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“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 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 ru
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 binos and looks thru ’em. “I can’t see properly,” she says. “Trees in the way.”
“Someone travelling?”
“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 towards 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.”
“Maybe Carbonel Downs put up too good a fight.” Viola points the binos 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, quiet-like.
Back on the road.
Back to the life of ru
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 ru
But we’re too hungry to talk. And too tired to talk. And ru
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 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 itself 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.
“Di
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 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.”
“Rumours 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 towards 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.
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 di
“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 towards it, the river, too, rushing towards the dawn. I open up the bag and take out the general store food, handing some to Viola and eating what I’ve got. We drink from the water bottles.