The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Thanks,” I say.

“Hope yoo find her,” Wilf says as I close the bag.

“I hope so, too.”

With a nod, Wilf goes and reseats himself on the cart and snaps the reins on his oxes.

“Be careful,” Jane calls after me, in the loudest whisper you ever heard. “Watch out for the crazies.”

I stand for a minute and watch ’em pull away, coughing still, feverish still, but feeling better for the food if not the smell of roots and I’m hoping Manchee can find the trail again and I’m also wondering just exactly what kinda welcome I’m gonna get if I ever do get to Haven.

It takes a little while, a horrible little while, for Manchee to find the scent again once we’re back in the woods but then he barks, “This way,” and we’re off again.

He’s a good bloody dog, have I said that?

Night’s fully fallen by now and I’m still sweating and I’m still coughing enough to win a contest and my feet ain’t made of nothing but blisters and my head’s still buzzy with feverish Noise but I’ve got food in my belly and more in the bag to see me thru a coupla days and so all that matters is still ahead of us.

“Can you smell her, Manchee?” I ask, as we balance on a log across a stream. “Is she still alive?”

“Smell Viola,” he barks, jumping off the other side. “Viola fear.”

Which hits me a little and I quicken my step. Another midnight (twenty-two days? Twenty-one?) and my torch battery gives out. I take out Viola’s but it’s the last we got. More hills and steeper, too, as we go on thru the night, harder to climb up, dangerous to climb down but we go and go and go, Manchee sniffing away, eating Wilf’s dried meat as we stumble forward, me coughing away, taking the shortest rests possible, usually bent double against trees, and the sun starts coming up over a hill so it’s like we’re walking up into the sunrise.

And it’s when light hits us full that I see the world start to shimmer.

I stop, hanging on to a fern to keep my balance against the steepness of the hill. Everything’s woozy for a second and I close my eyes but it don’t help as there’s just a wash of colours and sparkles behind my eyelids and my body is jelly-like and waving in the breeze I can feel coming off the hilltop and when it passes, it don’t really pass altogether, the world keeping its weird brightness, like I’ve woke up in a dream.

“Todd?” Manchee barks, worry there, no doubt from seeing who knows what in my Noise.

“The fever,” I say, coughing again. “I shouldn’t’ve thrown away that filthy rag.”

Ain’t nothing for it.

I take the last of the pain tabs from my medipak and we gotta keep going.

We get to the top of the hill and for a minute all the other hills in front of us and the river and the road down below rumble up and down like they’re on a blanket someone’s shaking and I do my best to blink it away till it calms down enough to keep walking. Manchee whines by my feet. I nearly tip over when I try and scratch him so instead I focus on getting down the hill without falling.

I think again of the knife at my back, of the blood that was on it when it went into my body and my blood mixed with the Spackle’s and who knows what now spinning round my insides since Aaron stabbed me.

“I wonder if he knew,” I say, to Manchee, to myself, to no one, as we get to the bottom of the hill and I lean against a tree to make the world stop moving. “I wonder if he killed me slow.”

“Course I did,” Aaron says, leaning out from behind the tree.

I yell out and fall back away from him and fling my arms in front of me trying to slap him away and I hit the ground on my butt and start scampering back before I look up–

And he’s gone.

Manchee’s got his head cocked at me. “Todd?”

“Aaron,” I say, my heart thundering, my breath catching and turning into meatier and meatier coughs.

Manchee sniffs the air again, sniffs the ground around him. “Trail this way,” he barks, shifting from foot to foot.

I look around me, coughing away, the world spotty and wavy.

No sign of him, no Noise other than mine, no silence of Viola. I close my eyes again.

I am Todd Hewitt, I think against the swirling. I am Todd Hewitt.

Keeping my eyes shut, I feel for the water bottle and take a swig and I tear a piece from Wilf’s bread and chew it down. Only then do I open my eyes again.

Nothing.

Nothing but woods and another hill to climb.

And sunlight that shimmers.

The morning passes and at the bottom of yet another hill there’s yet another creek. I refill the water bottles and take a few drinks from the cold water with my hands.

I feel bad, ain’t no two ways about it, my skin’s tingling and sometimes I’m shivering and sometimes I’m sweating and sometimes my head weighs a million pounds. I lean into the creek and splash myself with the cold.

I sit up and Aaron is reflected in the water.

“Killer,” he says, a smile across his torn-up face.

I jump back, scrabbling away for my knife (and feeling the pain shoot thru my shoulders again) but when I look up he ain’t there and Manchee’s made no sign of stopping his fish-chasing.

“I’m coming to find you,” I say to the air, air that’s started to move more and more with the wind.

Manchee’s head pops up from the water. “Todd?”

“I’ll find you if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Killer,” I hear again, whispered along the wind.

I lay for a second, breathing heavy, coughing but keeping my eyes peeled. I go back to the creek and I splash so much cold water on myself it makes my chest hurt.

I pick myself up and we carry on.

The cold water does the trick for a little while and we manage a few more hills as the sun gets to midday in the sky with minimal shimmer. When things do start to wobble again I stop us and we eat.

“Killer,” I hear from the bushes around us and then again from another part of the forest. “Killer.” And again from somewhere else. “Killer.”

I don’t look up, just eat my food.

It’s just the Spackle blood, I tell myself. Just the fever and the sickness and that’s all.

“Is that all?” Aaron says from across the clearing. “If that’s all I am, why you chasing me so bad?”

He’s wearing his Sunday robes and his face is all healed up like he’s back in Prentisstown, his hands clasped in front of him like he’s ready to lead us in prayer and he’s glowing in the sun and he’s smiling down at me.