Monsters of Men

No, I show. No, I understand–

Viola? the Source shows–

“I didn’t do it,” she says to him. “But if I see him again I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself another time.” She looks up beside me, not at me, not able to face me. “Get out of here,” she says. “Get out of here!”

I look to the Source, but he is not seeing me either–

All his pain and sorrow, all his attention fixed on the body of his son–

“GO!” she shouts–

And I turn away and go to my battlemore and look back once more, the Source still huddled over the Knife, the girl called Viola slowly crawling towards him–

Excluding me, forcing themselves not to see me.

And I understand.

I climb back up on my mount. I will return to the valley, return to the Land.

And we will see what the future of this world holds for all of us. The Land and the Clearing both.

Saved first today by the actions of the Sky.

Saved again by the actions of the Knife.

Saved once more by the actions of the Knife’s one in particular.

And now we have done all that, we will have to make it a world worth saving.

Viola? I hear the Source show again–

And I notice a puzzlement growing in his grief–

{VIOLA}

Viola? Ben says again.

I find that I can’t stand up and so I have to crawl over to him and Todd, crawl next to Angharrad’s legs as she paces in sadness, saying Boy colt, boy colt, over and over again.

I force myself to look at Todd’s face, at his still-open eyes.

Viola, Ben says again, looking up at me, his face streaked with tears–

But his eyes are open, wide open–

“What?” I say. “What is it?’

He doesn’t answer right away, just puts his face down close to Todd’s, peering into it, then looking down to where his own hand rests on all the ice he packed on Todd’s chest–

Can you–? Ben says, stopping again, concentration crossing his face.

“Can I what?” I say. “Can I what, Ben?”

He looks up at me. Can you hear that?

I blink at him, hearing my own breathing, the crash of the waves, Angharrad’s cries, Ben’s Noise–

“Hear what?”

I think– he says, stopping again and listening.

I think I can hear him.

He looks up at me. Viola, he says. I can hear Todd.

And he’s already rising to his feet, Todd in his arms–

“I can hear him!” he’s shouting from his mouth, lifting his son into the air. “I can hear his voice!”

“And there’s a chill in the air, son,” I read, “and I don’t mean just the winter coming. I’m begi

I look over at Todd. He still lies there, eyes unblinking, unchanged.

But every now and again, every once in a while, his Noise will open and a memory will surface, a memory of me and him when we first met Hildy, or of him and Ben and Cillian, where Todd is younger than I ever knew him and the three of them are going fishing in the swamp outside of old Prentisstown and Todd’s Noise just glows with happiness–

And my heart beats a little faster with hope–

But then his Noise fades and he’s silent again–

I sigh and lean back on the Spackle-made chair, under cover of a large Spackle-made tent, next to a Spackle-made fire, all of it surrounding a Spackle-made stone tablet where Todd rests and has rested since we got him back from the beach.

A pack of Spackle cure is pasted onto where his chest is scarred and burnt–

But healing.

And we wait.

I wait.

Wait to see if he’ll come back to us.

Outside the tent, a circle of Spackle surround us without moving, their Noises forming some kind of shield. The Pathways’ End, Ben says it’s called, says it’s where he slept all those months while his bullet wound healed, all those months beyond sight of the living, on the very edge of death, the bullet wound that should have killed him but didn’t because of Spackle intervention.

Todd was dead. I was sure of it then, I’m sure of it now.

I watched him die, watched him die in my arms, something that makes me upset even now and so I don’t want to talk about that any more–

But Ben put snow on Todd’s chest, cooling him down fast, cooling down the terrible burns that were paralysing him, cooling down an already cold Todd, an already exhausted Todd who’d been fighting the Mayor, and Ben says Todd’s Noise must have stopped because Todd had become used to not broadcasting it, that Todd must not have actually died, more shut down from the shock and the cold, and then the further cold of the snow kept him there, kept him just enough there that he wasn’t quite dead–

But I know otherwise.

I know he left us, I know he didn’t want to, I know he held on as tight as he could, but I know he left us.

I watched him go.

But maybe he didn’t go far.

Maybe I held him there, maybe me and Ben did, just close enough that maybe he didn’t go too far.

Maybe not so far that he couldn’t come back.

Tired? Ben says, entering the tent.

“I’m okay,” I say, setting down Todd’s mother’s journal, which I’ve read to him every day these past few weeks, hoping he’ll hear me.

Every day hoping he’ll come back from wherever he’s gone.

How’s he doing? Ben asks, walking over to Todd, putting a hand on his arm.

“The same,” I say.

Ben turns back to me. He’ll come back, Viola. He will.

“We hope.”

I came back. And I didn’t have you to call for me.

I look away from him. “You came back changed.”

It was 1017 who suggested the Pathways’ End and Ben agreed with him and since New Prentisstown was nothing but a new lake at the bottom of a new falls and since the alternative was locking Todd in a bed in the scout ship until the new convoy arrived – a method favoured quite strongly by Mistress Lawson, who’s now head of pretty much everything she doesn’t let Wilf or Lee run – I reluctantly agreed with Ben.

Who nods at what I said, looking back down at Todd. I expect he’ll be changed, too. He smiles back at me. But I seem to be doing okay.

I watch Ben these days and I wonder if I’m watching the future of New World, if every man will eventually give himself over so totally to the voice of the planet, keeping his individuality but allowing in all the individualities of everyone else at the same time and willingly joining the Spackle, joining the rest of the world.

Not all men will, I know that, not with how much they valued the cure.

And what about the women?

Ben is certain women do have Noise and that if men can silence theirs, why shouldn’t women be able to un-silence theirs?

He wonders if I might be willing to give it a try.

I don’t know.

Why can’t we learn to live with how we are? And whatever anybody chooses is okay by the rest of us?

Either way, we’re about to have 5000 opportunities to find out.

The convoy just confirmed, Ben says. The ships entered orbit an hour ago, The landing ceremony will go ahead this afternoon as pla

I smile. “Bradley can represent me just fine. Are you going?”

He looks back at Todd. I have to, he says. I have to introduce them to the Sky. I’m the conduit between the settlers and the Land, whether I like it or not. He brushes Todd’s hair away from his forehead. But I’ll come back here straight after.

I haven’t left Todd’s side since we brought him here and won’t until he wakes, not even for new settlers. I even made Mistress Lawson come to me to confirm what the Mayor said about the cure. She tested it inside and out, and he was telling the truth. Every woman is healthy now.