The Ask and the Answer
“Playing with yer pet?” Davy’s come round, too, leaning against the building with his arms crossed. “You know, when horses break their legs, they shoot ’em.”
“He ain’t a horse.”
“Nah,” Davy says. “He’s a sheep.”
I puff out my lips. “Thanks for not telling yer pa.”
Davy shrugs. “Whatever, pigpiss, as long as it don’t screw up our reward.”
1017 makes his rude clicking at both of us, but mostly at me.
“He don’t seem too grateful, tho,” Davy says.
“Yeah, well, I saved him twice now.” I look at 1017, look right into eyes that never leave mine. “I ain’t doing it again.”
“You say that,” Davy says, “but everyone knows you will.” He nods at 1017. “Even him.” Davy’s eyes widen in a mock. “It’s cuz yer tender.”
“Shut up.”
But he’s already laughing and leaving and 1017 just stares at me and stares at me.
And I stare back.
I saved him.
(I saved him for her)
(if she was here, she could see, see how I saved him)
(if she was here)
(but she ain’t)
I clench my fists and then force myself to unclench them.
New Prentisstown has changed in the past month, I see it every day as we ride home.
Part of it’s winter coming. The leaves on the trees have turned purple and red and dropped to the ground, leaving the tall winter skeletons behind them. The evergreens have kept their needles but dropped their cones and the reachers have pulled their branches tight into their trunks, leaving na**d poles to sit out the cold. All of it plus the constant darker skies makes it look like the town’s going hungry.
Which it is. The army invaded at the end of harvest, so there were food stocks, but there’s no one left in the outer settlements to bring in food to trade and the Answer are keeping up their bombs and food raids. One night a whole storehouse of wheat was taken, so completely and successfully it’s obvious now there’s people in the town and the army who’ve been helping ’em.
Which is bad news for the town and the army.
The curfew got lowered two weeks ago and again last week till no one’s allowed out after dark at all except for a few patrols. The square in front of the cathedral has become a place for bonfires, of books, of the wordly belongings of people found to have helped the Answer, of a bunch of healer uniforms from when the Mayor closed the last house of healing. And practically no one takes the cure no more, except some of the Mayor’s closest men, Mr. Morgan, Mr. O’Hare, Mr. Tate, Mr. Hammar, men from old Prentisstown who’ve been with him for years. Loyalty, I guess.
Me and Davy ain’t never been given it in the first place so there weren’t never a chance for him to take it away.
“Maybe that’s our reward,” Davy says as we ride. “Maybe he’ll get some outta the cellar and we’ll finally see what it’s like.”
Our reward, I think. We.
I run my hand along Angharrad’s flank, feeling the chill in her skin. “Almost home, girl,” I whisper twixt her ears. “Nice warm barn.”
Warm, she thinks. Boy colt.
“Angharrad,” I say back.
Horses ain’t pets and they’re half-crazy all the time but I’ve been learning if you treat ’em right, they get to know you.
Boy colt, she thinks again and it’s like I’m part of her herd.
“Maybe the reward is women!” Davy says suddenly. “Yeah! Maybe he’s gonna give us some women and finally make a real man outta you.”
“Shut up,” I say, but it don’t turn into a fight. Come to think of it, we ain’t had a fight in a good long while.
We’re just used to each other, I guess.
We don’t hardly see women no more neither. When the communicayshuns tower fell, they were all confined to their houses again, except when teams of ’em are working the fields, readying for next year’s planting, under guard from armed soldiers. The visits from husbands and sons and fathers are now once a week at most.
We hear stories about soldiers and women, stories about soldiers getting into dormitories at night, stories about awful things going on that no one gets punished for.
And that don’t even count the women in the prisons, prisons I’ve only seen from the cathedral tower, a group of converted buildings in the far west of town down near the foot of the waterfalls. Who knows what goes on inside? They’re way far away, outta sight of everyone ’cept for those that guard ’em.
Kinda like the Spackle.
“Jesus, Todd,” Davy says, “the racket you make by thinking all the time.”
Which is exactly the kinda thing I’ve learned to ignore from Davy. Except this time, he called me Todd.
We leave our horses in the barn near the cathedral. Davy walks me back to the cathedral, tho I don’t really need a guard no more.
Cuz where would I go?
I go in the front door and I hear, “Todd?”
The Mayor’s waiting for me.
“Yes, sir?” I say.
“Always so polite,” he smiles, walking towards me, boots clicking on the marble. “You seem better lately, calmer.” He stops a metre away. “Have you been using the tool?”
Huh?
“What tool?” I ask.
He sighs a little. And then–
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
I put a hand up to the side of my head. “How do you do that?”
“Noise can be used, Todd,” he says. “If you’re disciplined enough. And the first step is using the tool.”
“I am the Circle and the Circle is me?”
“It’s a way of centring yourself,” he nods, “a way of aligning your Noise, of reining it in, controlling it, and a man who can control his Noise is a man with an advantage.”
I remember him chanting away back in his house in old Prentisstown, how sharp and scary his Noise sounded compared to other men’s, how much it felt like–
Like a weapon.
“What’s the Circle?” I ask.
“Your destiny, Todd Hewitt. A circle is a closed system. There’s no way of getting out, so it’s easier if you don’t fight it.”
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
But this time, my voice is in there, too.
“There’s so much I look forward to teaching you,” he says and leaves without saying good night.
I pace the walls of the bell tower, looking out towards the falls in the west, the hill with the notch on it in the south, and to the east, the hills that lead towards the monastery, tho you can’t see it from here. All you can see is New Prentisstown, indoors and huddled together as a cold night settles in.