The Ask and the Answer (39 page)

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he had it. It smells a bit like stables, now that I know where it's been, but it's still the book, still
her
book.

My ma. My ma's words.

Look what's become of yer son.

Mayor Ledger sighs loudly. "They're going to attack here, you know," he says. "You'll have to let me out if that happens."

"Can't you keep quiet for five seconds?" I turn to the first page, the first entry my ma wrote on the day I was born. A page full of words I once heard read out.

(read out by--)

"No gun, no weapon." Mayor Ledger's standing now, looking out the windows again. "I'm defenseless."

"I'll take care of you," I say, "now
shut the hell up."

I'm still not turned to him. I'm looking at my ma's first words, the ones written in her hand. I know what they say but I try to sound them out across the page.

Muh-y. My.
It's
My.
I take a deep breath.
Dee. Dee-arr. Dee-arr-ess. Dee-arr-ess-tuh.
Which is
Dearest,
which seems mostly right.
My Dearest.
And the last word is
Son,
which I know, having heard it so clearly today.

I think about his outstretched hand.

I think about when I took it.

My Dearest Son.

"I've offered to read that for you," Mayor Ledger says, not able to hide his groan at the sound of my reading Noise. I turn round to him, looking fierce. "I said,
shut up!"
He holds his hands up. "Fine, fine, whatever you say." He sits back down and adds a last sarcastic word under his breath.
"Lieutenant."

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I sit up. Then I sit up higher. "What did you say?"

"Nothing." He won't meet my eye. "I didn't tell you that," I say. "I didn't say a word."

"It was in your Noise."

"No, it wasn't." I'm getting to my feet now. Cuz I'm right. I ain't been thinking bout nothing since I came in for dinner except my ma's book.
"How did you know?"

He looks up at me but there ain't no words coming outta his mouth and his Noise is scrambling for something to say.

And it's failing.

I take a step toward him.

There's a
ker-thunk
at the door and Mr. Collins lets himself in. "There's someone here for you," he says to me, then he notices my Noise. "What's going on?"

"I ain't expecting no one," I say, still staring at Mayor Ledger.

"It's a girl," Mr. Collins says. "She says Davy sent her."

"Dammit," I say. "I
told
him."

"Whatever," he says. "Says she won't talk to no one but you." He chuckles. "Pretty little piece, too."

I turn at the tone of his voice. "Leave her alone, whoever she is. That ain't right."

"Best not take too long up here then." He's laughing as he shuts the door.

I stare back at Mayor Ledger, my Noise still high. "I ain't thru with you."

"It was in your
Noise,"
he says, but I'm already out the door and locking it behind me.
Ker-thunk.

I stomp my way down the stairs, thinking of ways to get the girl away without Mr. Collins bothering her, without her

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having to go thru any of that for any reason, and my Noise is boiling with suspishuns and wonderings about Mayor Ledger and things beginning to come clear when I get to the bottom of the steps.

Mr. Collins is waiting, leaning against the wall of the lobby with his legs crossed, all relaxed and smiling. He points with his thumb.

I look over.

And there she is.

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34 LAST CHANCE

***

(Viola)

"LEAVE US," Todd says to the man who let me in, not looking away from me when he says it.

"Told
you she was a piece," the man says, smirking as he disappears into a side office.

Todd stands there staring. "It's you," he says.

But he isn't moving toward me.

"Todd," I say and I take a step forward.

And he takes a step back.

I stop.

"Who's this?" he says, looking at Lee, who's doing his best to act like a real soldier behind me.

"That's Lee," I say. "A friend. He's come with me to-"

"What are you doing here?"

"I've come to get you," I say. "I've come to rescue you." I see him swallow. I see his throat working. "Viola," he finally says. My name is all over his Noise, too.
Viola Viola Viola.

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He puts his hands up to the sides of his head, grabbing his hair, which is longer and shaggier than when I saw it last. He looks taller, too. "Viola," he says again.

"It's me," I say and I take another step forward. He doesn't step back so I keep coming, crossing the lobby, not running, just getting closer and closer to him.

But when I get to him, he steps back again.

"Todd?" I ask.

"What are you
doing
here?"

"I've come for you." I feel my stomach sink a little. "I said I would."

"You said you wouldn't leave without me," he says and in his Noise I can hear loud irritation at how he sounds. He clears his throat. "You
left
me here."

"They took me," I say. "I had no choice."

His Noise is getting louder now and though I can feel happiness in it-

Oh, Jesus, Todd, there's
rage,
too.

"What have I done?" I say. "We need to go. The Answer are going-"

"So yer part of the Answer now?" he snaps, bitterness suddenly rising. "Part of those
murderers."

"Are you a soldier now then?" I say back, surprised, heat growing in my voice, too, pointing to the A on his sleeve. "Don't talk to me about
murder."

"The Answer killed the Spackle," he says, his voice low and angry.

And the bodies of the Spackle in his Noise.

Piled high, one upon the other, tossed there like garbage.

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The A of the Answer written on the wall. And Todd in the middle of it.

"They might as well have killed me along with them," he says.

He closes his eyes.

I am the circle and the Circle is me,
I hear.

"Viola?" Lee says from behind me. I turn. He's crossed half the lobby.

"Wait outside," I say.

"Viola-"

"Outside."

He looks so concerned, so ready to fight for me, my heart skips a little. He broadcast as loud as he could that I was his prisoner on the way here, so loud other soldiers thought he was covering up for a rape he was going to commit and whistled him good luck as we passed. Then we hid by the cathedral, seeing Davy Prentiss riding away from here, thinking things I wouldn't want to see again, thinking about how a
celebration
was due to him and Todd.

And so we pretended to be the celebration.

And it worked.

Kind of upsetting how easily it worked, frankly.

Lee shifts from foot to foot. "You call me if you need me."

"I will," I say, and he waits a second, then steps out the front door, keeping it open to watch us.

Todd's eyes are still closed and he repeats
I am the circle and the Circle is me
which I have to say sounds an awful lot like something from the Mayor.

"We didn't kill the Spackle," I say.

"We?" he says, opening his eyes.

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"I don't know who did it, but it wasn't us."

"You sent a bomb to kill them the day
you
blew up the tower." He's almost spitting the words. "Then you came back on the day of the prison break and finished the job."

"Bomb?" I say. "What bomb-?"

But then I remember-

The first explosion that made the soldiers run away from the communications tower. No.

She wouldn't.

No, not even her.
What kind of people do you think we are?
she said-

But she never did answer the asking. No,
no,
it's not true and besides-"Who told you that?" I say. "Davy Prentiss?" He blinks. "What?"

"What do you mean
what?" My
voice is harder now. "Your new best friend. The man who
shot
me, Todd, and who you ride to work with laughing every morning."

He clenches his hands into fists.

"You been
spying
on me?" he says. "Three months I don't see you, three months I don't hear
nothing
from you and you been
spying?
Is that what yer doing in yer spare time when yer not blowing people up?"

"Yeah!" I yell, my voice getting louder to match his. "Three months of defending you to people who'd be only too happy to call you enemy, Todd. Three months of wondering why the hell you're working so hard for the Mayor and how he knew to go right for the ocean the day after we spoke." He winces, but I keep going, thrusting out my arm and pulling

400

up the sleeve. "Three months wondering why you put
these
on women!"

His face changes in an instant. He actually calls out as if he felt the pain himself. He puts a hand over his mouth to stifle it but his Noise is suddenly washed with blackness. He moves the fingertips of his other hand within reach of the band, hovering over my skin, over the band that'll never be removed unless I lose my arm. The skin is still red, and band 1391 still throbs, despite the healing of three mistresses.

"Oh, no," he says. "Oh, no."

The side door opens and the man who let me in leans out. "Everything all right out here, Lieutenant?"

"Lieutenant?" I say.

"We're fine," Todd chokes a little. "We're fine."

The man waits for a second, then goes back inside.

"Lieutenant?"
I say again, lowering my voice.

Todd's leaned down, his hands on his knees, staring at the floor. "It wasn't me, was it?" he says, his voice quiet, too. "I didn't-" He gestures again at the band without looking up. "I didn't do it without knowing it was you, did I?"

"No," I say, reading things in his Noise, reading his numbness at them, reading all the horror that sits way down below that he's working so hard to ignore. "The Answer did it."

He looks up fast, filled with asking marks.

"It was the only way I could come and find you safely," I say. "The only way I could get past all the soldiers marching around town was if they thought I'd already been banded."

His face changes again as this sinks in. "Oh, Viola."

I breathe out heavily. "Todd," I say. "Please come with me."

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His eyes are wet but I can see him now, I can see him finally, I can see him in his face and in his Noise and in his arms as they drop to his sides in defeat.

"It's too late," he says and his voice is so sad my own eyes start to wet. "I've been dead, Viola. I've been dead."

"You haven't," I say, moving a bit closer to him. "These are impossible times."

He's looking down now, his eyes not focused on anything.

Feeling nothing
, his Noise says.
Take nothing in-

I am the circle and the circle is me.

"Todd?" I say and I'm close enough to reach his hand. "Todd, look at me."

He looks up and the loss in his Noise is so great it feels like I'm standing on the edge of an abyss, that I'm about to fall down
into
him, into blackness so empty and lonely there'd never be a way out.

"Todd," I say again, a catch in my voice. "On the ledge, under the waterfall, do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember what you said to save me?"

He's shaking his head slowly. "I've done terrible things, Viola.
Terrible
things-"

"We
all fall,
you said." I'm gripping him hard now. "We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again."

But he shakes me off.

"No," he says, turning away. "No, it was easier when you weren't here. It was easier when you couldn't see-"