Oh never leave me.

"Other side of the river," Viola says and takes off across the bridge, feet smacking against the wood. I'm right behind her, passing her, listening and looking and listening and looking and there and there and there--

There in the leafy shrubs on the other side of the water--

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It's Ben.

It really is Ben.

He's crouched down behind leafy greenery, hand against a tree trunk, watching me come to him, watching me run across the bridge, and as I near him, his face relaxes and his Noise opens up as wide as his arms and I'm flying into 'em both, leaping off the bridge and into the bushes and nearly knocking him over and my heart is busting open and my Noise is as bright as the whole blue sky and-

And everything's gonna be all right.

Everything's gonna be all right.

It's Ben.

And he's gripping me tight and he's saying, "Todd," and Viola's standing back a ways, letting me greet him, and I'm hugging him and hugging him and it's Ben, oh Christ Almighty, it's Ben, Ben, Ben.

"It's me," he says, laughing a little cuz I'm crushing the air outta his lungs. "Oh, it's good to see you, Todd."

"Ben," I say, leaning back from him and I don't know what to do with my hands so I just grab his shirt front in my fists and shake him in a way that's gotta mean love. "Ben," I say again.

He nods and smiles.

But there's creases round his eyes and already I can see the beginnings of it, so soon it's gotta be right up front in his Noise, and I have to ask, "Cillian?"

He don't say nothing but he shows it to me, Ben running back to a farmhouse already in flames, already burning

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down, with some of the Mayor's men inside but with Cillian, too, and Ben grieving, grieving still.

"Aw, no," I say, my stomach sinking, tho I'd long guessed it to be true.

But guessing a thing ain't knowing a thing.

Ben nods again, slow and sad, and I notice now that he's dirty and there's blood clotted on his nose and he looks like he ain't eaten for a week but it's still Ben and he can still read me like no other cuz his Noise is already asking me bout Manchee and I'm already showing him and here at last my eyes properly fill and rush over and he takes me in his arms again and I cry for real over the loss of my dog and of Cillian and of the life that was.

"I left him," I say and keep saying, snot-filled and coughing. "I left him."

"I know," he says and I can tell it's true cuz I hear the same words in his Noise. I left him, he thinks.

But after only a minute I feel him gently pushing me back and he says, "Listen, Todd, there ain't much time."

"Ain't much time for what?" I sniffle but I see he's looking over at Viola.

"Hi," she says, eyes all alert.

"Hi," Ben says. "You must be her."

"I must be," she says.

"You been taking care of Todd?"

"We've been taking care of each other."

"Good," Ben says, and his Noise goes warm and sad. "Good."

"C'mon," I say, taking his arm and trying to pull him

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back toward the footbridge. "We can get you something to eat. And there's a doctor-"

But Ben ain't moving. "Can you keep an eye out for us?" he asks Viola. "Let us know if you see anything, anything at all. Either from the settlement or the road."

Viola nods and catches my eye as she steps outta the green and back to the path.

"Things have escalated," Ben says to me, low, serious as a heart attack. "You gotta get to a place called Haven. Fast as you can."

"I know that, Ben." I say, "Why do you-?"

"There's an army after you."

"I know that, too. And Aaron. But now that yer here we can--"

"I can't come with you," he says.

My mouth hangs open. "What? Course you can-"

But he's shaking his head. "You know I can't."

"We can find a way," I say, but already my Noise is whirling, thinking, remembering.

"Prentisstown men ain't welcome anywhere on New World," he says.

I nod. "They ain't too happy bout Prentisstown boys, neither."

He takes my arm again. "Has anyone hurt you?"

I look at him quietly. "Lots of people," I say.

He bites his lip and his Noise gets even sadder.

"I looked for you," he says. "Day and night, following the army, getting round it, ahead of it, listening for rumors of a boy and a girl traveling alone. And here you are and yer okay and I knew you would be. I knew it." He sighs and there's so

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much love and sadness in it I know he's about to say the truth. "But I'm a danger to you in New World." He gestures at the bush we're hiding in, hiding in like thieves. "Yer gonna have to make it the rest of the way alone."

"I ain't alone," I say, without thinking.

He smiles, but it's still sad. "No," he says. "No, yer not, are you?" He looks around us again, peering thru the leaves and over the river to Doctor Snow's house. "Were you sick?" he asks. "I heard yer Noise yesterday morning coming down the river but it was feverish and sleeping. I been waiting here ever since. I was worried something was really wrong."

"I was sick," I say and shame starts to cloud my Noise like a slow fog.

Ben looks at me close again. "What happened, Todd?" he says, gently reading into my Noise like he always could. "What's happened?"

I open up my Noise for him, all of it from the beginning, the crocs that attacked Aaron, the race thru the swamp, Viola's ship, being chased by the Mayor on horseback, the bridge, Hildy and Tam, Farbranch and what happened there, the fork in the road, Wilf and the things that sang Here, Mr. Prentiss Jr., and Viola saving me.

And the Spackle.

And what I did.

I can't look at Ben.

"Todd," he says.

I'm still looking at the ground.

"Todd," he says again. "Look at me."

I look up at him. His eyes, blue as ever, catching mine and holding 'em. "We've all made mistakes, Todd. All of us."

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"I killed it," I say. I swallow. "I killed him. It was a him."

"You were acting on what you knew. You were acting on what you thought best."

"And that excuses it?"

But there's something in his Noise. Something off and telling.

"What is it, Ben?"

He lets out a breath. "It's time you knew, Todd," he says. "Time you knew the truth."

There's a snap of branches as Viola comes rushing back to us.

"Horse on the road," she says, outta breath.

We listen. Hoofbeats, down the river road, coming fast. Ben slinks back a little farther into the bushes. We go with him but the horseman is coming so quick he ain't interested in us at all. We hear him thunder by on the road and turn up the bridge that heads straight into Carbonel Downs, hooves clattering on boards and then on dirt till they're swallowed up by the loudspeaker sounds.

"That can't be good news," Viola says.

"It'll be the army," Ben says. "By now they're probably not more than a few hours from here."

"What?" I say, rearing back. Viola jumps, too.

"I told you we don't have much time," Ben says.

"Then we gotta go!" I say. "You gotta come with us. We'll tell people-"

"No," he says. "No. You get yerselves to Haven. That's all there is to it. It's yer best chance." We pelt him with sudden askings. "Is Haven safe then?" Viola asks. "From an army?"

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"Is it true they have a cure for the Noise?" I ask.

"Will they have communicators? Will I be able to contact my ship?"

"Are you sure it's safe? Are you sure?"

Ben raises his hands to stop us. "I don't know," he says. "I haven't been there in twenty years."

Viola stands up straight.

"Twenty years?" she says. "Twenty years?" Her voice is rising. "Then how can we know what we'll find when we get there? How do we know it's even still there?"

I rub my hand across my face and I think it's the emptiness where Manchee used to be that makes me realize, realize what we never wanted to know.

"We don't," I say, only saying the truth. "We never did."

Viola lets out a little sound and her shoulders slump down. "No," she says. "I guess we didn't."

"But there's always hope," Ben says. "You always have to hope."

We both look at him and there must be a word for how we're doing it but I don't know what it is. We're looking at him like he's speaking a foreign language, like he just said he was moving to one of the moons, like he's telling us it's all just been a bad dream and there's candy for everybody.

"There ain't a whole lotta hope out here, Ben," I say.

He shakes his head. "What d'you thinks been driving you on? What d'you thinks got you this far?"

"Fear," Viola says.

"Desperayshun," I say.

"No," he says, taking us both in. "No, no, no. You've come farther than most people on this planet will in their

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lifetimes. You've overcome obstacles and dangers and things that should've killed you. You've outrun an army and a madman and deadly illness and seen things most people will never see. How do you think you could have possibly come this far if you didn't have hope?"

Viola and I exchange a glance.

"I see what yer trying to say, Ben-" I start.

"Hope," he says, squeezing my arm on the word. "It's hope. I am looking into yer eyes right now and I am telling you that there's hope for you, hope for you both." He looks up at Viola and back at me. "There's hope waiting for you at the end of the road."

"You don't know that," Viola says and my Noise, as much as I don't want it to, agrees with her.

"No," Ben says, "but I believe it. I believe it for you. And that's why it's hope."

"Ben-"

"Even if you don't believe it," he says, "believe that I do."

"I'd believe it more if you were coming with us," I say.

"He ain't coming?" Viola says, surprised, then corrects herself. "Isn't coming?"

Ben looks at her, opens his mouth, and closes it again.

"What's the truth, Ben?" I ask. "What's the truth we need to know?"

Ben takes a long slow breath thru his nose. "Okay," he says.

But then a loud and clear "Todd?" comes calling from across the river.

And that's when we notice the music of Carbonel

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Downs is competing with the Noise of men now crossing the bridge. Many men.

That's the other purpose of the music, I guess. So you can't hear men coming.

"Viola?" Doctor Snow is calling. "What are you two doing over there?"

I stand up straight and look over. Doctor Snow is crossing the bridge, little Jacob's hand in his, leading a group of men who look like less friendly versions of himself and they're eyeing us up and they're seeing Ben and seeing me and Viola talking to him.

And their Noise is starting to turn different colors as what they're seeing starts making sense to them.

And I see that some of 'em have rifles.

"Ben?" I say quietly.

"You need to run," he says, under his breath. "You need to run now."

"I ain't leaving you. Not again."

"Todd-"

"Too late," Viola says.

Cuz they're on us now, past the end of the bridge and heading toward the bushes where we're not really hiding no more.

Doctor Snow reaches us first. He looks Ben up and down. "And who might this be then?"

And the sound of his Noise ain't happy at all.

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35

THE LAW

THIS IS BEN , " I say, trying to raise my Noise to block all the askings coming from the men.

"And who's Ben when he's at home?" Doctor Snow asks, his eyes alert and looking.

"Ben's my pa," I say. Cuz it's true, ain't it? In all that's important. "My father."

"Todd," I hear Ben say behind me, all kindsa feelings in his Noise, but warning most of all.

"Your father?" says a bearded man behind Doctor Snow, his fingers flexing along the stock of his rifle, tho not lifting it.

Not yet.

"You might want to be careful who you start claiming as a parent, Todd," Doctor Snow says slowly, pulling Jacob closer to him.

"You said the boy was from Farbranch," says a third man with a purple birthmark under his eye.

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"That's what the girl told us." Doctor Snow looks at Viola. "Didn't you, Vi?"

Viola holds his look but don't say nothing.

"Can't trust the word of a woman," says the beard. "This is a Prentisstown man if I ever saw one."

"Leading the army right to us," says the birthmark.

"The boy is innocent," says Ben and when I turn I can see his hands are in the air. "I'm the one you want."

"Correction," says the beard, his voice angry and getting angrier. "You're the one we don't want."

"Hold on a minute, Fergal," Doctor Snow says. "Something's not right here."

"You know the law," says the birthmark.

The law.

Farbranch talked about the law, too.

"I also know these aren't normal circumstances," Doctor Snow says, then turns back to us. "We should at least give them a chance to explain themselves."

I hear Ben take a breath. "Well, I-"

"Not you," the beard interrupts.

"What's the story, Todd?" Doctor Snow says. "And it's become really important you tell us the truth." I look from Viola to Ben and back again. Which side of the truth do I tell?

I hear the cock of a rifle. The beard's raised his gun. And so have one or two of the men behind him.

"The longer you wait," the beard says, "the more you look like spies."

"We ain't spies," I say in a hurry.

"The army your girl's been talking about has been spotted

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marching down the river road," Doctor Snow says. "One of our scouts just reported them as less than an hour away."

"Oh, no," I hear Viola whisper.

"She ain't my girl," I say, low.

"What?" Doctor Snow says.

"What?" Viola says.

"She's her own girl," I say. "She don't belong to anyone." And does Viola ever look at me.

"Whichever," the birthmark says. "We've got a Prentisstown army marching on us and a Prentisstown man hiding in our bushes and a Prentisstown boy who's been in our midst for the last week. Looks mighty fishy if you ask me."

"He was sick," Doctor Snow says. "He was out cold."

"So you say," says the birthmark.

Doctor Snow turns to him real slow. "Are you calling me a liar now, Duncan? Remember, please, that you're talking to the head of the council of eldermen."

"You telling me you're not seeing a plot here, Jackson?" says the birthmark, not backing down and raising his own rifle. "We're sitting ducks. Who knows what they've told their army?" He aims his rifle at Ben. "But we'll be putting an end to that right now."

"We ain't spies," I say again. "We're running from the army just as hard as you should be."

And the men look at each other.

In their Noise, I can hear just these thoughts about the army, about running from it instead of defending the town. I can also see anger bubbling, anger at having to make this choice, anger at not knowing the best way to protect their

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families. And I can see the anger focusing itself, not on the army, not on themselves for being unprepared despite Viola warning 'em for days, not at the world for the state it's in.

They're focusing their anger on Ben.

They're focusing their anger on Prentisstown in the form of one man.

Doctor Snow kneels down to get to Jacob's level. "Hey, fella," he says to his son. "Why don't you run on back to the house now, okay?"

Daddy daddy daddy I hear in Jacob's Noise. "Why, Daddy?" he says, staring at me.

"Well, I'll betcha the goat's getting lonely," Doctor Snow says. "And who wants a lonely goat, huh?"

Jacob looks at his father, back at me and Ben, then to the men around him. "Why is everyone so upset?" he says.

"Oh," Doctor Snow says, "we're just figuring some things out, is all. It'll all be right soon enough. You just run on back home, make sure the goat's okay."

Jacob thinks about this for a second, then says, "Okay, Daddy."

Doctor Snow kisses him on the top of the head and ruffles his hair. Jacob goes running back over the bridge toward Doctor Snow's house. When Doctor Snow turns back to us, a whole raft of pointed guns accompany him.

"You can see how this doesn't look good, Todd," he says, and there's real sadness in his voice.

"He doesn't know," Ben says.

"Shut your hole, murderer!" says the beard, gesturing with his rifle.

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Murderer?

"Tell me true," Doctor Snow says to me. "Are you from Prentisstown?"

"He saved me from Prentisstown," Viola speaks up. "If it hadn't been for him--"

"Shut up, girl," says the beard.

"Now's not really the time for women to be talking, Vi," Doctor Snow says.

"But-" Viola says, her face getting red.

"Please," Doctor Snow says. Then he looks at Ben. "What have you told your army? How many men we have? What our fortifications are like-"

"I've been running from the army," Ben says, hands still in the air. "Look at me. Do I look like a well-tended soldier? I haven't told them anything. I've been on the run, looking for my ..." He pauses and I know the reason. "For my son," he says.

"You did this knowing the law?" Doctor Snow asks.

"I know the law," Ben says. "How could I possibly not know the law?"

"What ruddy LAW?" I yell. "What the hell is everyone talking about?"

"Todd is innocent," Ben says. "You can search his Noise for as long as you like and you won't find anything to say I'm lying."

"You can't trust them," says the beard, still looking down his gun. "You know you can't."

"We don't know anything," Doctor Snow says. "Not for ten years or more."

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"We know they've raised themselves into an army," says the birthmark.

"Yes, but I don't see any crime in this boy," Doctor Snow says. "Do you?"

A dozen different Noises come poking at me like sticks.

He turns to Viola. "And all the girl is guilty of is a lie that saved her friend's life."

Viola looks away from me, face still red with anger.

"And we've got bigger problems," Doctor Snow continues. "An army coming that may or may not know all about how we're preparing to meet them."

"We ain't SPIES!" I shout.

But Doctor Snow is turning to the other men. "Take the boy and the girl back into town. The girl can go with the women and the boy is well enough to fight alongside us."

"Wait a minute!" I yell.

Doctor Snow turns to Ben. "And though I do believe you're just a man out looking for his son, the law's the law."

"Is that your final ruling?" the beard says.

"If the eldermen agree," Doctor Snow says. There's a general but reluctant nodding of heads, all serious and curt. Doctor Snow looks at me. "I'm sorry, Todd."

"Hold on!" I say, but the birthmark's already stepping forward and grabbing my arm. "Let go of me!"

Another man's grabbing on to Viola and she's resisting just as much as I am.

"Ben!" I call, looking back at him. "Ben!"

"Go, Todd," he says.

"No, Ben!"

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"Remember I love you."

"What're they gonna do?" I say, still pulling away from the birthmark's hand. I turn to Doctor Snow. "What're you gonna do?"

He don't say nothing but I can see it in his Noise. What the law demands.

"The HELL you are!" I yell and with my free arm I'm already reaching for my knife and bringing it round toward the birthmark's hand, slicing it across the top. He yelps and lets go.

"Run!" I say to Ben. "Run, already!"

I see Viola biting the hand of the man who's grabbing her. He calls out and she stumbles back.

"You, too!" I say to her. "Get outta here!"

"I wouldn't," says the beard and there are rifles cocking all over the place.

The birthmark is cursing and he raises his arm to strike but I've got my knife out in front of me. "Try it," I say thru my teeth. "Come on!"

"ENOUGH!" Doctor Snow yells.

And in the sudden silence that follows, we hear the hoofbeats.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump.

Horses. Five of 'em. Ten. Maybe even fifteen.

Roaring down the road like the devil hisself is on their tail.

"Scouts?" I say to Ben tho I know they ain't.

He shakes his head. "Advance party."

"They'll be armed," I say to Doctor Snow and the men, thinking fast. "They'll have as many guns as you."

Doctor Snow's thinking, too. I can see his Noise

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whirring, see him thinking how much time they've got before the horses get here, how much trouble me and Ben and Viola are going to cause, how much time we'll waste.

I see him decide.

"Let them go."

"What?" says the beard, his Noise itching to shoot something. "He's a traitor and a murderer."

"And we've got a town to protect," Doctor Snow says firmly. "I've got a son to keep safe. So do you, Fergal."

The beard frowns but says nothing more.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump comes the sound from the road.

Doctor Snow turns to us. "Go," he says. "I can only hope you haven't sealed our fate."

"We haven't," I say, "and that's the truth."

Doctor Snow purses his lips. "I'd like to believe you." He turns to the men. "Come on!" he shouts. "Get to your posts! Hurry!"

The group of men breaks up, scurrying back to Carbonel Downs, the beard and the birthmark still seething at us as they go, looking for a reason to use their guns, but we don't give 'em one. We just watch 'em go.

I find I'm shaking a little.

"Holy crap," Viola says, bending at the waist.

"We gotta get outta here," I say. "The army's gonna be more interested in us than it is in them."

I still have Viola's bag with me, tho all it's got in it anymore are a few clothes, the water bottles, the binocs and my ma's book, still in its plastic bag.

All the things we got in the world.

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Which means we're ready to go.

"This is only gonna keep happening," Ben says. "I can't come with you."

"Yes, you can," I say. "You can leave later but we're going now and yer coming with us. We ain't leaving you to be caught by no army." I look over to Viola. "Right?"

She puts her shoulders back and looks decisive. "Right," she says.

"That's settled then," I say.

Ben looks back and forth twixt the two of us. He furrows his brow. "Only till I know yer safe."

"Too much talking," I say. "Not enough running."

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36

ANSWERS TO ASKINGS

WE STAY OFF THE RIVER ROAD for obvious reasons and tear thru the trees, heading, as always, toward Haven, snapping thru twigs and branches, getting away from Carbonel Downs as fast as our legs can carry us.

It's not ten minutes before we hear the first gunshots.

We don't look back. We don't look back.

We run and the sounds fade.

We keep running.

Me and Viola are both faster than Ben and sometimes we have to slow down to let him catch up.

We run past one, then two small, empty settlements, places that obviously heeded the rumors about the army better than Carbonel Downs did. We keep to the woods twixt the river and the road but we don't even see any caravans. They must be hightailing it to Haven.

On we run.

Night falls and we keep on running.

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"You all right?" I ask Ben, when we stop by the river to refill the bottles.

"Keep on going," he says, gasping. "Keep on going." Viola sends me a worried look.

"I'm sorry we don't got food," I say, but he just shakes his head and says, "Keep going." So we keep going.

Midnight comes and we run thru that, too.

(Who knows how many days? Who cares anymore?)

Till finally, Ben says, "Wait," and stops, hands on his knees, breathing hard in a real unhealthy way.

I look around us by the light of the moons. Viola's looking, too. She points. "There."

"Up there, Ben," I say, pointing up the small hill Viola's seen. "We'll be able to get a view."

Ben don't say nothing, just gasps and nods his head and follows us. There's trees all the way up the side but a well-tended path and a wide clearing at the top.

When we get there, we see why.

"A sematary" I say.

"A what?" Viola says, looking round at all the square stones marking out their graves. Must be a hundred, maybe two, in orderly rows and well-kept grass. Settler life is hard and it's short and lotsa New World people have lost the battle.

"It's a place for burying dead folk," I say. Her eyes widen. "A place for doing what?"

"Don't people die in space?" I ask. "Yeah," she says. "But we burn them. We don't put them in holes." She crosses her arms around herself, mouth and

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forehead frowning, peering around at the graves. "How can this be sanitary?"

Ben still hasn't said anything, just flopped down by a gravestone and leaned against it, catching his breath. I take a swig from a water bottle and then hand it to Ben. I look out around us. You can see down the road for a piece and there's a view of the river, too, rushing by us on the left now. It's a clear sky, the stars out, the moons starting to crescent in the sky above us.

"Ben?" I say, looking up into the night.

"Yeah?" he says, drinking down his water.

"You all right?"

"Yeah." His breath's getting back to normal. "I'm built for farm labor. Not sprinting."

I look at the moons one more time, the smaller one chasing the larger one, two brightnesses up there, still light enough to cast shadows, ignorant of the troubles of men.

I look into myself. I look deep into my Noise.

And I realize I'm ready.

This is the last chance.

And I'm ready.

"I think it's time," I say. I look back at him. "I think now's the time, if it's ever gonna be."

He licks his lips and swallows his water. He puts the cap back on the bottle. "I know," he says.

"Time for what?" Viola asks.

"Where should I start?" Ben asks.

I shrug. "Anywhere," I say, "as long as it's true."

I can hear Ben's Noise gathering, gathering up the whole story, taking one stream out of the river, finally, the

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one that tells what really happened, the one hidden for so long and so deep I didn't even know it was there for my whole up-growing life.

Viola's silence has gone more silent than usual, as still as the night, waiting to hear what he might say.

Ben takes a deep breath.

"The Noise germ wasn't Spackle warfare," he says. "That's the first thing. The germ was here when we landed. A naturally occurring phenomenon, in the air, always had been, always will be. We got outta our ships and within a day everyone could hear everyone's thoughts. Imagine our surprise."

He pauses, remembering.

"Except it wasn't everyone," Viola says.

"It was just the men," I say.

Ben nods. "No one knows why. Still don't. Our scientists were mainly agriculturalists and the doctors couldn't find a reason and so for a while, there was chaos. Just ... chaos, like you wouldn't believe. Chaos and confusion and Noise, Noise, Noise." He scratches underneath his chin. "A lotta men scattered theirselves into far communities, getting away from Haven as fast as roads could be cut. But soon folk realized there was nothing to be done about it so for a while we all tried to live with it the best we could, found different ways to deal with it, different communities taking their own paths. Same as we did when we realized all our livestock were talking, too, and pets and local creachers."

He looks up into the sky and to the sematary around us and the river and road below.

"Everything on this planet talks to each other," he says.

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"Everything. That's what New World is. Informayshun, all the time, never stopping, whether you want it or not. The Spackle knew it, evolved to live with it, but we weren't equipped for it. Not even close. And too much informayshun can drive a man mad. Too much informayshun becomes just Noise. And it never, never stops."

He pauses and the Noise is there, of course, like it always is, his and mine and Viola's silence only making it louder.

"As the years went by," he goes on, "times were hard all over New World and getting harder. Crops failing and sickness and no prosperity and no Eden. Definitely no Eden. And a preaching started spreading in the land, a poisonous preaching, a preaching that started to blame."

"They blamed the aliens," Viola says.

"The Spackle," I say and the shame returns.

"They blamed the Spackle," Ben confirms. "And somehow preaching became a movement and a movement became a war." He shakes his head. "They didn't stand a chance. We had guns, they didn't, and that was the end of the Spackle."

"Not all," I say.

"No," he says. "Not all. But they learned better than to come too near men again, I tell you that."

A brief wind blows across the hilltop. When it stops, it's like we're the only three people left on New World. Us and the sematary ghosts.

"But the war's not the end of the story," Viola says quietly.

"No," Ben says. "The story ain't finished, ain't even half finished."

And I know it ain't. And I know where it's heading.

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And I changed my mind. I don't want it to finish. But I do, too.

I look into Ben's eyes, into his Noise.

"The war didn't stop with the Spackle," I say. "Not in Prentisstown."

Ben licks his lips and I can feel unsteadiness in his Noise and hunger and grief at what he's already imagining is our next parting.

"War is a monster," he says, almost to himself. "War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows." He's looking at me now. "And otherwise normal men become monsters, too."

"They couldn't stand the silence," Viola says, her voice still. "They couldn't stand women knowing everything about them and them knowing nothing about women."

"Some men thought that," Ben says. "Not all. Not me, not Cillian. There were good men in Prentisstown."

"But enough thought it," I say.

"Yes," he nods.

There's another pause as the truth starts to show itself. Finally. And forever.

Viola is shaking her head. "Are you saying ... ?" she says. "Are you really saying ... ?" And here it is.

Here's the thing that's the center of it all.

Here's the thing that's been growing in my head since I left the swamp, seen in flashes of men along the way, most clearly in Matthew Lyle's but also in the reakshuns of everyone who even hears the word Prentisstown.

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Here it is.

The truth.

And I don't want it.

But I say it anyway.

"After they killed the Spackle," I say, "the men of Prentisstown killed the women of Prentisstown."

Viola gasps even tho she's got to have guessed it, too.

"Not all the men," Ben says. "But many. Allowing themselves to be swayed by Mayor Prentiss and the preachings of Aaron, who used to say that what was hidden must be evil. They killed all the women and all the men who tried to protect them."

"My ma," I say.

Ben just nods in confirmayshun. I feel a sickness in my stomach.

My ma dying, being killed by men I probably saw every day.

I have to sit down on a gravestone.

I have to think of something else, I just do. I have to put something else in my Noise so I can stand it.

"Who was Jessica?" I say, remembering Matthew Lyle's Noise back in Farbranch, remembering the violence in it, the Noise that now makes sense even tho it don't make no sense at all.

"Some people could see what was coming," Ben says. "Jessica Elizabeth was our Mayor and she could see the way the wind was blowing."

Jessica Elizabeth, I think. New Elizabeth.

"She organized some of the girls and younger boys to

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flee across the swamp," Ben continues. "But before she could go herself with the women and the men who hadn't lost their minds, the Mayor's men attacked."

"And that was that," I say, feeling numb all over. "New Elizabeth becomes Prentisstown."

"Yer ma never thought it would happen," Ben says, smiling sadly to himself at some memory. "So full of love that woman, so full of hope in the goodness of others." He stops smiling. "And then there came a moment when it was too late to flee and you were way too young to be sent away and so she gave you to us, told us to keep you safe, no matter what."

I look up. "How was staying in Prentisstown keeping me safe?"

Ben's staring right at me, sadness everywhere around him, his Noise so weighted with it, it's a wonder he can stay upright.

"Why didn't you leave?" I ask.

He rubs his face. "Cuz we didn't think the attack would really happen either. Or I didn't, anyway, and we had put the farm together and I thought it would blow over before anything really bad happened. I thought it was just rumors and paranoia, including on the part of yer ma, right up to the last." He frowns. "I was wrong. I was stupid." He looks away. "I was willfully blind."

I remember his words comforting me about the Spackle.

We've all made mistakes, Todd. All of us.

"And then it was too late," Ben says. "The deed was done and word of what Prentisstown had done spread like wildfire, starting with the few who'd managed to escape. All men from Prentisstown were declared criminals. We couldn't leave."

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Viola's arms are still crossed. "Why didn't someone come and get you? Why didn't the rest of New World come after you?"

"And do what?" Ben says, sounding tired. "Fight another war but this time with heavily armed men? Lock us up in a giant prison? They laid down the law that if any man from Prentisstown crossed the swamp, he'd be executed. And then they left us to it."

"But they could have ..." Viola says, holding her palms to the air. "Something. I don't know."

"If it ain't happening on yer doorstep," Ben says, "it's easier to think, Why go out and find trouble? We had the whole of the swamp twixt us and New World. The Mayor sent word that Prentisstown would be a town in exile. Doomed, of course, to a slow death. We'd agree never to leave and if we ever did, he'd hunt us down and kill us hisself."

"Didn't people try?" Viola says. "Didn't they try to get away?"

"They tried," Ben says, full of meaning. "It wasn't uncommon for people to disappear."

"But if you and Cillian were innocent-" I start.

"We weren't innocent," Ben says strongly, and suddenly his Noise tastes bitter. He sighs. "We weren't."

"What do you mean?" I ask, raising my head. The sickness in my stomach ain't leaving. "What do you mean you weren't innocent?"

"You let it happen," Viola says. "You didn't die with the other men who were protecting the women."

"We didn't fight," he says, "and we didn't die." He shakes his head. "Not innocent at all."

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"Why didn't you fight?" I ask.

"Cillian wanted to," Ben says quickly. "I want you to know that. He wanted to do whatever he could to stop them. He would have given his life." He looks away once more. "But I wouldn't let him."

"Why not?"

"I get it," Viola whispers.

I look at her, cuz I sure don't. "Get what?"

Viola keeps looking at Ben. "They either die fighting for what's right and leave you an unprotected baby," she says, "or they become complicit with what's wrong and keep you alive."

I don't know what complicit means but I can guess. They did it for me. All that horror. They did it for me. Ben and Cillian. Cillian and Ben. They did it so I could live. I don't know how I feel about any of this. Doing what's right should be easy. It shouldn't be just another big mess like everything else.

"So we waited," Ben says. "In a town-sized prison. Full of the ugliest Noise you ever heard before men started denying their own pasts, before the Mayor came up with his grand plans. And so we waited for the day you were old enough to get away on yer own, innocent as we could keep you." He rubs a hand over his head. "But the Mayor was waiting, too."

"For me?" I ask, tho I know it's true.

"For the last boy to become a man," Ben says. "When

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boys became men, they were told the truth. Or a version of it, anyway. And then they were made complicit themselves."

I remember his Noise from back on the farm, about my birthday, about how a boy becomes a man.

About what complicity really means and how it can be passed on.

How it was waiting to be passed on to me.

And about the men who-

I put it outta my head.

"That don't make no sense," I say.

"You were the last," Ben says. "If he could make every single boy in Prentisstown a man by his own meaning, then he's God, ain't he? He's created all of us and is in complete control."

"If one us falls," I say.

"We all fall," Ben finishes. "That's why he wants you. Yer a symbol. Yer the last innocent boy of Prentisstown. If he can make you fall, then his army is complete and of his own perfect making."

"And if not?" I say, tho I'm wondering if I've already fallen.

"If not," Ben says, "he'll kill you."

"So Mayor Prentiss is as crazy as Aaron, then," Viola says.

"Not quite," Ben says. "Aaron is crazy. But the Mayor knows enough to use craziness to achieve his ends."

"Which are what?" Viola says. "This world," Ben says calmly. "He wants all of it." I open my mouth to ask more stuff I don't wanna know

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but then, as if there was never gonna be anything else that could ever happen, we hear it.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump. Coming down the road, relentless, like a joke that ain't ever gonna be funny.

"You've got to be kidding," Viola says.

Ben's already back on his feet, listening. "It sounds like just one horse."

We all look down the road, shining a little in the moonlight.

"Binocs," Viola says, now right by my side. I fish 'em out without another word, click on the night setting and look, searching out the sound as it rings thru the night air.

Budda-thump budda-thump.

I search down the road farther and farther back till-There it is. There he is. Who else?

Mr. Prentiss Jr., alive and well and untied and back on his horse.

"Damn," I hear from Viola, reading my Noise as I hand her the binocs.

"Davy Prentiss?" Ben says, also reading my Noise.

"The one and only." I put the water bottles back in Viola's bag. "We gotta go."

Viola hands the binocs to Ben and he looks for himself. He takes them away from his eyes and gives the binocs a quick once over. "Nifty," he says.

"We need to go," Viola says. "As always."

Ben turns to us, binocs still in his hand. He's looking

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from one of us to the other and I see what's forming in his Noise.

"Ben-" I start.

"No," he says. "This is where I leave you."

"Ben-"

"I can handle Davy Prentiss."

"He has a gun," I say. "You don't."

Ben comes up to me. "Todd," he says.

"No, Ben," I say, my voice getting louder. "I ain't listening."

He looks me in the eye and I notice he don't seem to be having to bend down anymore to do it.

"Todd," he says again. "I atone for the wrong I've done by keeping you safe."

"You can't leave me, Ben," I say, my voice getting wet (shut up). "Not again."

He's shaking his head. "I can't come to Haven with you. You know I can't. I'm the enemy."

"We can explain what happened."

But he's still shaking his head.

"The horse is getting closer," Viola says.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump.

"The only thing that makes me a man," Ben says, his voice steady as a rock, "is seeing you safely into becoming a man yerself."

"I ain't a man yet, Ben," I say, my throat catching (shut up). "I don't even know how many days I got left."

And then he smiles and it's the smile that tells me it's over.

"Sixteen," he says. "Sixteen days till yer birthday." He

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takes my chin and lifts it. "But you've been a man for a good while now. Don't let no one tell you otherwise."

"Ben-"

"Go," he says and he comes up to me and hands Viola the binocs behind my back and takes me in his arms. "No father could be prouder," I hear him say by my ear.

"No," I say, my words slurring. "It ain't fair."

"It ain't." He pulls himself away. "But there's hope at the end of the road. You remember that."

"Don't go," I say.

"I have to. Danger's coming."

"Closer and closer," Viola says, binocs to her eyes.

Budda-thump budda-THUMP.

"I'll stop him. I'll buy you time." Ben looks at Viola. "You take care of Todd," he says. "I have yer word?"

"You have my word," Viola says.

"Ben, please," I whisper. "Please."

He grips my shoulders for a last time. "Remember," he says. "Hope."

And he don't say nothing more and he turns and runs down the hill from the sematary to the road. When he gets to the bottom, he looks back and sees us still watching him.

"What are you waiting for?" he shouts. "Run!"

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37

WHAT 'S THE POINT?

I WON'T SAY WHAT I FEEL when we run down the other side of the hill and away from Ben, for ever this time cuz how is there any life after this?

Life equals running and when we stop running maybe that's how we'll know life is finally finished.

"Come on, Todd," Viola calls, looking back over her shoulder. "Please, hurry."

I don't say nothing.

I run.

We get down the hill and back by the river. Again. With the road on our other side. Again. Always the same.

The river's louder than it was, rushing by with some force, but who cares? What does it matter? Life ain't fair. It ain't. Not never.

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It's pointless and stupid and there's only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can't love nothing or no one cuz it'll all be taken away or ruined and you'll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive.

There's nothing good in this life. Not nothing good nowhere.

What's the effing point?

"The point is," Viola says, stopping halfway thru a dense patch of scrub to hit me really hard on the shoulder, "he cared enough about you to maybe sacrifice himself and if you just GIVE UP" - she shouts that part - "then you're saying that the sacrifice is worth nothing!"

"Ow," I say, rubbing my shoulder. "But why should he have to sacrifice himself? Why should I have to lose him again?"

She steps up close to me. "Do you think you're the only person who's lost someone?" she says in a dangerous whisper. "Do you forget that my parents are dead, too?"

I did.

I did forget.

I don't say nothing.

"All I've got now is you," she says, her voice still angry. "And all you've got now is me. And I'm mad Ben left, too, and I'm mad my parents died and I'm mad we ever thought of coming to this planet in the first place but that's how it is and it sucks that it's just us but we can't do anything about it."

I still don't say nothing.

But there she is and I look at her, really look at her, for

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probably the first time since I saw her cowering next to a log back in the swamp when I thought she was a Spackle. A lifetime ago.

She's still kinda cleaned up from the days in Carbonel Downs (only yesterday, only just yesterday) but there's dirt on her cheeks and she's skinnier than she used to be and there are dark patches under her eyes and her hair is messy and tangled and her hands are covered in sooty blackness and her shirt has a green stain of grass across the front from when she once fell and there's a cut on her lip from when a branch smacked her when we were running with Ben (and no bandages left to stitch it up) and she's looking at me.

And she's telling me she's all I've got.

And that I'm all she's got.

And I feel a little bit how that feels.

The colors in my Noise go different.

Her voice softens but only a little. "Ben's gone and Manchee's gone and my mother and father are gone," she says. "And I hate all of that. I hate it. But we're almost at the end of the road. We're almost there. And if you don't give up, I don't give up."

"Do you believe there's hope at the end?" I ask.

"No," she says simply, looking away. "No, I don't, but I'm still going." She eyes me. "You coming with?"

I don't have to answer.

We go on running.

But.

"We should just take the road," I say, holding back yet another branch.

"But the army," she says. "And the horses."

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"They know where we're going. We know where they're going. We all seem to have taken the same route to get to Haven."

"And we'll hear them coming," she agrees. "And the road's fastest.

"The road's fastest."

And she says, "Then let's just take the effing road and get ourselves to Haven."

I smile, a little. "You said effing," I say. "You actually said the word effing."

So we take the effing road, as fast as our tiredness will let us. It's still the same dusty, twisty, sometimes muddy river road that it was all those miles and miles ago and the same leafy, tree-filled New World all around us.

If you were just landing here and didn't know nothing about nothing you really might think it was Eden after all.

A wide valley is opening up around us, flat at the bottom where the river is but distant hills beginning to climb up on either side. The hills are lit only by moonlight, no sign of distant settlements or, anyway, of ones with lights still burning.

No sign of Haven ahead neither but we're at the flattest point of the valley and can't see much past the twists in the road either before us or back. Forest still covers both sides of the river and you'd be tempted to think that all of New World had closed up and everyone left, leaving just this road behind em.

We go on.

And on.

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Not till the first stripes of dawn start appearing down the valley in front of us do we stop to take on more water. We drink. There's only my Noise and the river rushing by. No hoofbeats. No other Noise.

"You know this means he succeeded," Viola says, not meeting my eye. "Whatever he did, he stopped the man on the horse."

I just mmm and nod.

"And we never heard gunshots."

I mmm and nod again.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you before," she says. "I just wanted you to keep going. I didn't want you to stop."

"I know."

We're leaning against a pair of trees by the riverbank. The road is to our backs and across the river is just trees and the far side of the valley rises up and then only the sky above, getting lighter and more blue and bigger and emptier till even the stars start leaving it.

"When we left on the scout ship," Viola says, looking up across the river with me, "I was really upset leaving my friends behind. Just a few kids from the other caretaker families, but still. I thought I'd be the only one my age on this planet for seven whole months."

I drink some water. "I didn't have friends back in Prentisstown."

She turns to me. "What do you mean, no friends? You had to have friends."

"I had a few for a while, boys a coupla months older than me. But when boys become men they stop talking to

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boys," I shrug. "I was the last boy. In the end there was just me and Manchee."

She gazes up into the fading stars. "It's a stupid rule." It is.

We don't say nothing more, just me and Viola by the riverside, resting ourselves as another dawn comes. Just me and her.

We stir after a minute, get ourselves ready to go again. "We could reach Haven by tomorrow," I say. "If we keep on going."

"Tomorrow," Viola nods. "I hope there's food."

It's her turn to carry the bag so I hand it to her and the sun is peeking up over the end of the valley where it looks like the river's running right into it and as the light hits the hills across the river from us, something catches my eye.

Viola turns immediately at the spark in my Noise. "What?"

I shield my eyes from the new sun. There's a little trail of dust rising from the top of the far hills. And it's moving. "What is that?" I say.

Viola fishes out the binocs and looks thru 'em. "I can't see clearly," she says. "Trees in the way."

"Someone traveling?"

"Maybe that's the other road. The fork we didn't take."

We watch for a minute or two as the dust trail keeps rising, heading toward Haven at the slow speed of a distant cloud. It's weird seeing it without any sound.

"I wish I knew where the army was," I say. "How far they were behind us."

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"Maybe Carbonel Downs put up too good a fight." Viola points the binocs upriver to see the way we came but it's too flat, too twisty. All there is to be seen is trees. Trees and sky and quiet and a silent trail of dust making its way along the far hilltops.

"We should go," I say. "I'm starting to feel a little spooked."

"Let's go then," Viola says, quietlike.

Back on the road.

Back to the life of running.

We have no food with us so breakfast is a yellow fruit that Viola spies on some trees we pass that she swears she ate in Carbonel Downs. They become lunch, too, but it's better than nothing.

I think again of the knife at my back.

Could I hunt, if there was time?

But there ain't no time.

We run past midday and into afternoon. The world is still abandoned and spooky. Just me and Viola running along the valley bottom, no settlements to be seen, no caravans or carts, no other sound loud enough to be heard over the rushing of the river, getting bigger by the hour, to the point where it's hard even to hear my Noise, where even if we want to talk, we have to raise our voices.

But we're too hungry to talk. And too tired to talk. And running too much to talk.

And so on we go.

And I find myself watching Viola.

The trail of dust on the far hilltop follows us as we run, pulling ahead slowly as the day gets older and finally

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disappearing in the distance and I watch her checking it as we hurry on. I watch her run next to me, flinching at the aches in her legs. I watch her rub them when we rest and watch her when she drinks from the water bottles.

Now that I've seen her, I can't stop seeing her.

She catches me. "What?"

"Nothing," I say and look away cuz I don't know either.

The river and the road have straightened out as the valley gets steeper and closer on both sides. We can see a little bit back the way we came. No army yet, no horsemen neither. The quiet is almost scarier than if there was Noise everywhere.

Dusk comes, the sun setting in the valley behind us, setting over wherever the army might be and whatever's left of New World back there, whatever's happened to the men who fought against the army and the men who joined.

Whatever's happened to the women.

Viola runs in front of me.

I watch her run.

Just after nightfall we finally come to another settlement, another one with docks on the river, another one abandoned. There are only five houses in total along a little strip of the road, one with what looks like a small general store tacked onto the front.

"Hold on," Viola says, stopping.

"Dinner?" I say, catching my breath.

She nods.

It takes about six kicks to open the door of the general store and tho there clearly ain't no one here at all, I still look round expecting to be punished. Inside, it's mostly cans but

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we find a dry loaf of bread, some bruised fruit and a few strips of dried meat.

"These aren't more than a day or two old," Viola says, twixt mouthfuls. "They must have fled to Haven yesterday or the day before."

"Rumors of an army are a powerful thing," I say, not chewing my dried meat well enough before I swallow and coughing up a little bit of it.

We fill our bellies as best we can and I shove the rest of the food into Viola's bag, now hanging round my shoulders. I see the book when I do. Still there, still wrapped in its plastic bag, still with the knife-shaped slash all the way thru it.

I reach in thru the plastic bag, rubbing my fingers across the cover. It's soft to the touch and the binding still gives off a faint whiff of leather.

The book. My ma's book. It's come all the way with us. Survived its own injury. Just like us.

I look up at Viola.

She catches me again.

"What?" she says.

"Nothing." I put the book back in the bag with the food. "Let's go."

Back on the road, back down the river, back toward Haven.

"This should be our last night, you know," Viola says. "If Doctor Snow was right, we'll be there tomorrow."

"Yeah," I say, "and the world will change."

"Again."

"Again," I agree.

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We go on a few more paces.

"You starting to feel hope?" Viola asks, her voice curious.

"No," I say, fuddling my Noise. "You?"

Her eyebrows are up but she shakes her head. "No, no."

"But we're going anyway."

"Oh, yeah," Viola says. "Hell or high water."

"It'll probably be both," I say.

The sun sets, the moons rise again, smaller crescents than the night before. The sky is still clear, the stars still up, the world still quiet, just the rush of the river, getting steadily louder.

Midnight comes.

Fifteen days.

Fifteen days till--

Till what?

We carry on thru the night, the sky falling slowly past us, our words stopping a little as dinner wears off and tiredness takes hold again. Just before dawn we find two overturned carts in the road, grains of wheat spilled everywhere and a few empty baskets rolled on their sides across the road.

"They didn't even take the time to save everything," Viola says. "They left half of it on the ground."

"Good a place as any for breakfast." I flip over one of the baskets, drag it over to where the road overlooks the river, and sit down on it.

Viola picks up another basket, brings it over right next to me, and sits down. There are glimmers of light in the sky as the sun gets set to rise, the road pointing right toward it, the river, too, rushing toward the dawn. I open up the bag and

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take out the general store food, handing some to Viola and eating what I've got. We drink from the water bottles.

The bag is open on my lap. There are our remaining clothes and there are the binocs.

And there's the book again.

I feel her silence next to me, feel the pull of it on me and the hollows in my chest and stomach and head and I remember the ache I used to feel when she got too close, how it felt like grief, how it felt like a loss, like I was falling, falling into nothing, how it clenched me up and made me want to weep, made me actually weep.

But now-

Now, not so much.

I look over to her.

She's gotta know what's in my Noise. I'm the only one around and she's got better and better at reading it despite how loud the river's getting.

But she sits there, quietly eating, waiting for me to say.

Waiting for me to ask.

Cuz this is what I'm thinking.

When the sun comes up, it'll be the day we get to Haven, the day we get to a place filled with more people than I've ever seen together in my life, a place filled with so much Noise you can't never be alone, unless they found a cure, in which case I'll be the only Noisy one which would actually be worse.

We get to Haven, we'll be part of a city.

It won't just be Todd and Viola, sitting by a river as the sun comes up, eating our breakfast, the only two people on the face of the planet.

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It'll be everyone, all together. This might be our last chance.

I look away from her to speak. "You know that thing with voices that you do?"

"Yeah," she says, quiet. I take out the book.

"D'you think you could do a Prentisstown voice?"

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38

I HEARD A MAIDEN CALL

MY DEAREST TODD," Viola reads, copying Ben's accent as best she can. Which is pretty ruddy good. "My dearest son."

My ma's voice. My ma speaking.

I cross my arms and look down into the wheat spilled across the ground.

"I begin this journal on the day of yer birth, the day I first held you in my arms rather than in my belly. You kick just as much outside as in! And yer the most beautiful thing that's ever happened in the whole entire universe. Yer easily the most beautiful thing on New World and there's no contest in New Elizabeth, that's for sure."

I feel my face getting red but the sun's still not high enough for anyone to see.

"I wish yer pa were here to see you, Todd, hut New World and the Lord above saw fit to take him with the sickness five

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months ago and we'll both just have to wait to see him in the next world.

"You look like him. Well, babies don't look much like anything but babies but I'm telling you, you look like him. Yer going to be tall, Todd, cuz yer pa was tall. Yer going to be strong, cuz yer pa was strong. And yer going to be handsome, oh, are you ever going to be handsome. The ladies of New World won't know what hit them."

Viola turns a page and I don't look at her. I sense she's not looking at me neither and I wouldn't wanna see a smile on her face right about now.

Cuz that weird thing's happening too.

Her words are not her words and they're coming outta her mouth sounding like a lie but making a new truth, creating a different world where my ma is talking directly to me, Viola speaking with a voice not her own and the world, for a little while at least, the world is all for me, the world's being made just for me.

"Let me tell you bout the place you've been born into, son. It's called New World and it's a whole planet made entirely of hope--"

Viola stops, just for a second, then carries on.

"We landed here almost exactly ten years ago looking for a new way of life, one clean and simple and honest and good, one different from Old World in all respects, where people could live in safety and peace with God as our guide and with love for our fellow man.

"There've been struggles. I won't begin this story to you with a lie, Todd. It ain't been easy here--

"Oooh, listen to me, writing down 'ain't' when addressing

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my son. That's settler life for you, I spose, not much time for niceties and it's easy to sink to the level of people who revel in squandering their manners. But there's not much harm in 'ain't,' surely? Okay, that's decided then. My first had choice as a mother. Say 'ain't' all you like, Todd. I promise not to correct you."

Viola purses her lips but I don't say nothing so she continues.

"So there's been hardship and sickness on New World and in New Elizabeth. There's something called the Noise here on this planet that men have been struggling with since we landed but the strange thing is you'll be one of the boys in the settlement who won't know any different and so it'll he hard to explain to you what life was like before and why it's so difficult now but we're managing the best we can.

"A man called David Prentiss, who's got a son just a bit older than you, Todd, and who's one of our better organizers -- I believe he was a caretaker on the ship over, if memory serves me correct--"

Viola pauses at this, too, but this time it's me who waits for her to say something. She don't.

"He convinced Jessica Elizabeth, our Mayor, to found this little settlement on the far side of an enormous swamp so that the Noise of the rest of New World can't never reach us unless we allow it to. It's still Noisy as anything here in New Elizabeth but at least it's people we know, at least it's people we trust. For the most part.

"My role here is that I farm several fields of wheat up north of the settlement. Since yer pa passed, our close friends Ben and Cillian have been helping me out since theirs is the next

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farm over. I can't wait for you to meet them. Well wait, you already have! They've already held you and said hello so look at that, one day in the world and you've already made two friends. It's a good way to start, son.

"In fact, I'm sure you'll do fine cuz you came out two weeks early. Clearly you'd decided you'd had enough and wanted to see what this world had to offer you. I can't blame you. The sky is so big and blue and the trees so green and this is a world where the animals talk to you, really talk, and you can even talk back and there's so much wonder to be had, so much just waiting for you, Todd, that I almost can't stand that it's not happening for you right now, that yer going to have to wait to see all that's possible, all the things you might do."

Viola takes a breath and says, "There's a break in the page here and a little space and then it says Later like she got interrupted." She looks up at me. "You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," I nod real fast, my arms still crossed. "Go on."

It's getting lighter, the sun truly coming up. I turn away from her a little. She reads. "Later.

"Sorry, son, had to stop for a minute for a visit from our holy man, Aaron."

Another pause, another lick of the lips.

"We've been lucky to have him, tho I must admit of late he's not been saying things I exactly agree with about the natives of New World. Which are called the Spackle, by the way, and which were a BIG surprise, since they were so shy at

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first neither the original planners hack on Old World or our first scout ships even knew they were here!

"They're very sweet creachers. Different and maybe primitive and no spoken or written language that we can really find but I don't agree with some of the thinking of the people here that the Spackle are animals rather than intelligent beings. And Aaron's been preaching lately about how God has made a dividing line twixt us and them and--

"Well that's not really something to discuss on yer first day is it? Aaron believes what he believes devoutly, has been a pillar of faith for all of us these long years and should anyone find this journal and read it, let me say here for the record that it was a privilege to have him come by and bless you on yer first day of life. Okay?

"But I will say also on yer first day that the attractiveness of power is something you should learn about before you get too much older, it's the thing that separates men from boys, tho not in the way most men think.

"And that's all III say. Prying eyes and all that.

"Oh, son, there's so much wonder in the world. Don't let no one tell you otherwise. Yes, life has been hard here on New World and I'll even admit to you here, cuz if I'm going to start out at all it has to be an honest start, I'll tell you that I was nearly given to despair. Things in the settlement are maybe more complicated than I can quite explain right now and there's things you'll learn for yerself before too long whether I like it or not and there've been difficulties with food and with sickness and it was hard enough even before I lost yer pa and I nearly gave up.

"But I didn't give up. I didn't give up cuz of you, my

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beautiful, beautiful boy, my wondrous son who might make something better of this world, who I promise to raise only with love and hope and who I swear will see this world come good. I swear it.

"Cuz when I held you for the first time this morning and fed you from my own body, I felt so much love for you it was almost like pain, almost like I couldn't stand it one second longer.

"But only almost.

"And I sang to you a song that my mother sang to me and her mother sang to her and it goes," And here, amazingly, Viola sings. Actually sings.

My skin goes goosepimply, my chest crushes. She musta heard the whole tune in my Noise and of course Ben singing it cuz here it comes, rolling outta her mouth like the peal of a bell.

The voice of Viola making the world into the voice of my ma, singing the song.

"Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,

I heard a maiden call from the valley below,

Oh don't deceive me, oh never leave me,

How could you use a poor maiden so?'"

I can't look at her.

I put my hands to my head.

"And it's a sad song, Todd, but it's also a promise. I'll never deceive you and I'll never leave you and I promise you this so you can one day promise it to others and know that it's true.

"Oh, ha, Todd! That's you crying. That's you crying from

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yer cot, waking up from yer first sleep on yer first day, waking up and asking the world to come to you.

"And so for today I have to put this aside.

"Yer calling for me, son, and I will answer."

Viola stops and there's only the river and my Noise.

"There's more," Viola says after a while when I don't raise my head. She flips thru the pages. "There's a lot more." She looks at me. "Do you want me to read more?" She looks back at the book. "Do you want me to read the end?"

The end.

Read the last thing my ma wrote in the last days before-"No," I say quickly.

Yer calling for me, son, and I will answer. In my Noise forever.

"No," I say again. "Let's leave it there for now."

I glance over at Viola and I see that her face is pulled as sad as my Noise feels. Her eyes are wet and her chin shakes, just barely, just a tremble in the dawn sunlight. She sees me watching, feels my Noise watching her, and she turns away to face the river.

And there, in that morning, in that new sunrise, I realize something.

I realize something important.

So important that as it dawns fully I have to stand up. I know what she's thinking. I know what she's thinking.

Even looking at her back, I know what she's thinking and feeling and what's going on inside her.

The way she's turned her body, the way she's holding her head and her hands and the book in her lap, the way

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she's stiffening a little in her back as she hears all this in my Noise.

I can read it.

I can read her.

Cuz she's thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She's wondering if the hope at the end of our road is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma's. And she's taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she's taking the song of my ma and she's weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.

And it hurts her, but it's an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it's good, but it hurts.

She hurts.

I know all this.

I know it's true.

Cuz I can read her.

I can read her Noise even tho she ain't got none. I know who she is. I know Viola Eade.

I raise my hands to the side of my head to hold it all in.

"Viola," I whisper, my voice shaking.

"I know," she says quietly, pulling her arms tight around her, still facing away from me.

And I look at her sitting there and she looks across the river and we wait as the dawn fully arrives, each of us knowing.

Each of us knowing the other.

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39

THE FALLS

THE SUN CREEPS UP into the sky and the river is loud as we look across it and we can now see it rushing fast down toward the valley's end, throwing up white water and rapids.

It's Viola who breaks the spell that's fallen twixt us. "You know what it has to be, don't you?" she says. She takes out the binocs and looks downriver. The sun is rising at the end of the valley. She has to shield the lenses with her hand.

"What is it?" I say.

She presses a button or two and looks again. "What do you see?" I ask. She hands the binocs to me.

I look downriver, following the rapids, the foam, right to-

Right to the end.

A few miles away, the river ends in midair. "Another falls," I say.

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"Looks way bigger than the one we saw with Wilf," she says.

"The road'll find a way past it," I say. "Shouldn't bother us."

"That's not what I mean."

"What then?"

"I mean," she says, frowning a bit at my denseness, "that falls that big're bound to have a city at the bottom of them. That if you had to choose a place anywhere on a planet for a first settlement, then a valley at the base of a waterfall with rich farmland and ready water might just look perfect from space."

My Noise rises a little but only a little. Cuz who would dare to think? "Haven," I say.

"I'll bet you anything we've found it," she says. "I'll bet you when we get to that waterfall we'll be able to see it below us."

"If we run," I say, "we could be there in an hour. Less than."

She looks me in the eye for the first time since my ma's book.

And she says, "If we run?" And then she smiles. A genuine smile.

And I know what that means, too. We grab our few things and go. Faster than before.

My feet are tired and sore. Hers must be, too. I've got blisters and aches and my heart hurts from all I miss and all that's gone. And hers does, too.

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But we run.

Boy, do we run.

Cuz maybe (shut up)-

Just maybe (don't think it)--

Maybe there really is hope at the end of the road.

The river grows wider and straighter as we rush on and the walls of the valley move in closer and closer, the one on our side getting so close the edge of the road starts to slope up. Spray from the rapids is floating in the air. Our clothes get wet, our faces, too, and hands. The roar becomes thunderous, filling up the world with itself, almost like a physical thing, but not in a bad way. Like it's washing you, like it's washing the Noise away.

And I think, Please let Haven be at the bottom of the falls.

Please.

Cuz I see Viola looking back at me as we run and there's brightness on her face and she keeps urging me on with tilts of her head and smiles and I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it's dangerous, too, that it's painful and risky, that it's making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?

Please let Haven be there.

Oh please, oh please, oh please.

The road finally starts rising a bit, pulling up above the river slightly as the water starts really crashing thru rocky rapids. There ain't no more wooded parts twixt us and it now at all, just a hill climbing up steeper and steeper on our right side as the valley closes in and then nothing but river and the falls ahead.

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"Almost there," Viola calls from ahead of me, running, her hair bouncing off the back of her neck, the sun shining down on everything.

And then.

And then, at the edge of the cliff, the road comes to a lip and takes a sudden angle down and to the right. And that's where we stop.

The falls are huge, half a mile cross easy. The water roars over the cliff in a violent white foam, sending spray hundreds of feet out into the sheer drop and above and all around, soaking us in our clothes and throwing rainbows all over the place as the rising sun lights it.

"Todd," Viola says, so faintly I can barely hear it.

But I don't need to.

I know what she means.

As soon as the falls start falling, the valley opens up, wide as the sky itself, taking the river that starts again at the base of the falls. It crashes forward with white water before it pools and calms down and becomes a river again.

And flows into Haven.

Haven.

Gotta be.

Spread out below us like a table full of food. "There it is," Viola says. And I feel her fingers wrap around my own. The falls to our left, spray and rainbows in the sky, the sun rising ahead of us, the valley below. And Haven, sitting waiting.

It's three, maybe four miles away down the farther valley. But there it is.

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There it ruddy well is.

I look round us, round to where the road has taken a sharp turn at our feet, sloping down and cutting into the valley wall to our right but then zigzagging its way steeply down in a twisty pattern so even it's like a zipper running down the hillside to where it picks up the river again.

And follows it right into Haven.

"I want to see it," Viola says, letting go of my hand and taking out the binocs. She looks thru them, wipes spray off the lenses, and looks some more. "It's beautiful," she says and that's all she says and she just looks and wipes off more spray.

After a minute and without saying nothing more, she hands me the binocs and I get my first look at Haven.

The spray is so thick, even wiping it down you can't see details like people or anything but there are all kindsa different buildings, mostly surrounding what looks like a big church at the center, but other big buildings, too, and real roads curling outta the middle thru trees to more groups of buildings.

There's gotta be at least fifty buildings in all.

Maybe a hundred.

It's the biggest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. "I've got to say," Viola shouts, "it's kind of smaller than I expected."

But I don't really hear her.

With the binocs, I follow the river road back from it and I see what's probably a roadblock with what might be a fortified fence running away from it and to either side.

"They're getting ready," I say. "They're getting ready to fight."

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Viola looks at me, worried. "You think it's big enough? You think we're safe?"

"Depends on if the rumors of the army are true or not."

I look behind us, by instinct, as if the army was just waiting there for us to move on. I look up the valley hill next to us. Could be a good view.

"Let's find out," I say.

We run back down the road a ways, looking for a good climbing spot, find one, and make our way up. My legs feel light as I climb, my Noise clearer than it's been in days. I'm sad for Ben, I'm sad for Cillian, I'm sad for Manchee, I'm sad for what's happened to me and Viola.

But Ben was right.

There's hope at the bottom of the biggest waterfall.

And maybe it don't hurt so much after all.

We climb up thru the trees. The hill is steep above the river and we have to pull on vines and hang on to rocks to make our way up high enough to look back down the road, till the valley is stretching out beneath us.

I still have the binocs and I look downriver and down the road and over the treetops. I keep having to wipe spray away.

I look.

"Can you see them?" Viola asks.

I look, the river getting smaller into the far distance, back and back and back. "No," I say. I look. And again. And-There.

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Down in the deepest curve of the road in the deepest part of the valley, in farthest shadow against the rising sun, there they are.

A mass that's gotta be the army, marching its way forward, so far away I can only tell it's them at all cuz it looks like dark water flowing into a dry riverbed. It's hard to get detail at this distance so I can't see individual men and I don't think I can see horses.

Just a mass, a mass pouring itself down the road.

"How big is it?" she asks. "How big has it grown?"

"I don't know," I say. "Three hundred? Four? I don't know. We're too far to really-"

I stop.

"We're too far to really tell." I crack a smile. "Miles and miles."

"We beat them," Viola says, a smile coming, too. "We ran and they chased us and we beat them."

"We'll get to Haven and we'll warn whoever's in charge," I say, talking faster, my Noise rising with excitement. "But they've got battle lines and the approach is real narrow and the army's at least the rest of the day away, maybe even tonight, too, and I swear that can't be a thousand men."

I swear it.

(But.)

Viola's smiling the tiredest, happiest smile I ever saw. She takes my hand again. "We beat them."

But then the risks of hope rise again and my Noise grays a little. "Well, we ain't there yet and we don't know if Haven can--"

But she's shaking her head. "Nuh-uh," she says. "We

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beat them. You listen to me and you be happy, Todd Hewitt. We've spent all this time outrunning an army and guess what? We outran them."

She looks at me, smiling, expecting something from me.

My Noise is buzzing and happy and warm and tired and relieved and a little bit worried still but I'm thinking that maybe she's right, maybe we did win and maybe I should put my arms round her if it didn't feel weird and I find that in the middle of it all I do actually agree with her.

"We beat 'em," I say.

And then she does stick her arms round me and pulls tight, like we might fall down, and we just stand there on the wet hillside and breathe for a little bit.

She smells a little less like flowers but it's okay.

And I look out and the falls are below us, charging away, and Haven glitters thru the sunlit spray and the sun is shining down the length of the river above the falls, lighting it up like a snake made of metal.

And I let my Noise bubble with little sparks of happy and my gaze flow back along the length of the river and-

No.

Every muscle in my body jolts.

"What?" Viola says, jumping back.

She whips her head round to where I'm looking.

"What?" she says again.

And then she sees.

"No," she says. "No, it can't be."

Coming down the river is a boat.

Close enough to see without binocs.

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Close enough to see the rifle and the robe. Close enough to see the scars and the righteous anger. Rowing his way furiously toward us, coming like judgment itself. Aaron.

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40

THE SACRIFICE

HAS HE SEEN US?" Viola asks, her voice pulled taut.

I point the binocs. Aaron rears up in them, huge and terrifying. I press a few buttons to push him back. He's not looking at us, just rowing like an engine to get the boat to the side of the river and the road.

His face is torn and horrible, clotted and bloody, the hole in his cheek, the new hole where his nose used to be, and still, underneath all that, a look feroshus and devouring, a look without mercy, a look that won't stop, that won't never, never stop.

War makes monsters of men, I hear Ben saying.

There's a monster coming toward us.

"I don't think he's seen us," I say. "Not yet."

"Can we outrun him?"

"He's got a gun," I say, "and you can see all the way down that road to Haven."

"Off the road then. Through the trees."

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"There ain't that many twixt us and the road down. We'll have to be fast."

"I can be fast," she says.

And we jump on down the hill, skidding on leaves and wet vines, using rocks as handholds as best we can. The tree cover is light and we can still see down the river, see Aaron as he rows.

Which means he can see us if he looks in the right place.

"Hurry!" Viola says.

Down-

And down-

And sliding to the road-And squelching in the mud at the roadside-- And as we get to the road he's outta sight again, still up the river--

But only for a second-- Cuz there he is-The current bringing him fast-Coming down the river-- In full view-Looking right at us.

The roar of the falls is loud enough to eat you, but I still hear it.

I'd hear it if I was on the other side of the planet.

"TODD HEWITT!"

And he's reaching for his rifle.

"Go!" I shout.

Viola's feet hit the ground running and I'm right behind her, heading for the lip of the road that goes down to the zigzags.

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It's fifteen steps, maybe twenty till we can disappear over the edge-

We run like we've spent the last two weeks resting-- Pound, pound, pound against the road-- I check back over my shoulder-To see Aaron try to take the rifle in one hand-Try to balance it while keeping the boat steady-It's bouncing in the rapids, knocking him back and forth-

"He won't be able to," I yell to Viola. "He can't row and fire at the same-" CRACK!

A pop of mud flies up outta the road next to Viola's feet ahead of me-

I cry out and Viola cries out and we both instinctively flinch down-

Running faster and faster - Pound, pound, pound-Run, run, run, run, run my Noise chugs like a rocket-Not looking back-Five steps- Run, run-- Three-- CRACK! And Viola falls-"NO!" I shout-

And she's falling over the lip of the road, tripping down the other side and crashing down in a roll-- "NO!" I shout again and leap after her-Stumbling down the steep incline-

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Pounding down to where she's rolling- No-

Not this-Not now-- Not when we're-- Please no--

And she tumbles to some low shrubs at the side of the road and keeps going into them-And stops facedown.

And I'm racing toward her and I'm barely in control of my own standing up and I'm kneeling down already in the brush and I'm grabbing her and rolling her over and I'm looking for the blood and the shot and I'm saying, "No, no, no, no, no--"

And I'm almost blinded by rage and despair and the false promise of hope and no, no, no-And she opens her eyes-

She's opening her eyes and she's grabbing me and she's saying, "I'm not hit, I'm not hit."

"Yer not?" I say, shaking her a little. "Yer sure?"

"I just fell," she says. "I swear I felt the bullet fly right by my eyes and I fell. I'm not hurt."

And I'm breathing heavy and heavy and heavy.

"Thank God," I say. "Thank God."

And the world spins and my Noise whirls.

And she's already getting to her feet and I'm up after her standing in the scrub and looking at the road around and below us.

The falls are crashing over the cliff to our left and the twisting road is both behind us and in front of us as it starts

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doubling back on itself and making the steep zipper down to the bottom of the falls.

It's a clear shot all the way.

No trees, just low scrub.

"He'll pick us off," Viola says, looking back up to the top of the road, to where we can't see Aaron no doubt making his way to the river's edge, stomping thru roaring water, walking on it for all I know.

"TODD HEWITT!" we hear again, faint over the roar of the water but loud as the whole entire universe.

"There's nowhere to hide," Viola says, looking around us and down. "Not till we get to the bottom."

I'm looking round, too. The hillsides are too steep, the road too open, the areas between the road's double-backs too shallow with shrubs.

Nowhere to hide.

"TODD HEWITT!"

Viola points up. "We could get up to those trees on top of the hill-But it's so steep, I can already hear the hope failing in her voice.

And I spin round, looking still-And then I see.

A little faint trail, skinny as anything, hardly even there, leading away from the first turn of the road and toward the falls. It disappears after a few feet but I follow it to where it might have gone.

Right to the cliff side.

Right down sharp to a place almost below the falls. Right to a ledge that's almost hidden.

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A ledge underneath the waterfall itself.

I take a few steps outta the scrub and back onto the road. The little trail disappears.

So does the ledge.

"What is it?" Viola asks.

I go back into the scrub again.

"There," I say, pointing. "Can you see it?"

She squints where I'm pointing. The falls are casting a little shadow on the ledge, darkening where the little trail ends.

"You can see it from here," I say, "but you can't see it from the road." I look at her. "We'll hide."

"He'll hear you," she says. "He'll come after us."

"Not over this roar, not if I don't shout in my Noise."

Her forehead creases and she looks down at the road to Haven and up to where Aaron's gotta be coming any second.

"We're so close," she says.

I take her arm and start pulling on it. "Come on. Just till he passes. Just till dark. With luck he'll think we doubled back into the trees above."

"If he finds us, we're trapped."

"And if we run for the city, he shoots us." I look in her eyes. "It's a chance. It gives us a chance."

"Todd-"

"Come with me," I say, looking right into her as hard as I can, pouring out as much hope as I can muster. Oh, never leave me. "I promise I'll get you to Haven tonight." I squeeze her arm. Oh, don't deceive me. "I promise you."

She looks right back at me, listening to it all, and then gives a single, sharp nod and we run to the little trail and

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down to where it ends and jump over the scrub to where it should continue and-

"todd hewitt!"

He's almost to the falls--

And we scrabble down a steep embankment next to the edge of the water, the steepness of the hill rearing above us-And slide down and over to the edge of the cliff-- The falls straight ahead-

And I get to the edge and I suddenly have to lean back into Viola cuz the drop goes straight down-She grabs onto my shirt and holds me up-And the water is smashing down right in front of us to the rocks below-

And the ledge leading under it all is just there-Needing a jump over emptiness to get to it-- "I didn't see this part," I say, Viola grabbing at my waist to keep us from tumbling over.

"TODD HEWITT!"

He's close, he's so close--

"Now or never, Todd," she says in my ear--

And she lets go of me-

And I jump across-

And I'm in the air-

And the edge of the falls is shooting over my head-And I land-And I turn-

And she's jumping after me--

And I grab her and we fall backward onto the ledge together-

And we lay there breathing-

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And listening-

And all we hear for a second is the roar of the water over us now-

And then, faint, against it all-- "TODD HEWITT!"

And he suddenly sounds miles away.

And Viola's on top of me and I'm breathing heavy into her face and she's breathing heavy into mine.

And we're looking in each other's eyes.

And it's too loud to hear my Noise.

After a second, she puts her hands on either side of me and pushes herself away. She looks up as she does and her eyes go wide.

I can just hear her say, "Wow."

I roll away and look up.

Wow.

The ledge is more than just a little ledge. It carries on till it's back, way back under the waterfall. We're standing at the beginning of a tunnel with one wall made of rock and another made of pure falling water, roaring past white and clean and so fast it looks almost solid.

"Come on," I say and head on down the ledge, my shoes slipping and sliding under me. It's rocky and wet and slimy and we lean as close as we can to the rock side, away from the thundering water.

The noise is just tremendous. All-consuming, like a real thing you could taste and touch.

So loud, Noise is obliterated.

So loud, it's the quietest I've ever felt.

We scramble on down the ledge, under the falls, making

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our way over rocky bumps and little pools with green goop growing in them. There are roots, too, hanging down from the rocks above, belonging to who knows what kinda plant.

"Do these look like steps to you?" Viola shouts, her voice small in the roar.

"TODD HEWITT!!" we hear from what sounds like a million miles away.

"Is he finding us?" Viola asks.

"I don't know," I say. "I don't think so."

The cliff face isn't even and the ledge curves round it as it stretches forward. We're both soaking wet and the water is cold and it's not easy grabbing onto the roots to keep our balance.

Then the ledge suddenly drops down and widens out, carved steps becoming more obvious. It's almost a stairway down.

Someone's been here before.

We descend, the water thundering inches away from us. We get to the bottom.

"Whoa," Viola says behind me and I just know she's looking up.

The tunnel opens up abruptly and the ledge widens at the same time to become a cavern made of water, the rocks stretching up way over our heads, the falls slamming down past them in a wall curving way out like a moving, living sail, enclosing the wall and the shelf under our feet.

But that's not the whoa.

"It's a church," I say.

It's a church. Someone has moved or carved rocks into

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four rows of simple pews with an aisle down the middle, all facing a taller rock, a pulpit, a pulpit with a flat surface which a preacher could stand on and preach with a blazing white wall of water crashing down behind him, the morning sun lighting it up like a sheet of stars, filling the room with shimmering sparkles on every shiny wet surface, all the way back to a carved circle in the stone with two smaller carved circles orbiting it to one side, New World and its moons, the settler's new home of hope and God's promise somehow painted a waterproof white and practically glowing on the rock wall, looking down and lighting up the church.

The church underneath a waterfall.

"It's beautiful," Viola says.

"It's abandoned," I say, cuz after the first shock of finding a church I see where a few of the pews have been knocked from their places and not replaced and there's writing all over the walls, some of it carved in with tools, some of it written in the same waterproof paint as the New World carving, most of it nonsense. P.M.+M.A. and Willz & Chillz 4Ever and Abandon All Hope Ye Who something something.

"It's kids," Viola says. "Sneaking in here, making it their own place."

"Yeah? Do kids do that?"

"Back on the ship we had an unused venting duct that we snuck into," she says, looking around. "Marked it up worse than this."

We wander in, looking round us, mouths open. The point of the roof where the water leaves the cliff must be a good thirty feet above us and the ledge fifteen feet wide easy.

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"It musta been a natural cavern," I say. "They musta found it and thought it was some kinda miracle."

Viola crosses her arms against herself. "And then they found it wasn't very practical as a church."

"Too wet," I say. "Too cold."

"I'll bet it was when they first landed," she says, looking up at the white New World. "I'll bet it was in the first year. Everything hopeful and new." She turns around, taking it all in. "Before reality set in."

I turn slowly, too. I can see exactly what they were thinking. The way the sun hits the falls, turning everything bright white, and it's so loud and so silent at the same time that even without the pulpit and the pews it would have felt like we'd somehow walked into a church anyway, like it'd be holy even if no man had ever seen it.

And then I notice that at the end of the pews, there's nothing beyond. It stops and it's a 150-foot drop to the rocks below.

So this is where we're gonna have to wait.

This is where we're gonna have to hope.

In the church underwater.

"Todd Hewitt!" barely drifts in down the tunnel to us. Viola visibly shivers. "What do we do now?"

"We wait till nightfall," I say. "Sneak out and hope he don't see us."

I sit down on one of the stone benches. Viola sits down next to me. She lifts the bag over her head and sets it on the stone floor.

"What if he finds the trail?" she asks.

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"We hope he don't."

"But what if he does?"

I reach behind me and take out the knife.

The knife.

Both of us look at it, the white water reflecting off of it, droplets of spray already catching and pooling on its blade, making it shine like a little flashlight.

The knife.

We don't say nothing about it, just watch it gleam in the middle of the church.

"Todd Hewitt!"

Viola looks up to the entrance and puts her hands to her face and I can see her clench her teeth. "What does he even want?" she suddenly rages. "If the army's all about you, what does he want with me? Why was he shooting at me? I don't understand it."

"Crazy people don't need an explanayshun for nothing," I say.

But my Noise is remembering the sacrifice that I saw him making of her way back in the swamp. The sign, he called her. A gift from God.

I don't know if Viola hears this or if she remembers it herself cuz she says, "I don't think I'm the sacrifice."

"What?"

She turns to me, her face perplexed. "I don't think it's me," she says. "He kept me asleep almost the entire time I was with him and when I did wake up, I kept seeing confusing things in his Noise, things that didn't make sense."

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"He's crazy," I say. "Crazier than most." She don't say nothing more, just looks out into the waterfall.

And reaches over and takes my hand. "TODD HEWITT!"

I feel her hand jump right as my heart leaps. "That's closer," she says. "He's getting closer."

"He won't find us."

"He will."

"Then we'll deal with it." We both look at the knife.

"TODD HEWITT!"

"He's found it," she says, grabbing my arm and squeezing into me. "Not yet."

"We were almost there," she says, her voice high and breaking a little. "Almost there."

"We'll get there."

"TODD HEWITT!" And it's definitely louder. He's found the tunnel.

I grip my knife and I look over at Viola, her face looking straight back up the tunnel, so much fear on it my chest begins to hurt.

I grip the knife harder.

If he touches her--

And my Noise reels back to the start of our journey, to Viola before she said anything, to Viola when she told me her name, to Viola when she talked to Hildy and Tam, to when she took on Wilf's accent, to when Aaron grabbed her

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and stole her away, to waking up to her in Doctor Snow's house, to her promise to Ben, to when she took on my ma's voice and made the whole world change, just for a little while.

All the things we've been thru.

How she cried when we left Manchee behind.

Telling me I was all she had.

When I found out I could read her, silence or not.

When I thought Aaron had shot her on the road.

How I felt in those few terrible seconds.

How it would feel to lose her.

The pain and the unfairness and the injustice. The rage.

And how I wished it was me. I look at the knife in my hand. And I realize she's right.

I realize what's been right all along, as insane as it is. She's not the sacrifice. She's not.

If one of us falls, we all fall.

"I know what he wants," I say, standing up.

"What?" Viola says.

"TODD HEWITT!"

Definitely coming down the tunnel now.

Nowhere to run.

He's coming.

She stands, too, and I move myself twixt her and the tunnel.

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"Get down behind one of the pews," I say. "Hide."

"Todd-"

I move away from her, my hand staying on her arm till I'm too far away.

"Where are you going?" she says, her voice tightening. I look back the way we came, up the tunnel of water. He'll be here any second.

"TODD HEWITT!"

"He'll see you!" she says. I hold up the knife in front of me. The knife that's caused so much trouble. The knife that holds so much power. "Todd!" Viola says. "What are you doing?" I turn to her. "He won't hurt you," I say. "Not when he knows I know what he wants."

"What does he want?"

I search her out, standing among the pews, the white planet and moons glowing down on her, the water shining watery light over her, I search out her face and the language of her body as she stands there watching me, and I find I still know who she is, that she's still Viola Eade, that silent don't mean empty, that it never meant empty.

I look right into her eyes.

"I'm gonna greet him like a man," I say.

And even tho it's too loud for her to hear my Noise, even tho she can't read my thoughts, she looks back at me.

And I see her understand.

She pulls herself up a little taller.

"I'm not hiding," she says. "If you're not, I'm not."

And that's all I need.

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I nod.

"Ready?" I ask.

She looks at me.

She nods once, firmly.

I turn back to the tunnel.

I close my eyes.

I take a deep breath.

And with every bit of air in my lungs and every last note of Noise in my head, I rear up-And I shout, as loud as I can-

"AARON!!!!!!"

And I open my eyes and I wait for him to come.

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41

IF ONE OF US FALLS

I SEE HIS FEET FIRST, slipping down the steps some but not hurrying, taking his time now that he knows we're here.

I hold the knife in my right hand, my left hand out and ready, too. I stand in the aisle of the little pews, as much in the center of the church as I can get. Viola's back behind me a bit, down one of the rows.

I'm ready.

I realize I am ready.

Everything that's happened has brought me here, to this place, with this knife in my hand, and something worth saving.

Someone.

And if it's a choice twixt her and him, there is no choice, and the army can go eff itself. And so I'm ready. As I'll ever be.

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Cuz I know what he wants. "Come on," I say, under my breath. Aaron's legs appear, then his arms, one carrying the rifle, the other holding his balance against the wall. And then his face. His terrible, terrible face.

Half torn away, the gash in his cheek showing his teeth, the hole where his nose used to be open and gaping, making him look barely human.

And he's smiling.

Which is when I feel all the fear.

"Todd Hewitt," he says, almost as a greeting.

I raise my voice over the water, willing it not to shake. "You can put the rifle down, Aaron."

"Oh, can I, now?" he says, eyes widening, taking in Viola behind me. I don't look back at her but I know she's facing Aaron, I know she's giving him all the bravery she's got.

And that makes me stronger.

"I know what you want," I say. "I figured it out."

"Have you, young Todd?" Aaron says and I see he can't help himself, he looks into my Noise, the little he can hear over the roar.

"She's not the sacrifice," I say.

He says nothing, just takes the first steps into the church, eyes glancing up at the cross and the pews and the pulpit.

"And I'm not the sacrifice neither," I say.

His evil smile draws wider. A new tear opens up at the edge of his gash, blood waving down it in the spray. "A clever mind is a friend of the devil," he says, which I think is his way of saying I'm right.

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I steady my feet and turn with him as he steps round toward the pulpit half of the church, the half nearer the edge.

"It's you," I say. "The sacrifice is you."

And I open my Noise as loud as it'll go so that both he and Viola can see I'm telling the truth.

Cuz the thing Ben showed me back when I left our farm, the way that a boy in Prentisstown becomes a man, the reason that boys who've become men don't talk to boys who are still boys, the reason that boys who've become men are complicit in the crimes of Prentisstown is--

It's-

And I make myself say it-It's by killing another man. All by theirselves.

All those men who disappeared, who tried to disappear. They didn't disappear after all.

Mr. Royal, my old schoolteacher, who took to whisky and shot himself, didn't shoot himself. He was shot by Seb Mundy on his thirteenth birthday, made to stand alone and pull the trigger as the rest of the men of Prentisstown watched. Mr. Gault, whose sheep flock we took over when he disappeared two winters ago, only tried to disappear. He was found by Mayor Prentiss running away thru the swamp and Mayor Prentiss was true to his agreement with the law of New World and executed him, only he did it by waiting till Mr. Prentiss Jr.'s thirteenth birthday and having his son torture Mr. Gault to death without the help of no one else.

And so on and so on. Men I knew killed by boys I knew to become men theirselves. If the Mayor's men had a captured escapee hidden away for a boy's thirteenth, then fine.

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If not, they'd just take someone from Prentisstown who they didn't like and say he disappeared.

One man's life was given over to a boy to end, all on his own.

A man dies, a man is born.

Everyone complicit. Everyone guilty.

Except me.

"Oh my God," I hear Viola say.

"But I was gonna be different, wasn't I?" I say.

"You were the last, Todd Hewitt," Aaron says. "The final soldier in God's perfect army."

"I don't think God's got nothing to do with yer army," I say. "Put down the rifle. I know what I have to do."

"But are you a messenger, Todd?" he asks, cocking his head, pulling his impossible smile wider. "Or are you a deceiver?"

"Read me," I say. "Read me if you don't believe I can do it."

He's at the pulpit now, facing me down the center aisle, reaching out his Noise over the sound of the falls, pushing it toward me, grabbing at what he can, and the sacrifice and God's perfect work and the martyrdom of the saint

I hear.

"Perhaps, young Todd," he says.

And he sets the rifle down on the pulpit.

I swallow and grip the knife harder.

But he looks over at Viola and laughs a little laugh. "No," he says. "Little girls will try to take advantage, won't they?"

And, almost casually, he tosses the rifle off the ledge into the waterfall.

It goes so fast, we don't even see it disappear.

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But it's gone.

And so there's just me and Aaron. And the knife.

He opens his arms and I realize he's assuming his preacher's pose, the one from his own pulpit, back in Prentisstown. He leans against the pulpit stone here and holds his palms up and raises his eyes to the white shining roof of water above us.

His lips move silently.

He's praying.

"Yer crazy," I say.

He looks at me. "I'm blessed."

"You want me to kill you."

"Wrong, Todd Hewitt," he says, taking a step forward down the aisle toward me. "Hate is the key. Hate is the driver. Hate is the fire that purifies the soldier. The soldier must hate."

He takes another step.

"I don't want you to kill me," he says. "I want you to murder me."

I take a step back.

The smile flickers. "Perhaps the boy promises bigger than he can deliver."

"Why?" I say, stepping back some more. Viola moves back, too, behind and around me, underneath the carving of New World. "Why are you doing this? What possible sense does this make?"

"God has told me my path," he says.

"I been here for almost thirteen years," I say, "and the only thing I ever heard was men."

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"God works thru men," Aaron says. "So does evil," Viola says.

"Ah," Aaron says. "It speaks. Words of temptayshun to lull-"

"Shut up," I say. "Don't you talk to her."

I'm past the back row of pews now. I move to my right, Aaron follows till we're moving in a slow circle, Aaron's hands still out, my knife still up, Viola keeping behind me, the spray covering everything. The room slowly turns around us, the ledge still slippery, the wall of water shining white with the sun.

And the roar, the constant roar.

"You were the final test," Aaron says. "The last boy. The one that completes us. With you in the army, there's no weak link. We would be truly blessed. If one of us falls, we all fall, Todd. And all of us have to fall." He clenches his fists and looks up again. "So we can be reborn! So we can take this cursed world and remake it in-"

"I wouldn't've done it," I say and he scowls at the interrupshun. "I wouldn't've killed anyone."

"Ah, yes, Todd Hewitt," Aaron says. "And that's why yer so very very special, ain't you? The boy who can't kill."

I sneak a glance back at Viola, off to my side a little. We're still going round in the little circle.

And Viola and I are reaching the side with the tunnel in it.

"But God demands a sacrifice," Aaron's saying. "God demands a martyr. And who better for the special boy to kill than God's very own mouthpiece?"

"I don't think God tells you nothing," I say. "Tho I can believe he wants you dead."

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Aaron's eyes go so crazy and empty I get a chill. "I'll be a saint," he says, a small fire burning in his voice. "It is my destiny."

He's reached the end of the aisle and is following us past the last row of benches.

Viola and I are backing up still. Almost to the tunnel.

"But how to motivate the boy?" Aaron continues, eyes like holes. "How to bring him into manhood?"

And his Noise opens up to me, loud as thunder.

My eyes widen.

My stomach sinks to my feet.

My shoulders hunch down as I feel weakness on me. I can see it. It's a fantasy, a lie, but the lies of men are as vivid as their truths and I can see every bit of it. He was going to murder Ben.

That's how he was going to force me to kill him. That's how they woulda done it. To perfect their army and make me a killer, they were going to murder Ben.

And make me watch.

Make me hate enough to kill Aaron.

My Noise starts to rumble, loud enough to hear. "You effing piece of--"

"But then God sent a sign," Aaron says, looking at Viola, his eyes even wider now, the blood pouring from the gash, the hole where his nose used to be stretching taut. "The girl," he says. "A gift from the heavens."

"Don't you look at her!" I yell. "Don't you even look at her!"

Aaron turns back to me, the smile still there. "Yes, Todd, yes," he says. "That's yer path, that's the path you'll take.

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The boy with the soft heart, the boy who couldn't kill. What would he kill for? Who would he protect?"

Another step back, another step nearer the tunnel.

"And when her cursed, evil silence polluted our swamp, I thought God had sent me a sacrifice to make myself, one last example of the evil that hides itself which I could destroy and purify." He cocks his head. "But then her true purpose was revealed." He looks at her and back at me. "Todd Hewitt would protect the helpless."

"She ain't helpless," I say.

"And then you ran." Aaron's eyes widen, as if in false amazement. "You ran rather than fulfill yer destiny." He lifts his eyes to the church again. "Thereby making victory over you all the sweeter."

"You ain't won yet," I say.

"Haven't I?" He smiles again. "Come, Todd. Come to me with hate in yer heart."

"I will" I say. "I'll do it." But another step back.

"You've been near before, young Todd," Aaron says. "In the swamp, the knife raised, me killing the girl, but no. You hesitate. You injure but you do not kill. And then I steal her from you and you hunt her down, as I knew you would, suffering from the wound I gave you, but again, not enough. You sacrifice yer beloved dog rather than see her come to harm, you let me break his very body rather than serve yer true purpose."

"You shut up!" I say.

He holds his palms up to me.

"Here I am, Todd," he says. "Fulfil yer purpose. Become

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a man." He lowers his head till his eyes are looking up at me. "Fall."

I curl my lip.

I stand up straighter.

"I already am a man," I say.

And my Noise says it, too.

He stares at me. As if staring thru me.

And then he sighs.

Like he's disappointed.

"Not yet a man," he says, his face changing. "Perhaps not ever."

I don't step back. "Pity," he says. And he leaps at me-- "Todd!" Viola yells-"Run!" I scream-But I'm not stepping back-I'm moving forward-- And the fight is on.

I'm charging at him and he's throwing himself at me and I'm holding the knife but at the last second, I leap to the side, letting him slam hard into the wall-He whirls around, face in a snarl, swinging an arm round to hit me and I duck and slash at it with the knife, cutting across his forearm, and it don't even slow him down-

And he's swinging at me with his other arm and he's catching me just under the jaw-Knocking me back-"Todd!" Viola calls again--

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I tumble backward onto the last pew, falling hard-

But I'm looking up-

Aaron's turning to Viola -

She's at the bottom of the stairs-

"Go!" I yell-But she's got a big flat stone in her hands and launches it at Aaron with a grimace and an angry grunt and he ducks and tries to deflect it with one hand but it catches him across the forehead, causing him to stumble away from both her and me, toward the ledge, toward the front of the church-

"Come on!" Viola yells at me-

I scramble to my feet-

But Aaron's turned, too-

Blood running down his face-

His mouth open in a yell--

He jumps forward like a spider, grabbing Viola's right arm--

She punches fiercely with her left hand, bloodying it on his face-

But he don't let go-

I'm yelling as I fly at them-

Knife out-

But again I turn it at the last minute-And I just knock into him--

We land on the upslope of the stairs, Viola falling back, me on top of Aaron, his arms boxing my head and he reaches forward with his horrible face and takes a bite out of an exposed area of my neck-

I yell and jerk back, punching him with a backhand as I go-

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Scooting away from him back into the church, holding my neck-He comes at me again, his fist flying forward-Catching me on the eye-My head jerks back-

I stumble thru the rows of pews, back to the center of the church-

Another punch-

I raise my knife hand to block it-

But keep the knife edge sideways--

And he hits me again-

I scrabble away from him on the wet stone--

Up the aisle toward the pulpit-

And a third time his fist reaches my face--

And I feel two teeth tear outta their roots-

And I nearly fall--

And then I do fall--

My back and head hitting the pulpit stone--

And I drop the knife.

It clatters away toward the edge. Useless as ever.

"Yer Noise reveals you!" Aaron screams. "Yer Noise reveals you!" He's stepping forward to me now, standing over me. "From the moment I stepped into this sacred place, I knew it would he thus!" He stops at my feet, staring down at me, his fists clenched and bloody with my blood, his face bloody with his own. "You will never be a man, Todd Hewitt! Never!"

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I see Viola outta the corner of my eye frantically looking for more rocks -

"I'm already a man," I say, but I've fallen, I've dropped the knife, my voice is faltering, my hand over the bleeding from my neck.

"You rob me of my sacrifice!" His eyes have turned to burning diamonds, his Noise blazing a red so fierce it's practically steaming the water away from him. "I will kill you." He bows his head to me. "And you will die knowing that I killed her slowly."

I clench my teeth.

I start to pull myself to my ruddy feet. "Come on if yer coming," I growl. Aaron yells and takes a step toward me-Hands reaching out for me-My face rising to meet him-

And Viola CLUMPS him on the side of the head with a rock she can barely lift-He stumbles-

Leaning toward the pews and catching himself -And he stumbles again-But he doesn't fall. He doesn't ruddy fall.

He staggers but he stands, twixt me and Viola, uncurling himself, his back to Viola but towering over her, a whole rivulet of blood spouting from the side of his head now, but he's effing well tall as a nightmare-

He really is a monster.

"You ain't human," I say.

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"I have told you, young Todd," he says, his voice low and monstrous, his Noise glowering at me with a fury so pure it nearly knocks me back. "I am a saint."

He lashes his arm out in Viola's direkshun without even looking her way, catching her square on the eye, knocking her back as she calls out and falls, falls, falls, tripping over a pew, hitting her head hard on the rocks-

And not rising.

"Viola!" I yell-

And I leap past him-

He lets me go-

I reach her-

Her legs are up on the stone bench-

Her head's on the stone floor--

A little stream of blood running from it-

"Viola!" I say and I lift her-

And her head falls back-

"VIOLA!" I yell-

And I hear a low rumble from behind me-

Laughter.

He's laughing.

"You were always going to betray her," he says. "It was foreseen."

"You SHUT UP!"

"And do you know why?"

"I'll KILL YOU!" He lowers his voice to a whisper-But a whisper I can feel shiver thru my entire body- "You've already fallen." And my Noise blazes red.

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Redder than it's ever been. Murderous red.

"Yes, Todd," Aaron hisses. "Yes, that's the way." I lay Viola gently down and I stand and face him. And my hate is so big, it fills the cavern. "Come on, boy," he says. "Purify yerself." I look at the knife -Resting in a puddle of water-Near the ledge by the pulpit behind Aaron-Where I dropped it-And I hear it calling to me- Take me, it says-- Take me and use me, it says-Aaron holds open his arms. "Murder me," he says. "Become a man." Never let me go, says the knife-

"I'm sorry," I whisper under my breath tho I don't know who to or what for-I'm sorry-And I leap-

Aaron doesn't move, arms open as if to embrace me-I barrel into him with my shoulder-- He doesn't resist-- My Noise screams red-We fall past the pulpit to the ledge-I'm on top of him-He still doesn't resist-- I punch his face-Over-- And over-

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And over-Breaking it further-Breaking it into bloody messy pieces -Hate pouring outta me thru my fists-And still I pound him-Still I hit-Thru the breaking of bone-And the snapping of gristle-And an eye crushed under my knuckles-Till I can no longer feel my hands -- And still I hit--

And his blood spills on me and over-

And the red of it matches the red of my Noise-

And then I lean back, still on him, covered in his blood-

And he's laughing, he's laughing still-

And he's gurgling "Yes" thru broken teeth, "Yes-"

And the red rises in me-

And I can't hold it back--

And the hate-

And I look over--

At the knife-

Just a few feet away--

On the ledge-

By the pulpit-

Calling for me-

Calling-

And this time I know-This time I know-

I'm going to use it.

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***

And I jump for it-

My hand outstretched-

My Noise so red I can barely see-

Yes, says the knife -

Yes.

Take me.

Take the power in yer hand-

But another hand is there first-

Viola.

And as I fall toward it there's a rush in me-A rush in my Noise-A rush from seeing her there-From seeing her alive-A rush that rises higher than the red-And "Viola," I say-Just "Viola."

And she picks up the knife.

My momentum is tumbling me toward the edge and I'm turning to try and catch myself and I can see her lifting the knife and I can see her stepping forward and I'm falling into the ledge and my fingers are slipping on wet stone and I can see Aaron sitting up and he's only got one eye now and it's

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staring at Viola as she's raising the knife and she's bringing it forward and I can't stop her and Aaron is trying to rise and Viola's moving toward him and I'm hitting the ledge with my shoulder and stopping just short of falling over and I'm watching and what's left of Aaron's Noise is radiating anger and fear and it's saying No-

It's saying Not you-

And Viola's raising her arm-

Raising the knife-

And bringing it down-

And down--

And down-

And plunging it straight into the side of Aaron's neck-So hard the point comes out the other side-And there's a crunch, a crunch I remember-Aaron falls over from the force of it-And Viola lets go of the knife-She steps back. Her face is white.

I can hear her breathing over the roar.

I lift myself with my hands-

And we watch.

Aaron's pushing himself up.

He's pushing himself up, one hand clawing at the knife, but it stays in his neck. His remaining eye is wide open, his tongue lolling outta his mouth.

He gets to his knees.

And then to his feet.

Viola cries out a little and steps back.

Steps back till she's next to me.

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We can hear him trying to swallow. Trying to breathe.

He steps forward but stumbles against the pulpit.

He looks our way.

His tongue swells and writhes.

He's trying to say something.

He's trying to say something to me.

He's trying to make a word.

But he can't.

He can't.

His Noise is just wild colors and pictures and things I won't ever be able to say. He catches my eye. And his Noise stops. Completely stops. At last.

And gravity takes his body and he slumps sideways. Away from the pulpit. And over the edge.

And disappears under the wall of water. Taking the knife with him.

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42

LAST ROAD TO HAVEN

Viola sits down next to me so hard and fast it's like she fell there.

She's breathing heavy and staring into the space where Aaron was. The sunlight thru the falls casts waves of watery light over her face but that's the only thing on it that moves.

"Viola?" i say, leaping up into a squat next to her.

"He's gone," she says.

"Yeah," i say. "He's gone."

And she just breathes.

My Noise is rattling like a crashing spaceship full of reds and whites and things so different it's like my head is being pulled apart.

I woulda done it.

I woulda done it for her.

But instead-

"I woulda done it," Isay. "I was ready to do it." She looks at me, her eyes wide. "Todd?"

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"I woulda killed him myself." I find my voice rising a little. "I was ready to do it!"

And then her chin starts shaking, not as if she's going to cry, but actually shaking and then her shoulders, too, and her eyes are getting wider and she's shaking harder and nothing leaves my Noise and it's all still there but something else enters it and it's for her and I grab her and hold her to me and we rock back and forth for a while so she can just shake all she wants to.

She don't speak for a long time, just makes little moaning sounds in her throat, and I remember just after I killed the Spackle, how I could feel the crunch running down my arm, how I could keep seeing his blood, how I saw him die again and again.

How I do still.

(But I woulda.)

(I was ready.)

(But the knife is gone.)

"Killing someone ain't nothing like it is in stories," I say into the top of her head. "Ain't nothing at all." (But I woulda.)

She's still shaking and we're still right next to a raging, roaring waterfall and the sun's higher in the sky and there's less light in the church and we're wet and bloody and bloody and wet.

And cold and shaking.

"Come on," I say, making to stand. "First thing we need to do is get dry, okay?"

I get her to her feet. I go get the bag, still on the floor twixt two pews and go back to her and hold out my hand.

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"The sun is up," I say. "It'll be warm outside." She looks at my hand for a minute before taking it. But she takes it.

We make our way round the pulpit, unable to keep from looking where Aaron was, his blood already washed away by the spray.

(I woulda done it.)

(But the knife.)

I can feel my hand shaking in hers and I don't know which one of us it is.

We get to the steps and it's halfway up that she first speaks.

"I feel sick," she says.

"I know," I say.

And we stop and she leans closer to the waterfall and is sick. A lot.

I guess this is what happens when you kill someone in real life.

She leans forward, her hair wet and tangled down. She spits.

But she don't look up.

"I couldn't let you," she says. "He would have won."

"I woulda done it," I say.

"I know," she says, into her hair, into the falls. "That's why I did it."

I let out a breath. "You shoulda let me."

"No." She looks up from being crouched over. "I couldn't let you." She wipes her mouth and coughs again. "But it's not just that."

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"What then?" I say.

She looks into my eyes. Her own are wide and they're bloodshot from the barfing.

And they're older than they used to be.

"I wanted to, Todd," she says, her forehead creasing. "I wanted to do it. I wanted to kill him." She puts her hands to her face. "Oh my God," she breathes. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God."

"Stop it," I say, taking her arms and pulling her hands away. "Stop it. He was evil. He was crazy evil-"

"I know!" she shouts. "But I keep seeing him. I keep seeing the knife going into his-"

"Yeah, okay, you wanted to," I stop her before she gets worse. "So what? So did I. But he made you want to. He made it so it was him or us. That's why he was evil. Not what you did or what I did, what he did, okay?"

She looks up at me. "He did just what he promised," she says, her voice a little quieter. "He made me fall."

She moans again and clamps her hands over her mouth, her eyes welling up.

"No," I say strongly. "No, see, here's the thing, here's what I think, okay?"

I look up to the water and the tunnel and I don't know what I think but she's there and I can see it and I don't know what she's thinking but J know what she's thinking and I can see her and she's teetering on the edge and she's looking at me and she's asking me to save her.

Save her like she saved me.

"Here's what I think," I say and my voice is stronger and thoughts are coming, thoughts that trickle into my Noise

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like whispers of the truth. "I think maybe everybody falls," I say. "I think maybe we all do. And I don't think that's the asking."

I pull on her arms gently to make sure she's listening.

"I think the asking is whether we get back up again."

And the water's rushing by and we're shaking from the cold and everything else and she stares at me and I wait and I hope.

And I see her step back from the edge. I see her come back to me. "Todd," she says and it ain't an asking. It's just my name. It's who I am.

"Come on," I say. "Haven's waiting."

I take her hand again and we make our way up the rest of the steps and back to the flatter part of the ledge, following the curves out from the center, steadying ourselves again on the slippery stones. The jump back to the embankment is harder this time cuz we're so wet and weak but I take a running shot at it and then catch Viola as she comes tumbling after me.

And we're in sunlight.

We breathe it in for a good long while, getting the wettest of the wet off of us before we gather up and climb the little embankment, pushing ourselves thru the scrub to the trail and back to the road.

We look down the hill, down the zigzag trail.

It's still there. Haven's still there.

"Last bit," I say.

Viola rubs her arms to dry herself a little more. She

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squints at me, looking close. "You get hit in the face a lot, you know that?"

I bring my fingers up. My eye is starting to swell some and I notice a gap on the side of my mouth where I lost a few teeth.

"Thanks," I say. "It wasn't hurting till you said that."

"Sorry." She smiles a little and puts her hand up to the back of her own head and winces. "How's yers?" I ask. "Sore," she says, "but I'll live."

"Yer indestructible, you," I say. She smiles again.

And then there's a weird zipSNICK sound in the air and Viola lets out a little gasp, a little oh sound.

We look at each other for a second, in the sunshine, both of us surprised but not sure why.

And then I follow her glance down her front.

There's blood on her shirt.

Her own blood.

New blood.

Pouring out a little hole just to the right of her belly button.

She touches the blood and holds up her fingers.

"Todd?" she says.

And then she falls forward.

I catch her, stumbling back a bit from the weight.

And I look up behind her.

Up to the cliff top, right where the road begins.

Mr. Prentiss Jr.

On horseback.

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Hand outstretched. Holding a pistol.

"Todd?" Viola says against my chest. "I think someone shot me, Todd."

There are no words.

No words in my head or my Noise.

Mr. Prentiss Jr. kicks his horse and edges him down the road toward us.

Pistol still pointed.

There's nowhere to run.

And I don't got my knife.

The world unfolds as clear and as slow as the worst pain, Viola starting to pant heavy against me, Mr. Prentiss Jr. riding down the road, and my Noise rising with the knowledge that we're finished, that there's no way out this time, that if the world wants you, it's gonna keep on coming till it gets you.

And who am I that can fix it? Who am I that can change this if the world wants it so badly? Who am I to stop the end of the world if it keeps on coming?

"I think she wants you had, Todd," Mr. Prentiss Jr. sneers.

I clench my teeth.

My Noise rises red and purple.

I'm Todd effing Hewitt.

That's who I effing well am.

I look him right in the eye, sending my Noise straight for him, and I spit out in a rasp, "I'll thank you to call me Mr. Hewitt."

Mr. Prentiss Jr. flinches, actually flinches a little and

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pulls his reins involuntarily, making his horse rear up for a second.

"Come on, now," he says, his voice slightly less sure.

And he knows we both can hear it.

"Hands up," he says. "I'm taking you to my father."

And I do the most amazing thing.

The most amazing thing I ever did.

I ignore him.

I kneel Viola down to the dirt road.

"It burns, Todd," she says, her voice low.

I set her down and drop the bag and slip my shirt off my back, crumpling it up and holding it against the bullet hole. "You hold that tight, you hear me?" I say, my anger rising like lava. "This won't take a second."

I look up at Davy Prentiss.

"Get up," he says, his horse still jumpy and edgy from the heat coming off me. "I ain't telling you twice, Todd." I stand. I step forward.

"I said put yer hands up," Davy says, his horse whinnying and bluffing and clopping from foot to foot. I march toward him. Faster.

Till I'm running.

"I'll shoot you!" Davy shouts, waving the gun, trying to control his horse which is sending Charge! Charge! all over the place in its Noise.

"No, you won't!" I yell, running right up to the horse's head and sending a crash of Noise right at it.

SNAKE!

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The horse rears up on its back legs.

"Goddammit, Todd!" Davy yells, wheeling and whirling, trying to control his horse with the one hand that's not holding the pistol.

I jump in, slap the horse's front quarters and jump back. The horse whinnies and rears up again.

"Yer a dead man!" Davy shouts, going in a full circle with the horse jumping and rearing.

"Yer half right," I say.

And I'm seeing my chance-

The horse neighs loudly and shakes its head back and forth-I wait--

Davy pulls on the reins-I dodge-- I wait--

"Effing horse!" Davy shouts-

He tries to jerk the reins again-

The horse is twisting round one more time-

I wait-

The horse brings Davy round to me, careening him low in the saddle--

And there's my chance-- My fist is back and waiting- BOOM!

I catch him across the face like a hammer falling-I swear I feel his nose break under my fist-- He calls out in pain and falls from the saddle-Dropping the pistol in the dust-- I jump back--

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Davy's foot catches in the stirrup -The horse rears round again-I smack its hindquarters as hard as I can-And the horse has had enough.

It charges back up the hill, back up the road, Davy's foot still caught, making him bounce hard against rocks and dirt as he's dragged, fast, up the incline -

The pistol's in the dust-

I move for it--

"Todd?" I hear.

And there's no time.

There's no time at all.

Without hardly thinking, I leave the pistol and I run back down to Viola at the edge of the scrub.

"I think I'm dying, Todd," she says.

"Yer not dying," I say, getting an arm under her shoulders and another under her knees.

"I'm cold."

"Yer not effing dying!" I say. "Not today!"

And I stand, with her in my arms, and I'm at the top of the zigzag that goes down into Haven.

And that's not going to be fast enough.

I plunge straight down. Straight down thru the scrub.

"Come on!" I say out loud as my Noise forgets itself and all there is in the universe is my legs moving.

Come on!

I run.

Thru scrub-And across road-Thru more scrub --

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Across road again as it doubles back-Down and down-

Kicking up clods of earth and jumping over bushes-Stumbling over roots-- Come on.

"Hang on," I say to Viola. "You hang on, you hear me?"

Viola grunts every time we land hard-

But that means she's still breathing.

Down--

And down-

Come on.

Please.

I skid on some bracken-

But I do not fall--

Road and scrub--

My legs aching at the steepness-

Scrub and road-

Down--

Please--

"Todd?"

"Hang on!"

I reach the bottom of the hill and I hit it running. She's so light in my arms. So light.

I run to where the road rejoins the river, the road into Haven, trees springing up again all around us, the river rushing on.

"Hang on!" I say again, running down the road, fast as my feet will carry me.

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Come on. Please.

Round curves and corners -

Under trees and by the riverbank-

Up ahead I see the battlement I spotted with the binocs from the hill above, huge wooden Xs piled up in a long row out to either side with an opening across the road.

"HELP!" I'm shouting as we come to it. "HELP US!"

I run.

Come on.

"I don't think I can-" Viola says, her voice breathless. "Yes you CAN!" I shout. "Don't you DARE give up!" I run.

The battlement's coming-But there's no one. There's no one there.

I run thru the opening on the road and to the other side. I stop long enough to take a turn around. There's no one. "Todd?"

"We're almost there," I say. "I'm losing it, Todd-" And her head rolls back.

"No yer NOT!" I shout at her face. "You WAKE UP, Viola Eade! You keep yer ruddy eyes open." And she tries. I see her try. And her eyes open, only a little, but open. And I run again as fast as I can. And I'm shouting "HELP!" as I go.

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"HELP!"

Please.

"HELP!"

And her breath is starting to gasp. "HELP US!" Please no.

And I'm not seeing NO ONE.

The houses I pass are shut up and empty. The road turns from dirt to paved and still no one out and about. "HELP!"

My feet slam against the pavement-

The road is leading to the big church up ahead, a clearing of the trees, the steeple shining down onto a town square in front of it.

And no one's there neither.

No.

"HELP!"

I race on to the square, crossing it, looking all around, listening out- No.

No.

It's empty.

Viola's breathing heavy in my arms.

And Haven is empty.

I reach the middle of the square.

I don't see nor hear a soul.

I spin around again.

"HELP!" I cry.

But there's no one.

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Haven is completely empty. There ain't no hope here at all.

Viola slips a little from my grasp and I have to kneel to catch her. My shirt has dropped from her wound and I use one hand to hold it in place.

There ain't nothing left. The bag, the binocs, my ma's book, I'm realizing it's all left up on the hillside.

Me and Viola are all we got, everything we have in the world.

And she's bleeding so much-

"Todd?" she says, her voice low and slurring.

"Please," I say, my eyes welling, my voice cracking. "Please."

Please please please please please-

"Well, since you asked so nicely," comes a voice across the square, hardly even raising itself to a shout.

I look up.

Coming round the side of the church is a single horse.

With a single rider.

"No," I whisper.

No.

"Yes, Todd," says Mayor Prentiss. "I'm afraid so."

He rides his horse almost lazily across the square toward me. He looks as cool and unruffled as ever, no sweat marking his clothes, even wearing riding gloves, even clean boots.

This ain't possible.

This ain't possible at all.

"How can you be here?" I say, my voice rising. "How?"

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"Even a simpleton knows there's two roads to Haven," he says, his voice calm and silky, almost smirking but not quite.

The dust we saw. The dust we saw moving toward Haven yesterday.

"But how?" I say, so stunned I can barely get the words out. "The army's a day away at least-"

"Sometimes the rumor of an army is just as effective as the army itself, my boy," he says. "The terms of surrender were most favorable. One of which was clearing the streets so I could welcome you here myself." He looks back up toward the falls. "Tho I was of course expecting my son to bring you."

I look around the square and now I can see faces, faces peering outta windows, outta doors.

I can see four more men on horseback coming round the church.

I look back at Mayor Prentiss.

"Oh, it's President Prentiss now," he says. "You'll do well to remember that." And then I realize. I can't hear his Noise. I can't hear anyone's.

"No," he says. "I imagine you can't, tho that's an interesting story and not what you might-"

Viola slips a little more from my hands, the shift of it making her give a pained gasp. "Please!" I say. "Save her! I'll do anything you say! I'll join the army! I'll-"

"All good things to those who wait," the Mayor says, finally looking a little annoyed.

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He dismounts in one easy movement and starts taking off his gloves one finger at a time. And I know we've lost. Everything is lost. Everything is over.

"As the newly appointed President of this fair planet of ours," the Mayor says, holding out his hand as if to show me the world for the first time, "let me be the very first to welcome you to its new capital city."

"Todd?" Viola whispers, her eyes closed.

I hold her tightly to me.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to her. "I'm so sorry."

We've run right into a trap.

We've run right off the end of the world.

"Welcome," says the Mayor, "to New Prentisstown."

END OF BOOK ONE

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SEPARATED.

One to the government. The other to a group determined to overthrow it.

Will Todd and Viola he able to survive and keep their trust in each other?

[Image: The Ask and the Answer. Chaos Walking: Book Two .]

Patrick Ness

Turn the page for an excerpt....

www.candlewick.com

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"Your Noise reveals you, Todd Hewitt."

A voice---

In the darkness--

I blink open my eyes. Everything is shadows and blur and it feels like the world's spinning and my blood is too hot and my brain is clogged and I can't think and it's dark-- I blink again. Wait-No, wait--

Just now, just now we were in the square-- Just now she was in my arms-- She was dying in my arms--

"Where is she?" I spit into the dark, tasting blood, my voice croaking, my Noise rising like a sudden hurricane, high and red and furious. "WHERE IS SHE?"

"I will be the one doing the asking here, Todd."

That voice. an excerpt from The Ask and the Answer

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His voice.

Somewhere in the dark.

Somewhere behind me, somewhere unseen.

Mayor Prentiss.

I blink again and the murk starts to turn into a vast room, the only light coming from a single window, a wide circle up high and far away, its glass not clear but colored into shapes of New World and its two circling moons, the light from it slanting down onto me and nothing else.

"What have you done with her?" I say, loud, blinking against fresh blood trickling into my eyes. I try to reach up to clear it away but I find my hands are tied behind my back and panic rises in me and I struggle against the binds and my breathing speeds up and I shout again, "WHERE IS SHE?"

A fist comes from nowhere and punches me in the stomach.

I lean forward into the shock of it and realize I'm tied to a wooden chair, my feet bound to its legs, my shirt gone somewhere up on a dusty hillside and as I'm throwing up my empty stomach I notice there's carpet beneath me, repeating the same pattern of New World and its moons, over and over and over, stretching out for ever.

And I'm remembering we were in the square, in the square where I'd run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her--

But there weren't no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men and they took her from me, they took her from my arms--

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"You notice that he does not ask, Where am I?" says the Mayor's voice, moving out there, somewhere. "His first words are, Where is she?, and his Noise says the same. Interesting."

My head's throbbing along with my stomach and I'm waking up some more and I'm remembering I fought them, I fought them when they took her till the butt of a gun smashed against my temple and knocked me into blackness--

I swallow away the tightness in my throat, swallow away the panic and the fear--

Cuz this is the end, ain't it?

The end of it all.

The Mayor has me.

The Mayor has her.

"If you hurt her--" I say, the punch still aching in my belly. Mr. Collins stands in front of me, half in shadow, Mr. Collins who farmed corn and cauliflower and who tended the Mayor's horses and who stands over me now with a pistol in a holster, a rifle slung round his back and a fist rearing up to punch me again.

"She seemed quite hurt enough already, Todd," the Mayor says, stopping Mr. Collins. "The poor thing."

My fists clench in their bindings. My Noise feels lumpy and half-battered but it still rises with the memory of Davy Prentiss's gun pointed at us, of her falling into my arms, of her bleeding and gasping--

And then I make it go even redder with the feel of my own fist landing on Davy Prentiss's face, of Davy Prentiss falling from his horse, his foot caught in the stirrup, dragged away like so much trash.

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"Well," the Mayor says, "that explains the mysterious whereabouts of my son."

And if I didn't know better, I'd say he sounded almost amused.

But I notice the only way I can tell this is from the sound of his voice, a voice sharper and smarter than any old Prentisstown voice he might once have had, and that the nothing I heard coming from him when I ran into Haven is still a big nothing in whatever room this is and it's matched by a big nothing from Mr. Collins.

They ain't got Noise.

Neither of 'em. an excerpt from The Ask and the Answer