The Knife of Never Letting Go

about the Spackle.

We’ve all made mistakes, Todd. All of us.

“And then it was too late,” Ben says. “The deed was done and word of what Prentisstown had done spread like wildfire, starting with the few who’d managed to escape it. All men from Prentisstown were declared criminals. We couldn’t leave.” Viola’s arms are still crossed. “Why didn’t someone come and get you? Why didn’t the rest of New World come after you?”

“And do what?” Ben says, sounding tired. “Fight another war but this time with heavily armed men? Lock us up in a giant prison? They laid down the law that if any man from Prentisstown crossed the swamp, he’d be executed. And then they left us to it.” “But they must have…” Viola says, holding her palms to the air. “Something. I don’t know.”

“If it ain’t happening on yer doorstep,” Ben says, “it’s easier to think, Why go out and find trouble? We had the whole of the swamp twixt us and New World. The Mayor sent word that Prentisstown would be a town in exile. Doomed, of course, to a slow death. We’d agree never to leave and if we ever did, he’d hunt us down and kill us himself.” “Didn’t people try?” Viola says. “Didn’t they try and get away?”

“They tried,” Ben says, full of meaning. “It wasn’t uncommon for people to disappear.”

“But if you and Cillian were innocent—” I start.

“We weren’t innocent,” Ben says strongly, and suddenly his Noise tastes bitter. He sighs. “We weren’t.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, raising my head. The sickness in my stomach ain’t leaving. “What do you mean you weren’t innocent?”

“You let it happen,” Viola says. “You didn’t die with the other men who were protecting the women.”

“We didn’t fight,” he says, “and we didn’t die.” He shakes his head. “Not innocent at all.”

“Why didn’t you fight?” I ask.

“Cillian wanted to,” Ben says quickly. “I want you to know that. He wanted to do whatever he could to stop them. He would have given his life.” He looks away once more. “But I wouldn’t let him.” “Why not?”

“I get it,” Viola whispers.

I look at her, cuz I sure don’t. “Get what?”

Viola keeps looking at Ben. “They either die fighting for what’s right and leave you an unprotected baby,” she says, “or they become complicit with what’s wrong and keep you alive.”

I don’t know what complicit means but I can guess.

They did it for me. All that horror. They did it for me.

Ben and Cillian. Cillian and Ben.

They did it so I could live.

I don’t know how I feel about any of this.

Doing what’s right should be easy.

It shouldn’t be just another big mess like everything else.

“So we waited,” Ben says. “In a town-sized prison. Full of the ugliest Noise you ever heard before men started denying their own pasts, before the Mayor came up with his grand plans. And so we waited for the day you were old enough to get away on yer own, innocent as we could keep you.” He rubs a hand over his head. “But the Mayor was waiting, too.” “For me?” I ask, tho I know it’s true.

“For the last boy to become a man,” Ben says. “When boys became men, they were told the truth. Or a version of it, anyway. And then they were made complicit themselves.”

I remember his Noise from back on the farm, about my birthday, about how a boy becomes a man.

About what complicity really means and how it can be passed on.

How it was waiting to be passed on to me.

And about the men who–

I put it outta my head.

“That don’t make no sense,” I say.

“You were the last,” Ben says. “If he could make every single boy in Prentisstown a man by his own meaning, then he’s God, ain’t he? He’s created all of us and is in complete control.”

“If one of us falls,” I say.

“We all fall,” Ben finishes. “That’s why he wants you. Yer a symbol. Yer the last innocent boy of Prentisstown. If he can make you fall, then his army is complete and of his own perfect making.” “And if not?” I say, tho I’m wondering if I’ve already fallen.

“If not,” Ben says, “he’ll kill you.”

“So Mayor Prentiss is as mad as Aaron, then,” Viola says.

“Not quite,” Ben says. “Aaron is mad. But the Mayor knows enough to use madness to achieve his ends.”

“Which are what?” Viola says.

“This world,” Ben says calmly. “He wants all of it.”

I open my mouth to ask more stuff I don’t wanna know but then, as if there was never gonna be anything else that could ever happen, we hear it.

Thump budda-thump budda-thump. Coming down the road, relentless, like a joke that ain’t ever gonna be funny.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Viola says.

Ben’s already back on his feet, listening. “It sounds like just one horse.”

We all look down the road, shining a little in the moonlight.

“Binos,” Viola says, now right by my side. I fish ’em out without another word, click on the night setting and look, searching out the sound as it rings thru the night air.

Budda-thump budda-thump.

I search down the road farther and farther back till–

There it is.

There he is.

Who else?

Mr Prentiss Jr, alive and well and untied and back on his horse.

“Damn,” I hear from Viola, reading my Noise as I hand her the binos.

“Davy Prentiss?” Ben says, also reading my Noise.

“The one and only.” I put the water bottles back in Viola’s bag. “We gotta go.”

Viola hands the binos to Ben and he looks for himself. He takes them away from his eyes and gives the binos a quick once over. “Nifty,” he says.

“We need to go,” Viola says. “As always.”

Ben turns to us, binos still in his hand. He’s looking from one of us to the other and I see what’s forming in his Noise.

“Ben—” I start.

“No,” he says. “This is where I leave you.”

“Ben—”

“I can handle Davy bloody Prentiss.”

“He has a gun,” I say. “You don’t.”

Ben comes up to me. “Todd,” he says.

“No, Ben,” I say, my voice getting louder. “I ain’t listening.”

He looks me in the eye and I notice he don’t seem to be having to bend down any more to do it.

“Todd,” he says again. “I atone for the wrong I’ve done by keeping you safe.”

“You can’t leave me, Ben,” I say, my voice getting wet (shut up). “Not again.”

He’s shaking his head. “I can’t come to Haven with you. You know I can’t. I’m the enemy.”

“We can explain what happened.”

But he’s still shaking his head.

“The horse is getting closer,” Viola says.