The Ask and the Answer

by Patrick Ness

  "Explozhun so big it rammed 'em straight into the tree," he says. "Those bitches."

  "It was late at night," I say, readjusting my arm in the sling. "They didn't hurt no one."

  "Bitches," Davy repeats, shaking his head.

  "You'll turn in your supply of cure, Corporal," we hear the Mayor say, loud enough so Corporal Parker's men hear the punishment, too. "All of you will. Privacy is a privilege for those who've earned it."

  The Mayor ignores Corporal Parker's mumbled, "Yes, sir," and turns to have a short, quiet word with Mr. O'Hare and Mr. Morgan, who then ride off in different direkshuns. The Mayor comes over to us next, not saying nothing, face frowning like a slap. Morpeth stares viciously at our mounts, too. Submit , says his Noise. Submit , Submit . Deadfall and Angharrad both lower their heads and step back.

  All horses are a little bit crazy.

  "Want me to go hunting for 'em, Pa?" Davy says. "The bitches who did this?"

  "Mind your language," the Mayor says. "You both have work to be getting on with."

  Davy gives me a sideways glance and holds out his left leg. The whole bottom half is covered in a cast. "Pa?" he

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  says. "If you ain't noticed, I can barely walk and pigpiss here's in a sling and-"

  He don't even finish the sentence before there's that whoosh of sound, flying from the Mayor faster than thought, like a bullet made of Noise. Davy flinches back in his saddle, yanking the reins so hard Deadfall rears up, nearly dumping Davy to the ground. Davy recovers, breathing heavy, eyes unfocused.

  What the hell is that?

  "Does this look like a day you can take off?" the Mayor says, indicating all the wreckage of the store stretched around us, the husk of the building still smoking in some parts.

  Blown up.

  (I've been hiding it in my Noise, doing my best to keep it down--)

  (but it's there, hidden away, bubbling below the surface-)

  (the thought of a bridge that blew up once-)

  I look back to see the Mayor staring at me so hard I'm

  blurting it out before I can barely think. "It wasn't her," I

  say. "I'm sure it wasn't."

  He keeps on staring. "I never thought it might be,

  Todd."

  Fixing my arm didn't take very long yesterday once he'd dragged me cross the square to a clinic where men in white coats set it and gave me two injeckshuns of bone-mending that hurt more than the break but by then he was already gone, promising I'd see Viola the next night (tonight, tonight) and already outta reach of a million and

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  one askings about how he came to be embracing her and calling her all friendly-like by her first name and how she's working as a doctor or something and how she had to leave to go to a funeral and-

  (and how my heart just exploded from my chest when I saw her--)

  (and how it hurt all over again when she left-) And then off she went somehow to a life of her own already being lived out there somewhere without me in it and then there was just me and my arm going back to the cathedral with the painkillers making me so sleepy I barely had time to fall on my mattress before blinking right out.

  I didn't wake when Mayor Ledger came back in with his gray day-of-rubbish-collecting Noise complaints. I didn't wake when dinner came and Mayor Ledger ate both servings. I didn't wake when we were locked inside for the night ker-thunk.

  But I surely did wake when a BOOM! shook the entire

  city.

  And even as I sat up in the darkness and felt the queasy of the painkillers in my stomach, even without knowing what the BOOM was or where it had come from or what it meant, even then I knew things had changed again, that the world had suddenly become different one more time.

  And sure enough, out we came with the Mayor and his men at first light, injuries or no, straight to the bombsite. I look at him on Morpeth. The morning sun's shining behind him, casting his shadow over everything.

  "Will I still see her tonight?" I ask.

  There's a long, quiet moment where he just stares.

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  "Mr. President?" calls Corporal Parker, as his men take away a long plank of wood that was blown against another tree.

  Something's been drawn on the trunk underneath. Even with not knowing how to-Well, even with not knowing much, I can tell what it is. A single letter, smeared on the trunk in blue. A , it says, just the letter A .

  "I can't believe he's making us effing go back there one day after we fought off the attack," Davy grumbles as we make our way down the long road to the monastery.

  I can't believe it neither, frankly. Davy can barely walk and even with the bone-mending doing its work on my arm, it'll be a coupla days before everything's back to normal. I can start to bend it already but I sure as hell can't fight off a Spackle army with it.

  "Did you tell him I saved yer life?" Davy asks, looking both angry and shy.

  "Didn't you tell him?" I say.

  Davy's mouth flattens, pulling his sad little mustache fluff even thinner. "He don't believe me when I tell him stuff like that."

  I sigh. "I told him. He saw it in my Noise anyway."

  We ride in silence for a bit before Davy finally says, "Did he say anything?"

  I hesitate. "He said, Good for him."

  "That all?"

  "He said it was good for me, too."

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  Davy bites his lip. "That's it?"

  "That's it."

  "I see." He don't say no more, just jigs Deadfall along a bit faster.

  Even tho it was only one building that got blown up in the night, the whole city looks different as we ride. The patrols of soldiers are suddenly larger and there's more of 'em, marching up and down the roads and side streets so fast it's like they're running. There are soldiers on rooftops now, too, here and there, holding rifles, watching watching watching.

  The only nonsoldier men out are hustling as fast as they can from place to place, staying outta the way, not looking up.

  I ain't seen no women this morning. Not one.

  (not her)

  (what was she doing with him?)

  (is she lying to him?)

  (is he believing her?) "

  (did she have something to do with the explozhun?)

  "Did who have something to do with it?" Davy asks. "Shut up."

  "Make me," he says. But his heart ain't in it.

  We ride past a group of soldiers escorting a beat-up-- looking man with his wrists bound. I press my slinged arm closer to my chest and we keep on riding. The morning sun's high in the sky by the time we pass the hill with the metal tower and come round the final bend to the monastery.

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  Ain't no putting off getting there any longer.

  "What happened after I left?" I say.

  "We beat em," Davy says, huffing a little with the rising pain in his leg, pain I can see in his Noise. "We beat 'em back good and proper."

  Something lands on Angharrad's mane. I brush it away and something else lands on my arm. I look up.

  "What the hell?" Davy says.

  It's snowing.

  I only ever seen snow once in my whole life, back when I was too young to really know that I'd hardly never see it again.

  Flakes of white fall thru the trees and onto the road, catching on our clothes and hair. It's a silent fall and it's weird how it makes everything else seem quiet, too, like it's trying to tell you a secret, a terrible, terrible secret.

  But the sun is blazing.

  And this ain't snow.

  "Ash," Davy spits when a flake lands near his mouth. "They're burning the bodies."

  They're burning the bodies. The men are still on the tops of the stone walls with their rifles, making the Spackle that lived pile up the bodies of the ones that died. The burning pile is huge, taller than the tallest living Spackle, and more bodies are being brought to it by Spackle with their heads down and their mouths shut.

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  I watch a body get
thrown up to the top of the pile. It lands askew and tumbles down the side, rolling over other bodies, thru the flames, till it reaches the mud below and comes to a stop facing straight up, holes in its chest, blood dried on its wounds-

  (a dead-eyed Spackle, faceup in a campsite-)

  (a Spackle with a knife in its chest-)

  I breathe a heavy breath and I look away.

  Apart from some of the clicking, the living Spackle still ain't got no Noise. No sounds of mourning nor anger nor nothing at all bout the mess they're having to clean up.

  It's like someone cut out their tongues.

  Ivan's there waiting for us, rifle in the crook of his arm. He's quieter this morning and his face ain't happy.

  "You're to be a-carrying on with the numbers," he says, kicking over the bag with the numbering bands and tools. "Though there's less to do now."

  "How many'd we get?" Davy says, smiling.

  Ivan shrugs, annoyed. "Three hundred, three fifty, can't say for sure."

  I feel another greasy twist in my stomach at that but Davy's grin gets even higher. "That's hot stuff, right there."

  "I'm to give you this," Ivan says, holding out the rifle to me.

  "Yer arming him?" Davy says, his Noise rising right up.

  "President's orders," Ivan snaps. He's still holding out the rifle. "You're to give it to the night watch when you leave. It's only for your protection while you're in here." He looks at me, frowning. "The President says to tell you he knows you'll do the right thing."

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  I'm just staring at the rifle.

  "I don't effing believe this," Davy says, under his breath and shaking his head.

  I know how to use a rifle. Ben and Cillian taught me how to use one so I didn't blow my own head off, how to hunt safely with it, how to use it only when necessary.

  The right thing.

  I look up. Most of the Spackle are back and away in the far fields, as far as they can get from the entrance. The rest are dragging broken and torn bodies to the fire that's burning in the middle of the next field over.

  But the ones that can see me are watching me.

  And they're watching me watch the rifle.

  And they ain't thinking nothing I can hear.

  So who knows what they're planning?

  I take the rifle.

  It don't mean nothing. I won't use it. I just take it.

  Ivan turns and walks back to the gate to leave and as he goes, I notice it.

  A low butt, just barely beyond hearing, but there. And growing.

  No wonder he looked so pissed off. The Mayor took away his cure, too.

  We spend the rest of the morning shoveling out the fodder, refilling the troughs, and putting lime on the bogs, me one-handed, Davy one-legged, but taking more time than even that would allow for cuz brag tho he may I don't think Davy wants to get back to the numbering just yet either. We may

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  both have guns now but touching an enemy that almost killed you, well, that takes a bit of leading up to.

  Morning turns to early afternoon. For the first time, instead of taking both our lunches for himself, Davy throws a sandwich at me, hitting me in the chest with it.

  So we eat and watch the Spackle watching us, watch the pile of bodies burn, watch the eleven hundred fifty Spackle left over from the attack that went wrong, wrong, wrong. They're gathered round the edges of the fields we opened up and along the wall of the monastery, as far from us and from the burning pile as they can be.

  "The bodies should go in a swamp," I say, eating my sandwich with one tired arm. "That's what Spackle bodies are for. You put 'em in water and then--"

  "Fire's good enough for em," Davy says, leaning against the bag of numbering tools.

  "Yeah, but-"

  "There's no buts here, pigpiss." He frowns. "And what're you moaning for their sakes anyway? All yer blessed kindness didn't stop 'em from trying to rip yer arm off, now did it?"

  He's right but I don't say nothing to that, just keep on watching them, feeling the rifle at my back.

  I could take it. I could shoot Davy. I could run from here.

  "You'd be dead before you got to the gate," Davy mumbles, looking at his sandwich. "And so would yer precious girl."

  I don't say nothing to that neither, just finish my lunch. Every pile of food is out, every trough has been refilled,

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  every bog has been limed up. There ain't nothing left to do except the thing we gotta do.

  Davy sits up from where he was leaning against the bag. "Where were we?" he says, opening it up.

  "0038," I say, keeping my gaze on the Spackle.

  He sees from the metal bands that I'm right. "How'd you remember that?" he says, amazed.

  "I just do."

  They're looking back at us now, all of 'em. Their faces are hollowed out, bruised, blank. They know what we're doing. They know what's coming. They know what's in the bag. They know there ain't nothing they can do about it except die if they resist us.

  Cuz I got a rifle on my back to make that happen.

  (what's the right thing?)

  "Davy," I start to say but it's all that comes out cuz--

  BOOM!

  - in the distance, almost not a sound at all, more like the faraway thunder of a storm you know is gonna get here quick and do its best to knock yer house down.

  We turn, as if we could see over the walls, as if the smoke's already rising over the treetops outside the gates.

  We can't and it ain't yet.

  "Those bitches," Davy whispers.

  But I'm thinking--

  (is it her?)

  (what is she doing?)

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  14 THE SECOND BOMB

  ***

  ( Viola )

  THE SOLDIERS WAIT until midday to take me and Corinne. They practically have to tear her away from treating the remaining patients and they march us down the road, eight soldiers to guard two small girls. They won't even look at us, the one next to me so young he's barely older than Todd, so young he's got a large angry spot on his neck that for some stupid reason I can't keep my eyes off.

  Then I hear Corinne gasp. They've marched us past the storefront where the bomb went off, the front of the building collapsed on itself, soldiers guarding what's left of it. Our escort slows to take a look.

  And that's when it happens.

  BOOM!

  A sound so big it makes the air as solid as a fist, as a wave of bricks, as if the world's dropped out beneath you and

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  you're falling sideways and up and down all at once, like the weightlessness of the black beyond.

  There's a blankness where I can't remember anything and then I open my eyes to find myself lying on the ground with smoke twirling around me in spinning, floating ribbons and bits of fire drifting down from the sky here and there and for a minute it seems almost peaceful, almost beautiful, and then I realize I can't hear anything except a high-pitched whine that's drowning out all the sounds the people around me are making as they stagger to their feet or open their mouths in what must be shouting and I sit up slowly, the world still gone in whining silence and there's the soldier with the spot on his neck, there he is on the ground next to me, covered in wooden splinters, and he must have shielded me from the blast because I'm mostly okay but he's not moving.

  He's not moving.

  And sound begins to return and I start to hear the screaming.

  "This is exactly the kind of history I did not want to repeat," the Mayor says, staring up thoughtfully into the shaft of light coming down from the colored-glass window.

  "I didn't know anything about a bomb," I say for a second time, my hands still shaking and my ears ringing so loud it's hard to hear what he's saying. "Neither one."

  "I believe you," he says. "You were very nearly killed yourself."

  "A soldier blocked most of it for me," I stutter out,

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  remembering his body, remembering the
blood from it, the splinters that were stuck in nearly every part of him-

  "She drugged you again, didn't she?" he asks, staring back up into the colored window, as if the answers might be there. "She drugged you and abandoned you."

  This hits me like a punch.

  She did abandon me.

  And set off a bomb that killed a young soldier.

  "Yes," I finally say. "She left. They all did."

  "Not all." He walks behind me, becoming just a voice in the room, talking loud and clear enough so I can hear. "There are five houses of healing in this city. One remains fully staffed, three others are partially depleted of their healers and apprentices. It's only yours where there's been complete desertion."

  "Corinne stayed," I whisper and then I'm suddenly pleading. "She tended the soldiers who were hurt in the second bomb. She didn't hesitate. She went right to the worst injured and tied tourniquets and cleared airways and-"

  "Duly noted," he interrupts, even though it's true, even though she called me over to help her and we did the best we could until other stupid soldiers who couldn't or wouldn't see what we were doing grabbed us and dragged us away. Corinne struggled against them but they hit her in the face and she stopped.

  "Please don't hurt her," I say again. "She has nothing to do with this. She stayed behind out of choice. She tried to help those-"

  "I'm not going to hurt her!" he shouts suddenly. "Enough of this cowering] There will be no harm to women as long as I

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  am President! Why is that so difficult for you to understand?"

  I think of the soldiers hitting Corinne. I think of Maddy falling to the ground.

  "Please don't hurt her," I whisper again.

  He sighs and lowers his voice. "We just need answers from her, that's all. The same answers I'll be needing from you."

  "I don't know where they went," I say. "She didn't tell me. She didn't mention anything."