The Ask and the Answer

The ROAR of New Prentisstown is only just starting to rise with the sun. Light shoots in from the far horizon, but we stay silent for a moment longer.

“I’m sorry, Corinne,” I finally say. “But why–?”

“Everyone here is someone’s daughter,” she says quietly. “Every soldier out there is someone’s son. The only crime, the only crime is to take a life. There is nothing else.”

“And that’s why you don’t fight,” I say.

She turns to me sharply. “To live is to fight,” she snaps. “To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.” She takes an angry huff of air. “And now her, too, with all the bombs. I fight them every time I bandage the blackened eye of a woman, every time I remove shrapnel from a bomb victim.”

Her voice has raised but she lowers it again. “That’s my war,” she says. “That’s the war I’m fighting.”

She walks back to her chair and picks up a bundle of cloth sat next to it. “And to that end,” she says, “I need you to put these on.”

She doesn’t give me time to argue or even ask about her plan. She takes my apprentice robes and my own few much-washed clothes and has me put on poorer rags, a long-sleeved blouse, a long skirt, and a headscarf that completely covers my hair.

“Corinne,” I say, tying up the scarf.

“Shut up and hurry.”

When I’m dressed, she takes me down to the end of the long hallway leading out to the riverside by the house of healing. There’s a heavy canvas bag of medicines and bandages loaded up by the door. She hands it to me and says, “Wait for the sound. You’ll know it when you hear it.”

“Corinne–”

“Your chances aren’t very good, you have to know that.” She’s looking me in the eye now. “But if you get to wherever they’re hiding, you put these supplies to use as a healer, do you hear me? You’ve got it in you whether you know it or not.”

My breathing is heavy, nervous, but I look at her and I say, “Yes, Mistress.”

“Mistress is right,” she says and looks out of the window in the door. We can see a single bored soldier at the corner of the building, picking his nose. Corinne turns to me. “Now. Strike me, please.”

I blink. “What?”

“Strike me,” she says again. “I’ll need a bloody nose or a split lip at least.”

“Corinne–”

“Quickly or the streets will grow too crowded with soldiers.”

“I’m not going to hit you!”

She grabs me by the arm, so fiercely I flinch back. “If the President comes for you, do you honestly think you’ll return? He’s tried to get the truth from you by asking and then by trapping your friend. Do you honestly think the patience of a man like that lasts forever?”

“Corinne–”

“He will eventually hurt you,” she says. “If you refuse to help him, he will kill you.”

“But I don’t know–”

“He doesn’t care what you don’t know!” she hisses through her teeth. “If I can prevent the taking of a life, I will do so, even one as irritating as yours.”

“You’re hurting me,” I say quietly, as her fingers dig into my arm.

“Good,” she says. “Get angry enough to strike me.”

“But why–”

“Just do it!” she shouts.

I take in a breath, then another, then I hit her across the face as hard as I can.

I wait, crouched by the window in the door, watching the soldier. Corinne’s footsteps fade down the corridor as she runs to the reception room. I wait some more. The soldier is one of the many now who have had the cure taken from them and in the relative quiet of the morning I can hear what he thinks. Thoughts of boredom, thoughts of the village he lived in before the army invaded, thoughts of the army he was forced to join.

Thoughts of a girl he knew who died.

And then I hear the faint shout of Corinne coming from the front. She’ll be screaming that the Answer snuck in during the night, beat her senseless and kidnapped me under their very noses but that she saw us all flee in the opposite direction I’m going to be running.

It’s a poor story, there’s no way it’s going to work, how could anyone sneak in with guards everywhere?

But I know what she’s counting on. A legend that’s been rising, a legend about the Answer.

How can the bombs be planted with no one seeing?

With no one being caught?

If the Answer can do that, could they sneak past armed guards?

Are they invisible?

I hear thoughts just like this as soon as I see the soldier’s head snap up when he hears the ruckus. It grows louder in his Noise as he runs around the corner and out of view.

And as fast as that, it’s time.

I hoist the bag of medicines up onto my shoulder.

I open the door.

I run.

I run towards a line of trees and down to the river. There’s a path along the riverbank but I stick to the trees beside it and as the bag bashes my shoulders and back with heavy corners, I can’t help but think of me and Todd running down this same river, this same riverbank, running from the army, running and running and running.

I have to get to the ocean.

As much as I want to save Todd, my only chance is to find her first.

And then I’ll come back for him.

I will.

I ain’t never leaving you, Todd Hewitt.

My heart aches as I remember saying it.

As I break my promise.

(you hold on, Todd)

(you stay alive)

I run.

I make my way downriver, avoiding patrols, cutting across back gardens, running behind back fences, staying as far clear of houses and housing blocks as I can.

The valley is narrowing again. The hills approach the road and the houses begin to thin out. Once, I hear marching and I have to dive deep into the undergrowth as soldiers pass, holding my breath, crouching as low to the ground as I can. I wait until there’s only bird call (Where’s my safety?) and the now-distant ROAR of the town, wait for a breath or two more, then I raise my head and look down the road.

The river bends in the distance and the road is lost from view behind further rolling hills and forests. Across the road here, this far from town, there are mostly farms and farmhouses, working their way up sloping hillsides, back towards more forest. Directly across, there’s a small drive leading to a farmhouse with a little stand of trees in the front garden. The farming fields spread out to the right, but above and beyond the farmhouse, thicker forest begins again. If I can get up the drive, that’ll be the safest place for me. If I have to, I’ll hide until nightfall and make my way in the dark.