The Knife of Never Letting Go

At first I don’t think she’s gonna come. There’s no reason for her to, no reason for me to ask her, but when I say to her, “Come on,” a second time more urgently and gesture with my hand, she follows me, follows Manchee, and that’s how it is, that’s what we do, who knows if it’s right, but that’s what we do.

Night’s well and truly fallen. The swamp seems even thicker here, as black as anything. We rush on back a ways to get my rucksack and then around and a little bit further away in the dark to get some distance between us and Aaron’s body (please let it be a body). We clamber round trees and over roots, getting deeper into the swamp. When we get to a small clearing where there’s a bit of flat land and a break in the trees, I stop us.

I’m still holding the knife. It rests there in my hand, shining at me like blame itself, like the word coward flashing again and again. It catches the light of both moons and my God it’s a powerful thing. A powerful thing, like I’d have to agree to be a part of it rather than it being a part of me.

I reach behind me and put it in the sheath between my back and the rucksack where at least I won’t have to see it.

I take the rucksack off and fish thru it for a torch.

“Do you know how to use one of these?” I ask the girl, switching it on and off a coupla times.

She just looks at me, as ever.

“Never mind,” I say.

My throat still hurts, my face still hurts, my chest still hurts, my Noise keeps pounding me with visions of bad news, of how good a fight Ben and Cillian managed to put up at the farm, of how long it’ll take Mr Prentiss Jr to find out where I’ve gone, of how long it’ll take him to be on his way after me, after us (not long at all, if he ain’t already), so who ruddy cares if she knows how to use a torch. Of course she don’t.

I get the book out of the rucksack, using the torch for a light. I open up to the map again and I follow Ben’s arrows from our farm down the river and thru the swamp and then outta the swamp as it turns back into river.

It’s not hard to find yer way outta the swamp. Out on the horizon beyond it, you can always see three mountains, one close and two farther away but next to each other. The river on Ben’s map goes twixt the closer one and the two farther away ones and so all we gotta do is to keep heading towards that space in the middle and we should find the river again and follow it. Follow it to where the arrows keep going.

Keep going to another settlement.

There it is. Right there at the bottom of the page where the map ends.

A whole other place.

As if I don’t have enough new stuff to think about.

I look up at the girl, still staring at me, maybe not even blinking. I shine the torch at her face. She winces and turns away.

“Where’d you come from?” I ask. “Is it here?”

I point the torch down at the map and put my finger on the other town. The girl don’t move so I wave her over. She still don’t move so I sigh and pick up the book and take it over to her and shine the torch on the page.

“I,” I point to myself, “am from here.” I point to our farm north of Prentisstown on the map. “This,” I wave my arms around to show the swamp, “is here.” I point at the swamp. “We need to go here,” I point at the other town. Ben’s written the other town’s name underneath, but — well, whatever. “Is this where yer from?” I point to her, point to the other town, point to her again. “Are you from here?” She looks at the map but other than that, nothing.

I sigh in frustrayshun and step away from her. It’s uncomfortable being so close. “Well, I sure hope so,” I say, glancing back at the map. “Cuz that’s where we’re going.”

“Todd,” Manchee barks. I look up. The girl’s started to wander around in circles in the clearing, looking at stuff like it means something to her.

“What’re you doing?” I ask.

She looks at me, at the torch in my hand and she points thru some trees.

“What?” I say. “We don’t have time—”

She points thru the trees again and starts walking there.

“Hey!” I say. “Hey!”

I guess I have to follow.

“We gotta stick to the map!” I duck under branches to follow her, the rucksack getting caught left and right. “Hey! Wait up!”

I stumble on, Manchee behind me, the torch not much good against every ruddy little branch and root and puddle in a great big swamp. I keep having to drop my head and tear the rucksack free of stuff so I can barely look ahead enough to follow her. I see her standing by a fallen, burnt-looking tree, waiting for me, watching me come.

“What’re you doing?” I say, finally catching up with her. “Where’re you—”

And then I see.

The tree is burnt, freshly burnt and freshly knocked over, too, the unburnt splinters clean and white like new wood. And there are a buncha trees just like it, a whole line of ’em, in fact, on either side of a great ditch gouged outta the swamp, now filled with water but piled-up dirt and burnt plants all around it show that’s it gotta be a new thing, like someone came thru here and dug it up in one fiery swoop.

“What happened?” I swing the torch along it. “What did this?”

She just looks off to the left, where the ditch disappears into darkness. I shine the torch down that way but it’s not strong enough to see what’s down there. Tho it feels like something’s there.

The girl takes off into the darkness towards whatever it might be.

“Where’re you going?” I ask, not expecting an answer and not getting any. Manchee gets twixt me and the girl, like he’s following her now, instead of me, and off they go in the dark. I keep my distance but I follow, too. The silence still flows from her, still bothers me, like it’s ready to swallow up the whole world and me with it.

I keep the torch flashing over every possible square inch of water. Crocs don’t usually come this far into the swamp but that’s only usually, plus there’s red snakes that’re poisonous and water weasels that bite and it just don’t feel like luck is bothering with any of us today so if something can go wrong it’s probably gonna.

We’re getting closer and I shine the torch down to where we’re heading and something starts glinting back, something that ain’t tree or bush or animal or water.

Something metal. Something big and metal.

“What’s that?” I say.

We get closer and at first I think it’s just a big fissionbike and I wonder what kind of idiot would try and ride a fissionbike in a swamp cuz you can barely get ’em to work over flattened dirt roads much less water and roots.

But it ain’t a fissionbike.

“Hold up.”

The girl stops.

Whaddya know? The girl stops.

“So you can understand me, then?”

But nothing, as ever nothing.

“Well, hold up for a sec,” I say cuz a thought’s coming. We’re still a bit away from it but I keep flicking the torch over the metal. And back over the straight line that the ditch makes. And over the metal again. And over all the burnt stuff on either side of the ditch. And a thought keeps coming.

The girl stops waiting and heads off towards the metal and I follow. We have to go round a big burnt log, still lazily smoking in one or two spots, to get to the thing and when we do it’s much bigger than the biggest fissionbike and even then it looks like it’s only part of an even bigger something than that. It’s crumpled and burnt in most places and even tho I don’t know what it looked like before it crumpled and burned, it’s obviously mostly wreckage.