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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.
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 colours 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.
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,” I say. “I was ready to do it.”
She looks at me, her eyes wide. “Todd?”
“I woulda killed him myself.” I find my voice raising 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 ru
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.
“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 it 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.”
“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 tu
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 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 centre, 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 ru
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 squints at me, looking close. “You get hit in the face a lot, you know that?”