and all her meaningless, evil quiet.
Manchee stays in there with her. Typical.
I close my eyes but I don’t sleep for ages and ages.
Till I finally do, I guess.
Cuz I’m on a path and it’s the swamp but it’s also the town and it’s also my farm and Ben’s there and Cillian’s there and Viola’s there and they’re all saying, “What’re you doing here, Todd?” and Manchee’s barking “Todd! Todd!” and Ben’s grabbing me by the arm to drag me out the door and Cillian’s got his arm round my shoulders pushing me up the path and Viola’s setting the campfire box by the front door of our farmhouse and the Mayor’s horse rides right thru our front door and smashes her flat and a croc with the face of Aaron is rearing up behind Ben’s shoulders and I’m yelling “No!” and — And I’m sitting up and I’m sweating everywhere and my heart’s racing like a horse and I’m expecting to see the Mayor and Aaron standing right over me.
But it’s only Hildy and she’s saying, “What the devil are ye a-doing in here?” She’s standing in the doorway, morning sun flooding in behind her so bright I have to raise my hand to block it out.
“More comfortable,” I mumble but my chest is thumping.
“I’ll bet,” she says, reading my just-waking Noise. “Breakfast is on.”
The smell of the mutton-strip bacon frying wakes Viola and Manchee. I let Manchee out for his morning poo but Viola and I don’t say nothing to each other. Tam comes in as we eat, having I guess been out feeding the sheep. That’s what I’d be doing if I were home.
Anyway.
“Buck up, pup,” Tam says, plonking a cup of coffee down in front of me. I keep my face way down as I drink it.
“Anybody out there?” I say into my cup.
“Not a whisper,” Tam says. “And it’s a beautiful day.”
I glance up at Viola but she ain’t looking at me. In fact, we get all the way thru the food, thru washing our faces, thru changing our clothes and repacking our bags, all without saying nothing to each other.
“Good luck to ye both,” Tam says, as we’re about to leave with Hildy towards Farbranch. “It’s always nice when two people who don’t got no one else find each other as friends.”
And we really don’t say nothing to that.
“C’mon, pups,” Hildy says. “Time’s a-wasting.”
We get back on the path, which before too long reconnects with the same road that musta gone across the bridge.
“Used to be the main road from Farbranch to Prentisstown,” Hildy says, hoisting her own small pack. “Or New Elizabeth, as it was then.”
“As what was then?” I ask.
“Prentisstown,” she says. “Used to be called New Elizabeth.”
“It never did,” I say, raising up my eyebrows.
Hildy looks at me, her own eyebrows mocking mine. “Was it never? I must be mistaken then.”
“Must be,” I say, watching her.
Viola makes a scoffing sound with her lips. I send her a look of death.
“Will there be somewhere we can stay?” she asks Hildy, ignoring me.
“I’ll take ye to my sister,” Hildy says. “Deputy Mayor this year, don’t ye know?”
“What’ll we do then?” I say, kicking at the dirt as we walk on.
“Reckon that’s up to ye two,” Hildy says. “Ye’ve gotta be the ones in charge of yer own destinies, don’t ye?”
“Not so far,” I hear Viola say under her breath and it’s so exactly the words I have in my Noise that we both look up and catch each other’s eyes.
We almost smile. But we don’t.
And that’s when we start hearing the Noise.
“Ah,” Hildy says, hearing it too. “Farbranch.”
The road comes out on the top of a little vale.
And there it is.
The other settlement. The other settlement that wasn’t sposed to be.
Where Ben wanted us to go.
Where we might be safe.
The first thing I see is where the valley road winds down thru orchards, orderly rows of well-tended trees with paths and irrigashun systems, all carrying on down a hill towards buildings and a creek at the bottom, flat and easy and snaking its way back to meet the bigger river no doubt.
And all thru-out are men and women.
Most are scattered working in the orchard, wearing heavy work aprons, all the men in long sleeves, the women in long skirts, cutting down pine-like fruits with machetes or carrying away baskets or working on the irrigashun pipes and so on.
Men and women, women and men.
A coupla dozen men, maybe, is my general impression, less than Prentisstown.
Who knows how many women.
Living in a whole other place.
The Noise (and silence) of them all floats up like a light fog.
Two, please and The way I see it is and Weedy waste and She might say yes, she might not and If service ends at one, then I can always and so on and so on, never ending, amen.
I just stop in the road and gape for a second, not ready to walk down into it yet.
Cuz it’s weird.
It’s more than weird, truth to tell.
It’s all so, I don’t know,
And nobody’s hardly longing for nothing.
No awful, awful, despairing longing nowhere I can hear or feel.
“We sure as ruddy heck ain’t in Prentisstown no more,” I say to Manchee under my breath.
Not a second later, I hear Prentisstown? float in from a field right next to us.
And then I hear it in a coupla different places. Prentisstown? and Prentisstown? and then I notice that the men in the orchards nearby ain’t picking fruit or whatever any more. They’re standing up. They’re looking at us.
“Come on,” Hildy says. “Keep on a-walking. It’s just curiosity.”
The word Prentisstown multiplies along the fields like a crackling fire. Manchee brings hisself in closer to my legs. We’re being stared at on all sides as we carry on. Even Viola steps in a bit so we’re a tighter group.
“Not to worry,” Hildy says. “There’ll just be a lot of people who’ll want to meet—”
She stops mid-sentence.
A man has stepped onto the path in front of us.
His face don’t look at all like he wants to meet us.
“Prentisstown?” he says, his Noise getting uncomfortably red, uncomfortably fast.
“Morning, Matthew,” Hildy says, “I was just a-bringing—”
“Prentisstown,” the man says again, no longer an asking, and he’s not looking at Hildy.
He’s looking straight at me.
“Yer not welcome here,” he says. “Not welcome at all.”
And he’s got the biggest machete in his hand you ever seen.
