The Knife of Never Letting Go

“A day and a half,” I repeat, thinking about this. “We musta come miles.”

“Miles and miles,” she says. “I just let us float and float and float. I was too afraid to stop at the places I passed. You wouldn’t believe some of the things . . .” She drifts off, shaking her head.

I remember Jane’s warnings. “Naked people and glass houses?” I ask.

Viola looks at me strange. “No,” she says, curling her lip. “Just poverty. Just horrible, horrible poverty. Some of those places looked like they would have eaten us so I just kept on and on and you got sicker and sicker and then on the second morning I saw Doctor Snow and Jacob out fishing and I could see in his Noise he was a doctor and as weird as this place is about women, it’s at least clean.”

I look around the clean, clean kitchen. “We can’t stay,” I say.

“No, we can’t.” She puts her head in her hands. “I was so worried about you.” There’s feeling in her voice. “I was so worried about the army coming and nobody listening to me.” She smacks the table in frustration. “And I was feeling so bad about–”

She stops. Her face creases and she looks away.

“Manchee,” I say, out loud, for the first time since–

“I’m so sorry, Todd,” she says, her eyes watery.

“Ain’t yer fault.” I stand up fast, scooting my chair back.

“He would have killed you,” she says, “and then he would have killed Manchee just because he could.”

“Stop talking about it, please,” I say, leaving the kitchen and going back to the bedroom. Viola follows me. “I’ll talk to these elder folks,” I say, picking up Viola’s bag from the floor and stuffing the rest of the washed clothes in it. “And then we’ll go. How far are we from Haven, do you know?”

Viola makes a tiny smile. “Two days.”

I stand up straight. “We came that far downriver?”

“We came that far.”

I whistle quietly to myself. Two days. Just two days. Till whatever there is in Haven.

“Todd?”

“Yeah?” I say, putting her bag round my shoulders.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“For coming after me.”

Everything’s gone still.

“Ain’t nothing,” I say, feeling my face get hot and looking away. She don’t say nothing more. “You all right?” I ask, still not looking at her. “From when he took you?”

“I don’t really–” she starts to say but we hear a door close and a sing-song daddy daddy daddy floating down the hall towards us. Jacob hugs the door frame of the room rather than come on in.

“Daddy sent me to fetch you,” he says.

“Oh?” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m meant to come to them now, am I?”

Jacob nods, very serious.

“Well, in that case, we’re coming,” I rearrange the sack and looking at Viola. “And then we’re going.”

“Too right,” Viola says and the way she says it makes me glad. We head out into the hallway after Jacob but he stops us at the door.

“Just you,” he says, looking at me.

“Just me what?”

Viola crosses her arms. “He means just you to talk to the eldermen.”

Jacob nods, again very serious. I look at Viola and back to Jacob. “Well now,” I say, squatting down to his level. “Why don’t you just go tell yer daddy that both me and Viola will be along in a minute. Okay?”

Jacob opens his mouth. “But he said–”

“I don’t really care what he said,” I say gently. “Go.”

He gives a little gasp and runs out the door.

“I think I’m maybe thru of men telling me what to do,” I say and I’m surprised at the weariness in my voice and suddenly I feel like I wanna get back in that bed and sleep for another five days.

“You going to be all right to walk to Haven?” Viola says.

“Try and stop me,” I say and she smiles again.

I head on out the front door.

And for a third time I’m expecting Manchee to come bounding out with us.

His absence is so big it’s like he’s there and all the air goes outta my lungs again and I have to wait and breathe deep and swallow.

“Oh, man,” I say to myself.

His last Todd? hangs in my Noise like a wound.

That’s another thing about Noise. Everything that’s ever happened to you just keeps right on talking, for ever and ever.

I see the last of Jacob’s dust as he runs on up the trail thru some trees towards the rest of the settlement. I look round. Doctor Snow’s house ain’t too big but it stretches out to a deck overlooking the river. There’s a small dock and a really low bridge connecting the wide path that comes from the centre of Carbonel Downs to the river road that carries along on the other side. The road across the river, the one we spent so much time coming down, is almost hidden behind a row of trees as it carries on past the settlement on the final two days towards Haven.

“God,” I say. “It’s like paradise compared to the rest of New World.”

“There’s more to paradise than nice buildings,” Viola says.

I look round some more. Doctor Snow’s got a well-kept front garden on the path to the settlement. Looking up the path, I can see more buildings thru the trees and hear that music playing.

That weird music. Constantly changing to keep you from getting used to it, I guess. It’s nothing I reckernize but it’s louder out here and I guess on one level you ain’t sposed to reckernize it but I swear I heard something in it when I was waking up–

“It’s almost unbearable in the middle of the settlement,” Viola says. “Most of the women don’t even bother coming in from the dormitory.” She frowns. “Which I guess is the whole point.”

“Wilf’s wife told me bout a settlement where everyone–”

I stop cuz the music changes.

Except it don’t change.

The music from the settlement stays the same, messy and wordy and bending around itself like a monkey.

But there’s more.

There’s more music than just it.

And it’s getting louder.

“Do you hear that?” I say.

I turn.

And turn again. Viola, too.

Trying to figure out what we’re hearing.

“Maybe someone’s set up another loudspeaker across the river,” she says. “Just in case the women were getting any uppity ideas about leaving.”