The Ask and the Answer

I pass the bag of food to him and climb out, my shoes thudding on the hard mud. “Todd,” I whisper.

“Yeah?”

“Someone told me there’s a communications tower somewhere outside of town,” I say. “It’s probably surrounded by soldiers but I was thinking if we could find it–”

“Big metal tower?” he interrupts. “Higher than the trees?”

I blink. “Probably,” I say and my eyes open wide. “You know where it is?”

He nods. “I pass it every day.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” he says and I see it in his Noise, I see the road–

“And I think finally that’s enough,” says a voice from the darkness.

A voice we both recognize.

The Mayor steps out of the blackness, a row of soldiers behind him.

“Good evening to you both,” he says.

And I hear a flash of Noise from the Mayor.

And Todd collapses.

[TODD]

It’s a sound but it’s not a sound and it’s louder than anything possible and it would burst yer eardrums if you were hearing it with yer ears rather than the inside of yer head and everything goes white and it’s not just like I’m blind but deaf and dumb and frozen, too, and the pain of it comes from right deep down within so there’s no part of yerself you can grab to protect it, just a stinging, burning slap right into the middle of who you are.

This is what Davy felt, every time he got hit with the Mayor’s Noise.

And it’s words–

All it is is words–

But it’s every word, crammed into yer head all at once, and the whole world is shouting at you that YER NOTHING YER NOTHING YER NOTHING and it rips away every word of yer own, like pulling yer hair out at the roots and taking skin with it–

A flash of words and I’m nothing–

I’m nothing–

YER NOTHING–

And I fall to the ground and the Mayor can do whatever he wants with me.

I don’t wanna talk about what happens next.

The Mayor leaves some soldiers behind to guard the house of healing and the others drag me back to the cathedral and he don’t say nothing as we go, not a word as I beg him not to hurt her, as I promise and scream and cry (shut up) that I’ll do anything he wants as long as he don’t hurt her.

(shut up, shut up)

When we get back, he ties me to the chair again.

And lets Mr. Collins go to town.

And–

And I don’t wanna talk about it.

Cuz I cry and I throw up and I beg and I call out her name and I beg some more and it all shames me so much I can’t even say it.

And all thru it, the Mayor says nothing. He just walks round me, over and over again, listening to me yell, listening to me plead.

Listening to my Noise beneath it all.

And I tell myself that I’m doing all this yelling, all this begging, to hide in my Noise what she told me, to keep her safe, to keep him from knowing. I tell myself I have to cry and beg as loud as I can so he won’t hear.

(shut up)

That’s what I tell myself.

And I don’t wanna say no more about it.

(just effing shut the hell up)

By the time I get back in the tower, it’s nearly morning and Mayor Ledger’s waiting up for me and even tho I’m in no fitness to do anything, I’m wondering if maybe he played a part in all this somehow but his instant concern for me, his horror at the shape I’m in, it all sounds true in his Noise, so true that I just lay slowly down on the mattress and don’t know what to think.

“They barely even came in,” he says, standing behind me. “Collins just opened the door, took a look, then locked me in again. It’s like they knew.”

“Yeah,” I say into my pillow. “It sure is like they knew.”

“I had nothing to do with it, Todd,” he says, reading me. “I swear to you. I’d never help that man.”

“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 him out, 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 gonna–”