The Ask and the Answer

He’s not moving.

And sound begins to return and I start to hear the screaming.

“This is exactly the kind of history I did not want to repeat,” the Mayor says, staring up thoughtfully into the shaft of light coming down from the coloured-glass window.

“I didn’t know anything about a bomb,” I say for a second time, my hands still shaking and my ears ringing so loud it’s hard to hear what he’s saying. “Neither one.”

“I believe you,” he says. “You were very nearly killed yourself.”

“A soldier blocked most of it for me,” I stutter out, remembering his body, remembering the blood from it, the splinters that were stuck in nearly every part of him–

“She drugged you again, didn’t she?” he asks, staring back up into the coloured window, as if the answers might be there. “She drugged you and abandoned you.”

This hits me like a punch.

She did abandon me.

And set off a bomb that killed a young soldier.

“Yes,” I finally say. “She left. They all did.”

“Not all.” He walks behind me, becoming just a voice in the room, talking loud and clear enough so I can hear. “There are five houses of healing in this city. One remains fully staffed, three others are partially depleted of their healers and apprentices. It’s only yours where there’s been complete desertion.”

“Corinne stayed,” I whisper and then I’m suddenly pleading. “She tended the soldiers who were hurt in the second bomb. She didn’t hesitate. She went right to the worst injured and tied tourniquets and cleared airways and–”

“Duly noted,” he interrupts, even though it’s true, even though she called me over to help her and we did the best we could until other stupid soldiers who couldn’t or wouldn’t see what we were doing grabbed us and dragged us away. Corinne struggled against them but they hit her in the face and she stopped.

“Please don’t hurt her,” I say again. “She has nothing to do with this. She stayed behind out of choice. She tried to help those–”

“I’m not going to hurt her!” he shouts suddenly. “Enough of this cowering! There will be no harm to women as long as I am President! Why is that so difficult for you to understand?”

I think of the soldiers hitting Corinne. I think of Maddy falling to the ground.

“Please don’t hurt her,” I whisper again.

He sighs and lowers his voice. “We just need answers from her, that’s all. The same answers I’ll be needing from you.”

“I don’t know where they went,” I say. “She didn’t tell me. She didn’t mention anything.”

And I stop myself and he notices. Because she did mention something, didn’t she?

She told me a story about–

“Something you’d like to share, Viola?” the Mayor asks, coming around to face me, looking suddenly interested.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “Nothing, just . . .”

“Just what?” His eyes are keen on me, flitting over my face, trying to read me, even though I have no Noise, and I realize briefly how much he must hate that.

“Just that she spent her first years on New World in the hills,” I lie, swallowing. “Out west of town past the waterfall. I thought it was just idle talk.”

He’s still staring deep into me and there’s a long silence while he looks and looks before starting his walk again.

“The most important issue,” he says, “is whether the second bomb was a mistake, part of the first bomb that went off later by accident?” He comes round again to read my face. “Or was it on purpose? Was it set to go off later deliberately so that my men would be surrounding a crime scene, so that there would be maximum loss of life?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “She wouldn’t. She’s a healer. She wouldn’t kill–”

“A general would do anything to win a war,” he says. “That’s why it’s war.”

“No,” I keep saying. “No, I don’t believe–”

“I know you don’t believe it.” He steps away from me again, turning his back. “That’s why you were left behind.”

He goes to the small table next to his chair and picks up a piece of paper. He holds it up so I can see it.

There’s a blue A written across it.

“Does this mean anything to you, Viola?”

I try to keep any look off my face.

“I’ve never seen that before.” I swallow again, cursing myself as I do. “What is it?”

He looks at me long and hard again, then he puts the paper back down on the table. “She will contact you.” He watches my face. I try to give him nothing. “Yes,” he says, as if to himself. “She will, and when she does, pass along one message in particular, please.”

“I don’t–”

“Tell her that we can stop this bloodshed at once, that we can end all this before it even begins, before more people die and peace is for ever put aside. Tell her that, Viola.”

He’s staring so hard at me, I say, “Okay.”

He’s not blinking, his eyes black holes I can’t turn away from. “But also tell her that if she wants war, she can have her war.”

“Please–” I start to say.

“That’ll be all,” he says, gesturing me to my feet and towards the door. “Go back to your house of healing. Treat what patients you can.”

“But–”

He opens the door for me. “There’ll be no hanging this afternoon,” he says. “Some civic functions will have to be curtailed in light of recent terrorist activities.”

“Terrorist–?”

“And I’m afraid I’ll be far too busy sweeping up the mess your mistress has made to host the dinner I promised you tonight.”

I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

He closes the door on me.

My head spins as I stagger back down the main road. Todd is out here somewhere and all I can think of is how I can’t see him and won’t be able to tell him anything about what’s happened or explain myself or anything.

And it’s her fault.

It is. I hate to say it but it’s her fault. All of this. Even if it was for reasons she thought were right, it’s all her fault. Her fault that I won’t see Todd tonight. Her fault that war is coming. Her fault–