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The lurch pushes us farther out into the river.
The boat is starting to pull away.
My head tips and whirls as I spin round and I have to stay on my hands and knees for balance but I’m up as much I can and leaning out the boat and I’m calling, “Manchee!”
Aaron’s fallen back into the soft sand at the river’s edge, his robe getting tangled up in his legs. Manchee’s going for his face, all teeth and claws, growls and roars. Aaron tries to shake him off but Manchee gets a bite either side of Aaron’s nose and gives his head a twist.
He rips Aaron’s nose clean away from his face.
Aaron yells out in pain, blood shooting everywhere.
“Manchee!” I scream. “Hurry, Manchee!”
“Manchee!” Viola yells.
“C’mon, boy!”
And Manchee looks up from Aaron to see me calling him–
And that’s where Aaron takes his chance.
“No!” I scream.
He grabs Manchee violently by his scruff, lifting him off the ground and up in one motion.
“Manchee!”
I hear splashing and I’m dimly aware that Viola’s got the oar and is trying to stop us going any farther into the river and the world is shimmering and throbbing and–
And Aaron has my dog.
“GET BACK HERE!” Aaron yells, holding Manchee out at arm’s length. He’s too heavy to be picked up by his scruff and he’s yelping from the pain but he can’t quite get his head round to bite Aaron’s arm.
“Let him go!” I yell.
Aaron lowers his face–
There’s blood pouring outta the hole where his nose used to be and tho the gash in his cheek is healed you can still see his teeth and it’s this mess that repeats, almost calmly this time, burbling thru the blood and gore, “Come back to me, Todd Hewitt.”
“Todd?” Manchee yelps.
Viola’s rowing furiously to keep us outta the current but she’s weak from the drugs and we’re getting farther and farther away. “No,” I can hear her saying. “No.”
“Let him go!” I scream.
“The girl or the dog, Todd,” Aaron calls, still with the calm that’s so much scarier than when he was shouting. “The choice is yers.”
I reach for the knife and I hold it out in front of me but my head spins too much and I fall off my hands and smack my teeth on the boat seat.
“Todd?” Viola says, still rowing against the current, the boat twisting and turning.
I sit up tasting blood and the world waves so much it nearly knocks me over again.
“I’ll kill you,” I say, but so quietly I might as well be talking to myself.
“Last chance, Todd,” Aaron says, no longer sounding so calm.
“Todd?” Manchee’s still yelping. “Todd?”
And no–
“I’ll kill you,” but my voice is a whisper–
And no–
And there ain’t no choice–
And the boat’s out in the current–
And I look at Viola, still rowing against it, tears dripping off her chin–
She looks back at me–
And there ain’t no choice–
“No,” she says, her voice choking. “Oh, no, Todd–”
And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.
Aaron’s Noise roars up in red and black.
The current takes us.
“I’m sorry!” I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can’t barely breathe. “I’m sorry, Manchee!”
“Todd?” he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. “Todd?”
“Manchee!” I scream.
Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.
“MANCHEE!”
“Todd?”
And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.
And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside me.
And I fall back into it.
And I know nothing more as the river takes us away and away and away.
The sound of water.
And bird noise.
Where’s my safety? they sing. Where’s my safety?
Behind it, there’s music.
I swear there’s music.
Layers of it, flutey and strange and familiar–
And there’s light against the darkness, sheets of it, white and yellow.
And warmth.
And softness on my skin.
And a silence there next to me, pulling against me as strong as it ever did.
I open my eyes.
I’m in a bed, under a cover, in a small square room with white walls and sunlight pouring in at least two open windows with the sound of the river rushing by outside and birds flitting in the trees (and music, is that music?) and for a minute it’s not just that I don’t know where I am, I also don’t know who I am or what’s happened or why there’s an ache in my–
I see Viola, curled up asleep on a chair next to the bed, breathing thru her mouth, her hands pressed twixt her thighs.
I’m still too groggy to make my own mouth move and say her name just yet but my Noise must say it loud enough cuz her eyes flutter open and catch mine and she’s outta her seat in a flash with her arms wrapped around me and squishing my nose against her collarbone.
“Oh, Jesus, Todd,” she says, holding so tight it kinda hurts.
I put one hand on her back and I inhale her scent.
Flowers.
“I thought you were never coming back,” she says, squeezing tight. “I thought you were dead.”
“Wasn’t I?” I croak, trying to remember.
“You were sick,” Viola says, sitting back, knees still on my bed. “Really sick. Doctor Snow wasn’t sure you’d ever wake up and when a doctor admits that much–”
“Who’s Doctor Snow?” I ask, looking round the little room. “Where are we? Are we in Haven? And what’s that music?”
“We’re in a settlement called Carbonel Downs,” she says. “We floated down the river and–”
She stops cuz she sees me looking at the foot of the bed.
At the space where Manchee ain’t.
I remember.
My chest closes up. My throat clenches shut. I can hear him barking in my Noise. “Todd?” he’s saying, wondering why I’m leaving him behind. “Todd?” with an asking mark, just like that, forever asking where I’m going without him.
“He’s gone,” I say, like I’m saying it to myself.
Viola seems like she’s about to say something but when I glance up at her, her eyes are shiny and all she does is nod, which is the right thing, the thing I’d want.
He’s gone.
He’s gone.
And I don’t know what to say about that.
“Is that Noise I hear?” says a loud voice, preceded by its own Noise thru a door opening itself at the foot of the bed. A man enters, a big man, tall and broad with glasses that make his eyes bug out and a flip in his hair and a crooked smile and Noise coming at me so filled with relief and joy it’s all I can do not to crawl out the window behind me.
“Doctor Snow,” Viola says to me, scooting off the bed to make way.
“Pleased to finally meet you, Todd,” Doctor Snow says, smiling big and sitting down on the bed and taking a device outta his front shirt pocket. He sticks two ends of it into his ears and places the other end on my chest without asking. “Could you take a deep breath for me?”
I don’t do nothing, just look at him.
“I’m checking if your lungs are clear,” he says and I realize what it is I’m noticing. His accent’s the closest to Viola’s I ever heard on New World. “Not exactly the same,” he says, “but close.”
“He’s the one who made you well,” Viola says.
I don’t say nothing but I take a deep breath.
“Good,” Doctor Snow says, placing the end of the device on another part of my chest. “Once more.” I breathe in and out. I find that I can breathe in and out, all the way down to the bottom of my lungs.