The Ask and the Answer (30 page)

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***

"He was right in the thick of it," Mistress Nadari says, as I help her get a freshly drugged woman to her feet. "Like he was looking for someone."

"His mother and sister," I say, taking the woman's weight against me.

"We didn't get everyone," Mistress Nadari says. "There was a whole other building where the bomb didn't go off-"

"Siobhan!" we hear someone shout in the distance.

I turn, my heart racing a lot faster and bigger than I expect, a smile breaking my cheeks. "He's found them!"

But you can see right away it's not true.

"Siobhan?" Lee is coming down the path from the forest, the arm and shoulder of his uniform blackened, his face covered in soot, his eyes looking everywhere, this way and that through all the people in the gully as he walks through them. "Mum?"

"Go," Mistress Nadari says to me. "See if he's hurt."

I let the woman lean onto Mistress Nadari and I run toward Lee, ignoring the other mistresses calling my name.

"Lee!" I call.

"Viola?" he says, seeing me. "Are they here? Do you know if they're here?"

"Are you hurt?" I reach him, taking the blackened sleeve and looking at his hands. "You're burned."

"There were fires," he says, and I look into his eyes. He's looking at me but he's not seeing me, he's seeing what he saw at the prisons, he's seeing the fires and what was behind them, he's seeing the prisoners they found, maybe he's seeing guards he had to kill.

He's not seeing his sister or his mother.

302

"Are they
here?"
he pleads. "Tell me they're here."

"I don't know what they look like," I say quietly.

Lee stares at me, his mouth open, his breath heavy and raspy, like he's breathed in a lot of smoke. "It was ..." he says. "Oh, God, Viola, it was ..." He looks up and past me, over my shoulder. "I've got to find them. They've got to be here."

He steps past me and down the gully. "Siobhan?
Mum?"
I can't help it and I call after him. "Lee? Did you see Todd?"

But he keeps on walking, stumbling away.

"Viola!" I hear and at first I think it's just another mistress calling for my help.

But then a voice beside me says, "Mistress Coyle!"

I turn and look up. At the top of the path is Mistress Coyle, on horseback, clopping down the rocks of the path as fast as she can make the horse go. She's got someone in the saddle behind her, someone tied to her to keep them from falling off. I feel a jolt of hope. Maybe it's Siobhan. Or Lee's mum.

(or him, maybe it's him, maybe-)

"Help us, Viola!" Mistress Coyle shouts, working the reins.

And as I start to run up the hill toward them, the horse turns to find its footing and I see who it is, unconscious and leaning badly.

Corinne.

"No," I keep saying, under my breath, hardly realizing it.

"No, no, no, no, no," as we get her down onto a flat of rock

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and as Mistress Lawson runs toward us with armfuls of bandages and medicines. "No, no, no," as I take her head in my hands to cradle it from the hard rock and Mistress Coyle tears off Corinne's sleeve to prepare for injections. "No," as Mistress Lawson reaches us and gasps as she sees who it is.

"You found her," Mistress Lawson says.

Mistress Coyle nods. "I found her."

I feel Corinne's skull under my hands, feel how the skin burns with fever. I see how sharp her cheeks look, how the bruising that discolors her eyes is against skin sagging and limp. And the collarbones that jut up from above the neckline of her torn and dirty mistress cloak. And the circles of burns against her neck. And the cuts on her forearms. And the tearing at her fingernails.

"Oh, Corinne," I whisper and wet from my eyes drops onto her forehead. "Oh, no."

"Stay with us, my girl," Mistress Coyle says, and I don't know whether she's talking to me or Corinne.

"Thea?" Mistress Lawson asks, not looking up.

Mistress Coyle shakes her head.

"Thea's dead?" I ask.

"And Mistress Waggoner," Mistress Coyle says, and I notice the smoke on her face, the red angry burns on her forehead. "And others." Her mouth draws thin. "But we got some of
them,
too."

"Come on, my girl," Mistress Lawson says to Corinne, still unconscious. "You were always the stubborn one. We need that now."

"Hold this," Mistress Coyle says, handing me a bag of

304

fluid connected to a tube injected into Corinne's arm. I take it in one hand, keeping Corinne's head in my lap.

"Here it is," Mistress Lawson says, peeling away a strap of crusted cloth on Corinne's side. A terrible smell hits all of us at the same time.

It's worse than how sickening it stinks. It's worse because of what it means.

"Gangrene," Mistress Coyle says pointlessly, because we can all see that it's way past infection. The smell means the tissue's dead. It means it's started to eat her alive. Something I wish I didn't remember that Corinne taught me herself.

"They didn't even give her basic bloody treatment," grunts Mistress Lawson, getting to her feet and running back toward the cave to get the heaviest medicines we've got.

"Come on, my difficult girl," Mistress Coyle says quietly, stroking Corinne's forehead.

"You stayed until you found her," I say. "That's why you were last."

"She'd never yield, this one," Mistress Coyle says, her voice rough and not just because of smoke. "No matter what they did to her."

We look down at Corinne's face, her eyes still closed, her mouth dropped open, her breath faltering.

Mistress Coyle's right. Corinne would never yield, would never give names or information, would take the punishment to keep other daughters, other mothers, from feeling it themselves.

"The infection," I say, my throat swelling. "The smell, it means-"

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Mistress Coyle just bites her lips hard and shakes her head. "Oh, Corinne," I say. "Oh, no."

And right there, right there in my hands, in my lap, her face turned up to mine-She dies.

There's only silence when it happens. It isn't loud or struggled against or violent or anything at all. She just falls quiet, a certain type of quiet you know is endless as soon as you hear it, a quiet that muffles everything around it, turning off the volume of the world.

The only thing I
can
hear, in fact, is my own breathing, wet and heavy and like I'll never feel lightness again. And in the silence of my breath I look down the hillside, I see the rest of the wounded around us, their mouths open to cry out in pain, their eyes blank with horrors still being seen even after rescue. I see Mistress Lawson, running toward us with medicine, too late, too late. I see Lee, coming back up the path, calling out for his mother and sister, not willing to believe yet that in all this mess, they're still not here.

I think of the Mayor in his cathedral, making promises, telling lies.

(I think of Todd in the Mayor's hands)

I look down at Corinne in my lap, Corinne who never liked me, not ever, but who gave her life for mine anyway.

We are the choices we make.

When I look up at Mistress Coyle, the wet in my eyes makes everything shine with pointed lights, makes the first peek of the rising sun a smear across the sky.

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But I can see her clearly enough.

My teeth are clenched, my voice thick as mud.

"I'm ready," I say. "I'll do anything you want."

307

26 THE ANSWER

***

[TODD]

OH, GOD, Mayor Ledger keeps saying under his breath. "Oh, God."

"What're
you
so upset about?" I finally snap at him.

The door ain't unlocked at its usual time. Morning's come and gone with no sign of anyone remembering that we're here. Outside the city burns and but
ROAR
s a sour part of me can't help thinking he's moaning cuz they're late with our breakfast.

"The surrender was supposed to bring
-peace,"
he says. "And that bloody woman has ruined
everything."

I look at him strangely. "It's not like it's paradise here or nothing. There's curfews and prisons and--"

But he's shaking his head. "Before she started her little
campaign,
the President was relaxing the laws. He was easing the restrictions. Things were going to be okay."

I stand and look out the windows to the west, where smoke still rises and fires still rage and the Noise of men don't show no sign of stopping.

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"You've got to be
practical,"
Mayor Ledger says, "even in the face of tyrants."

"Is that what you are then?" I say. "Practical?"

He narrows his eyes. "I don't know what you're getting at,
boy."

I don't really know what I'm getting at neither but I'm frightened and I'm hungry and we're stuck in this stupid tower while the world falls to bits around us and we can
watch
it but we can't do nothing to
change
it and I don't know what Viola's part in all this is or
where
she is and I don't know where the future's heading and I don't know how any good can possibly come outta any of this but what I
do
know is that Mayor Ledger telling me how
practical
he's been is kinda pissing me off.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing.

"Don't you call me 'boy'."

He takes a step toward me. "A man would understand that things are more complicated than just right or wrong."

"A man trying to save his own skin surely would." And my Noise is saying
Try it, come on, try it.

Mayor Ledger clenches his fists. "What you don't know, Todd," he says, nostrils flaring. "What you don't know."

"What
don't I know?" I say but then the door goes
ker-thunk,
making us both jump.

Davy comes busting in, rifles in hand. "Come on," he says, shoving one at me. "Pa wants us."

I go without another word, leaving Mayor Ledger shouting "Hey!" behind us as Davy locks the door.

***

309

"Fifty-six soldiers killed," Davy says as we trundle down the stairs on the inside of the tower. "We killed a dozen of 'em and captured a dozen more but they got away with almost two hundred prisoners."

"Two hundred?"
I say, stopping for a second. "How many people were in prison?"

"Come on, pigpiss, Pa's waiting."

I run to catch up. We cross the lobby of the cathedral and head out the front door. "Those bitches," Davy's saying, shaking his head. "You wouldn't believe the things they're capable of. They blew up a bunkhouse. A
bunkhouse!
Where men were
sleeping!"

We exit the cathedral to chaos in the square. Smoke is still blowing in from the west, making everything hazy. Soldiers, both by themselves and in squads, run this way and that, some of them pushing people before them, beating them with their rifles. Others are standing guard around groups of terrified-looking women and separate smaller groups of terrified-looking men.

"But we showed them, tho," Davy says, grimacing.

"You were there?"

"No." He looks down at his rifle. "But I will be next time."

"David!" we hear. "Todd!" The Mayor's riding toward us from across the square, moving so heavy and fast Morpeth's shoes are striking sparks from the bricks.

"Something's happened at the monastery," he's shouting. "Get there. Now!"

***

310

The chaos is citywide. We see soldiers everywhere as we ride, herding townspeople before them, forcing them into bucket-lines to help put out the smaller fires from the first three bombs of last night, the ones that
did
take out the power stayshun, the water plant, and a food store, all still burning cuz New Prentisstown's fire hoses are busy trying to put out the prisons.

"They won't know what hit 'em," Davy says as we ride, fast.

"Who won't?"

"The Answer and any man who helps them."

"There ain't gonna be no one
left."

"There'll be us," Davy says, looking at me. "That'll be a start."

The road gets quieter as we get away from the city, till you can almost believe things are still normal, unless you look back and see the columns of smoke rising in the air. There ain't no one on the roads down this far and it starts to get so quiet it's like the world's ended.

We ride past the hill where the tower rubble lies but don't see no soldiers going up the path toward it. We turn the last corner and come round to the monastery.

And pull back hard on our reins.

"Holy shit," Davy says.

The whole front wall of the monastery has been blown open. There ain't any guards on the walls, just a gaping hole in the masonry where the gate used to be.

"Those bitches," Davy says. "They set them
free."