The Knife of Never Letting Go cw-1

by Patrick Ness

  “Come on.”

  And so, still, no food for me but on we go, thru the night, rushing the best we can.

  Faster, Todd. Get yer bloody self moving.

  On we go, on we go, up hills, grabbing onto plants sometimes to pull myself up, and down hills, holding on to rocks to keep my balance now and then, the scent keeping well clear of anywhere easy it might be to walk, like the flatter parts down by the road or riverbank, and I’m coughing and sometimes stumbling and as the sun starts to show itself there comes a time when I can’t, when I just can’t, when my legs crumple beneath me and I have to sit down.

  I just have to.

  (I’m sorry.)

  My back is aching and my head is aching and I’m sweating so stinking much and I’m so hungry and I just have to sit down at the base of a tree, just for a minute, I just have to and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

  “Todd?” Manchee mumbles, coming up to me.

  “I’m fine, boy.”

  “Hot, Todd,” he says, meaning me.

  I cough, my lungs rattling like rocks falling down a hill.

  Get up, Todd Hewitt. Get off yer goddam butt and get going.

  My mind drifts, I can’t help it, I try to hold on to Viola but there my mind goes and I’m little and I’m sick in bed and I’m real sick and Ben’s staying in my room with me cuz the fever is making me see things, horrible things, shimmering walls, people who ain’t there, Ben growing fangs and extra arms, all kindsa stuff and I’m screaming and pulling away but Ben is there with me and he’s singing the song and he’s giving me cool water and he’s taking out tabs of medicine — Medicine.

  Ben giving me medicine.

  I come back to myself.

  I lift my head and go thru Viola’s bag, taking out her medipak again. It’s got all kindsa pills in it, too many. There’s writing on the little packets but the words make no sense to me and I can’t risk taking the tranquilizer that knocked out Manchee. I open my own medipak, nowhere near as good as hers, but there’s white tabs in it that I know are at least pain relievers, however cruddy and homemade. I chew up two and then two more.

  Get up, you worthless piece of crap.

  I sit and breathe for a while and fight fight fight against falling asleep, waiting for the pills to work and as the sun starts to peek up over the top of a far hill I reckon I’m feeling a little better.

  Don’t know if I actually am but there ain’t no choice.

  Get up, Todd Hewitt. Get an effing MOVE ON!

  “Okay,” I say, breathing heavy and rubbing my knees with my hands. “Which way, Manchee?”

  On we go.

  The scent carries like it did before, avoiding the road, avoiding any buildings we might see at a distance, but always onward, always towards Haven, only Aaron knows why. Mid-morning we find another small creek heading down to the river. I check for crocs, tho it’s really too small a place, and refill the water bottles. Manchee wades in, lapping it up, snapping unsuccessfully at these little brass-coloured fishes that swim by, nibbling at his fur.

  I sit on my knees and wash some of the sweat from my face. The water is cold as a slap and it wakes me up a little. I wish I knew if we were even gaining on ’em. I wish I knew how far they were ahead.

  And I wish he’d never found us.

  And I wish he’d never found Viola in the first place.

  And I wish Ben and Cillian hadn’t lied to me.

  And I wish Ben was here right now.

  And I wish I was back in Prentisstown.

  I rest back on my heels, looking up into the sun

  No. No, I don’t. I don’t wish I was back in Prentisstown. Not no more, I don’t.

  And if Aaron hadn’t found her then I might not have found her and that’s no good neither.

  “C’mon, Manchee,” I say, turning round to pick up the bag again.

  Which is when I see the turtle, sunning itself on a rock.

  I freeze.

  I never seen this kinda turtle before. Its shell is craggy and sharp, with a dark red streak going down either side. The turtle’s got its shell all the way open to catch as much warmth as possible, its soft back fully exposed.

  You can eat a turtle.

  Its Noise ain’t nothing but a long ahhhhhhh sound, exhaling under sunlight. It don’t seem too concerned about us, probably thinking it can snap its shell shut and dive underwater faster than we could get to it. And even if we did get to it, we wouldn’t be able to get the shell back open to eat it.

  Unless you had a knife to kill it with.

  “Turtle!” Manchee barks, seeing it. He keeps back cuz the swamp turtles we know have more than enough snap to get after a dog. The turtle just sits there, not taking us seriously.

  I reach behind my back for the knife.

  I’m halfway there when I feel the pain twixt my shoulder blades.

  I stop. I swallow.

  (Spackle and pain and bafflement.)

  I glance down into the water, seeing myself, my hair a bird’s nest, bandage across half my head, dirtier than an old ewe.

  One hand reaching for my knife.

  (Red blood and fear and fear and fear.)

  I stop reaching.

  I take my hand away.

  I stand. “C’mon, Manchee,” I say. I don’t look at the turtle, don’t even listen for its Noise. Manchee barks at it a few more times but I’m already crossing the creek and on we go, on we go, on we go.

  So I can’t hunt.

  And I can’t get near settlements.

  And so if I don’t find Viola and Aaron soon I’ll starve to death if this coughing don’t kill me first.

  “Great,” I say to myself and there’s nothing to do but keep going as fast as I can.

  Not fast enough, Todd. Move yer effing feet, you gonk.

  Morning turns to another midday, midday turns to another afternoon. I take more tabs, we keep on going, no food, no rest, just forward, forward, forward. The path is starting to tend downhill again, so at least that’s a blessing. Aaron’s scent moves closer to the road but I’m feeling so poor I don’t even look up when I hear distant Noise now and then.

  It ain’t his and there’s no silence that’s hers so why bother?

  Afternoon turns into another evening and it’s when we’re coming down a steep hillside that I fall.

  My legs slip out from under me and I’m not quick enough to catch myself and I fall down and keep falling, sliding down the hill, bumping into bushes, picking up speed, feeling a tearing in my back, and I reach out to stop myself but my hands are too slow to catch anything and I judder judder judder along the leaves and grass and then I hit a bump and skip up into the air, tumbling over onto my shoulders, pain searing thru them, and I call out loud and I don’t stop falling till I come to a thicket of brambles at the bottom of the hill and ram into ’em with a thump.

  “Todd! Todd! Todd!” I hear Manchee, running down after me, but all I can do is try and withstand the pain again and the tired again and the gunk in my lungs and the hunger gnawing in my belly and bramble scratches all over me and I think I’d be crying if I had any energy left at all.

  “Todd?” Manchee barks, circling round me, trying to find a way into the brambles.

  “Gimme a minute,” I say and push myself up a little. Then I lean forward and fall right over on my face.

  Get up, I think. Get up, you piece of filth, GET UP!

  “Hungry, Todd,” Manchee says, meaning me that’s hungry. “Eat. Eat, Todd.”

  I push with hands on the ground, coughing as I come up, spitting up handfuls of gunk from my lungs. I get to my knees at least.

  “Food, Todd.”

  “I know,” I say. “I know.”

  I feel so dizzy I have to put my head back down on the ground. “Just gimme a sec,” I say, whispering it into the leaves on the ground. “Just a quick sec.”

  And I fall again into blackness.

  I don’t know how long I’m out but I wake to Manchee barking. “People!” he’s
barking. “People! Todd, Todd, Todd! People!”

  I open my eyes. “What people?” I say.

  “This way,” he barks. “People. Food, Todd. Food!”

  I take shallow breaths, coughing all the way, my body weighing ninety million pounds, and I push my way out the other side of the bramble. I look up and over.

  I’m in a ditch right by the road.

  I can see carts up ahead on the left, a whole string of ’em, pulled by oxes and by horses, disappearing round a bend.

  “Help,” I say, but my voice comes out like a gasp with not near enough volume.

  Get up.

  “Help,” I call again, but it’s only to myself.

  Get up.

  It’s over. I can’t stand no more. I can’t move no more. It’s over.

  Get up.

  But it’s over.

  The last cart disappears round the bend and it’s over.

  … give up.

  I put my head down, right down, on the roadside, grit and pebbles digging into my cheek. A shiver shakes me and I roll to my side and pull myself to myself, curling my legs to my chest, and I close my eyes and I’ve failed and I’ve failed and please won’t the darkness just take me please please please—“That you, Ben?”

  I open my eyes.

  It’s Wilf.

  28. THE SMELL OF ROOTS

  “Y’all right, Ben?” he asks, putting a hand under my armpit to help me up but even with that I can’t barely stand nor even raise my head much and so I feel his other hand under my other armpit. That don’t work neither so he goes even further than that and lifts me over his shoulder. I stare down at the back of his legs as he carries me to his cart.

  “Hoo is it, Wilf?” I hear a woman’s voice ask.

  “’s Ben,” Wilf says. “Lookin poorly.”

  Next thing I know he’s setting me down on the back of his cart. It’s piled rag-tag with parcels and boxes covered in leather skins, bits of furniture and large baskets, all tumbled together, almost overflowing with itself.

  “It’s too late,” I say. “It’s over.”

  The woman’s walked over the back of the cart from the seat and hops down to face me. She’s broad with a worn dress and flyaway hair and lines at the corners of her eyes and her voice is quick, like a mouse. “What’s over, young’un?” “She’s gone.” I feel my chin crumpling and my throat pulling. “I lost her.”

  I feel a cool hand on my forehead and it feels so good I press into it. She takes it away and says, “Fever,” to Wilf.

  “Yup,” Wilf says.

  “Best make a poultice,” the woman says and I think she heads off into the ditch but that don’t make no sense.

  “Where’s Hildy, Ben?” Wilf says, trying to get his eyes to meet mine. Mine are so watery it’s hard to even see him.

  “Her name ain’t Hildy,” I say.

  “Ah know,” Wilf says, “but at’s whatcha call her.”

  “She’s gone,” I say, my eyes filling. My head falls forward again. I feel Wilf put a hand on my shoulder and he squeezes it.

  “Todd?” I hear Manchee bark, unsure, a ways off the road.

  “I ain’t called Ben,” I say to Wilf, still not looking up.

  “Ah know,” Wilf says again. “But at’s what we’re callin ya.”

  I look up to him. His face and his Noise are as blank as I remember but the lesson of forever and ever is that knowing a man’s mind ain’t knowing the man.

  Wilf don’t say nothing more and goes back to the front of the cart. The woman comes back with a seriously foul-smelling rag in her hands. It stinks of roots and mud and ugly herbs but I’m so tired I let her tie it round my forehead, right over the bandage that’s still stuck on the side of my head.

  “At should work onna fever,” she says, hopping back up. We both lurch forward a little bit as Wilf snaps the rein on his oxes. The woman’s eyes are wide open, looking into mine like searching for exciting news. “Yoo runnin from the army, too?” Her quiet next to me reminds me so much of Viola it’s all I can do not to just lean against her. “Kinda,” I say.

  “Yoo’s what told Wilf about it, huh?” she says. “Yoo’s and a girl told Wilf bout the army, told him to tell people, tell people they had to gettaway, dincha?”

  I look up at her, smelly brown root water dripping down my face, and I turn back to look at Wilf, up there driving his cart. He hears me looking. “They lissened to Wilf,” he says.

  I look up and past him to the road ahead. As we go round a bend, I can hear not only the rush of the river to my right again, like an old friend, an old foe, I can see a line of carts stretching on up ahead of us on the road at least as far as the next bend, carts packed with belongings just like Wilf’s and all kindsa people straggled along the tops, holding on to anything that won’t knock ’em off.

  It’s a caravan. Wilf is taking the rear of a long caravan. Men and women and I think even children, too, if I can see clearly thru the stink of the thing tied round my head, their Noise and silence floating up and back like a great, clattery thing all its own.

  Army I hear a lot. Army and army and army.

  And cursed town.

  “Brockley Falls?” I ask.

  “Bar Vista, too,” the woman says, nodding her head fast. “And others. Rumour’s been flyin up the river and road. Army from cursed town comin and comin, growin as it comes, with men pickin up arms to join in.” Growing as it comes, I think.

  “Thousands strong, they say,” says the woman.

  Wilf makes a scoffing sound. “Ain’t no thousand people ’tween here and cursed town.”

  The woman twists her lips. “Ah’m only sayin what people are sayin.”

  I look back at the empty road behind us, Manchee panting along a little distance away, and I remember Ivan, the man in the barn at Farbranch, who told me that not everyone felt the same about history, that Pren— that my town had allies still. Maybe not thousands, but still maybe growing. Getting bigger and bigger as it marches on till it’s so big how can anyone stand against it?

  “We’re going to Haven,” the woman says. “They’ll pruhtekt us there.”

  “Haven,” I mumble to myself.

  “Say they even got a cure for Noise in them there parts,” the woman says. “Now there’s a thing Ah’d like to see.” She laughs out loud at herself. “Or hear, Ah guess.” She slaps her thigh.

  “They got Spackle there?” I ask.

  The woman turns to me surprised. “Spackle don’t come near people,” she says. “Not no more, not since the war. They’s keep to theirselves and we’s keep to ourselves and such is the peace kept.” It sounds like she’s reciting the last part. “Tain’t hardly none left anyway.” “I gotta go.” I put my hands down and try to lift myself up. “I gotta find her.”

  All that happens is that I lose my balance and fall off the end of the cart. The woman calls to Wilf to stop and they both lift me back up on it, the woman getting Manchee up top, too. She clears a few boxes away to lay me down and Wilf gets the cart going again. He snaps the oxes a bit harder this time and I can feel us moving along faster — faster than I could walk at least.

  “Eat,” the woman says, holding up some bread to my face. “Yoo can’t go nowhere till yoo eat.”

  I take the bread from her and eat a bite, then tear into the rest so hungrily I forget to give some to Manchee. The woman just takes out some more and gives some to both of us, watching wide-eyed at every move I make.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Ah’m Jane,” she says. Her eyes are still way open, like she’s just bursting to say stuff. “Didja see the army?” she asks. “With yer own eyes?”

  “I did,” I say. “In Farbranch.”

  She sucks in her breath. “So it’s true.” Not an asking, just saying it.

  “Told yoo it were true,” Wilf says from up front.

  “Ah hear they’re cuttin off people’s heads and boilin their eyes,” Jane says.

  “Jane!” Wilf snaps.

  “Ah�
��m just sayin.”

  “They’re killing folk,” I say, low. “Killing’s enough.”

  Jane’s eyes dart all over my face and Noise but all she says after a bit is, “Wilf told me all bout yoo,” and I can’t figure out at all what her smile means.

  A drip from the rag makes it to my mouth and I gag and spit and cough some more. “What is this?” I say, pressing the rag with my fingers and wincing from the smell.

  “Poultice,” Jane says. “For fevers and ague.”

  “It stinks.”

  “Evil smell draws out evil fever,” she says, as if telling me a lesson everyone knows.

  “Evil?” I say. “Fever ain’t evil. It’s fever.”

  “Yeah, and this poultice treats fever.”

  I stare at her. Her eyes never leave me and the wide open part of them is starting to make me uncomfortable. It’s how Aaron looks when he’s pinning you down, how he looks when he’s imparting a sermon with his fists, when he’s preaching you into a hole you might never come out of.

  It’s a mad look, I realize.

  I try to check the thought but Jane don’t give no sign she heard.

  “I gotta go,” I say again. “Thank you kindly for the food and the poultry but I gotta go.”

  “Yoo can’t go off in these woods here, nosirree,” she says, still staring, still not blinking. “Them’s dangerous woods, them is.”

  “What do you mean, dangerous?” I push myself away from her a little.

  “Settlements up the way,” she says, her eyes even wider and a smile now, like she can’t wait to tell me. “Crazy as anything. Noise sent ’em wild. Hear tell of one where everyone wears masks so’s no one kin see their faces. There’s another where no one don’t do nothing but sing all day long they gone so crazy. And one where everyone’s walls are made a glass and no one wears no clothes cuz no one’s got secrets in Noise, do they?” She’s closer to me now. I can smell her breath, which is worse than the rag, and I feel the silence behind all these words. How can that be so? How can silence contain so much racket?

  “People can keep secrets in Noise,” I say. “People can keep all kindsa secrets.”

  “Leave a boy alone,” Wilf says from his seat.

  Jane’s face goes slack. “Sorry,” she says, a little grudgingly.