Текст книги "The Ask and the Answer"

Автор книги: Patrick Ness

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

I don't hardly see him no more, not since the day of my arm break, not since the day I sorta got to see Viola again. Mayor Ledger says he's arresting people and stuffing 'em in prisons west of town but not getting the knowledge he wants out of 'em. Mr. Morgan, Mr. O'Hare, and Mr. Tate are leading parts of the army off into the hills west of town looking for the camps of the bomb – planters, who are all these women who disappeared the night of the first bombs.

But the army ain't finding nothing and the Mayor just gets madder and madder, making more and more curfews, taking away more and more cure from his soldiers.

New Prentisstown gets louder by the day.

"The Mayor's denying the Answer even exists," I say.

"Well, the President can say anything he likes." Mayor Ledger pokes at his dinner with a fork. "But people talk." He takes another bite. "Oh, yes, they do."

In addishun to the mattresses wedged in on the tower ledges, they've put in a basin with fresh water every morning and a little chemical toilet back in the darkest corner. We're also getting better food, brought to us by Mr. Collins, who then locks us back inside.

Ker – thunk.

That's where I am, locked up here every minute I'm not with Davy. The Mayor obviously don't want me out looking for Viola, despite what he says about trust.

"We don't know it's just women," I say, trying to keep her outta my Noise. "We don't know for sure."

"A group calling themselves the Answer played a role in the Spackle War, Todd. Covert bombing, nighttime operations, that sort of thing."

"And?"

"And it was all women. No Noise to be heard by the enemy, you see." He shakes his head. "But they got out of hand at the end, became a law unto themselves. After the peace, they even attacked our own city. We were finally forced to execute some of them. A nasty business."

"But if you executed them, how can it be them?"

"Because an idea lives on after the death of the person." He burps quietly. "I don't know what they think they're going to accomplish, though. It's only a matter of time before the President finds them."

"Men have gone missing, too," I say, cuz it's true but what I'm thinking is–

(did she go with em?)

I lick my lips. "These healing houses where women work," I say, "are they marked somehow? Some way to tell what they are?"

He takes a sip of his water, watching me over his cup. "Why do you want to know a thing like that?"

I rustle my Noise a little to hide anything that might give me away. "No reason," I say. "Never mind." I set my dinner on the little table they've given us, our agreed sign that he can eat the rest of mine. "I'm gonna sleep."

I lay back on my bed and face the wall. The last of the setting sun's coming thru the openings in the tower. There ain't no glass in the openings and winter's coming. I don't know how we're gonna get thru the cold. I put my arm under my pillow and pull my legs up to me, trying not to think too loud. I can hear Mayor Ledger eating the rest of my dinner.

But then a picture comes floating from his Noise, floating right over to me, a picture of an outstretched hand, painted in blue.

I turn to look at him. I've seen the hand on at least two different buildings on the way to the monastery.

"There are five of them," he says, his voice low. "I can tell you where they are. If you want."

I look into his Noise. He looks into mine. We're both covering something, hiding something beneath all the other strands of our thoughts. All these days locked together and we're still wondering if we can trust each other.

"Tell me," I say.

"1017," I read out to Davy as he spins the bolting tool around, latching the band to a Spackle who instantly becomes 1017.

"That's enough for today," Davy says, tossing the bolting tool in the bag.

"We've still got-"

"I said that's enough." He limps back over to our bottle of water and takes a swig. His leg should be healed by now. My arm is, but he still limps.

"We were sposed to be done with this in a week," I say. "We're going on two now."

"I don't see no one hurrying us along." He spits out some water. "Do you?"

"No, but-"

"And no further instruckshuns and no new jobs ..." He trails off, takes another swig of water, and spits some more. He glares to my left. "What're you looking at?"

1017 is still standing there, holding the band with one hand and staring at us. I think it's a male and I think it's young, not quite an adult. It clicks at us once and then once again and even tho it ain't got Noise the click sure sounds like something rude. D avy thinks so, too. "Oh, yeah?" He reaches for the rifle slung on his back, his Noise firing it again and again at fleeing Spackle.

1017 stands his ground. He looks me in the eye and clicks again.

Yeah, definitely rude.

He backs off, walking away but still staring at us, one hand rubbing his metal band. I turn to Davy, who's got his rifle up and pointed at 1017 as he goes.

"Don't," I say.

"Why not?" Davy says. "Who's gonna stop us?" I don't got the answer, cuz it seems there's nobody.

The bombs have come every third or fourth day. No one knows where they'll be or how they're planted, but BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The evening of the sixth bomb, a small fission reactor this time, Mayor Ledger comes in with a blackened eye and a swollen nose. "What happened?" I ask.

"Soldiers." He spits. He takes up his dinner plate, stew again, and winces as he takes the first bite. "What did you do?"

His Noise rises a little and he turns an angry eye on me. "I didn't do anything."

"You know what I mean."

He grumbles some, eats some more stew, then says, "Some of them got the brilliant idea that I was the Answer. Me."

"You?" I say, maybe a bit too surprised. He stands, setting down his stew, mostly uneaten, so I know he must be really sore. "They can't find the women responsible and the soldiers are looking for someone to blame." He stares outta one of the openings, watching night fall across the town that was once his home. "And did our President do anything to stop my beating?" he says, almost to himself. "No, he did not."

I keep eating, trying to keep my Noise quiet of things I don't wanna think.

"People are talking," Mayor Ledger says, keeping his voice low, "about a new healer, a young one no one's ever seen before, going in and out of this very cathedral a while back, now working at the house of healing Mistress Coyle used to run."

Viola, I think, loud and clear before I can cover it.

Mayor Ledger turns to me. "That's one you won't have seen. It's off the main road and down a little hill toward the river about halfway to the monastery. There are two barns together on the road where you need to turn." He looks out the opening again. "You can't miss it."

"I can't get away from Davy," I say.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Mayor Ledger says, lying back down on his bed. "I'm merely telling you idle facts about our fair city."

My breathing gets heavier, my mind and Noise racing thru possibilities about how I can get there, how I can get away from Davy to find the house of healing.

(to find her)

It isn't till later that I think to ask, "Who's Mistress Coyle?" Even tho it's dark, I can feel Mayor Ledger's Noise get a little redder. "Ah, well," he says, into the night. "She'd be your Answer, wouldn't she?"

"That's the last of 'em," I say, watching Spackle 1182 slink away, rubbing her wrist.

"About effing time," Davy says, flopping down onto the grass. There's a crispness to the air but the sun is out and the sky is mostly clear.

"What are we sposed to do now?" I say.

"No effing idea."

I stand there and watch the Spackle. If you didn't know no better, you really wouldn't think they were much smarter than sheep.

"They ain't," Davy says, closing his eyes to the sun.

"Shut up," I say.

But I mean, look at 'em, tho.

They just sit on the grass, still no Noise, not saying nothing, half of 'em staring at us, half of 'em staring at each other, clicking now and then but hardly ever moving, not doing nothing with their hands or their time. All these white faces, looking drained of life, just sitting by the walls, waiting and waiting for something, whatever that something's gonna be.

"And the time for that something is now, Todd," booms a voice behind us. Davy scrambles to his feet as the Mayor comes in thru the main opening, his horse tied up outside.

But he looks at me, only me. "Ready for your new job?"

***

"Ain't barely talked to me for weeks," Davy's fuming as we ride home. Things didn't go so well twixt him and his pa. "Just keep watch on Todd this and hurry up with the Spackle that." His hands're gripped tightly round the reins. "Do I even get a thank you? Do I even get a nice job, David?"

"We were sposed to band the Spackle in a week," I say, repeating what the Mayor told him. "It took us more'n twice that."

He turns to me, his Noise really rising red. "We got attacked. How's that sposed to be my fault?"

"I ain't saying it was," I say back but my Noise is remembering the band around 0038's neck.

"So you blame me, too, do you?" He's stopped his horse and is glaring at me, leaning forward in the saddle, ready to jump off.

I open my mouth to answer but then I glance down the road behind him.

There's two barns by a turning in the road, a turning that heads down to the river.

I look back to Davy quickly.

He's got an evil smile. "What's down there?"

"Nothing."

"Yer girl, ain't it?" he sneers. "Eff you, Davy."

"No, pigpiss," he says, sliding off his saddle to the ground, his Noise rising even redder. "Eff you." There ain't nothing to do but fight.

***

"Soldiers?'' Mayor Ledger asks, seeing my bruises and blood as I come into the tower for dinner.

"Never you mind," I growl. It was me and Davy's worst fight in ages. I'm so sore I can barely reach my bed.

"You going to eat that?" Mayor Ledger asks.

A certain word in my Noise lets him know that no, I ain't gonna eat that. He picks it up and starts chomping away without even a thank you.

"You trying to eat yer way to freedom?" I say.

"Says a boy who's always had food provided for him."

"I ain't a boy."

"The supplies we brought when we landed only lasted a year," he says, twixt mouthfuls, "by which time our hunting and farming wasn't quite up to where it should have been." He takes another bite. "Lean times make you appreciate a hot meal, Todd."

"What is it about men that makes them need to turn everything into a lesson?" I cover my face with my arm, then take it away cuz of how much my blackening eye hurts.

Night falls again. The air is even cooler and I leave most of my clothes on as I get under the blanket. Mayor Ledger starts to snore, dreaming about walking in a house with endless rooms and not being able to find the exit.

This is the safest time I got to think about her.

Cuz is she really out there?

And is she part of this Answer thing?

And other things, too.

Like what would she say if she saw me? If she saw what I did every day? And with who?

I swallow the cool night air and blink away the wet in my eyes.

(are you still with me, Viola?) (are you?)

An hour later and I'm still not asleep. Something's nagging at me and I'm turning in my sheets, trying to clear my Noise of whatever it is, trying to calm down enough so I can be ready for the new job the Mayor's got planned for us tomorrow, one which don't sound all that bad, if I'm honest.

But it's like I'm missing something, something obvious, right in front of my face.

Something–

I sit up, listening to the snoring Noise of Mayor Ledger, the sleeping roar of New Prentisstown outside, the night birds chirping, even the river rushing by in the distance.

There was no ker – thunk sound after Mr. Collins let me in.

I think back.

Definitely not.

I look thru the darkness toward the door.

He forgot to lock it.

Right now, right this second.

It's unlocked.

ii 16 WHO ARE YOU

***

(Viola )

"I HEAR NOISE OUTSIDE," Mrs. Fox says as I refill her water jug for the night.

"It'd only be remarkable if you didn't, Mrs. Fox."

"Just by the window-"

"Soldiers smoking their cigarettes."

"No, I'm sure it was-"

"I'm really very busy, Mrs. Fox, if you don't mind." I replace her pillows and empty her bedpan. She doesn't speak again until I'm almost ready to go.

"Things aren't like they used to be," she says quietly. "You can say that again."

"Haven used to be better," she says. "Not perfect. But better than this."

And she just looks out of her window.

I'm dying with tiredness at the end of my rounds but I sit downo n my bed and take out the note that hasn't left my pocket. I read it for the hundredth, thousandth time.

My girl,

Now is the time you must choose.

Can we count on you?

The Answer

Not even a name, not even her name.

Almost three weeks I've had this note. Three weeks and nothing, so maybe that's how much they think they can count on me. Not another note, not another sign, just stuck here in this house with Corinne – or Mistress Wyatt, as I have to call her now – and the patients. Women who've fallen sick in the normal course of things, yes, but also women who've returned from "interviews" with the Mayor's men about the Answer, women with bruises and cuts, women with broken ribs, broken fingers, broken arms. Women with burns.

And those are the lucky ones, the ones who aren't in prison.

And every third or fourth day, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And more are arrested and more are sent here. And there's no word from Mistress Coyle. And no word from the Mayor.

No word about why I'm being left alone. You'd think I'd be the one who'd be taken in first, the one who'd have interview after interview, the one who'd be sitting rotting in a prison cell.

"But nothing," I whisper. "Nothing at all."

And no word from Todd. I close my eyes. I'm too tired to feel anything. Every day, I look for ways to get to the communications tower but there are soldiers everywhere now, way too many to find a pattern, and it only gets worse with each new bomb.

"I've got to do something," I say out loud. "I have to or I'll go crazy." I laugh. "I'll go crazy and start talking to myself."

I laugh some more, a lot more than how funny it actually is.

And there's a knock at my window.

I sit up, my heart pumping.

"Mistress Coyle?" I say.

Is this it? Is it now?

Is this where I have to choose?

Can they count on me?

(but is that Noise I can hear...?)

I get to my knees on the bed and pull the curtains back just far enough to look through a slit outside, expecting that frown, those fingers going over her forehead-

But it's not her.

It's not her at all.

"Todd!"

And I'm throwing back the sash and lifting up the glass and he's leaning in and his Noise is saying my name and I'm putting my arms around him and dragging him inside, actually lifting him off the ground and pulling him through my window and he's climbing up and we fall onto my bed and I'm on my back and he's lying on top of me and my face is close to his and I remember how we were like this after we'd jumped under the waterfall with Aaron right behind us and I looked right into his eyes.

And I knew we'd be safe.

"Todd."

In the light of my room, I see his eye is blackened and there's blood on his nose and I'm saying, "What happened? Are you hurt? I can-"

But he just says, "It's you."

I don't know how much time passes with us just lying there, just feeling that the other is really there, really true, really alive, feeling the safety of him, his weight against mine, the roughness of his fingers touching my face, his warmth and his smell and the dustiness of his clothes, and we barely speak and his Noise is roiling with feeling, with complicated things, with memories of me being shot, of how he felt when he thought I was dying, of how I feel now at his fingertips, but at the front of it all, he's just saying, Viola, Viola, Viola.

And it's Todd.

Bloody hell, it's Todd.

And everything's all right.

And then there are footsteps in the hall.

Footsteps that stop right outside my room.

We both look toward the door. A shadow is cast underneath it, two legs of someone standing just on the other side.

I wait for the knock.

I wait for the order to get him out of here. I wait for the fight I'll put up. But then the feet walk away. "Who was that?" Todd asks.

"Mistress Wyatt," I say, and I can hear the surprise in my own voice.

"And then the bombs started going off," I finish, "and he only called for me twice, early on, to ask me if I knew anything and I didn't, I truly didn't, and then that was it. Nothing. That's all I know about him, I swear."

"He ain't barely spoken to me since the bombs neither," Todd says, looking down at his feet. "I was worried it was you setting 'em off."

I see the bridge blowing up in his Noise. I see me being the one to do it. "No," I say, thinking of the note in my pocket. "It wasn't me."

Todd swallows, then he says simply, clearly, "Should we run?"

"Yes," I say, betraying Corinne so fast I feel a red blush of shame already coming over me, but yes, we should run, we should run and run.

"Where, tho?" he asks. "Where is there to go?" I open my mouth to answer-But I hesitate.

"Where are the Answer hiding?" he asks. "Can we go there?"

And I notice some tension in his Noise, disapproval and reluctance.

The bombs. He doesn't like the bombs either. I see a picture of some dead soldiers in the wreckage of a cafe.

But there's more, too, isn't there? I hesitate again.

I'm wondering, just for the briefest moment, just as if it's a fly I'm brushing away, I'm wondering-I'm wondering if I can tell him.

"I don't know," I say. "I really don't. They didn't tell me in case I couldn't be trusted." Todd looks up at me.

And for a second, I see the doubt on his face, too.

"You don't trust me," I say, before I think to stop.

"You don't trust me neither," he says. "Yer wondering if I'm working for the Mayor right now. And yer wondering what took me so long to find you." He looks down sadly at the floor again. "I can still read you," he says. "Nearly as well as my own self."

I look at him, into his Noise. "You wonder if I'm part of the Answer. You think it's something I'd do."

He doesn't look at me, but he nods. "I was just trying to stay alive, looking for ways to find you, hoping you hadn't left me behind."

"Never," I say. "Not ever."

He looks back up at me. "I'd never leave you neither."

"You promise?"

"Cross my heart, hope to die," he says, grinning shyly.

"I promise, too," I say and I smile at him. "I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, not never again."

He smiles harder when I say ain't but it fades and then I see him gathering his Noise to tell me something, something difficult, something he's ashamed of, but before he does, I want him to know, I want him to know for sure.

"I think they're at the ocean," I say. "Mistress Coyle told me a story about it before she left. I think she was trying to tell me that's where they were going."

He looks back up at me.

"Now tell me I don't trust you, Todd Hewitt."

And then I see my mistake.

"What?" he says, seeing the look on my face.

"It's in your Noise," I say, standing up. "Todd, it's all over your Noise. Ocean, over and over and over again."

"It ain't on purpose," he says but his eyes are widening and I see the door of his cell left unlocked and I see a man in the cell with him telling him where I am and I see asking marks rising-

"I'm so stupid," Todd says, standing, too. "Such an effing idiot! We need to go. Now!"

"Todd-"

"How far away is the ocean?"

"Two days' ride-"

"Four days' walk then." He's pacing now. His Noise says Ocean again , clear as a bomb itself. He sees me looking at him, sees me seeing it. "I'm not spying on you," he says. "I'm not, but he musta left the door open so I'd-" He pulls his hair in frustration. "I'll hide it. I hid the truth about Aaron and I can hide this."

My stomach flutters, remembering what the Mayor said to me about Aaron.

"But we have to go," Todd's saying. "Do you have any food we can take?"

"I can get some," I say. "Hurry."

As I turn to leave, I hear my name in his Noise. Viola, it says, and it's covered in worry, worry that we've been set up, worry that I think he was sent here on purpose, worry that I think he's lying, and all I can do is just look at him and think his name.

Todd.

And hope he knows what I mean.

I burst into the canteen and run to the cabinets. I leave most of the lights off, trying to keep quiet as I grab meal – packs and loaves of bread.

"That fast, huh?" Corinne says.

She's sitting at a table far back in the darkness, cup of coffee in front of her. "Your friend shows up and you just leave." She stands and walks over to me.

"I have to," I say. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" she says, eyebrows raised. "And what happens here, then? What happens to all the patients who need you?"

"I'm a terrible healer, Corinne, all I do is wash and feed them-"

"So that I can have time to do the very little healing that I'm capable of."

"Corinne-"

Her eyes flash. "Mistress Wyatt."I sigh. "Mistress Wyatt," I say and then I think and say it at the same time. "Come with us!"

She looks startled, threatened almost. "What?"

"Can't you see where this is all headed? Women in prison, women with injuries. Can't you see this isn't going to get any better?"

"Not with bombs going off every day, it isn't."

"It's the President who's the enemy," I say. She crosses her arms. "You think you can have just one enemy?"

"Corinne-"

"A healer doesn't take life," she says. "A healer never takes life. Our first oath is to do no harm."

"The bombs are set for empty targets."

"Which aren't always empty, are they?" She shakes her head, her face looking suddenly sad, sadder than I've ever seen it. "I know who I am, Viola. In my soul, I know it. I heal the sick, I heal the wounded, that's who I am."

"If we stay here, they'll eventually come for us."

"If we leave, patients will die." She doesn't even sound angry anymore, which is scarier than before.

"And if you're taken in?" I say, my voice getting challenging. "Who'll heal them then?"

"I was hoping you would."

I just breathe for a second. "It's not that simple."

"It is to me."

"Corinne, if I can get away, if I can contact my people-"

"Then what? They're still five months away, you said. Five months is a long time."

I turn back to the cabinets, continue filling the sack with food. "I have to try," I say. "I have to do something." I turn back to her, bag full. "That's who I am." I think of Todd, waiting for me, and my heart races faster. "That's who I've become, anyway."

She regards me quietly and then she quotes something Mistress Coyle once said to me. "We are the choices we make."

It takes me a second to realize she's just said good – bye.

"What took so long?" Todd says, anxiously looking out of the window.

"Nothing," I say. "I'll tell you later."

"You got the food?" I hold up the bag.

"And I'm guessing we just follow the river again?" he says. "I guess so."

He takes a second to look at me awkwardly, trying not to smile. "Here we go again."

And I feel this funny rush and I know that however much danger we're in, the rush is happiness and he feels it, too, and we clasp hands hard for just a second and then he stands on the bed, puts a leg on the sill and jumps through.

I pass the bag of food to him and climb out, my shoes thudding on the hard mud. "Todd," I whisper.

"Yeah?"

"Someone told me there's a communications tower somewhere outside of town," I say. "It's probably surrounded by soldiers but I was thinking if we could find it-"

"Big metal tower?" he interrupts. "Higher than the trees?" I blink. "Probably," I say and my eyes open wide. "You know where it is?"

He nods. "I pass it every day."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," he says and I see it in his Noise, I see the road-

"And I think finally that's enough," says a voice from the darkness.

A voice we both recognize.

The Mayor steps out of the blackness, a row of soldiers behind him.

"Good evening to you both," he says. And I hear a flash of Noise from the Mayor. And Todd collapses.

17 HARD LABOR

***

[TODD]

It's a sound but it's not a sound and it's louder than anything possible and it would burst yer eardrums if you were hearing it with yer ears rather than the inside of yer head and everything goes white and it's not just like I'm blind but deaf and dumb and frozen, too, and the pain of it comes from right deep down within so there's no part of yerself you can grab to protect it, just a stinging, burning slap right into the middle of who you are.

This is what Davy felt, every time he got hit with the Mayor's Noise. And it's words-All it is is words-

But it's every word, crammed into yer head all at once, and the whole world is shouting at you that YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING and it rips away every word of yer own, like pulling yer hair out at the roots and taking skin with it–

A flash of words and I'm nothing-I 'm nothing-YER NOTHING–

And I fall to the ground and the Mayor can do whatever he wants with me.

I don't wanna talk about what happens next.

The Mayor leaves some soldiers behind to guard the house of healing and the others drag me back to the cathedral and he don't say nothing as we go, not a word as I beg him not to hurt her, as I promise and scream and cry (shut up) that I'll do anything he wants as long as he don't hurt her.

(shut up, shut up)

When we get back, he ties me to the chair again.

And lets Mr. Collins go to town.

And-

And I don't wanna talk about it.

Cuz I cry and I throw up and I beg and I call out her name and I beg some more and it all shames me so much I can't even say it.

And all thru it, the Mayor says nothing. He just walks round me, over and over again, listening to me yell, listening to me plead.

Listening to my Noise beneath it all.

And I tell myself that I'm doing all this yelling, all this begging, to hide in my Noise what she told me, to keep her safe, to keep him from knowing. I tell myself I have to cry and beg as loud as I can so he won't hear.

(shut up)

That's what I tell myself. And I don't wanna say no more about it. (just effing shut the hell up)

By the time I get back in the tower, it's nearly morning and Mayor Ledger's waiting up for me and even tho I'm in no fitness to do anything, I'm wondering if maybe he played a part in all this somehow but his instant concern for me, his horror at the shape I'm in, it all sounds true in his Noise, so true that I just lie slowly down on the mattress and don't know what to think.

"They barely even came in," he says, standing behind me. "Collins just opened the door, took a look, then locked me in again. It's like they knew."

"Yeah," I say into my pillow. "It sure is like they knew."

"I had nothing to do with it, Todd," he says, reading me. "I swear to you. I'd never help that man."

"Just leave me be," I say.

And he does.

I don't sleep.

I burn.

I burn with the stupidity of how easy they trapped me, how easy it was to use her against me. I burn with the shame of crying at the beating (shut up). I burn with the ache of being taken from her again, the ache of her promise to me, the ache of not knowing what's going to happen to her now.

I don't care nothing bout what they do to me.

Eventually, the sun rises and I find out my punishment.

Put yer back into it, pigpiss."

"Shut it, Davy." Our new job is putting the Spackle to work in groups, digging up foundayshuns for new buildings in the monastery grounds, new buildings that'll house the Spackle for the coming winter.

My punishment is, I'm working right down there with 'em.

My punishment is, Davy's in complete charge. My punishment is, he's got a new whip. "C'mon," he says, slashing it against my shoulders. "Work!"

I spin round, every bit of me sore and aching. "You hit me with that again, I'll tear yer effing throat out."

He smiles, all teeth, his Noise a joyous shout of triumph. "Like to see you try, Mr. Hewitt."

And he just laughs.

I turn back to my shovel. The Spackle in my group are all staring at me. I ain't had no sleep and my fingers are cold in the sharp, morning sun and I can't help myself and I shout at 'em. "Get back to work!"

They make a few clicking sounds one to another and start digging at the ground again with their hands.

All except one, who looks at me a minute longer.

I stare at him, seething, my Noise riled and raging right at him. He just takes it silently, his breath steaming from his mouth, his eyes daring me to do something. He holds up his wrist, like he's identifying himself, as if I don't know which one he is, then he returns to working the cold earth as slowly as he can.

1017 is the only one who ain't afraid of us.

I take my shovel and stab it hard into the ground.

"Enjoying yerself?" Davy calls.

I put something in my Noise, rude as I can think of.

"Oh, my mother's long dead," he says. "Just like yers." Then he laughs. "I wonder if she talked as much in real life as she wrote in her little book."

I straighten up, my Noise rising red. "Davy-"

"Cuz boy, don't she go on for pages."

"One of these days, Davy," I say, my Noise so fierce I can almost see it bending the air like a heat shimmer. "One of these days, I'm gonna-"

"You're going to what, dear boy?" the Mayor says, riding thru the entrance on Morpeth. "I can hear you two arguing from out on the road." He turns his gaze to Davy. "And arguing is not working."

"Oh, I got 'em working, Pa," Davy says, nodding out to the fields.

And it's true. Me and the Spackle are all separated into teams of ten or twenty, spread out among the whole enclosed bit of the monastery, removing stones from the low internal walls and pulling up the sod in the fields. Others are piling the dug – up dirt in other fields and my group here near the front have already dug parts of the trenches for the foundayshuns of the first building. I've got a shovel. The Spackle have to use their hands.

"Not bad," the Mayor says. "Not bad at all."

Davy's Noise is so pleased it's embarrassing. Nobody looks at him.

"And you, Todd?" The Mayor turns to me. "How is your morning progressing?"

"Please don't hurt her," I say.

"Please don't hurt her," Davy mocks.

"For the last time, Todd," the Mayor says, "I'm not going to hurt her. I'm just going to talk with her. In fact, I'm on my way to speak with her right now."