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"You know what I mean."
He grumbles some, eats some more stew, then says, "Some of them got the brilliant idea that I was the Answer. Me."
"You?" I say, maybe a bit too surprised. He stands, setting down his stew, mostly uneaten, so I know he must be really sore. "They can't find the women responsible and the soldiers are looking for someone to blame." He stares outta one of the openings, watching night fall across the town that was once his home. "And did our President do anything to stop my beating?" he says, almost to himself. "No, he did not."
I keep eating, trying to keep my Noise quiet of things I don't wa
"People are talking," Mayor Ledger says, keeping his voice low, "about a new healer, a young one no one's ever seen before, going in and out of this very cathedral a while back, now working at the house of healing Mistress Coyle used to run."
Viola, I think, loud and clear before I can cover it.
Mayor Ledger turns to me. "That's one you won't have seen. It's off the main road and down a little hill toward the river about halfway to the monastery. There are two barns together on the road where you need to turn." He looks out the opening again. "You can't miss it."
"I can't get away from Davy," I say.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Mayor Ledger says, lying back down on his bed. "I'm merely telling you idle facts about our fair city."
My breathing gets heavier, my mind and Noise racing thru possibilities about how I can get there, how I can get away from Davy to find the house of healing.
(to find her)
It isn't till later that I think to ask, "Who's Mistress Coyle?" Even tho it's dark, I can feel Mayor Ledger's Noise get a little redder. "Ah, well," he says, into the night. "She'd be your Answer, wouldn't she?"
"That's the last of 'em," I say, watching Spackle 1182 slink away, rubbing her wrist.
"About effing time," Davy says, flopping down onto the grass. There's a crispness to the air but the sun is out and the sky is mostly clear.
"What are we sposed to do now?" I say.
"No effing idea."
I stand there and watch the Spackle. If you didn't know no better, you really wouldn't think they were much smarter than sheep.
"They ain't," Davy says, closing his eyes to the sun.
"Shut up," I say.
But I mean, look at 'em, tho.
They just sit on the grass, still no Noise, not saying nothing, half of 'em staring at us, half of 'em staring at each other, clicking now and then but hardly ever moving, not doing nothing with their hands or their time. All these white faces, looking drained of life, just sitting by the walls, waiting and waiting for something, whatever that something's go
"And the time for that something is now, Todd," booms a voice behind us. Davy scrambles to his feet as the Mayor comes in thru the main opening, his horse tied up outside.
But he looks at me, only me. "Ready for your new job?"
***
"Ain't barely talked to me for weeks," Davy's fuming as we ride home. Things didn't go so well twixt him and his pa. "Just keep watch on Todd this and hurry up with the Spackle that." His hands're gripped tightly round the reins. "Do I even get a thank you? Do I even get a nice job, David?"
"We were sposed to band the Spackle in a week," I say, repeating what the Mayor told him. "It took us more'n twice that."
He turns to me, his Noise really rising red. "We got attacked. How's that sposed to be my fault?"
"I ain't saying it was," I say back but my Noise is remembering the band around 0038's neck.
"So you blame me, too, do you?" He's stopped his horse and is glaring at me, leaning forward in the saddle, ready to jump off.
I open my mouth to answer but then I glance down the road behind him.
There's two barns by a turning in the road, a turning that heads down to the river.
I look back to Davy quickly.
He's got an evil smile. "What's down there?"
"Nothing."
"Yer girl, ain't it?" he sneers. "Eff you, Davy."
"No, pigpiss," he says, sliding off his saddle to the ground, his Noise rising even redder. "Eff you." There ain't nothing to do but fight.
***
"Soldiers?'' Mayor Ledger asks, seeing my bruises and blood as I come into the tower for di
"Never you mind," I growl. It was me and Davy's worst fight in ages. I'm so sore I can barely reach my bed.
"You going to eat that?" Mayor Ledger asks.
A certain word in my Noise lets him know that no, I ain't go
"You trying to eat yer way to freedom?" I say.
"Says a boy who's always had food provided for him."
"I ain't a boy."
"The supplies we brought when we landed only lasted a year," he says, twixt mouthfuls, "by which time our hunting and farming wasn't quite up to where it should have been." He takes another bite. "Lean times make you appreciate a hot meal, Todd."
"What is it about men that makes them need to turn everything into a lesson?" I cover my face with my arm, then take it away cuz of how much my blackening eye hurts.
Night falls again. The air is even cooler and I leave most of my clothes on as I get under the blanket. Mayor Ledger starts to snore, dreaming about walking in a house with endless rooms and not being able to find the exit.
This is the safest time I got to think about her.
Cuz is she really out there?
And is she part of this Answer thing?
And other things, too.
Like what would she say if she saw me? If she saw what I did every day? And with who?
I swallow the cool night air and blink away the wet in my eyes.
(are you still with me, Viola?) (are you?)
An hour later and I'm still not asleep. Something's nagging at me and I'm turning in my sheets, trying to clear my Noise of whatever it is, trying to calm down enough so I can be ready for the new job the Mayor's got pla
But it's like I'm missing something, something obvious, right in front of my face.
Something--
I sit up, listening to the snoring Noise of Mayor Ledger, the sleeping roar of New Prentisstown outside, the night birds chirping, even the river rushing by in the distance.
There was no ker - thunk sound after Mr. Collins let me in.
I think back.
Definitely not.
I look thru the darkness toward the door.
He forgot to lock it.
Right now, right this second.
It's unlocked.
ii 16 WHO ARE YOU
***
(Viola )
"I HEAR NOISE OUTSIDE," Mrs. Fox says as I refill her water jug for the night.
"It'd only be remarkable if you didn't, Mrs. Fox."
"Just by the window-"
"Soldiers smoking their cigarettes."
"No, I'm sure it was-"
"I'm really very busy, Mrs. Fox, if you don't mind." I replace her pillows and empty her bedpan. She doesn't speak again until I'm almost ready to go.
"Things aren't like they used to be," she says quietly. "You can say that again."
"Haven used to be better," she says. "Not perfect. But better than this."
And she just looks out of her window.
I'm dying with tiredness at the end of my rounds but I sit downo n my bed and take out the note that hasn't left my pocket. I read it for the hundredth, thousandth time.