Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (20 page)

“And I should just trust ye?” Francia says. “A boy who’s a-being chased?” She looks down to Viola, still waiting on the bottom step. “I can just imagine why
ye
were running.”

“Oh, stuff it, Francia,” Hildy says, still holding the door open for us.

Francia turns and shooshes Hildy outta the way. “I’ll be in charge of entry into my own house, thank ye very much,” Francia says, then to us, “Well, c’mon if yer coming.”

And that’s how we first see the hospitality of Farbranch. We go inside. Francia and Hildy bickering twixt themselves about whether Francia’s got a place to put us in for however long we might wanna stay. Hildy wins the bickering and Francia shows me and Viola to separate small rooms next to each other one floor up.

“Yer dog has to sleep outside,” Francia says.

“But he’s–”

“That wasn’t a question,” Francia says, leaving the room.

I follow her out to the landing. She don’t turn back as she goes downstairs. In less than a minute, I can hear her and Hildy arguing again, trying to keep their voices down. Viola comes outta her room to listen, too. We stand there for a second, wondering.

“Whaddya think?” I say.

She don’t look at me. Then it’s like she decides to look at me and does.

“I don’t know,” she says. “What do
you
think?”

I shrug my shoulders. “She don’t seem too happy to see us,” I say, “but it’s still safer than I’ve felt in a while. Behind walls and such.” I shrug again. “And Ben wanted us to get here and all.”

Which is true but I still ain’t sure if it feels right.

Viola’s clutching her arms to herself, just like Francia but not like Francia at all. “I know what you mean.”

“So I guess it’ll do for now.”

“Yes,” Viola says. “For now.”

We listen to a bit more arguing.

“What you did back there–” Viola says.

“It was stupid,” I say, real fast. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

My face is starting to burn so I step back in my little room. I stand there and chew my lip. The room looks like it used to belong to an old person. Kinda smells that way, too, but at least it’s a real bed. I go to my rucksack and I open it.

I look round to make sure no one’s followed me in and I pull out the book. I open it to the map, to the arrows that point down thru the swamp, to the river on the other side. No bridge on the map but there’s the settlement. With a word underneath it.

“Fayre,” I say, to myself. “Fayre braw nk.”

Which I guess is Farbranch.

I breathe loud thru my nose as I look at the page of writing on the back of the map.
You must warn them
(of course, of
course,
shut up) still underlined at the bottom. Like Viola said, tho, warn who? Warn Farbranch? Warn Hildy?

“About what?” I say. I thumb thru the book and there’s pages of stuff, pages and pages of it, words on words on words on words, like Noise shoved down onto paper till you can’t make no sense from it. How can I warn anybody about all
this
?

“Aw, Ben,” I say under my breath. “What were you thinking?”

“Todd?” Hildy calls from downstairs. “Vi?”

I close the book and look at its cover.

Later. I’ll ask about it later.

I
will
.

Later.

I put it away and I go downstairs. Viola’s already waiting there. Hildy and Francia, arms crossed again, waiting, too.

“I’ve got to get back to my farm, pups,” Hildy says. “Work to do for the good of all but Francia’s agreed to look after ye for today and I’ll come back tonight to see how yer a-getting on.”

Viola and I look at each other, suddenly not wanting Hildy to leave.

“Thank ye for that,” Francia says, frowning. “Despite what my sister may have told ye two about me, I’m hardly an ogre.”

“She didn’t say–” I start to say before I stop myself, even tho my Noise finishes it up for me.
Anything about you.

“Yeah, well, that’s typical,” Francia says, glaring at Hildy but not seeming too put out. “Ye can stay here for the time being. Pa and Auntie are long dead and there’s not too much call for their rooms these days.”

I was right. Old person’s room.

“But we’re a working town here in Farbranch.” Francia looks from me to Viola and back again. “And ye’ll be expected to earn yer keep, even if it’s just for a day or two while ye make whatever plans yer going to make.”

“We’re still not sure,” Viola says.

“Hmmph,” Francia hmmphs. “And if ye two stay on past this first cresting of the orchards, there’ll be a-schooling for ye to do.”

“School?” I say.

“School and church,” Hildy says. “That’s if ye stay long enough.” I’m guessing she’s reading my Noise again. “Are ye going to stay long enough?”

I don’t say nothing and Viola don’t say nothing and Franica hmmphs again.

“Please, Mrs Francia?” Viola says as Francia turns to talk to Hildy.

“Just Francia, child,” Francia says, looking surprised. “What is it?”

“Is there somewhere I can send a message back to my ship?”

“Yer ship,” Francia says. “This a-being that settler ship way out in the dark black yonder?” Her mouth draws thin. “With all them people on it?”

Viola nods. “We were supposed to report back. Let them know what we found.”

Viola’s voice is so quiet and her face so looking and hopeful, so open and wide and ready for disappointment that I feel that familiar tug of sadness again, pulling all Noise into it like grief, like being lost. I put a hand on the back of a settee to steady myself.

“Ah, girl pup,” Hildy says, her voice getting suspiciously gentle again. “I’m guessing ye tried to contact us folks down here on New World when ye were a-scouting the planet?”

“Yeah,” Viola says. “No one answered.”

Hildy and Francia exchange nods. “Yer a-forgetting we were church settlers,” Francia says, “getting away from worldly things to set up our own little utopia, so we let that kinda machinery go to rack and ruin as we got on with the business of surviving.”

Viola’s eyes get a little wider. “You have no way of communicating with anyone?”

“We don’t have communicators for other
settlements,
” Francia says, “much less the beyond.”

“We’re farmers, pup,” Hildy says. “Simple farmers, looking for a simpler way of life. That was the whole point we were a-trying for in flying all this ridiculous way to get here. Setting down the things that caused such strife for people of old.” She taps her fingers on a table-top. “Didn’t quite work out that way, tho.”

“We weren’t really expecting no others,” Francia says. “Not the way Old World was when we left.”

“So I’m stuck here?” Viola says, her voice a little shaky.

“Until yer ship arrives,” Hildy says. “I’m afraid so.”

“How far out are they?” Francia asks.

“System entry in 24 weeks,” Viola says quietly. “Perihelion four weeks later. Orbital transfer two weeks after that.”

“I’m sorry, child,” Francia says. “Looks like yer ours for seven months.”

Viola turns away from all of us, obviously taking this news in.

A lot can happen in seven months.

“Well, now,” Hildy says, making her voice bright, “I hear tell they got all kindsa things in Haven. Fissioncars and city streets and more stores than ye can shake a stick at. Ye might try there before ye really start a-worrying, yes?”

Hildy makes an eye towards Francia and Francia says, “Todd pup? Why don’t we get you a-working in the barn? Yer a farm boy, ain’t ye?”

“But–” I start to say.

“All kinds of work to be done on a farm,” Francia says, “as I’m sure ye know all too well–”

Chattering away like this, Francia gets me out the back door. Looking over my shoulder, I can see Hildy comforting Viola in soft words, unhearable words, things being said that I don’t know yet again.

Francia closes the door behind us and leads me and Manchee across the main road to one of the big storage houses I saw when we were walking in. I can see men pulling handcarts up to the main front door and another man unloading the baskets of orchard fruit.

“This is east barn,” Francia says, “where we store things ready to be traded. Wait here.”

I wait and she walks up to the man unloading the baskets from the cart. They talk for a minute and I can hear
Prentisstown?
clear as day in his Noise and the sudden surge of feeling behind it. It’s a slightly different feeling than before but it fades before I can read it and Francia comes back.

“Ivan says ye can work in the back a-sweeping up.”

“Sweeping up?”
I say, kinda appalled. “I know how farms work, mim, and I–”

“I’m sure ye do but ye may have noticed that Prentisstown ain’t our most popular neighbour. Best to keep ye away from everyone till we’ve all had a chance to get used to ye. Fair enough?”

She’s still stern, still arms crossed, but actually, yeah, this seems sensible and tho her face ain’t kind exactly maybe it sorta is.

“Okay,” I say.

Francia nods and takes me over to Ivan, who looks about Ben’s age, but short, dark-haired and arms like effing tree trunks.

“Ivan, this is Todd,” Francia says.

I hold out my hand to shake. Ivan doesn’t take it. He just eyeballs me something fierce.

“You’ll work in back,” he says. “And you’ll keep yerself and yer dog outta my way.”

Francia leaves us and Ivan takes me inside, points out a broom, and I get to work. And that’s how I start my first day in Farbranch: inside a dark barn, sweeping dust from one corner to another, seeing one single stitch of blue sky out a door at the far end.

Oh, the joy.

“Poo, Todd,” Manchee says.

“Not in here, you don’t.”

It’s a pretty big barn, seventy-five to eighty metres from end to end, maybe, and about half full of baskets of crested pine. There’s a section with big rolls of silage, too, packed up to the ceiling with thin rope, and another section with huge sheaves of wheat ready to be ground into flour.

“You sell this stuff on to other settlements?” I call out to Ivan.

“Time for chatter later,” he calls back from the front.

I don’t say nothing to this but something kinda rude shows up in my Noise before I can stop it. I hurry and get back to sweeping.

The morning waxes on. I think about Ben and Cillian. I think about Viola. I think about Aaron and the Mayor. I think about the word
army
and how it’s making my stomach clench.

I don’t know.

It don’t feel right to be stopped. Not after all that running.

Everyone’s acting like it’s safe here but I don’t know.

Manchee wanders in and out the back doors as I sweep, sometimes chasing the pink moths I stir from faint corners. Ivan keeps his distance, I keep mine, but I can see all the people who come to his door and drop off goods taking a deep, long look to the back of the barn, sometimes squinting into the darkness to see if they can find me there, the Prentisstown boy.

So they hate Prentisstown, I got that.
I
hate Prentisstown but I got more cause for grief than any of them.

I start noticing things, too, as the morning gets older. Like that tho men and women both do the heavy labour, women give more orders that more men follow. And with Francia being Deputy Mayor and Hildy being whoever she is in Farbranch, I’m beginning to think it’s a town run by women. I can often hear their silences as they walk by outside and I can hear men’s Noise responding to it, too, sometimes with chafing but usually in a way that just gets on with things.

Men’s Noise here, too, is a
lot
more controlled than what I’m used to. With so many women around and from what I know of the Noise of Prentisstown, you’d think the sky would be full of Noisy women with no clothes doing the most remarkable things you could think of. And sure you hear that sometimes here, men are men after all, but more of the time it’s songs or it’s prayers or it’s directed to the work at hand.

They’re calm here in Farbranch but they’re a little spooky.

Once in a while, I see if I can hear (not hear) Viola.

But no.

At lunchtime, Francia comes to the back of the barn with a sandwich and a jug of water.

“Where’s Viola?” I ask.

“Yer welcome,” Francia says.

“For what?”

Francia sighs and says, “Viola’s in the orchards, gathering dropped fruits.”

I want to ask how she is but I don’t and Francia refuses to read it in my Noise.

“How ye getting on?” she asks.

“I know how to do a lot more than ruddy sweep.”

“Mind yer language, pup. There’ll be time enough to get ye to real work.”

She don’t stay, walking back towards the front, having another word with Ivan and then she’s off to do whatever Deputy Mayors fill their days with.

Can I say? It makes no sense but I sorta like her. Probably cuz she reminds me of Cillian and all the things that used to drive me crazy about him. Memory is stupid, ain’t it?

I dig into my sandwich and I’m chewing my first bite when I hear Ivan’s Noise approaching.

“I’ll sweep up my crumbs,” I say.

To my surprise, he laughs, kinda roughly. “I’m sure ye will.” He takes a bite of his own sandwich. “Francia says there’s a village meeting tonight,” he says after a minute.

“Bout me?” I ask.

“Bout ye both. Ye and the girl. Ye and the girl what escaped Prentisstown.”

His Noise is strange. It’s cautious but strong, like he’s checking me out. I don’t read no hostility, not towards me, anyway, but
something’s
percolating in it.

“We gonna meet everyone?” I say.

“Ye might. We’ll all be a-talking bout ye first.”

“If there’s a vote,” I say, chomping on the sandwich, “I think I lose.”

“Ye’ve got Hildy a-speaking for yer side,” he says. “That counts for more than aught in Farbranch.” He swallows his own bite. “And the people here are kind people and good. We’ve taken in Prentisstown folk before. Not for a while but from way back in the bad times.”

“The war?” I say.

He looks at me, his Noise sizing me up, what I know. “Yeah,” he says, “the war.” He turns his head round the barn, casual-like, but I get the feeling he’s looking to see if we’re alone. He turns back and fixes his eye on me. An eye that’s really looking for something. “And then, too,” he says, “not all of us feel the same.”