The Ask and the Answer

"Just leave me be," I say.

And he does.

I don't sleep.

I burn.

I burn with the stupidity of how easy they trapped me, how easy it was to use her against me. I burn with the shame of crying at the beating (shut up). I burn with the ache of being taken from her again, the ache of her promise to me, the ache of not knowing what's going to happen to her now.

I don't care nothing bout what they do to me.

Eventually, the sun rises and I find out my punishment.

Put yer back into it, pigpiss."

"Shut it, Davy." Our new job is putting the Spackle to work in groups, digging up foundayshuns for new buildings in the monastery grounds, new buildings that'll house the Spackle for the coming winter.

My punishment is, I'm working right down there with 'em.

My punishment is, Davy's in complete charge. My punishment is, he's got a new whip. "C'mon," he says, slashing it against my shoulders. "Work!"

I spin round, every bit of me sore and aching. "You hit me with that again, I'll tear yer effing throat out."

He smiles, all teeth, his Noise a joyous shout of triumph. "Like to see you try, Mr. Hewitt."

And he just laughs.

I turn back to my shovel. The Spackle in my group are all staring at me. I ain't had no sleep and my fingers are cold in the sharp, morning sun and I can't help myself and I shout at 'em. "Get back to work!"

They make a few clicking sounds one to another and start digging at the ground again with their hands.

All except one, who looks at me a minute longer.

I stare at him, seething, my Noise riled and raging right at him. He just takes it silently, his breath steaming from his mouth, his eyes daring me to do something. He holds up his wrist, like he's identifying himself, as if I don't know which one he is, then he returns to working the cold earth as slowly as he can.

1017 is the only one who ain't afraid of us.

I take my shovel and stab it hard into the ground.

"Enjoying yerself?" Davy calls.

I put something in my Noise, rude as I can think of.

"Oh, my mother's long dead," he says. "Just like yers." Then he laughs. "I wonder if she talked as much in real life as she wrote in her little book."

I straighten up, my Noise rising red. "Davy-"

"Cuz boy, don't she go on for pages."

"One of these days, Davy," I say, my Noise so fierce I can almost see it bending the air like a heat shimmer. "One of these days, I'm go

"You're going to what, dear boy?" the Mayor says, riding thru the entrance on Morpeth. "I can hear you two arguing from out on the road." He turns his gaze to Davy. "And arguing is not working."

"Oh, I got 'em working, Pa," Davy says, nodding out to the fields.

And it's true. Me and the Spackle are all separated into teams of ten or twenty, spread out among the whole enclosed bit of the monastery, removing stones from the low internal walls and pulling up the sod in the fields. Others are piling the dug - up dirt in other fields and my group here near the front have already dug parts of the trenches for the foundayshuns of the first building. I've got a shovel. The Spackle have to use their hands.

"Not bad," the Mayor says. "Not bad at all."

Davy's Noise is so pleased it's embarrassing. Nobody looks at him.

"And you, Todd?" The Mayor turns to me. "How is your morning progressing?"

"Please don't hurt her," I say.

"Please don't hurt her," Davy mocks.

"For the last time, Todd," the Mayor says, "I'm not going to hurt her. I'm just going to talk with her. In fact, I'm on my way to speak with her right now."

My heart jumps and my Noise raises.

"Oh, he don't like that, Pa," Davy says.

"Hush," the Mayor says. "Todd, is there anything you'd like to tell me that might make my visit with her go more quickly, more pleasantly for everyone?"

I swallow.

And the Mayor's just staring at me, staring into my Noise, and words form in my brain, PLEASE DON'T HURT HER said in my voice and his voice all twisted together, pressing down on the things I think, the things I know and it's different from the Noise slap, this voice pokes around where I don't want him, trying to open locked doors and turn over stones and shine lights where they shouldn't never be shone and all the while saying PLEASE DON'T HURT HER and I can feel myself starting to want to tell (ocean), starting to want to unlock those doors (the ocean), starting to want to do just exactly what he says, cuz he's right, he's right about everything and who am I to resist--

"She don't know nothing," I say, my voice wobbly, almost gasping.

He arches an eyebrow. "You seem distressed, Todd." He angles Morpeth to approach. Submit , Morpeth says. Davy watches the Mayor's attenshuns on me and even from here I can hear him getting jealous. "Whenever my passions need calming, Todd, there's something I like to do."

He looks into my eyes.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

Hatched right in the middle of my brain, like a worm in an apple.

"Reminds me who I am," the Mayor says. "Reminds me of how I can control myself."

"What does?" Davy says and I realize he's not hearing it.

I am the Circle and the Circle is me.

Again, right on the inside of me.

"What does it mean?" I almost gasp cuz it's sitting so heavy in my brain I'm finding it hard to speak. And then we hear it.

A whining in the air, a buzzing that ain't Noise, a buzz more like a fat purple bee coming in to sting you. "What the-?" Davy says.

And then we're all turning, looking at the far end of the monastery, looking up over the heads of the soldiers along the top of the wall.

Buzzzz --

It's in the sky, a shape making an arc, high and sharp, coming up thru some trees behind the monastery, trailing smoke behind it, but the buzzing is getting louder and the smoke is starting to thicken into black.

And then the Mayor pulls Viola's binocs out of his shirt pocket to get a closer look.

I stare at them, my Noise churning, slopping out with asking marks that he ignores.

Davy musta brought them back down the hill, too.

I clench my fists.

"Whatever it is," Davy says, "it's coming this way." I look back round. The thing has reached the high point of its arc and is heading back down to earth.

Down toward the monastery where we're all standing.

Buzzzz--

"I'd get out of the way if I were you," the Mayor says.

"That's a bomb."

Davy runs so fast back to the gate he drops the whip. The soldiers on the wall start jumping off to the outside. The Mayor readies his horse but he don't move yet, waiting to see where the bomb's go

"Tracer," he's saying, his voice full of interest. "Antiquated, practically useless. We used them in the Spackle War."

The buzzzzzz is getting louder. The bomb's still falling, but picking up speed. "Mayor Prentiss?"

"President," he corrects but he's still looking thru the binocs almost like he's hypnotized. "The sound and the smoke," he says. "Far too obvious for covert use."

"Mayor Prentiss!" My Noise is getting higher with nerves.

"The city's all been bush bombs, so why-"

"RUN!" I yell.

Morpeth starts and the Mayor looks at me. But I ain't talking to him.

"RUN!" I'm yelling and waving my hands and the shovel at the Spackle nearest me, the Spackle in my field. The field the bomb is heading right for.