mayor's first orders was for everyone to keep 'em locked away in their homes till the army picked 'em up last night while I slept.
"People had 'em living in their back gardens," Davy says, watching me shovel as the morning turns to afternoon, eating what's sposed to be lunch for both of us. "Can you believe that? Like they're effing members of the family."
"Maybe they were," I say.
"Well they ain't no more," Davy says, rising and taking out his pistol. He grins at me. "Back to work."
I empty most of the storehouse of fodder but it still don't look like nearly enough. Plus, three of the five water pumps ain't working and by sunset, I've only managed to fix one.
"Time to go," Davy says.
"I ain't done," I say.
"Fine," he says, walking toward the gate. "Stay here on yer own then."
I look back at the Spackle. Now that the work day's thru, they've pushed themselves as far away from the soldiers and the front gates as possible.
As far away from me and Davy as possible, too.
I look back and forth twixt them and Davy leaving. They ain't got enough food. They ain't got enough water. There ain't no place to go to the toilet and no shelter of any kind at all.
I hold out my empty hands toward 'em but that don't do no kind of explaining that'll make anything okay. They just stare at me as I drop my hands and follow Davy out the gate.
"So much for being a man of courage, eh, pigpiss?" Davy – says, untying his horse, which he calls Deadfall but which only seems to answer to Acorn.
I ignore him cuz I'm thinking bout the Spackle. How I'll treat them well. I will. I'll see that they get enough water and food and I'll do everything I can to protect 'em.
I will.
I promise that to myself. Cuz that's what she'd want.
"Oh, I'll tell you what she really wants," Davy sneers. And we fight again.
New bedding's been put in the tower when I get back, a mattress and a sheet spread out on one side for me and another on the other side for Mayor Ledger, already sitting on his, Noise jangling, eating a bowl of stew. The bad smell's gone, too.
"Yes," says Mayor Ledger. "And guess who had to clean it up?"
It turns out he's been put to work as a rubbish man.
"Honest labor," he says to me, shrugging, but there are other sounds in his grayish Noise that make me think he don't believe it's very honest at all. "Symbolic, I suppose. I go from the top of the heap to the bottom. It'd be poetic if it weren't so obvious."
There's stew for me by my bed, too, and I take it to the window to look out over the town.
Which is starting to buzz .
As the cure leaves the systems of the men of the town,y ou begin to hear it. From inside the houses and buildings, from down the side streets and behind the trees.
Noise is returning to New Prentisstown.
It was hard for me to even walk thru old Prentisstown and that only ever had one hundred forty – six men in it. New Prentisstown's gotta have ten times that many. And boys, too.
I don't know how I'm gonna be able to bear it.
"You'll get used to it," Mayor Ledger says, finishing his stew. "Remember, I lived here for twenty years before we found a cure."
I close my eyes but all I see is a herd of Spackle, looking back at me. Judging me.
Mayor Ledger taps me on the shoulder and points at my bowl of stew. "Are you going to eat that?"
That night I dream-
About her-
The sun's shining behind her and I can't see her face and we're on a hillside and she's saying something but the roar of the falls behind us is too loud and I say "What?" and when I reach for her, I don't touch her but my hand comes back covered in blood–
"Viola!" I say, sitting up on my mattress in the dark, breathing heavy.
I look over to Mayor Ledger on his mattress, facing away from me, but his Noise ain't sleeping Noise, it's the gray – type Noise he has when he's awake.
"I know yer up," I say.
"You dream quite loud," he says, not looking back. "She someone important?"
"Never you mind."
"We just have to get through it, Todd," he says. "That's all any of us has to do now. Just stay alive and get through it." I turn to the wall.
There ain't nothing I can do. Not while they got her.
Not while I don't know.
Not while they could still hurt her.
Stay alive and get thru it, I think.
And I think of her out there.
And I whisper it, whisper it to her, wherever she is. "Stay alive and get thru it." Stay alive.
PART II HOUSE OF HEALING
5 VIOLA WAKES
***
(Viola)
"Calm yourself, my girl."
A voice-In the brightness-
I blink open my eyes. Everything is a pure white so bright it's almost a sound and there's a voice out there in it and my head is groggy and there's a pain in my side and it's too bright and I can't think-
Wait-
He was carrying me down the hill-Just now he was carrying me down the hill into Haven after-
"Todd?" I say, my voice a rasp, full of cotton and spit, but I run at it as hard as I can, forcing it out into the bright lights blinding my eyes. "TODD?"
"I said to calm yourself, now."
I don't recognize the voice, the voice of a woman-A woman.
"Who are you?" I ask, trying to sit up, pushing out my hands to feel what's around me, feeling the coolness of the air, the softness of-
A bed?
I feel panic begin to rise. "Where is he?" I shout. "TODD?"
"I don't know any Todd, my girl," the voice says as shapes start to come together, as the brightness separates into lesser brightnesses, "but I do know you're in no shape to be demanding information."
"You were shot," says another voice, another woman, younger than the first, off to my right.
"Hush your mouth, Madeleine Poole," says the first woman.
"Yes, Mistress Coyle."
I keep on blinking and I start to see what's right in front of me. I'm in a narrow white bed in a narrow white room. I'm wearing a thin white gown, tied at the back. A woman both tall and plump stands in front of me, a white coat with a blue outstretched hand stitched into it draped over her shoulders, her mouth set in a line, her expression solid. Mistress Coyle. Behind her at the door holding a bowl of steaming water is a girl not much older than me.
"I'm Maddy," says the girl, sneaking a smile.
"Out," says Mistress Coyle, without even turning her head. Maddy catches my eye as she leaves, another smile sent my way.
"Where am I?" I ask Mistress Coyle, my breath still fast. "Do you mean the room, my girl? Or the town?" She holds my eyes. "Or indeed the planet?"
"Please," I say and my eyes suddenly start to fill with water and I'm angry about that but I keep talking. "I was with a boy."
She sighs and looks away for a second, then she purses her lips and sits down in a chair next to the bed. Her face is stern, her hair pulled back in plaits so tight you could probably climb them, her body solid and big and not at all someone who you'd mess around with.
"I'm sorry," she says, almost tenderly. Almost. "I don't know anything about a boy." She frowns. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about anything except that you were brought to this house of healing yesterday morning so close to death I wasn't at all sure we would be able to bring you back. Except that we were informed in no uncertain terms that our survival rather depended upon yours."
She waits to see how I take this.
I have no idea how I take this.
Where is he? What have they done with him?
I turn away from her to try and think but I'm wrapped so tight in bandages around my middle I can't properly sit up.
Mistress Coyle runs a couple of fingers across her brow. "And now that you're back," she says, "I'm not at all sure you're going to thank us for the world to which we've returned you."
She tells me of Mayor Prentiss arriving in Haven in front of the rumor of an army, a big one, big enough to crush the town without effort, big enough to set the whole world ablaze. She tells me of the surrender of someone called Mayor Ledger, of how he shouted down the few people who wanted to fight, of how most people agreed to let him "hand over the town on a plate with a bow tied round it."
"And then the houses of healing," she says, real anger coming off her voice, "suddenly became prisons for the women inside."
"So you're a doctor, then?" I ask, but all I can feel is my chest pulling in on itself, sinking as if under an enormous weight, sinking because we failed, sinking because outrunning the army proved to be of no use at all.
Her mouth curls in a small smile, a secret one, like I just let something go. But it's not cruel and I'm finding myself less afraid of her, of what this room might mean, less afraid for myself, more afraid for him.
"No, my girl," she says, cocking her head. "As I'm sure you know, there are no women doctors on New World. I'm a healer."
"What's the difference?"
She runs her fingers across her brow again. "What's the difference indeed?" She drops her hands in her lap and looks at them. "Even though we're locked up," she says, "we still hear rumors, you see. Rumors of men and women being separated all over town, rumors of the army arriving perhaps this very day, rumors of slaughter coming over the hill to vanquish us all no matter how well we surrendered."
She's looking at me hard now. "And then there's you."
I look away from her. "I'm not anyone special."
"Are you not?" She looks unconvinced. "A girl whose arrival the whole town has to be cleared for? A girl whose life I am ordered to save on pain of my own? A girl"-she leans forward to make sure I'm listening-'fresh from the great black beyond?"
I stop breathing for a second and hope she doesn't notice. "Where'd you get an idea like that?"
She grins again, not unkindly. "I'm a healer. The first thing I ever see is skin and so I know it well. Skin tells the story of a person, where they've been, what they've eaten, who they are. You've got some surface wear, my girl, but the rest of your skin is the softest and whitest I've seen in my twenty years of doing the good work. Too soft and white for a planet of farmers."
I'm still not looking at her.
"And then there are the rumors, of course, brought in by the refugees, of more settlers on the way. Thousands of them."
"Please," I say quietly, my eyes welling up again. I try to force them to stop.
"And no girl from New World would ever ask a woman if she was a doctor," she finishes.
I swallow. I put a hand to my mouth. Where is he? I don't care about any of this because where is he?
"I know you're frightened," Mistress Coyle says. "But we're suffering from an excess of fright here in this town and there's nothing I can do about that." She reaches out a rough hand to touch my arm. "But maybe you can do something to help us."
I swallow but I don't say anything.
There's only one person I can trust.
And he's not here.
Mistress Coyle leans back in her chair. "We did save your life," she says. "A little knowledge could be a large comfort." I breathe in deep, looking around the room, around at the sunlight streaming in from a window looking out onto trees and a river, the river, the one we followed into what was supposed to be safety. It seems impossible that anything bad could be happening anywhere on a day so bright, that there's any danger on the doorstep, that there's an army coming.
But there is an army coming.
There is.
And it won't be any friend to Mistress Coyle, no matter what's happened to-
I feel a little pain in my chest.
But I take a breath.
And I start to talk.
"My name," I say, "is Viola Eade."
"More settlers, huh?" Maddy says with a smile. I'm lying on my side as she unwraps the long bandage around my middle. The underside is covered in blood, my skin dusty and rust colored where it's dried. There's a little hole in my stomach, tied up with fine string.
"Why doesn't this hurt?" I say.
"Jeffers root on the bandages," Maddy says. "Natural opiate. You won't feel any pain but you won't be able to go to the toilet for a month either. Plus, you'll be sound asleep in about five minutes."
I touch the skin around the bullet wound, gently, gently. There's another on my back where the bullet went in. "Why aren't I dead?"
"Would you rather be dead?" She smiles again, whichc hanges to the smiliest frown I've ever seen. "I shouldn't joke. Mistress Coyle's always saying I lack the proper seriousness to be a healer." She dips a cloth in a basin of hot water and starts washing the wounds. "You aren't dead because Mistress Coyle is the best healer in all of Haven, better than any of those so – called doctors they've got in this town. Even the bad guys know that. Why do you think they brought you here instead of a clinic?"
She's wearing the same long white coat as Mistress Coyle but she's also got on a short white cap with the blue outstretched hand stitched on it, which she told me is something apprentices wear. She can't be more than a year or two older than me, whatever way they measure age on this planet, but her hands are sure, gentle, and firm all around the wounds.
"So," she says, her voice deceptively light. "How bad are these bad guys?"
The door opens. A short girl in another apprentice cap leans in, young as Maddy but with dark brown skin and a storm cloud hanging over her head. "Mistress Coyle says you need to finish up right now."
Maddy doesn't look up from taping new bandages to my front. "Mistress Coyle knows I've only had time to get halfway done."
"We've been summoned," says the girl.
"You say that like we get summoned all the time, Corinne." The bandages are almost as good as the ones I had from my ship, the medicine on them already cooling my torso, already making my eyelids heavy. Maddy finishes on the front and turns to cut another set for my back. "I am in the middle of a healing."
"A man came by with a gun," Corinne says. Maddy stops bandaging.
"Everyone's been called to the town square," Corinne continues. "Which includes you, Maddy Poole, healing or not." She crosses her arms hard. "I'll bet it's the army coming."
Maddy looks me in the eyes. I look away.
"We'll finally see what our end looks like," Corinne says.
Maddy rolls her eyes. "Always so cheerful, you," she says. "Tell Mistress Coyle I'll be out in two ticks."
Corinne gives her a sour look but leaves. Maddy finishes up the bandages on my back, by which time I can barely stay awake.
"You sleep now," Maddy says. "It'll be all right, you just watch. Why would they save you if they were going to ..." She doesn't finish the thought, just scrunches her lips and then smiles. "I'm always saying Corinne's got enough proper seriousness in her for all of us put together."
Her smile is the last thing I see before I sleep.
"TODD!"
I jolt awake again, the nightmare dashing away, Todd slipping from me-
I hear a clunk and I see a book drop from Maddy's lap as she blinks herself awake in the chair by the bed. Night's fallen, and the room is dark, just a little lamp on where Maddy was meant to have been reading.
"Who's Todd?" she asks, yawning, already smiling through it. "Your boyfriend?" The look on my face makes her drop the tease immediately. "Someone important?"
I nod, still breathing heavily from the nightmare, my hair plastered to my forehead with sweat. "Someone important."
She pours me a glass of water from a pitcher on the bedside table. "What happened?" I say, taking a drink. "You were summoned."
"Ah, yes, that," Maddy says, sitting back. "That was interesting."
She tells me about how everyone in the entire town – not Haven anymore, New Prentisstown, a name that makes my stomach sink – gathered to watch the army march in and watch the new Mayor execute the old one.
"Except he didn't," Maddy says. "He spared him. Said he would spare all of us, too. That he was taking away the Noise cure, which the men weren't too happy about and good Lord it's been nice not to hear it yammering for the past six months, but that we should all know our place and remember who we were and that we would make a new home together in preparation for all the settlers that were coming."
She widens her eyes, waits for me to say something.
"I didn't understand half of that," I say. "There's a cure?"
She shakes her head but not to say no. "Boy, you really aren't from around here, are you?"
I set down the glass of water, leaning forward and lowering my voice to a whisper. "Maddy, is there a communications hub near here?"
She looks at me like I just asked her if she'd like to move with me to one of the moons. "So I can contact the ships," I say. "It might be a big, curved dish? Or a tower, maybe?"
She looks thoughtful. "There's an old metal tower up in the hills," she says, also whispering, "but I'm not even sure it is a communications tower. It's been abandoned for ages. Besides, you won't be able to get to it. There's a whole army out there, Vi."
"How big?"
"Big enough." We're both still whispering. "People are saying they're separating out the last of the women tonight."
"To do what?"
Maddy shrugs. "Corinne said a woman in the crowd told her they rounded up the Spackle, too."
I sit up, pressing against the bandages. "Spackle?"
"They're the native species here."
"I know who they are." I sit up even more, straining against the bandage. "Todd told me things, told me what happened before. Maddy, if the Mayor's separating out women and Spackle, then we're in danger. We're in the worst kind of danger."
I push back my sheets to get up but a sudden bolt of lightning rips through my stomach. I call out and fall back.
"Pulled a stitch," Maddy tuts, standing right up.
"Please." I grit my teeth against the pain. "We have to get out of here. We have to run."
"You're in no position to run anywhere," she says, reaching for my bandage.
Which is when the Mayor walks in the door.
6 SIDES OF THE STORIES
