Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (52 page)

“My name is Todd Hewitt,” I say. “You can call me Mr. Hewitt.”

“He promised us a new beginning–”

“Even
I
know he’s a liar.
How many people
?”

He sighs. “Including refugees, three thousand, three hundred.”

“The army ain’t a third that size,” I say. “You coulda fought.”

“Women and children,” he says. “Farmers.”

“Women and children fought in other towns. Women and children
died
.”

He steps forward, his face getting stormy. “Yes, and now the women and children of this city will
not
die! Because
I
reached a peace!”

“A peace that blacked yer eye,” I say. “A peace that split yer lip.”

He looks at me for another second and then gives a sad snort. “The words of a sage,” he says, “in the voice of a hick.”

And he turns back to look out the opening.

Which is when I notice the low
buzz
.

Asking marks fill my Noise but before I can open my mouth, the Mayor, the
old
Mayor, says, “Yes, that’s me you hear.”

“You?” I say. “What about the cure?”

“Would you give your conquered enemy his favourite medicine?”

I lick my upper lip. “It comes back? The Noise?”

“Oh, yes.” He turns to me again. “If you don’t take your daily dose, it most definitely comes back.” He returns to his corner and slowly sits himself down. “You’ll notice there are no toilets,” he says. “I apologize in advance for the unpleasantness.”

I watch him sit, my Noise still rattling red and sore and full of askings.

“It
was
you, if I’m not mistaken?” he says. “This morning? The one who the town was cleared for, the one the new President greeted himself on horseback?”

I don’t answer him. But my Noise does.

“So, who are you then, Todd Hewitt?” he says. “What makes you so special?”

Now
that,
I think, is a very good asking.

Night falls quick and full, Mayor Ledger saying less and less and fidgeting more and more till he finally can’t stand it and starts to pace. All the while, his
buzz
gets louder till even if we wanted to talk, we’d have to shout to do it.

I stand at the front of the tower and watch the stars come out, night covering the valley below.

And I’m thinking and I’m trying not to think cuz when I do, my stomach turns and I feel sick, or my throat clenches and I feel sick, or my eyes wet and I feel sick.

Cuz she’s out there somewhere.

(
please
be out there somewhere)

(
please
be okay)

(
please
)

“Do you always have to be so bloody
loud
?” Mayor Ledger snaps. I turn to him, ready to snap back, and he holds up his hands in apology. “I’m sorry. I’m not like this.” He starts fidgeting his fingers again. “It’s difficult having one’s cure taken away so abruptly.”

I look back out over New Prentisstown as lights start coming on in people’s houses. I ain’t hardly seen no one out there the whole day, everyone staying indoors, probably under the Mayor’s orders.

“They all going thru this out there, then?” I say.

“Oh, everyone will have their little stockpile at home,” Mayor Ledger says. “They’ll have to have it pried out of their hands, I imagine.”

“I don’t reckon that’ll be a problem when the army gets here,” I say.

The moons rise, crawling up the sky as if there was nothing to hurry about. They shine bright enough to light up New Prentisstown and I see how the river cuts thru town but that there ain’t nothing much north of it except fields, empty in the moonlight, then a sharp rise of rocky cliffs that make up the north wall of the valley. To the north, you can also see a thin road coming outta the hills before cutting its way back into town, the other road that Viola and I didn’t take after Farbranch, the other road the Mayor
did
take and got here first.

To the east, the river and the main road just carry on, going god knows where, round corners and farther hills, the town petering out as it goes. There’s another road, not much paved, that heads south from the square and past more buildings and houses and into a wood and up a hill with a notch on the top.

And that’s all there is of New Prentisstown.

Home to three thousand, three hundred people, all hiding in their houses, so quiet they might be dead.

Not one of them lifting a hand to save theirselves from what’s coming, hoping if they’re meek enough, if they’re
weak
enough, then the monster won’t eat ’em.

This
is where we spent all our time running to.

I see movement down on the square, a shadow flitting, but it’s only a dog.
Home, home, home,
I can just about hear him think.
Home, home, home.

Dogs don’t got the problems of people.

Dogs can be happy any old time.

I take a minute to breathe away the tightness that comes over my chest, the water in my eyes.

Take a minute to stop thinking bout my own dog.

When I can look out again, I see someone not a dog at all.

He’s got his head slumped forward and he’s walking his horse slow across the town square, the hoofs clopping against the brick and, as he approaches, even tho Mayor Ledger’s
buzz
has started to become such a nuisance I don’t know how I’m ever gonna sleep, I can still hear it out there.

Noise.

Across the quiet of a waiting city, I can hear the man’s Noise.

And he can hear mine.

Todd Hewitt?
he thinks.

And I can hear the smile growing on his face, too.

Found something, Todd
, he says, across the square, up the tower, seeking me out in the moonlight.
Found something of yers
.

I don’t say nothing. I don’t
think
nothing.

I just watch as he reaches behind him and holds something up towards me.

Even this far away, even by the light of the moons, I know what it is.

My ma’s book.

Davy Prentiss has my ma’s book.

[T
ODD
]

Early next morning, a platform with a microphone on it gets built noisily and quickly near the base of the bell tower and, as the morning turns to afternoon, the men of New Prentisstown gather in front of it.

“Why?” I say, looking out over ’em.

“Why do you think?” Mayor Ledger says, sitting in a darkened corner, rubbing his temples, his Noise
buzz
sawing away, hot and metallic. “To meet the new man in charge.”

The men don’t say much, their faces pale and grim, tho who can know what they’re thinking when you can’t hear their Noise? But they look cleaner than the men in my town used to, shorter hair, shaved faces, better clothes. A good number of ’em are rounded and soft like Mayor Ledger.

Haven musta been a comfortable place, a place where men weren’t fighting every day just to survive.

Maybe too much comfort was the problem.

Mayor Ledger snorts to himself but don’t say nothing.

Mayor Prentiss’s men are on horseback at strategic spots across the square, ten or twelve of ’em, rifles ready, to make sure everyone behaves tho the threat of an army coming seems to have done most of the work. I see Mr. Tate and Mr. Morgan and Mr. O’Hare, men I grew up with, men I used to see every day being farmers, men who were just men till suddenly they became something else.

I don’t see Davy Prentiss nowhere and my Noise starts rumbling again at the thought of him.

He musta come back down the hillside from wherever his horse dragged him and found the rucksack. All it had in it any more was a bunch of ruined clothes and the book.

My ma’s book.

My ma’s words to me.

Written when I was born. Written till just before she died.

Before she was murdered.

My wondrous son who I swear will see this world come good.

Words read to me by Viola cuz I couldn’t–

And now
Davy bloody Prentiss–

“Can you please,” Mayor Ledger says thru gritted teeth, “at least
try
–” He stops himself and looks at me apologetically. “I’m sorry,” he says, for the millionth time since Mr. Collins woke us up with breakfast.

Before I can say anything back I feel the hardest, sudden tug on my heart, so surprising I nearly gasp.

I look out again.

The women of New Prentisstown are coming.

They start to appear farther away, in groups down side streets away from the main body of men, kept there by the Mayor’s men patrolling on horseback.

I feel their silence in a way I can’t feel the men’s. It’s like a loss, like great groupings of sorrow against the sound of the world and I have to wipe my eyes again but I press myself closer to the opening, trying to see ’em, trying to see every single one of ’em.

Trying to see if she’s there.

But she ain’t.

She ain’t.

They look like the men, most of ’em wearing trousers and shirts of different cuts, some of ’em wearing long skirts, but most looking clean and comfortable and well-fed. Their hair has more variety, pulled back or up or over or short or long and not nearly as many of ’em are blonde as they are in the Noise of the menfolk where I come from.

And I see that more of their arms are crossed, more of their faces looking doubtful.

More anger there than on the faces of the men.

“Did anyone fight you?” I ask Mayor Ledger while I keep on looking. “Did anyone not wanna give up?”

“This is a democracy, Todd,” he sighs. “Do you know what that is?”

“No idea,” I say, still looking, still not finding.

“It means the minority is listened to,” he says, “but the majority rules.”

I look at him. “All these people wanted to surrender?”

“The President made a
proposal,
” he says, touching his split lip, “to the elected Council, promising that the city would be unharmed if we agreed to this.”

“And you believed him?”

His eyes flash at me. “You are either forgetting or do not know that we already fought a great war, a war to end
all
wars, at just about the time you would have been born. If any repeat of that can be avoided–”

“Then yer willing to hand yerselves over to a murderer.”

He sighs again. “The majority of the Council, led by myself, decided this was the best way to save the most lives.” He rests his head against the brick. “Not everything is black and white, Todd. In fact, almost nothing is.”

“But what if–”

Ker-thunk.
The lock on the door slides back and Mr. Collins enters, pistol pointed.

He looks straight at Mayor Ledger. “Get up,” he says.

I look back and forth twixt ’em both. “What’s going on?” I say.

Mayor Ledger stands from his corner. “It seems the piper must be paid, Todd,” he says, his voice trying to sound light but I hear his
buzz
rev up with fear. “This was a beautiful town,” he says to me. “And I was a better man. Remember that, please.”

“What are you talking about?” I say.

Mr. Collins takes him by the arm and shoves him out the door.

“Hey!” I shout, coming after them. “Where are you taking him?”

Mr. Collins raises a fist to punch me–

And I flinch away.

(shut
up
)

He laughs and locks the door behind him.

Ker-thunk.

And I’m left alone in the tower.

And as Mayor Ledger’s
buzz
disappears down the stairs, that’s when I hear it.

March march march,
way in the distance.

I go to an opening.

They’re here.

The conquering army, marching into Haven.

They flow down the zigzag road like a black river, dusty and dirty and coming like a dam’s burst. They march four or five across and the first of them disappear into the far trees at the base of the hill as the last finally crest the top. The crowd watches them, the men turning back from the platform, the women looking out from the side streets.

The
march march march
grows louder, echoing down the city streets. Like a clock ticking its way down.

The crowd waits. I wait with them.

And then, thru the trees, at the turning of the road–

Here they are.

The army.

Mr. Hammar at their front.

Mr. Hammar who lived in the petrol stayshun back home, Mr. Hammar who thought vile, violent things no boy should ever hear, Mr. Hammar who shot the people of Farbranch in the back as they fled.

Mr. Hammar leads the army.

I can hear him now, calling out marching words to keep everyone in time together.
The foot,
he’s yelling to the rhythm of the march.

The foot.

The foot.

The foot upon the neck.

They march into the square and turn down its side, cutting twixt the men and the women like an unstoppable force. Mr. Hammar’s close enough so I can see the smile, a smile I know full well, a smile that clubs, a smile that beats, a smile that dominates.