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“Well, now,” Hildy says, “Haven’s meant to be a-working on one. So people say.”
“Which people?” Tam asks, sceptical.
“Talia,” Hildy says. “Susan F. My sister.”
Tam makes a pssht sound with his lips. “I rest my case. Rumours of rumours of rumours. Can’t trust yer sister to get her own name right much less any useful info.”
“But–” I say, looking back and forth again and again, not wanting to let it go. “But how can you be alive then?” I say to Hildy. “The Noise kills women. All women.”
Hildy and Tam exchange a look and I hear, no, I feel Tam squash something in his Noise.
“No, it don’t, Todd pup,” Hildy says, a little too gently. “Like I been telling yer girl mate Viola here. She’s safe.”
“Safe? How can she be safe?”
“Women are immune,” Tam says. “Lucky buggers.”
“No, they’re not!” I say, my voice getting louder. “No, they’re not! Every woman in Prentisstown caught the Noise and every single one of them died from it! My ma died from it! Maybe the version the Spackle released on us was stronger than yers but–”
“Todd pup.” Tam puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me.
I shake him off but I don’t know what to say next. Viola’s not said a word in all of this so I look at her. She don’t look at me. “I know what I know,” I say, even tho that’s been half the trouble, ain’t it?
How can this be true?
How can this be true?
Tam and Hildy exchange another glance. I look into Tam’s Noise but he’s as expert as anyone I’ve met at hiding stuff away when someone starts poking. What I see, tho, is all kind.
“Prentisstown’s got a sad history, pup,” he says. “A whole number of things went sour there.”
“Yer wrong,” I say, but even my voice says I ain’t sure what I’m saying he’s wrong about.
“This ain’t the place for it, Todd,” Hildy says, rubbing Viola on the shoulder, a rub that Viola don’t resist. “Ye need to get some food in ye, some sleep in ye. Vi here says ye ain’t slept hardly at all in many miles of travelling. Everything will be a-looking better when yer fed and rested.”
“But she’s safe from me?” I ask, making a point of not looking at “Vi”.
“Well, she’s definitely safe from catching yer Noise,” Hildy says, a smile breaking out. “What other safety she can get from ye is all down to a-knowing ye better.”
I want her to be right but I also want to say she’s wrong and so I don’t say nothing at all.
“C’mon,” Tam says, breaking the pause, “let’s get to some feasting.”
“No!” I say, remembering it all over again. “We ain’t got time for feasting.” I look at Viola. “There’s men after us, in case you forgot. Men who ain’t interested in our well-beings.” I look up at Hildy. “Now, I’m sure yer feastings would be fine and all–”
“Todd pup–” Hildy starts.
“I ain’t a pup!” I shout.
Hildy purses her lips and smiles with her eyebrows. “Todd pup,” she says again, a little lower this time. “No man from any point beyond that river would ever set foot across it, do ye understand?”
“Yep,” says Tam. “That’s right.”
I look from one to the other. “But–”
“I been guardian here of that bridge for ten plus years, pup,” Hildy says, “and keeper of it for years before that. It’s part of who I am to watch what comes.” She looks over to Viola. “No one’s coming. Ye all are safe.”
“Yep,” Tam says again, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“But–” I say again but Hildy don’t let me finish.
“Time for feasting.”
And that’s that, it seems. Viola still don’t look at me, still has her arms crossed and is now under the arm of Hildy as they walk on again. I’m stuck back with Tam who’s waiting for me to start. I can’t say as I feel much like walking any more but everyone else goes so I go, too. We carry on up Tam and Hildy’s private little path, Tam chattering away, making enough Noise for a whole town.
“Hildy says ye blew up our bridge,” he says.
“My bridge,” Hildy says from in front of us.
“She did build it,” Tam says to me. “Not that anyone’s used it in forever.”
“No one?” I say, thinking for a second of all those men who disappeared outta Prentisstown, all the ones who vanished while I was growing up. Not one of them got this far.
“Nice bit of engineering, that bridge was,” Tam’s going on, like he didn’t hear me and maybe he didn’t, what with how loud he’s talking. “Sad to hear it’s gone.”
“We had no choice,” I say.
“Oh, there’s always choices, pup, but from what I hear, ye made the right one.”
We walk on quietly for a bit. “Yer sure we’re safe?” I ask.
“Well, ye can’t never be sure,” he says. “But Hildy’s right.” He grins, a little sadly, I think. “There’s more than bridges being out that’ll keep men that side of the river.”
I try and read his Noise to see if he’s telling the truth but it’s almost all shiny and clean, a bright, warm place where anything you want could be true.
Nothing at all like a Prentisstown man.
“I don’t understand this,” I say, still gnawing on it. “It’s gotta be a different kinda Noise germ.”
“My Noise sound different from yers?” Tam asks, seeming genuinely curious.
I look at him and just listen for a second. Hildy and Prentisstown and russets and sheep and settlers and leaky pipe and Hildy.
“You sure think about yer wife a lot.”
“She’s my shining star, pup. Woulda lost myself in Noise if she hadn’t put a hand out to rescue me.”
“How so?” I ask, wondering what he’s talking about. “Did you fight in the war?”
This stops him. His Noise goes as grey and featureless as a cloudy day and I can’t read a thing off him.
“I fought, young pup,” he says. “But war’s not something ye talk about in the open air when the sun is shining.”
“Why not?”
“I pray to all my gods ye never find out.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. I don’t shake it off this time.
“How do you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“Make yer Noise so flat I can’t read it.”
He smiles. “Years of practise a-hiding things from the old woman.”
“It’s why I can read so good,” Hildy calls back to us. “He gets better at hiding, I get better at finding.”
They laugh together yet again. I find myself trying to send an eyeroll Viola’s way about these two but Viola ain’t looking at me and I stop myself from trying again.
We all come outta the rocky bit of the path and round a low rise and suddenly there’s a farm ahead of us, rolling up and down little hills but you can see fields of wheat, fields of cabbage, a field of grass with a few sheep on it.
“Hello, sheep!” Tam shouts.
“Sheep!” say the sheep.
First on the path is a big wooden barn, built as watertight and solid as the bridge, like it could last there forever if anyone asked it.
“Unless ye go a-blowing it up,” Hildy says, laughing still.
“Like to see ye try,” Tam laughs back.
I’m getting a little tired of them laughing about every damn thing.
Then we come round to the farmhouse, which is a totally different thing altogether. Metal, by the looks of it, like the petrol stayshun and the church back home but not nearly so banged up. Half of it shines and rolls on up to the sky like a sail and there’s a chimney that curves up and out, folding down to a point, smoke coughing from its end. The other half of the house is wood built onto the metal, solid as the barn but cut and folded like–
“Wings,” I say.
“Wings is right,” Tam says. “And what kinda wings are they?”
I look again. The whole farmhouse looks like some kinda bird with the chimney as its head and neck and a shiny front and wooden wings stretching out behind, like a bird resting on the water or something.
“It’s a swan, Todd pup,” Tam says.
“A what?”
“A swan.”
“What’s a swan?” I say, still looking at the house.