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“Eat,” the woman says, holding up some bread to my face. “Yoo can’t go nowhere till yoo eat.”
I take the bread from her and eat a bite, then tear into the rest so hungrily I forget to give some to Manchee. The woman just takes out some more and gives some to both of us, watching wide-eyed at every move I make.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Ah’m Jane,” she says. Her eyes are still way open, like she’s just bursting to say stuff. “Didja see the army?” she asks. “With yer own eyes?”
“I did,” I say. “In Farbranch.”
She sucks in her breath. “So it’s true.” Not an asking, just saying it.
“Told yoo it were true,” Wilf says from up front.
“Ah hear they’re cuttin off people’s heads and boilin their eyes,” Jane says.
“Jane!” Wilf snaps.
“Ah’m just sayin.”
“They’re killing folk,” I say, low. “Killing’s enough.”
Jane’s eyes dart all over my face and Noise but all she says after a bit is, “Wilf told me all bout yoo,” and I can’t figure out at all what her smile means.
A drip from the rag makes it to my mouth and I gag and spit and cough some more. “What is this?” I say, pressing the rag with my fingers and wincing from the smell.
“Poultice,” Jane says. “For fevers and ague.”
“It stinks.”
“Evil smell draws out evil fever,” she says, as if telling me a lesson everyone knows.
“Evil?” I say. “Fever ain’t evil. It’s fever.”
“Yeah, and this poultice treats fever.”
I stare at her. Her eyes never leave me and the wide open part of them is starting to make me uncomfortable. It’s how Aaron looks when he’s pi
It’s a mad look, I realize.
I try to check the thought but Jane don’t give no sign she heard.
“I gotta go,” I say again. “Thank you kindly for the food and the poultry but I gotta go.”
“Yoo can’t go off in these woods here, nosirree,” she says, still staring, still not blinking. “Them’s dangerous woods, them is.”
“What do you mean, dangerous?” I push myself away from her a little.
“Settlements up the way,” she says, her eyes even wider and a smile now, like she can’t wait to tell me. “Crazy as anything. Noise sent ’em wild. Hear tell of one where everyone wears masks so’s no one kin see their faces. There’s another where no one don’t do nothing but sing all day long they gone so crazy. And one where everyone’s walls are made a glass and no one wears no clothes cuz no one’s got secrets in Noise, do they?”
She’s closer to me now. I can smell her breath, which is worse than the rag, and I feel the silence behind all these words. How can that be so? How can silence contain so much racket?
“People can keep secrets in Noise,” I say. “People can keep all kindsa secrets.”
“Leave a boy alone,” Wilf says from his seat.
Jane’s face goes slack. “Sorry,” she says, a little grudgingly.
I raise up a little, feeling the benefit of food in my belly whatever the stinking rag may or may not be doing.
We’ve pulled closer to the rest of the caravan, close enough for me to see the backs of a few heads and hear more closely the Noise of men chattering up and down and the silence of women twixt them, like stones in a creek.
Every now and then one of them, usually a man, glances back at us, and I feel like they’re seeking me out, seeing what I’m made of.
“I need to find her,” I say.
“Yer girl?” Jane asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Thank you, but I need to go.”
“But yer fever! And the other settlements!”
“I’ll take my chances.” I untie the dirty rag. “C’mon, Manchee.”
“Yoo can’t go,” Jane says, eyes wider than ever, worry on her face. “The army–”
“I’ll worry about the army.” I pull myself up, readying to jump down off the cart. I’m still pretty unsteady so I have to take a cloudy breath or two before I do anything.
“But they’ll get yoo!” Jane says, her voice rising. “Yer from Prentisstown–”
I look up, sharp.
Jane slaps a hand over her mouth.
“Wife!” Wilf yells, turning his head round from the front of the cart.
“Ah didn’t mean it,” she whispers to me.
But it’s too late. Already the word is bouncing up and down the caravan in a way that’s become too familiar, not just the word, but what pins it to me, what everyone knows or thinks they know about me, already faces turning about to look deeper at the last cart in the caravan, oxes and horses drawing to a stop as people turn more fully to examine us.
Faces and Noise aimed right back down the road at us.
“Who yoo got back there, Wilf?” a man’s voice says from just one cart up.
“Feverish boy,” Wilf shouts back. “Crazy with sickness. Don’t know what he’s sayin.”
“Yoo entirely sure about that?”
“Yessir,” Wilf says. “Sick boy.”
“Bring him out,” a woman’s voice calls. “Let’s see him.”
“What if he’s a spy?” another woman’s voice calls, rising in pitch. “Leadin the army right to us?”
“We don’t want no spies!” cries a different man.
“He’s Ben,” Wilf says. “He’s from Farbranch. Got nightmares of cursed town army killin what he loves. I vouch for him.”
No one shouts nothing for a minute but the Noise of the men buzzes in the air like a swarm. Everyone’s face is still on us. I try to make my own look more feverish and put the invasion of Farbranch first and foremost. It ain’t hard and it makes my heart sick.
And there’s a long moment where nobody says nothing and it’s as loud as a screaming crowd.
And then it’s enough.
Slowly but slowly the oxes and horses start moving forward again, pulling away from us, people still looking back but at least getting farther away. Wilf snaps the reins on his oxes but keeps them slower than the rest, letting a distance open between us and everyone else.
“Ah’m sorry,” Jane says again, breathless. “Wilf told me not to say. He told me but–”
“That’s okay,” I say, just wanting her to stop talking already.
“Ah’m so so sorry.”
There’s a lurch and Wilf’s stopped the cart. He waits till the caravan’s off a good distance then hops down and comes back.
“No one lissens to Wilf,” he says, maybe with a small smile. “But when they do, they believe him.”
“I need to go,” I say.
“Yup,” he says. “T’ain’t safe.”
“Ah’m sorry,” Jane keeps saying.
I jump off the cart, Manchee following me. Wilf reaches for Viola’s bag and holds it open. He looks at Jane, who understands him. She takes an armful of fruits and breads and puts them in the bag, then another armful of dried meats.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Hope yoo find her,” Wilf says as I close the bag.
“I hope so, too.”
With a nod, Wilf goes and reseats himself on the cart and snaps the reins on his oxes.
“Be careful,” Jane calls after me, in the loudest whisper you ever heard. “Watch out for the crazies.”
I stand for a minute and watch ’em pull away, coughing still, feverish still, but feeling better for the food if not the smell of roots and I’m hoping Manchee can find the trail again and I’m also wondering just exactly what kinda welcome I’m go
It takes a little while, a horrible little while, for Manchee to find the scent again once we’re back in the woods but then he barks, “This way,” and we’re off again.
He’s a good bloody dog, have I said that?
Night’s fully fallen by now and I’m still sweating and I’m still coughing enough to win a contest and my feet ain’t made of nothing but blisters and my head’s still buzzy with feverish Noise but I’ve got food in my belly and more in the bag to see me thru a coupla days and so all that matters is still ahead of us.