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"That way," the farmer whispers. He points up a narrow path, a small entrance to the woods above that would be easy to miss if you didn't know it was there. "Quickly now."
I look at him again, trying to see a trap, trying to tell but there's no time. There's no time.
"Thank you," I say and I take off ru
The path leads almost immediately into thicker woods, all uphill. It's narrow and I have to push back vines and branches to make my way. The trees swallow me and I can only go forward and forward, hoping that I'm not being led into a trap. I get to the top of the hill only to find a small slope down and then another hill to climb. I run up that, too. I'm still heading east but I can't see enough over anything to tell where the road is or the river or which way I'm-I nearly stumble out into a clearing. Where there's a soldier not ten yards from me.
His back is to me (thank god, thank god) and it's not until my heart has leaped out of my chest and I've caught myself and fallen back into the bushes that I see what he's guarding.
There it is.
In the middle of a clearing cresting the hill, stretching up on three metal legs almost fifty yards into the sky. The trees around it have been felled, and across the clearing underneath it I can see a small building and a road that leads back down the other side of the hill to the river.
I've found the communications tower.
It's here.
And there aren't that many soldiers around it. I count five, no, six.
Just six. With big gaps. My heart rises. And rises. I've found it.
And a BOOM! echoes in the distance beyond the tower.
I flinch, along with the soldiers. Another bomb. Another statement from the Answer. Another-The soldiers are leaving.
They're ru
All of a sudden, it's completely unguarded.
I don't even wait to think how stupid I'm being-I'm just ru
Somehow I can save all of us-
And out of the corner of my eye, I see someone else break cover from the trees to my left--
Someone ru
Someone-
Someone saying my name-
"Viola!" I hear. "Get back!"
"Viola, NO!" Mistress Coyle is screaming at me.
I don't stop-Neither does she-
"GET BACK!" she's yelling-And she's crossing the clearing in front of me-Ru
Even as I'm skidding to a stop-No, I think-No, you can't-
And Mistress Coyle reaches me- You CAN'T-
And pushes us both to the ground- NO!
And the legs of the tower explode in three blinding flashes of light.
PART IV NIGHT FALLING
15 WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
***
(Viola)
"Get off me!"
She slaps her hand over my mouth, holding it there, holding me there with the weight of her body as clouds of dust billow around us from the rubble of the communications tower. "Quit shouting," she hisses.
I bite her hand.
She makes a pained face, fierce and angry, but she doesn't let go, just takes the bite and doesn't move.
"You can scream and shout all you want later, my girl," she says, "but in two seconds, this place is going to be swarming with soldiers and do you honestly think they're going to believe you just happened by?"
She waits to see my reaction. I glare at her but finally nod. She takes away her hand.
"Don't you call me my girl," I say, keeping my voice low but just as fierce as hers. "Don't you call me that ever again."
***
I follow her down a steep slope, heading back toward the road, sliding on fallen leaves and gathered dew but always down and down. I hop over logs and roots, the canvas bag like a stone around my shoulders.
I have no choice but to go with her.
I'd be captured and God knows what else if I went back to town.
And she took my other choice away.
She reaches a stand of bushes at the bottom of a steepening in the slope. She ducks fast under them and beckons for me to follow. I slide down next to her, my breath almost gone, and she says, "Whatever you do, don't scream."
Before I can even open my mouth, she's jumped out through the bushes. They close up behind her and I have to fight my way through leaves and branches to follow. I'm still pushing them back when I practically tumble out the other side.
Onto the road.
Where two soldiers stand by a man with a cart, all of them looking straight at me and Mistress Coyle.
The soldiers look more astonished than angry, but they have no Noise, so there's no way to know.
But they're carrying rifles.
And they're raising them at us.
"And who the hell is this?" one barks, a middle - aged man with a shaved head and a scar down his jaw line.
"Don't shoot!" Mistress Coyle says, hands out and up.
"We heard the explosion," says the other soldier, a younger one, not much older than me, with blond, shoulder - length hair.
Then the older soldier says something else, something unexpected. "You're late."
"That's enough, Magnus," Mistress Coyle says, lowering her hands and stepping forward to the cart. "And put your rifles down. She's with me."
"What?" I say, still frozen to my spot.
"The tracer malfunctioned completely," the younger soldier says to her. "We're not even sure where it came down."
"I told you they were too old," Magnus says.
"It did its job," Mistress Coyle says, bustling around the cart, "wherever it landed."
"Hey!" I say. "What's going on?"
And then I hear, "Hildy?"
Mistress Coyle stops in her tracks. The two soldiers do, too, and stare at the man driving the cart.
"Iss you, ain it?" he says. "Hildy hoo's also called Viola."
My mind's been racing so fast, so completely focused on the soldiers, that I barely took in the man driving the cart, the nearly expressionless face, the clothes, the hat, the voice, the Noise flat and calm as the far horizon.
The man that once drove me and Todd across a sea of things.
"Wilf," I gasp.
Now everyone looks at me, Mistress Coyle's eyebrows so high it's like they're trying to crawl into her hair. "Hey," Wilf says, in greeting.
"Hey," I say back, too stu
He touches two fingers to the brim of his hat. "Ah'm glad to see yoo mayde it."
Mistress Coyle's mouth is moving but no sound comes out for a second or two. "There'll be time for that later," she finally says. "We have to go now."
"Will there be room for two?" the younger soldier asks.
"There'll have to be." She ducks down under the cart and removes a panel from the underside. She motions to me. "Get in."
"In where?" I bend down and see a compartment hidden like a trick of the eye in the width of the cart, narrow and thin as a cot above the rear axle.
"Pack won't fit," Wilf says, pointing at the bag on my back. "Ah'll take it."
I slip it off and hand it to him. "Thank you, Wilf."
"Now, Viola," Mistress Coyle says.
I give Wilf a last nod, duck under the cart and crawl in, forcing my way across the compartment until my head's nearly touching the far side. Mistress Coyle doesn't wait and forces herself in after me. The younger soldier was right. There isn't enough room. She's pressed right up against me, face - to - face, her knees digging into my thighs, our noses less than an inch apart. She's barely drawn her feet inside when the panel is replaced, plunging us into almost complete darkness.