The Knife of Never Letting Go

“Cuz the place yer a-leaving ain’t worth staying for,” Tam says. “Cuz the place yer a-leaving is so bad ye gotta leave.”

“Old World’s mucky, violent and crowded,” Hildy says, wiping her face with a napkin, “a-splitting right into bits with people a-hating each other and a-killing each other, no one happy till everyone’s miserable. Least it was all those years ago.” “I wouldn’t know,” Viola says, “I’ve never seen it. My mother and father…” She drifts off.

But I’m still thinking about being born on a spaceship, an honest to badness spaceship. Growing up while flying along the stars, able to go wherever you wanted, not stuck on some hateful planet which clearly don’t want you. You could go anywhere. If one place didn’t suit, you’d find another. Full freedom in all directions. Could there possibly be anything cooler in the whole world than that?

I don’t notice there’s a silence fallen at the table. Hildy’s rubbing Viola’s back again and I see that Viola’s eyes are wet and leaking and she’s started to rock a little back and forth.

“What?” I say. “What’s wrong now?”

Viola’s forehead just creases at me.

“What?” I say.

“I think maybe we talked enough about Vi’s ma and pa for now,” Hildy says softly. “I think maybe it’s time for boy and girl pups to get some shut-eye.”

“But it’s hardly late at all.” I look out a window. The sun ain’t even hardly set. “We need to be getting to the settlement—”

“The settlement is called Farbranch,” Hildy says, “and we’ll get ye there first thing in the morning.”

“But those men—”

“I been a-keeping the peace here since before you were born, pup,” Hildy says, kindly but firmly. “I can handle whatever is or ain’t a-coming.”

I don’t say nothing to this and Hildy ignores my Noise on the subject.

“Can I ask what yer business in Farbranch might be?” Tam says, picking at his corncob, making his asking sound less curious than his Noise says it is.

“We just need to get there,” I say.

“Both of ye?”

I look at Viola. She’s stopped crying but her face is still puffy. I don’t answer Tam’s asking.

“Well there’s plenty of work going,” Hildy says, standing and taking up her plate. “If that’s what yer after. They can always use more hands in the orchards.”

Tam stands and they clear the table, taking the dishes into their kitchen and leaving me and Viola sitting there by ourselves. We can hear them chatting in there, lightly enough and Noise-blocked enough for us not to be able to make it out.

“Do you really think we oughta stay the whole night?” I say, keeping my voice low.

But she answers in a violent whisper, like I didn’t even ask an asking. “Just because my thoughts and feelings don’t spill out into the world in a shout that never stops doesn’t mean I don’t have them.” I turn to her, surprised. “Huh?”

She keeps whispering something fierce. “Every time you think, Oh, she’s just emptiness, or, There’s nothing going on inside her, or, Maybe I can dump her with these two, I hear it, okay? I hear every stupid thing you think, all right? And I understand way more than I want to.” “Oh, yeah?” I whisper back, tho my Noise ain’t a whisper at all. “Every time you think something or feel something or have some stupid thought, I don’t hear it, so how am I sposed to know any effing thing about you, huh? How am I sposed to know what’s going on if you keep it secret?” “I’m not keeping it secret.” She’s clenching her teeth now. “I’m being normal.”

“Not normal for here, Vi.”

“And how would you know? I can hear you being surprised by just about everything they say. Didn’t they have a school where you’re from? Didn’t you learn anything?”

“History ain’t so important when yer just trying to survive,” I say, spitting it out under my breath.

“That’s actually when it’s most important,” Hildy says, standing at the end of the table. “And if this silly argument twixt ye two ain’t enough to prove yer tired, then yer tired beyond all sense. C’mon.” Viola and I glare at each other but we get up and follow Hildy into a large common room.

“Todd!” Manchee barks from a corner, not getting up from the mutton bone Tam gave him earlier.

“We’ve long since took over our guest rooms for other purposes,” Hildy says. “Ye’ll have to make do on the settees.”

We help her make up some sheets and beds, Viola still scowling, my Noise a buzzy red.

“Now,” Hildy says when we’re all done. “Apologize to each other.”

“What?” Viola says. “Why?”

“I don’t see how this is any of yer business,” I say.

“Never go to sleep on an argument,” Hildy says, hands on hips, looking like she ain’t never gonna budge and would be pleased to see someone try and make her. “Not if ye want to stay friends.”

Viola and I don’t say nothing.

“He saved yer life?” Hildy says to Viola.

Viola looks down before finally saying, “Yeah.”

“That’s right, I did,” I say.

“And she saved yers at the bridge, didn’t she?” Hildy says.

Oh.

“Yes,” Hildy says. “Oh. Don’t ye both think that counts for something?”

We still don’t say nothing.

Hildy sighs. “Fine. Any two pups so close to adulthood could maybe be left to their own apologies, I reckon.” She makes her way out without even saying good night.

I turn my back on Viola and she turns her back on me. I take off my shoes and get myself under the sheet on one of Hildy’s “settees” which seems to be just a fancy word for couch. Viola does the same. Manchee leaps up on my settee and curls himself by my feet.

There’s no sound except my Noise and a few crackles from a fire it’s too hot for. It can’t be much later than dusk but the softness of the cushions and the softness of the sheet and the too-warm of the fire and I’m already pretty much closing my eyes.

“Todd?” Viola says from her settee across the room.

I swim up from sinking down to sleep. “What?”

She don’t say nothing for a second and I guess she must be thinking of her apology.

But no.

“What does your book say you’re supposed to do when you get to Farbranch?”

My Noise gets a bit redder. “Never you mind what my book says,” I say. “That’s my property, meant for me.”

“You know when you showed me the map back in the woods?” she says. “And you said we had to get to this settlement? You remember what was written underneath?”

“Course I do.”

“What was it?”

There ain’t no poking in her voice, not that I can hear, but that’s gotta be what it is, ain’t it? Poking?

“Just go to sleep, will ya?” I say.

“It was Farbranch,” she says. “The name of the place we’re meant to be heading.”

“Shut up.” My Noise is getting buzzy again.

“There’s no shame in not being able to—”

“I said, shut up!”

“I could help you—”

I get up suddenly, dumping Manchee off the settee with a thump. I grab my sheets and blanket under my arm and I stomp off to the room where we ate. I throw them on the floor and lay down, a room away from Viola