The Ask and the Answer

by Patrick Ness

  I wince at it all and look up to where we're going, to the front door of the cathedral--

  And my Noise gives such a shock, Angharrad stops up short, scrabbling on the cobbles, flanks foaming from getting me here so fast.

  I barely notice-

  My heart has stopped beating-

  I've stopped breathing--

  Cuz there she is.

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  In front of my eyes, walking up the steps of the cathedral-There she is.

  And my heart jump-starts again and my Noise is ready to scream her name and my pain is disappearing-

  Cuz she's alive-

  She's alive--

  But then I'm seeing more--

  I'm seeing her walking up the steps--

  Toward Mayor Prentiss--

  Into his open arms--

  And he's embracing her--

  And she's letting him--

  And all I can think--

  All I can say--

  Is--

  "Viola?"

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  PART III WAR IS OVER

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  12 BETRAYAL

  ***

  (Viola)

  Mayor Prentiss stands there.

  The leader of this town, this world.

  Arms wide.

  As if this is the price.

  Do i pay it?

  It's just one hug, i think, (isn't it?)

  One hug to see Todd. i step forward-(just one hug)

  - and he puts his arms around me. i try not to go rigid at his touch.

  "I never told you," he says into my ear. "We found your ship in the swamp as we marched here. We found your parents."

  i let out a little gasp of tears and try to swallow them back.

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  "We gave them a decent burial. I'm so sorry, Viola. I know how lonely you must be, and nothing would please me more than if, one day, maybe, you could consider me as your-"

  There's a sudden sound above the ROAR -

  One bit of Noise flying higher than the rest, clear as an arrow-

  An arrow fired directly at me-

  Viola! it screams, knocking the words right out of the Mayor's mouth-

  I step back from his embrace, his arms falling away-I turn-

  And there, in the afternoon sunshine, in the square, on the back of a horse not ten yards away-

  There he is.

  It's him.

  "TODD!" I yell and I'm already running.

  He's standing where he slid off the horse, holding his arm at a bad angle, and I hear Viola! roaring through his Noise but I can also hear the pain in his arm and confusion lacing through everything but my own mind is racing too fast and my heart is pounding too loud for me to hear any of it clearly.

  "TODD!" I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I'm

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  grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I'll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back, it's grabbing me back, it's grabbing me back-

  "I thought you were dead," he's saying, his breath on my neck. "I thought you were dead."

  "Todd," I say and I'm crying and the only thing I can say is his name. "Todd."

  He gasps sharply again and the pain flashes so loud in his Noise I'm almost blinded by it. "Your arm," I say, pulling back.

  "Broken," he pants, "broken by-"

  "Todd?" the Mayor says, right behind us, staring hard into him. "You're back early."

  "My arm," Todd says. "The Spackle-"

  "The Spackle?" I say.

  "That looks bad, Todd," the Mayor says, talking over us. "We need to get you healed right away."

  "He can come to Mistress Coyle!"

  "Viola," the Mayor says and I hear Todd think " Viola"? , wondering all over how the Mayor speaks to me like this. "Your house of healing is too far for Todd to walk with an injury this bad."

  "I'll come with you!" I say. "I'm training as an apprentice!"

  "Yer what?" Todd says. His pain is wailing like a siren but he's still looking back and forth between me and the Mayor. "What's going on? How do you know-"

  "I'll explain everything," the Mayor says, taking Todd's free arm, "after we get you healed." He turns to me. "The invitation is still on for tomorrow. You have a funeral to get to just now."

  "Funeral?" Todd says. "What funeral?"

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  "Tomorrow," the Mayor says to me again firmly, pulling Todd away. "Wait-" I say.

  "Viola!" Todd shouts, jerking away from the Mayor's grasp but the movement shakes his broken arm and he falls to one knee with the pain of it, pain so sharp, so loud and clear in his Noise that soldiers from the army stop to hear it. I jump forward to help but the Mayor holds out a hand to stop me.

  "Go," he says and it's not a voice that's asking for discussion. "I'll help Todd. You go to your funeral and mourn your friend. You'll see Todd tomorrow night, good as new."

  Viola? Todd's Noise says again, choking back a weep from pain so heavy now I don't think he can speak.

  "Tomorrow, Todd," I say loudly, trying to get through his Noise. "I'll see you tomorrow."

  Viola! he calls again but the Mayor is already leading

  him away.

  "You promised!" I call after them. "Remember that you promised!"

  The Mayor gives me a smile. "Remember you promised, too."

  Did 1? I think.

  And then I'm watching them go, so fast it's like it didn't even happen. But Todd-Todd is alive.

  I have to bend down close to the ground for a minute and just let it be true.

  ***

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  "And with burdened hearts, we commit you to the earth."

  "Here." Mistress Coyle takes my hand after the priestess finishes speaking and puts some loose dirt into it. "We sprinkle it over the coffin."

  I stare at the dirt in my hand. "Why?"

  "So that she's been buried by the efforts of all of us." She directs me to a place with her in the line of healers gathering by the graveside. We pass by the hole one by one, each of us throwing our handful of dry soil onto the wooden box where Maddy now rests. Everyone stands as far away from me as they can.

  No one but Mistress Coyle will even speak to me. They blame me. I blame me, too.

  There are more than fifty women here, healers, apprentices, patients. Soldiers are spread out in a circle around us, more than you'd think necessary for a funeral. Men, including Maddy's father, are kept separate on the other side of the grave. Maddy's father's weeping Noise is the saddest thing i think I've ever heard.

  And in the middle of everything, I can only feel even more guilty because what I'm mostly thinking about is Todd.

  Now that I'm away from it, I can see the confusion in his Noise more clearly, see how it must have looked to find me in the arms of the Mayor, how friendly we must have seemed together.

  Even though I can explain it all, I still feel ashamed. And then he was gone.

  I throw my dirt on Maddy's coffin, then Mistress Coyle takes me by the arm. "We need to talk."

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  ***

  "He wants to work with me?" Mistress Coyle says, over a cup of tea in my small bedroom.

  "He says he admires you."

  Her eyebrows raise. "Does he now?"

  "I know," I say. "I know how it sounds, but maybe if you heard him-"

  "Oh, I think I've heard enough from our President to last me a good while."

  I lean back on my bed. "But he could have, I don't know, forced me to tell him about the ships. And he's not forcing me to do anything." I look away. "He's even letting me see my friend tomorrow."

  "Your Todd?"

  I nod. Her expression is solid as stone.

  "And I suppose that makes you grateful to him, does it?"

  "No," I say, rubbing my face with my hands. "I saw what his army did as they marched. I saw it with my own two eyes."

  There's a
long silence.

  "But?" Mistress Coyle finally says.

  I don't look at her. "But he's hanging the man who shot Maddy. He's executing him tomorrow."

  She makes a dismissive sound with her lips. "What's one more killing to a man like him? What's one more life to take? Typical that he should think that solves the problem."

  "He seemed genuinely sorry."

  She looks at me sideways. "I'm sure he did. I'm sure that's exactly how he seemed." She lowers her voice. "He's the

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  President of Lies, my girl. He will lie so well you'll believe it's the truth. The Devil tells the best stories. Didn't your mama teach you that?"

  "He doesn't think he's the Devil," I say. "He thinks he's just a soldier who won a war."

  She looks at me carefully. "Appeasement," she says. "That's what it's called. Appeasement. It's a slippery slope."

  "What does it mean?"

  "It means you want to work with the enemy. It means you'd rather join him than beat him, and it's a surefire way to stay beaten."

  "I don't want that!" I yell. "I just want this all to stop! I want this to be a home for all the people on their way, the home that we were all looking forward to. I want there to be peace and happiness." My voice starts to thicken. "I don't want anyone else to die."

  She sets down her teacup, puts her hands on her knees and looks hard at me. "Are you sure that's what you want?" she says. "Or is it your boy you'll do anything for?"

  And I wonder for a minute if she can read my mind.

  (because, yes, I want to see Todd-)

  (I want to explain to him-)

  "Clearly your loyalty doesn't lie with us," Mistress Coyle says. "After your little stunt with Maddy, there are those of us who aren't so sure you're not more of a danger than an asset."

  Asset, I think.

  She sighs, long and hard. "For the record," she says, "I don't blame you for Maddy's death. She was old enough to make her own decisions and if she chose to help you, well,

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  then." She runs her fingers across her forehead. "I see so much of myself in you, Viola. Even when I'd rather not." She stands to leave. "So please know, I don't blame you. Whatever happens."

  "What do you mean, whatever happens?"

  But she doesn't say anything more.

  That night, they have something called a wake, where everyone at the house of healing drinks lots of weak beer and sings songs that Maddy liked and tells stories about her. There are tears, including my own, and they're not happy tears but they're not as sad as they could be.

  And I'm going to see Todd again tomorrow.

  And that's as close as I can feel to all right about anything just now.

  I wander around the house of healing, around the other healers and apprentices and patients talking to one another. None of them will talk to me. I see Corinne sitting by herself in a chair by the window, looking especially stormy. She's refused to speak to anyone since Maddy's death, even declining to say something over the grave. You'd have to have been sitting right next to her to see how many tear tracks were on her cheeks.

  It must be the beer working in me, but she looks so upset I go over and sit down next to her.

  "I'm sorry-" I start to say but she stands up before I can even finish and walks away, leaving me there.

  Mistress Coyle comes over, two glasses of beer in her hands. She hands one to me. We both watch Corinne as she

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  leaves the room. "Don't be too bothered about her," Mistress Coyle says, sitting down. "She's always hated me."

  "She hasn't. She's just had a hard time of it, that's all."

  "How hard?"

  "It's her place to tell you, not mine. Drink up."

  I take a drink. It's sweet and wheaty-tasting, the bubbles sharp against the roof of my mouth but not in a bad way. We sit and drink for a minute or two.

  "Have you ever seen an ocean, Viola?" Mistress Coyle asks.

  I cough away a little of the beer. "An ocean?"

  "There's oceans on New World," she says, "big as anything."

  "I was born on the settler ship," I say, "but I saw them from orbit as we flew in on the scout."

  "Ah, well, then you've never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it's beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains." She shakes her head in a happy way. "If you ever want to see how small you are in the plan of God, just stand at the edge of an ocean."

  "I've only ever been to a river."

  She puffs out her bottom lip, regarding me. "This river goes to the ocean, you know. It's not even all that far. Two days on horseback at most. A long morning in a fissioncar, though the road's not that great."

  "There's a road?"

  "Not much left of it anymore."

  "Is there something there?"

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  "Used to be my home," she says, shifting in her chair. "When we first landed, going on twenty-three years ago now. Meant to be a fishing settlement, boats and everything. In a hundred years' time, it might have even been a port."

  "What happened?"

  "What happened all over this planet, all our grand plans just sort of falling by the wayside in the first couple of years in the face of difficulty. It was harder to start a new civilization than we thought. You have to crawl before you can walk." She takes a sip of her beer. "And then sometimes you go back to crawling." She smiles to herself. "Probably for the best, though. Turns out New World's oceans aren't really for fishing."

  "Why not?"

  "Oh, the fish are the size of your boat and they swim up alongside and look you in the eye and tell you how they're going to eat you." She laughs a little. "And then they eat you."

  I laugh a little, too. And then I remember all that's happened.

  She looks at me again, catching my eye. "It's beautiful, though, the ocean. Like nothing you've ever seen."

  "You miss it." I drink the last of my beer.

  "To see the ocean once is to learn how to miss it," she says, taking my glass. "Let me get you another."

  That night, I dream.

  I dream of oceans and of fish that will eat me. I dream of armies that swim by and of Mistress Coyle leading them. I dream of Maddy taking my hand and holding me up from the water.

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  I dream of thunder making a single loud BOOM! that almost breaks the sky in two.

  Maddy smiles when I jump at the sound of it. "I'm going to see him," I tell her.

  She glances over my shoulder and says, "There he is."

  I turn to look.

  I wake but the sun's all wrong. I sit up, my head feeling like it's a boulder, and I have to close my eyes to make everything stop spinning.

  "Is this what a hangover feels like?" I say out loud.

  "There was no alcohol in that beer," Corinne says.

  I snap my eyes open, which is a mistake as black spots form everywhere in my vision. "What are you doing here?"

  "Waiting for you to wake up so the President's men can take you."

  "What?" I say, as she stands. "What's going on?"

  "She drugged you. Jeffers in your beer, plus bandy root to disguise the taste. She left you this." She holds out a small piece of paper. "You're to destroy it after you read it."

  I take the paper. It's a note from Mistress Coyle.

  Forgive me, my girl, it says, but the President is wrong. The war is not over. Keep to the side of right, keep gathering information, keep leading him astray. You'll be contacted.

  "They blew up a storefront and left in the confusion," Corinne says.

  "They did what?" My voice starts to rise. "Corinne, what's going on?"

  But she's not even looking at me. "I told them they were

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  abandoning their sacred trust, that nothing was more important than saving lives."

  "Who else is here?"

  "Just you a
nd me," she says. "And the soldiers waiting outside to take you to your President." She looks down at her shoes and for the first time I notice the anger, the rage burning off her. "I expect I'll be interrogated by someone less handsome."

  "Corinne-"

  "You'll have to start calling me Mistress Wyatt now," she says, turning toward the door. "That is, in the unlikely event that both of us get back here alive."

  "They're gone?" I say, still not believing it.

  Corinne just glares at me, waiting for me to rise.

  They're gone.

  She left me here alone with Corinne.

  She left me here.

  To go off and start a war.

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  13 SPLINTERS [TODD]

  "FISSION FUEL, SIR, soaked into clay powder to make a paste-"

  "I know how to make a bush bomb, Corporal Parker," says the Mayor, surveying the damage from his saddle. "What I do not know is how a group of unarmed women managed to plant one in full view of soldiers under your command."

  We see Corporal Parker swallow, actually see it move in his throat. He's not a man from old Prentisstown, so he musta been picked up along the way. You go where the power is, Ivan said. But what about when the power wants answers you ain't got? "It may not have been just women, sir," Parker says. "People are talking about something called-"

  "Look at this, pigpiss," Davy says to me. He's ridden Deadfall/Acorn over to a tree trunk, near where we've stopped across the road from the blown-out storefront.

  I chirrup to Angharrad, using my one good hand to tap

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  the reins. She picks her feet lightly over the bits of wood and plaster and glass and foodstuffs that are scattered everywhere, like the store finally let go of a sneeze it was holding in. We get over to Davy, who's pointing at a bunch of light-colored splinters sticking straight outta the tree trunk.