When he turned his head, Letta could see that he was barely able to open his eyes.
“Master,” she said, “you awake!”
He squeezed her hand.
“There are things I need to…tell you, Letta. I wish I could pass this burden to someone else…someone older…but you are the wordsmith now.”
“What, master? What should I know?”
“John Noa called me to his house to make me an offer. He offered me immunity…from…what he planned to do.”
A fit of coughing suddenly racked his body. Letta lifted his head and waited anxiously until it subsided.
“It’s all right, master,” she said. “You can tell me later. Rest now.”
He lay back on the pillow, and Letta could see a blue glow around his mouth.
“No time,” he said. “Let me finish.”
She stroked his hand. “Go on then,” she said.
“John Noa plans…to make the people…wordless.”
“Wordless?” What could he have in mind? A shorter List? No List?
“He’s determined. He thinks man is still a…liability.”
“Master?” Letta felt her heart pounding.
He opened his eyes again. “Letta,” he said, “you are the wordsmith now. For centuries…centuries…writers have stood between the rulers and…the people. You have to…stop him.”
Letta put her hand on his cheek. “I will, master,” she said, tears rolling down her face. “I will.”
“They loved you very much, you know, your parents. They would never be…away…if they could help it.”
“I know that, master,” she said.
He tightened his grip on her hand.
“In my study, in the bottom drawer, is a package for you, Letta. Do not open it until all this is over. Then, if there is a future…if you manage to stop him…open it then.”
“But what is it, master? Why do—”
“No questions, child. Just remember…the birds still fly south. Remember that, child.”
Letta had no idea what he meant. Was he delirious again?
His breathing got more labored. He gripped her hand.
“You have been…like a daughter to me, Letta,” he said. “You can’t let Noa do this…to us.”
Letta tried to speak, but her throat was too tight, tears rolling into her mouth and down her neck. Around the room, the fireflies were gathering. Words she couldn’t say dancing about her head.
Love. Heart. Warmth.
“Master,” she managed to say, but he hushed her and with the last of his strength pulled her to him.
She put her head on his chest. She could just hear the faint beat of his heart and feel his hand on her hair.
“No need,” he said. “No need for words.”
She closed her eyes, listening to him breathe, and a calmness descended.
Outside, she heard a lone bird greet the day, its song bright and full of hope. The sun shone weakly through the window and warmed her neck. Benjamin exhaled one long breath, a breath full of resignation. Letta waited for him to inhale, but there was only the sound of her own heart in her ears.
And then she knew he was gone.
• • •
She had stayed with him for as long as she could. She didn’t wake the others, wanting these last few hours alone with him. Her mind was racing with all he had told her, but her heart was numb. She tried to remember the happy times they had spent together, things he had told her, but she couldn’t concentrate. He was depending on her, and she would not let him down.
She paced the floor, trying to assemble the facts as she knew them. Noa planned to make people wordless. He had offered to save Benjamin, but Benjamin had refused his offer. Noa had murdered him. That was all she knew.
The immensity of her promise hit her. How could she stop Noa? She had no idea what it was he planned to do. Images of the Wordless haunted her.
Edgeware came to her as the first flurries of snow filled the window. She looked at the old man, then took Letta in her arms. Letta was glad to feel the warmth of the older woman, but she still couldn’t feel anything emotionally.
Within minutes, Finn and Marlo joined them. They sat together around the bed while Edgeware chanted old verses that she said would shelter his fleeing spirit. Letta had never heard anything like it.
Hallowed, hallowed be thy name
You shall nay want
For thou be great
As you be in your beginning
Be now
And ever shall be
Hallowed, hallowed, hallowed.
Then, with the help of Marlo and Finn, she wrapped Benjamin’s body in a white linen sheet. At midday, they buried him behind the cottage as snow fell on Letta’s hair and rested on her upturned face. The others left her alone then to say her last good-byes. Anger consumed her. Hot, fierce anger roaring inside her so her ears rang and her stomach churned.
She looked back into the dark forest, but there was nothing to see apart from the snow, a white screen between her, and the rest of the world.
Benjamin. She would never see him again, never hear his voice, never hold his warm hand. His soft, reassuring presence in her life was gone forever, like a clock that had stopped ticking.
Marlo’s voice woke her from her reverie.
“There you are,” he said. “I was worried.”
Of course he was worried. She was in the forest, alone. How quickly she had grown used to her new surroundings, lulled into a mindless security in a matter of days.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I needed time to think.”
He offered her his hand, and she took it with some reluctance.
“I talked to Finn,” Marlo said. “You can live with us. If you want to. Would you like that?”
She could see the concern in his beautiful eyes, the blue-gray shining in the white light. She hesitated.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would love to go live with you, but—”
He frowned.
“But?”
“I have to go back, Marlo. There are things I have to do.”
As soon as the words were spoken, she realized she had made her decision. She had to try to do what Benjamin had asked of her.
“You should know something.” Marlo spoke slowly. “We are planning a revolution. Finn has already recruited people from Ark, from Tintown. It is only a matter of time before we overthrow Noa. You could be part of that.”
“There isn’t time,” Letta said. “We know he plans to make us wordless. We need to know how he’s going to do it.”
“I don’t understand,” Marlo said.
“I hope I can be the wordsmith. I think that is important to Noa.”
Marlo’s face fell.
“You will go back and work for him, even now, after all that has happened?”
Letta smiled. “I will go back and work against him, Marlo. That’s different.”
• • •
Finn, however, was not as easy to persuade. They sat around Edgeware’s table and talked late into the night. Edgeware said little, but Letta could see she listened to every word. Finn continued to push for Letta to come and stay with them.
“You are too young to take Noa on all alone, Letta,” he said finally, and Letta could see that he was coming to the end of his patience. “In time, we can overcome him. We already have the makings of an army.”
“We don’t have time,” Letta said. “I am the wordsmith. I can get Noa to trust me, like he trusted Benjamin. I can find out what he plans to do, and then we can stop him.”
“If he hasn’t killed you by then,” Finn said.
There was silence for a second as those words hit home.
Then Edgeware spoke. “I think Letta be right,” she said.
Everyone stared at
her. The old woman took up her cup and sipped from it. “You will nay stop him from the outside. He be too clever and too well protected. If Letta gain his confidence, happen it be easier to defeat him.”
“And what if he realizes what she’s up to?” Finn’s eyes were hard as he glared at the old woman.
Edgeware didn’t flinch. “Then he be killing her, and we all be wordless. If she nay does do it, she live on, but mankind as we know it be destroyed.”
She put her cup down. No one spoke. The stark reality of Edgeware’s words brooked no argument. There was no going back now. Letta only hoped she could do what was required of her.
“You will have us behind you at all times,” Finn said, as though reading her mind. “Whatever we can do will be done. We need you to keep in touch, to let us know what is happening.”
Letta nodded. “Of course,” she said.
“What about you, Edgeware?” Finn said. “Can we persuade you to come and live with us?”
The old woman shook her head.
“Whatever days be left to me, I will see out here in the forest,” she said. “I am having no need of the company of men.”
“Have you no family?” Letta asked quietly.
The old woman shook her head.
“I be having a son once,” she said, playing with the handle of her cup.
“What happened?” Letta said, realizing she was straying into territory that older people didn’t like. Edgeware looked up at her, her eyes clear and bright.
“Noa made him wordless,” she said.
Letta felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her.
“Wordless?” she said, thinking of the people she had seen in Tintown.
“Why do you say Noa made him wordless?” Finn asked.
“Because he did,” she answered him and then looked down at her cup.
“How?” Letta asked, trying to make sense of the shifting sands.
Edgeware laughed, a mirthless sound. “He cut out his tongue.”
She had spoken so softly that Letta thought at first she had misheard. But one look at Marlo’s face, and she knew there was no mistake.
He cut out his tongue.
“Why?” Letta had to force the word out.
Edgeware shrugged. “Who be knowing that?” she said. “It be a time before List. An experiment, done in secret. He kidnapped the children. It be his first attempt to control words, but it be too complex. Many of the chosen ones bled to death. My Thomas didn’t. He survived. His body did. But his spirit be dead from that day. He hanged his own self one morning. He be seventeen.”
Her words hung in the stale air of the little room for a moment. Letta felt she could almost touch them.
“How did you find out? About Noa, I mean?” she said.
Edgeware was silent for a minute, but then she started to speak again. “A couple months after they be taken, the children who didn’t die arrived back. They walked out of the forest. None of them could communicate, or they be too afraid to. My Thomas could write. Noa didn’t know that. I took him home and got the story from him. They telling them their families be killed if they tell anyone, but Thomas and I be close in heart always. He telled me everything.”
“Was that when you went to live in the forest?” Finn asked the question quietly, but Letta could hear the steel in his voice.
The old woman nodded. “I couldn’t stay there. I took Thomas and everything we owned and walked back into the forest. I thought I nay would survive, but somehow, I did.”
“But Thomas didn’t,” Marlo said.
Edgeware shook her head. “No,” she said. “He died here and he be buried here.”
The words were simply spoken, but Letta knew it explained why Edgeware stayed. She didn’t want to abandon him.
Letta was reluctant to leave the old woman and Benjamin. It was strange to her that she took comfort in him lying under the forest floor. It seemed like a better place than back in Ark, a safer place. The old woman hugged her before she left.
“Go safely,” she said.
“Thank you for everything you did for me and for Benjamin,” Letta replied. “I hope someday that I will be able to repay you.”
“If you be able to stop Noa, you will more than repay me,” Edgeware said before letting her go.
Almost before she knew it, Letta was once more following Finn through the dense forest, listening to Marlo’s steady steps following her. The snow had stopped falling but had left a deep carpet under foot. The wetness soaked Letta’s feet leaving her feeling cold all the time. She barely noticed though. Her mind was too preoccupied by the future and what she might do and where it would lead her.
By the time she saw the South Gate of Ark loom out of the mist, she had the bones of a plan.
• • •
The water tower was deserted. He stood on the narrow walkway between the tanks. He rehearsed what he would do. The Green Warriors had taught him all they knew about the chemical. He was almost ready. He walked through it in his mind until he was certain he hadn’t forgotten anything. Then he climbed down the stairs, one foot after the other, gripping the rusty banister, his hand slippery with sweat.
How many to keep?
The Green Warriors, Len, the chief gavver, Amelia, and a handful of craftsmen. That should be enough.
The wordsmith? Letta was a sweet girl, and it made his heart heavy to think of losing her, but no, they would have no need for a wordsmith. He was confident Benjamin had removed most of the words that were out there. Though perhaps Amelia would want to keep her. That was something he would discuss with her.
He made a mental note to destroy his own library. There would be time enough to destroy what remained in the wordsmith’s shop when it was all over. By then, words would be of no use and of no interest.
Before the Melting, the Wordless had been aggressive at first but soon became docile and lost the will to live. He would leave that to nature. There was only so much he could control.
Chapter 17
#395
Son
Male young
“Why do you think Fearfall the scavenger lied to me about finding Benjamin dead?” Letta asked Finn before they parted ways.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We can bring him in and question him.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous? Wouldn’t he report you the first chance he got?”
Finn shook his head. “He wouldn’t know where he was or who had questioned him.”
Letta frowned, trying to process what Finn had just said.
“When?” Letta said. “When can you question him?”
“We need a few days,” Finn said. “We need to watch him for a while, learn his movements. Then we’ll take him.”
Shadowy images raced across Letta’s mind. People being taken in the dead of night. Bodies washed up on the beach. People talking in hushed whispers.
“You’ll let me know?” she asked.
Finn nodded.
She was sorry to see them go.
Marlo had hung back for a moment to talk to her privately. “Remember,” he said, “you’re not alone. You can always contact us.”
“Or call you in my dreams,” Letta said with a smile.
“That might not be quite so reliable,” he said and took her hand, his thumb stroking her palm. She felt the blood run to her face. His skin burning hers. Could he feel her excitement?
“Do think about coming to live with us, Letta. It’s not a bad life, you know.”
“I know,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I just need time, Marlo. I need to carry out my promise to Benjamin. Maybe I won’t be able to, but I can at least try.”
“You will,” Marlo said. “You can do anything if you want it badly enough.”
Later, walking through the familiar streets, she though
t again about what he had said. She’d missed him as soon as he’d left her. She wanted so badly to go live with him. But she had to focus on other things. She was the wordsmith. That was her destiny. She wouldn’t walk away from it. She just hoped he would wait for her.
As she walked up Cedar Street, she saw a crowd gathered outside the cobbler’s shop. Of course, she thought. The last day of November. The Changing of the Shoes, when people got fitted for new footwear. Shoes were swapped from older children to younger ones, the shoes of the dead were passed to the living—men and women found themselves entitled to a new pair or were disappointed when Rua the cobbler said their shoes could be repaired yet again.
Letta had been best friends with Rua’s daughter, Eva, when they were at school. She had died from a fever when she was twelve. Rua was a hearty man with a big laugh and was well liked in Ark, though people felt he was thrifty with his materials, and certainly, new shoes were not given easily. He made the shoes mostly from cotton or hemp, but field workers were entitled to leather made from dead animal skins. She shivered, remembering the skins hanging in the sun behind the cobbler’s house. Letta’s own shoes were well patched, but she knew there was no question of replacing them yet. She stood for a minute, watching the crowd hanging around outside the shop. It was always a happy day, this Changing of the Shoes, with a festival atmosphere, and today was no different. There was lots of laughter as Letta walked on by, and she was struck by how her attitude had changed. Once, she would have seen this as proof of her community pulling together, one big happy family living lightly on the planet. Now she knew differently. This was how Noa exerted his control, pulling their strings, a menacing puppet master, hiding in the shadows. If the people knew what he was really like!
They would know. She would see to it that they did. Approaching her own shop, her stomach rumbled ominously. Edgeware had given them bread and frozen berries to take with them. Finn had tapped into the main water pipe to give them water, but now she was hungry. It was past breakfast time and not yet dinner time. Tuesday. Nettle soup. Baked potatoes and goat’s cheese. Her mouth watered.
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