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He's not seeing his sister or his mother.
"Are they here?" he pleads. "Tell me they're here."
"I don't know what they look like," I say quietly.
Lee stares at me, his mouth open, his breath heavy and raspy, like he's breathed in a lot of smoke. "It was ..." he says. "Oh, God, Viola, it was ..." He looks up and past me, over my shoulder. "I've got to find them. They've got to be here."
He steps past me and down the gully. "Siobhan? Mum?" I can't help it and I call after him. "Lee? Did you see Todd?"
But he keeps on walking, stumbling away.
"Viola!" I hear and at first I think it's just another mistress calling for my help.
But then a voice beside me says, "Mistress Coyle!"
I turn and look up. At the top of the path is Mistress Coyle, on horseback, clopping down the rocks of the path as fast as she can make the horse go. She's got someone in the saddle behind her, someone tied to her to keep them from falling off. I feel a jolt of hope. Maybe it's Siobhan. Or Lee's mum.
(or him, maybe it's him, maybe-)
"Help us, Viola!" Mistress Coyle shouts, working the reins.
And as I start to run up the hill toward them, the horse turns to find its footing and I see who it is, unconscious and leaning badly.
Cori
"No," I keep saying, under my breath, hardly realizing it.
"No, no, no, no, no," as we get her down onto a flat of rocka nd as Mistress Lawson runs toward us with armfuls of bandages and medicines. "No, no, no," as I take her head in my hands to cradle it from the hard rock and Mistress Coyle tears off Cori
"You found her," Mistress Lawson says.
Mistress Coyle nods. "I found her."
I feel Cori
"Oh, Cori
"Stay with us, my girl," Mistress Coyle says, and I don't know whether she's talking to me or Cori
"Thea?" Mistress Lawson asks, not looking up.
Mistress Coyle shakes her head.
"Thea's dead?" I ask.
"And Mistress Waggoner," Mistress Coyle says, and I notice the smoke on her face, the red angry burns on her forehead. "And others." Her mouth draws thin. "But we got some of them, too."
"Come on, my girl," Mistress Lawson says to Cori
"Hold this," Mistress Coyle says, handing me a bag off luid co
"Here it is," Mistress Lawson says, peeling away a strap of crusted cloth on Cori
It's worse than how sickening it stinks. It's worse because of what it means.
"Gangrene," Mistress Coyle says pointlessly, because we can all see that it's way past infection. The smell means the tissue's dead. It means it's started to eat her alive. Something I wish I didn't remember that Cori
"They didn't even give her basic bloody treatment," grunts Mistress Lawson, getting to her feet and ru
"Come on, my difficult girl," Mistress Coyle says quietly, stroking Cori
"You stayed until you found her," I say. "That's why you were last."
"She'd never yield, this one," Mistress Coyle says, her voice rough and not just because of smoke. "No matter what they did to her."
We look down at Cori
Mistress Coyle's right. Cori
"The infection," I say, my throat swelling. "The smell, it means-" Mistress Coyle just bites her lips hard and shakes her head. "Oh, Cori
And right there, right there in my hands, in my lap, her face turned up to mine-She dies.
There's only silence when it happens. It isn't loud or struggled against or violent or anything at all. She just falls quiet, a certain type of quiet you know is endless as soon as you hear it, a quiet that muffles everything around it, turning off the volume of the world.
The only thing I can hear, in fact, is my own breathing, wet and heavy and like I'll never feel lightness again. And in the silence of my breath I look down the hillside, I see the rest of the wounded around us, their mouths open to cry out in pain, their eyes blank with horrors still being seen even after rescue. I see Mistress Lawson, ru
I think of the Mayor in his cathedral, making promises, telling lies.
(I think of Todd in the Mayor's hands)
I look down at Cori
We are the choices we make.
When I look up at Mistress Coyle, the wet in my eyes makes everything shine with pointed lights, makes the first peek of the rising sun a smear across the sky. But I can see her clearly enough.
My teeth are clenched, my voice thick as mud.
"I'm ready," I say. "I'll do anything you want."
26 THE ANSWER
***
[TODD]
OH, GOD, Mayor Ledger keeps saying under his breath. "Oh, God."
"What're you so upset about?" I finally snap at him.
The door ain't unlocked at its usual time. Morning's come and gone with no sign of anyone remembering that we're here. Outside the city burns and but ROAR s a sour part of me can't help thinking he's moaning cuz they're late with our breakfast.
"The surrender was supposed to bring -peace," he says. "And that bloody woman has ruined everything."
I look at him strangely. "It's not like it's paradise here or nothing. There's curfews and prisons and--"
But he's shaking his head. "Before she started her little campaign, the President was relaxing the laws. He was easing the restrictions. Things were going to be okay."
I stand and look out the windows to the west, where smoke still rises and fires still rage and the Noise of men don't show no sign of stopping.
"You've got to be practical," Mayor Ledger says, "even in the face of tyrants."
"Is that what you are then?" I say. "Practical?"
He narrows his eyes. "I don't know what you're getting at, boy."
I don't really know what I'm getting at neither but I'm frightened and I'm hungry and we're stuck in this stupid tower while the world falls to bits around us and we can watch it but we can't do nothing to change it and I don't know what Viola's part in all this is or where she is and I don't know where the future's heading and I don't know how any good can possibly come outta any of this but what I do know is that Mayor Ledger telling me how practical he's been is kinda pissing me off.