The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Manchee!” I call and he understands me and shoots off after her. Not that I could really lose her, any more than she could lose me. As loud as my Noise is chasing her, her silence is just as loud up ahead, even now, even knowing she’s going to die, still as silent as a grave.

“Hold on!” I shout, tripping over a root and landing hard on my elbows, which jolts every ache I’ve got in my body and face, but I have to get up. I have to get up and go after her. “Dammit!”

“Todd!” I hear Manchee bark up ahead, outta sight. I stumble on a bit and get my way round a big mass of shrubs and there she is, sitting on a big flat rock jutting outta the ground, her knees up to her chest, rocking back and forth, eyes wide but blank as ever.

“Todd!” Manchee barks again when he sees me, then he hops up on the rock next to her and starts sniffing her.

“Leave her alone, Manchee,” I say, but he doesn’t. He sniffs close at her face, licks her once or twice, then sits down next to her, leaning into her side as she rocks.

“Look,” I say to her, catching my breath and knowing I don’t know what to say next. “Look,” I say again, but nothing else is coming.

I just stand there panting, not saying nothing, and she sits there rocking till there don’t seem nothing else to do but sit down on the rock myself, keeping a distance away outta respect and safety, I guess, and so that’s what I do. She rocks and I sit and I wonder what to do.

We pass a good few minutes this way, a good few minutes when we should be moving, the swamp getting on with its day around us.

Till I finally have another thought.

“I might not be right.” I say it as soon as I think it. “I could be wrong, you see?” I turn to her and I start talking fast. “I got lied to about everything and you can search my Noise if you want to be sure that’s true.” I stand, talking faster. “There wasn’t sposed to be another settlement. Prentisstown was sposed to be it for the whole stupid planet. But there’s the other place on the map! So maybe—” And I’m thinking and I’m thinking and I’m thinking.

“Maybe the germ was only Prentisstown. And if you ain’t been in the town, then maybe yer safe. Maybe yer fine. Cuz I sure can’t hear nothing from you anything like Noise and you don’t seem sick. So maybe yer okay.” She’s looking at me and still rocking and I don’t know what she’s thinking. Maybe probably ain’t all that comforting a word when it’s maybe yer not dying.

I keep on thinking, letting her see my Noise as free and clear as I can. “Maybe we all caught the germ and, and, and, yeah!” I get another thought, a good one. “Maybe we cut ourselves off so the other settlement wouldn’t catch it! That must be it! And so if you stayed in the swamp, then yer safe!” She stops rocking quite so much, still looking at me, maybe believing me?

But then like some doofus who don’t know when to stop, I let that thought go on, don’t I? Cuz if it’s true that Prentisstown was cut off, then maybe that other settlement ain’t gonna be too happy to see me strolling in, are they? Maybe it was the other settlement that did the cutting off in the first place, cuz maybe Prentisstown really was contagious.

And if you can catch the Noise from other people, then the girl can catch it from me, can’t she?

“Oh, man,” I say, leaning down and putting my hands on my knees, my whole body feeling like it’s falling, even tho I’m still standing up. “Oh, man.”

The girl hugs herself to herself again on the rock and we’re back to even worse than where we started.

This ain’t fair. I am telling you this ain’t fair at all. You’ll know what to do when you get to the swamp, Todd. You’ll know what to do. Yeah, thanks very bloody much for that, Ben, thanks for all yer help and concern cuz here I am and I ain’t got the first clue what to do. It ain’t fair. I get kicked outta my home, I get beaten up, the people who say they care for me have been lying all these years, I gotta follow a stupid map to a settlement I never knew about, I gotta somehow read a stupid book — The book.

I slip off the rucksack and take out the book. He said all the answers were in here, so maybe they really are. Except–

I sigh and open it up. It’s all written, all words, all in my ma’s handwriting, pages and pages and pages of it and I–

Well, anyway. I go back to the map, to Ben’s writing on the other side, the first chance I’ve had to look at it in something other than torchlight, which ain’t really for reading. Ben’s words are lined up at the top. Go to are the first ones, those are definitely the first words, and then there are a coupla longer words that I don’t have time to sound out yet and then a coupla big paragraphs that I really don’t have time for right now but at the bottom of the page Ben’s underlined a group of words together.

I look at the girl, still rocking, and I turn my back to her. I put my finger under the first underlined word.

Let’s see. Yow? You, it’s gotta be you. You. Okay, me what? M. Moo? Moose? Moosed? You moosed. You moosed? What the hell does that mean? Wuh. Wuh. Warr. Warren? Tuh. Tuhee? Tuheem. You moosed warren tuheem? No, wait, them. It’s them. Course it’s them, idiot.

But You moosed warren them?

Huh?

’Member when I said Ben tried to teach me to read? ’Member when I said I wasn’t too good at it? Well–

Well, whatever.

You moosed warren them.

Idiot.

I look at the book again, flip thru the pages. Dozens of them, dozens upon dozens, all with more words in every corner, all saying nothing to me at all, no answers of any kind.

Stupid effing book.

I shove the map back inside, slam the cover shut and throw the book on the ground.

You idiot.

“Stupid effing book!” I say, out loud this time, kicking it into some ferns. I turn back to the girl. She’s still just rocking back and forth, back and forth, and I know, I know, okay, I know, but it starts to piss me off. Cuz if this is a dead end, I got nothing more to offer and she ain’t offering nothing neither.

My Noise starts to crackle.

“I didn’t ask for this, you know,” I say. She don’t even look. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

But nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!” I yell and stand and start stomping around, shouting till my voice scratches. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO!” I turn back to the girl. “I’m SORRY! I’m sorry this happened to you but I don’t know what to do about it AND STOP EFFING ROCKING!” “Yelling, Todd,” Manchee barks.

“Awwghh!” I shout, putting my hands over my face. I take them away and nothing’s changed. That’s the thing I’m learning about being thrown out on yer own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don’t change it, it don’t get changed.

“We gotta keep going,” I say, picking up my rucksack all angry-like. “You ain’t caught it yet, so maybe just keep yer distance from me and you’ll be okay. I don’t know but that’s all there is so that’s what we gotta do.” Rock, rock, rock.

“We can’t go back so we gotta go forward and that’s that.”

Still rocking.

“I KNOW you can HEAR me!”

She don’t even flinch.

And I’m suddenly tired all over again. “Fine,” I sigh. “Fine, whatever, you stay here and rock. Who cares? Who ruddy cares about anything?”

I look at the book on the ground. Stupid thing. But it’s what I got so I reach down, pick it up, put it in the plastic bag, back in my rucksack, and put my rucksack back on.

“C’mon, Manchee.”