Текст книги "The Knife of Never Letting Go"

Автор книги: Patrick Ness

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

She leads me to a kitchen as clean and bright as the bedroom. River still rushing by outside, birds still Noisy, music still–

“What is that music?” I say, going to the window to look out. Sometimes it seems like I reckernize it but when I listen close, it’s voices changing over voices, running around itself.

“It’s from loudspeakers up in the main settlement,” Viola says, taking a plate of cold meat outta the fridge.

I sit down at the table. “Is there some kinda festival going on?”

“No,” she says, in a way that means just wait. “Not a festival.” She gets out bread and some orange fruit I ain’t never seen before and then some red-coloured drink that tastes of berries and sugar.

I dig into the food. “Tell me.”

“Doctor Snow is a good man,” she says, like I need to know this first. “Everything about him is good and kind and he worked so hard to save you, Todd, I mean it.”

“Okay. So what’s up?”

“That music plays all day and all night,” she says, watching me eat. “It’s faint here at the house, but in the settlement, you can’t hear yourself think.”

I pause at a mouthful of bread. “Like the pub.”

“What pub?”

“The pub in Prent–” I stop. “Where do they think we’re from?”

“Farbranch.”

I sigh. “I’ll do my best.” I take a bite of the fruit. “The pub where I come from played music all the time to try and drown out the Noise.”

She nods. “I asked Doctor Snow why they did it here, and he said, ‘To keep men’s thoughts private’.”

I shrug. “It makes an awful racket, but it kinda makes sense, don’t it? One way to deal with the Noise.”

“Men’s thoughts, Todd,” she says. “Men. And you notice he said he was going to ask the eldermen to come seek out your advice?”

I get a horrible thought. “Did the women all die here, too?”

“Oh, there’s women,” she says, fiddling with a butter knife. “They clean and they cook and they make babies and they all live in a big dormitory outside of town where they can’t interfere in men’s business.”

I put down a forkful of meat. “I saw a place like that when I was coming to find you. Men sleeping in one place, women in another.”

“Todd,” she says, looking at me. “They wouldn’t listen to me. Not one thing. Not a word I said about the army. They kept calling me little girl and practically patting me on the bloody head.” She crosses her arms. “The only reason they want to talk to you about it now is because caravans of refugees started showing up on the river road.”

“Wilf,” I say.

Her eyes scan over me, reading my Noise. “Oh,” she says. “No, I haven’t seen him.”

“Wait a minute.” I swallow some more drink. It feels like I haven’t drunk anything for years. “How did we get so far ahead of the army? How come if I’ve been here five days we ain’t been overrun yet?”

“We were in that boat for a day and a half,” she says, running her nail at something stuck on the table.

“A day and a half,” I repeat, thinking about this. “We musta come miles.”

“Miles and miles,” she says. “I just let us float and float and float. I was too afraid to stop at the places I passed. You wouldn’t believe some of the things . . .” She drifts off, shaking her head.

I remember Jane’s warnings. “Naked people and glass houses?” I ask.

Viola looks at me strange. “No,” she says, curling her lip. “Just poverty. Just horrible, horrible poverty. Some of those places looked like they would have eaten us so I just kept on and on and you got sicker and sicker and then on the second morning I saw Doctor Snow and Jacob out fishing and I could see in his Noise he was a doctor and as weird as this place is about women, it’s at least clean.”

I look around the clean, clean kitchen. “We can’t stay,” I say.

“No, we can’t.” She puts her head in her hands. “I was so worried about you.” There’s feeling in her voice. “I was so worried about the army coming and nobody listening to me.” She smacks the table in frustration. “And I was feeling so bad about–”

She stops. Her face creases and she looks away.

“Manchee,” I say, out loud, for the first time since–

“I’m so sorry, Todd,” she says, her eyes watery.

“Ain’t yer fault.” I stand up fast, scooting my chair back.

“He would have killed you,” she says, “and then he would have killed Manchee just because he could.”

“Stop talking about it, please,” I say, leaving the kitchen and going back to the bedroom. Viola follows me. “I’ll talk to these elder folks,” I say, picking up Viola’s bag from the floor and stuffing the rest of the washed clothes in it. “And then we’ll go. How far are we from Haven, do you know?”

Viola makes a tiny smile. “Two days.”

I stand up straight. “We came that far downriver?”

“We came that far.”

I whistle quietly to myself. Two days. Just two days. Till whatever there is in Haven.

“Todd?”

“Yeah?” I say, putting her bag round my shoulders.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“For coming after me.”

Everything’s gone still.

“Ain’t nothing,” I say, feeling my face get hot and looking away. She don’t say nothing more. “You all right?” I ask, still not looking at her. “From when he took you?”

“I don’t really–” she starts to say but we hear a door close and a sing-song daddy daddy daddy floating down the hall towards us. Jacob hugs the door frame of the room rather than come on in.

“Daddy sent me to fetch you,” he says.

“Oh?” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m meant to come to them now, am I?”

Jacob nods, very serious.

“Well, in that case, we’re coming,” I rearrange the sack and looking at Viola. “And then we’re going.”

“Too right,” Viola says and the way she says it makes me glad. We head out into the hallway after Jacob but he stops us at the door.

“Just you,” he says, looking at me.

“Just me what?”

Viola crosses her arms. “He means just you to talk to the eldermen.”

Jacob nods, again very serious. I look at Viola and back to Jacob. “Well now,” I say, squatting down to his level. “Why don’t you just go tell yer daddy that both me and Viola will be along in a minute. Okay?”

Jacob opens his mouth. “But he said–”

“I don’t really care what he said,” I say gently. “Go.”

He gives a little gasp and runs out the door.

“I think I’m maybe thru of men telling me what to do,” I say and I’m surprised at the weariness in my voice and suddenly I feel like I wanna get back in that bed and sleep for another five days.

“You going to be all right to walk to Haven?” Viola says.

“Try and stop me,” I say and she smiles again.

I head on out the front door.

And for a third time I’m expecting Manchee to come bounding out with us.

His absence is so big it’s like he’s there and all the air goes outta my lungs again and I have to wait and breathe deep and swallow.

“Oh, man,” I say to myself.

His last Todd? hangs in my Noise like a wound.

That’s another thing about Noise. Everything that’s ever happened to you just keeps right on talking, for ever and ever.

I see the last of Jacob’s dust as he runs on up the trail thru some trees towards the rest of the settlement. I look round. Doctor Snow’s house ain’t too big but it stretches out to a deck overlooking the river. There’s a small dock and a really low bridge connecting the wide path that comes from the centre of Carbonel Downs to the river road that carries along on the other side. The road across the river, the one we spent so much time coming down, is almost hidden behind a row of trees as it carries on past the settlement on the final two days towards Haven.

“God,” I say. “It’s like paradise compared to the rest of New World.”

“There’s more to paradise than nice buildings,” Viola says.

I look round some more. Doctor Snow’s got a well-kept front garden on the path to the settlement. Looking up the path, I can see more buildings thru the trees and hear that music playing.

That weird music. Constantly changing to keep you from getting used to it, I guess. It’s nothing I reckernize but it’s louder out here and I guess on one level you ain’t sposed to reckernize it but I swear I heard something in it when I was waking up–

“It’s almost unbearable in the middle of the settlement,” Viola says. “Most of the women don’t even bother coming in from the dormitory.” She frowns. “Which I guess is the whole point.”

“Wilf’s wife told me bout a settlement where everyone–”

I stop cuz the music changes.

Except it don’t change.

The music from the settlement stays the same, messy and wordy and bending around itself like a monkey.

But there’s more.

There’s more music than just it.

And it’s getting louder.

“Do you hear that?” I say.

I turn.

And turn again. Viola, too.

Trying to figure out what we’re hearing.

“Maybe someone’s set up another loudspeaker across the river,” she says. “Just in case the women were getting any uppity ideas about leaving.”

But I ain’t listening to her.

“No,” I whisper. “No, it can’t be.”

“What?” Viola says, her voice changing.

“Shh.” I listen close again, trying to calm my Noise so I can hear it.

“It’s coming from the river,” she whispers.

“Shh,” I say again, cuz my chest is starting to rise, my Noise starting to buzz too loud to be of any use at all.

Out there, against the rush of the water and the Noise of the birdsong, there’s–

“A song,” Viola says, real quiet. “Someone’s singing.”

Someone’s singing.

And what they’re singing is:

Early one mor-r-ning, just as the sun was ri-i-sing . . .

And my Noise surges louder as I say it.

“Ben.”

I run down to the river’s edge and stop and listen again.

Oh don’t deceive me.

“Ben?” I say, trying to shout and whisper at the same time.

Viola comes thumping up behind me. “Not your Ben?” she says. “Is it your Ben?”

I shush her with my hand and listen and try to pick away the river and the birds and my own Noise and there, just there under it all–

Oh never leave me.

“Other side of the river,” Viola says and takes off across the bridge, feet smacking against the wood. I’m right behind her, passing her, listening and looking and listening and looking and there and there and there–

There in the leafy shrubs on the other side of the water–

It’s Ben.

It really is Ben.

He’s crouched down behind leafy greenery, hand against a tree trunk, watching me come to him, watching me run across the bridge, and as I near him, his face relaxes and his Noise opens up as wide as his arms and I’m flying into ’em both, leaping off the bridge and into the bushes and nearly knocking him over and my heart is busting open and my Noise is as bright as the whole blue sky and–

And everything’s gonna be all right.

Everything’s gonna be all right.

Everything’s gonna be all right.

It’s Ben.

And he’s gripping me tight and he’s saying, “Todd,” and Viola’s standing back a ways, letting me greet him, and I’m hugging him and hugging him and it’s Ben, oh Christ Almighty, it’s Ben Ben Ben.

“It’s me,” he says, laughing a little cuz I’m crushing the air outta his lungs. “Oh, it’s good to see ya, Todd.”

“Ben,” I say, leaning back from him and I don’t know what to do with my hands so I just grab his shirt front in my fists and shake him in a way that’s gotta mean love. “Ben,” I say again.

He nods and smiles.

But there’s creases round his eyes and already I can see the beginnings of it, so soon it’s gotta be right up front in his Noise, and I have to ask, “Cillian?”

He don’t say nothing but he shows it to me, Ben running back to a farmhouse already in flames, already burning down, with some of the Mayor’s men inside but with Cillian, too, and Ben grieving, grieving still.

“Aw, no,” I say, my stomach sinking, tho I’d long guessed it to be true.

But guessing a thing ain’t knowing a thing.

Ben nods again, slow and sad, and I notice now that he’s dirty and there’s blood clotted on his nose and he looks like he ain’t eaten for a week but it’s still Ben and he can still read me like no other cuz his Noise is already asking me bout Manchee and I’m already showing him and here at last my eyes properly fill and rush over and he takes me in his arms again and I cry for real over the loss of my dog and of Cillian and of the life that was.

“I left him,” I say and keep saying, snot-filled and coughing. “I left him.”

“I know,” he says and I can tell it’s true cuz I hear the same words in his Noise. I left him, he thinks.

But after only a minute I feel him gently pushing me back and he says, “Listen, Todd, there ain’t much time.”

“Ain’t much time for what?” I sniffle but I see he’s looking over at Viola.

“Hi,” she says, eyes all alert.

“Hi,” Ben says. “You must be her.”

“I must be,” she says.

“You been taking care of Todd?”

“We’ve been taking care of each other.”

“Good,” Ben says, and his Noise goes warm and sad. “Good.”

“C’mon,” I say, taking his arm and trying to pull him back towards the footbridge. “We can get you something to eat. And there’s a doctor–”

But Ben ain’t moving. “Can you keep an eye out for us?” he asks Viola. “Let us know if you see anything, anything at all. Either from the settlement or the road.”

Viola nods and catches my eye as she steps outta the green and back to the path.

“Things have escalated,” Ben says to me, low, serious as a heart attack. “You gotta get to a place called Haven. Fast as you can.”

“I know that, Ben,” I say, “why do you–?”

“There’s an army after you.”

“I know that, too. And Aaron. But now that yer here we can–”

“I can’t come with you,” he says.

My mouth hangs open. “What? Course you can–”

But he’s shaking his head. “You know I can’t.”

“We can find a way,” I say, but already my Noise is whirling, thinking, remembering.

“Prentisstown men ain’t welcome anywhere on New World,” he says.

I nod. “They ain’t too happy bout Prentisstown boys, neither.”

He takes my arm again. “Has anyone hurt you?”

I look at him quietly. “Lots of people,” I say.

He bites his lip and his Noise gets even sadder.

“I looked for you,” he says. “Day and night, following the army, getting round it, ahead of it, listening for rumours of a boy and a girl travelling alone. And here you are and yer okay and I knew you would be. I knew it.” He sighs and there’s so much love and sadness in it I know he’s about to say the truth. “But I’m a danger to you in New World.” He gestures at the bush we’re hiding in, hiding in like thieves. “Yer gonna have to make it the rest of the way alone.”

“I ain’t alone,” I say, without thinking.

He smiles, but it’s still sad. “No,” he says. “No, yer not, are ya?” He looks around us again, peering thru the leaves and over the river to Doctor Snow’s house. “Were you sick?” he asks. “I heard yer Noise yesterday morning coming down the river but it was feverish and sleeping. I been waiting here ever since. I was worried something was really wrong.”

“I was sick,” I say and shame starts to cloud my Noise like a slow fog.

Ben looks at me close again. “What happened, Todd?” he says, gently reading into my Noise like he always could. “What’s happened?”

I open up my Noise for him, all of it from the beginning, the crocs that attacked Aaron, the race thru the swamp, Viola’s ship, being chased by the Mayor on horseback, the bridge, Hildy and Tam, Farbranch and what happened there, the fork in the road, Wilf and the things that sang Here, Mr Prentiss Jr and Viola saving me.

And the Spackle.

And what I did.

I can’t look at Ben.

“Todd,” he says.

I’m still looking at the ground.

“Todd,” he says again. “Look at me.”

I look up at him. His eyes, blue as ever, catching mine and holding them. “We’ve all made mistakes, Todd. All of us.”

“I killed it,” I say. I swallow. “I killed him. It was a him.”

“You were acting on what you knew. You were acting on what you thought best.”

“And that excuses it?”

But there’s something in his Noise. Something off and telling.

“What is it, Ben?”

He lets out a breath. “It’s time you knew, Todd,” he says. “Time you knew the truth.”

There’s a snap of branches as Viola comes rushing back to us.

“Horse on the road,” she says, outta breath.

We listen. Hoofbeats, down the river road, coming fast. Ben slinks back a little farther into the bushes. We go with him but the horseman is coming so quick he ain’t interested in us at all. We hear him thunder by on the road and turn up the bridge that heads straight into Carbonel Downs, hooves clattering on boards and then on dirt till they’re swallowed up by the loudspeaker sounds.

“That can’t be good news,” Viola says.

“It’ll be the army,” Ben says. “By now they’re probably not more than a few hours from here.”

“What!?” I say, rearing back. Viola jumps, too.

“I told you we don’t have much time,” Ben says.

“Then we gotta go!” I say. “You gotta come with us. We’ll tell people–”

“No,” he says. “No. You get yerselves to Haven. That’s all there is to it. It’s yer best chance.”

We pelt him with sudden askings.

“Is Haven safe then?” Viola asks. “From an army?”

“Is it true they have a cure for the Noise?” I ask.

“Will they have communicators? Will I be able to contact my ship?”

“Are you sure it’s safe? Are you sure?”

Ben raises his hands to stop us. “I don’t know,” he says. “I haven’t been there in twenty years.”

Viola stands up straight.

“Twenty years?” she says. “Twenty years?” Her voice is rising. “Then how can we know what we’ll find when we get there? How do we know it’s even still there?”

I rub my hand across my face and I think it’s the emptiness where Manchee used to be that makes me realize, realize what we never wanted to know.

“We don’t,” I say, only saying the truth. “We never did.”

Viola lets out a little sound and her shoulders slump down. “No,” she says. “I guess we didn’t.”

“But there’s always hope,” Ben says. “You always have to hope.”

We both look at him and there must be a word for how we’re doing it but I don’t know what it is. We’re looking at him like he’s speaking a foreign language, like he just said he was moving to one of the moons, like he’s telling us it’s all just been a bad dream and there’s candy for everybody.

“There ain’t a whole lotta hope out here, Ben,” I say.

He shakes his head. “What d’you think’s been driving you on? What d’you think’s got you this far?”

“Fear,” Viola says.

“Desperayshun,” I say.

“No,” he says, taking us both in. “No, no, no. You’ve come farther than most people on this planet will do in their lifetimes. You’ve overcome obstacles and dangers and things that should’ve killed you. You’ve outrun an army and a madman and deadly illness and seen things most people will never see. How do you think you could have possibly come this far if you didn’t have hope?”

Viola and I exchange a glance.

“I see what yer trying to say, Ben–” I start.

“Hope,” he says, squeezing my arm on the word. “It’s hope. I am looking into yer eyes right now and I am telling you that there’s hope for you, hope for you both.” He looks up at Viola and back at me. “There’s hope waiting for you at the end of the road.”

“You don’t know that,” Viola says and my Noise, as much as I don’t want it to, agrees with her.

“No,” Ben says, “but I believe it. I believe it for you. And that’s why it’s hope.”

“Ben–”

“Even if you don’t believe it,” he says, “believe that I do.”

“I’d believe it more if you were coming with us,” I say.

“He ain’t coming?” Viola says, surprised, then corrects herself. “Isn’t coming?”

Ben looks at her, opens his mouth and closes it again.

“What’s the truth, Ben?” I ask. “What’s the truth we need to know?”

Ben takes a long slow breath thru his nose. “Okay,” he says.

But then a loud and clear “Todd?” comes calling from across the river.

And that’s when we notice the music of Carbonel Downs is competing with the Noise of men now crossing the bridge.

Many men.

That’s the other purpose of the music, I guess. So you can’t hear men coming.

“Viola?” Doctor Snow is calling. “What are you two doing over there?”

I stand up straight and look over. Doctor Snow is crossing the bridge, little Jacob’s hand in his, leading a group of men who look like less friendly versions of himself and they’re eyeing us up and they’re seeing Ben and seeing me and Viola talking to him.

And their Noise is starting to turn different colours as what they’re seeing starts making sense to them.

And I see that some of ’em have rifles.

“Ben?” I say quietly.

“You need to run,” he says, under his breath. “You need to run now.”

“I ain’t leaving you. Not again.”

“Todd–”

“Too late,” Viola says.

Cuz they’re on us now, past the end of the bridge and heading towards the bushes where we’re not really hiding no more.

Doctor Snow reaches us first. He looks Ben up and down. “And who might this be then?”

And the sound of his Noise ain’t happy at all.