But there’s no one there. The house, our house, is just as it was, quiet and farm-like. Cillian busts in the back door, goes into the prayer room which we never use, and starts pulling boards up from the floor. Ben goes to the pantry and starts throwing dried foods and fruit into a cloth sack, then he goes to the toilet and takes out a small medipak and throws that in, too.
I just stand there like a doofus wondering just what in the effing blazes is going on.
I know what yer thinking: how can I not know if all day, every day I’m hearing every thought of the two men who run my house? That’s the thing, tho. Noise is noise. It’s crash and clatter and it usually adds up to one big mash of sound and thought and picture and half the time it’s impossible to make any sense of it at all. Men’s minds are messy places and Noise is like the active, breathing face of that mess. It’s what’s true and what’s believed and what’s imagined and what’s fantasized and it says one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time and even tho the truth is definitely in there, how can you tell what’s true and what’s not when yer getting everything?
The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.
“I ain’t leaving,” I say, as they keep doing their stuff. They don’t pay me no mind. “I ain’t leaving,” I say again, as Ben steps past me into the prayer room to help Cillian lift up boards. They find what they’re looking for and Cillian lifts out a rucksack, an old one I thought I’d lost. Ben opens the top and takes a quick peek thru and I can see some clothes of mine and something that looks like–
“Is that a book?” I say. “You were sposed to burn those ages ago.”
But they’re ignoring me and the air has just stopped right there as Ben takes it outta the rucksack and he and Cillian look at it and I see that it’s not quite a book, more a journal type thing with a nice leather cover and when Ben thumbs thru it, the pages are cream-coloured and filled with handwriting.
Ben closes it like it’s an important thing and he wraps it inside a plastic bag to protect it and puts it in the rucksack.
They both turn to me.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” I say.
And there’s a knock on the front door.
For a second, nobody says nothing, everyone just freezes. Manchee’s got so many things he wants to bark that nothing comes out for a minute till he finally barks “Door!” but Cillian grabs him by the collar with one hand and by the maul with the other, shutting him up. We all look up at each other, wondering what to do next.
There’s another knock and then a voice comes thru the walls, “I know yer in there.”
“Damn and blast,” Ben says.
“Davy bloody Prentiss,” Cillian says.
That’s Mr Prentiss Jr. The man of the law.
“Do you not think I can hear yer Noise?” Mr Prentiss Jr says thru the door. “Benison Moore. Cillian Boyd.” The voice makes a little pause. “Todd Hewitt.”
“Well, so much for hiding,” I say, crossing my arms, still a little annoyed at it all.
Cillian and Ben look at each other again, then Cillian lets go of Manchee, says “Stay here” to both of us and heads for the door. Ben shoves the sack of food into the rucksack and ties it shut. He hands it to me. “Put this on,” he whispers.
I don’t take it at first but he gestures with a serious look so I take it and put it on. It weighs a ton.
We hear Cillian open the front door. “What do you want, Davy?”
“That’s Sheriff Prentiss to you, Cillian.”
“We’re in the middle of lunch, Davy,” Cillian says. “Come back later.”
“I don’t think I will. I think I need to have a word with young Todd.”
Ben looks at me, worry in his Noise.
“Todd’s got farmwork,” Cillian says. “He’s just leaving out the back. I can hear him go.”
And these are instructions for me and Ben, ain’t they? But I ruddy well want to hear what’s going on and I ignore Ben’s hand on my shoulder trying to pull me towards the back door.
“You take me for a fool, Cillian?” Mr Prentiss Jr says.
“Do you really want an answer to that, Davy?”
“I can hear his Noise not twenty feet behind you. Ben’s, too.” We hear a shift in the mood. “I just want to talk to him. He ain’t in no trouble.”
“Why you got a rifle then, Davy?” Cillian asks and Ben squeezes my shoulder, probably without even thinking.
Mr Prentiss Jr’s voice and Noise both change again. “Bring him out, Cillian. You know why I’m here. Seems like a funny little word floated outta yer boy into town all innocent-like and we just want to see what it’s all about, that’s all.”
“‘We’?” Cillian says.
“His Honour the Mayor would like a word with young Todd.” Mr Prentiss Jr raises his voice. “Y’all come out now, you hear? Ain’t no trouble going on. Just a friendly chat.”
Ben nods his head at the back door all firm like and there ain’t no arguing with him this time. We start stepping towards it slowly, but Manchee’s kept his trap shut for just about as long as he can bear and barks, “Todd?”
“Y’all ain’t thinking about sneaking out the back way, are ya?” Mr Prentiss Jr calls. “Outta my way, Cillian.”
“Get off my property, Davy,” Cillian says.
“I ain’t telling you twice.”
“I believe you’ve already told me about three times, Davy, so if yer threatening, it ain’t working.”
There’s a pause but the Noise from them both gets louder and Ben and I know what’s coming next and suddenly everything’s moving fast and we hear a loud thump, followed quick by another two, and me and Ben and Manchee are running to the kitchen but when we get there, it’s over. Mr Prentiss Jr is on the floor, holding his mouth, blood already coming from it. Cillian’s got Mr Prentiss Jr’s rifle in his hands and is pointing it at Mr Prentiss Jr.
“I said get off my property, Davy,” he says.
Mr Prentiss Jr looks at him, then looks at us, still holding his bloody mouth. Like I say, he ain’t barely two years older than me, barely able to even get a sentence out without his voice breaking, but he’s had his birthday to be a man so there he is, our sheriff.
The blood from his mouth is getting on the little brown hairs he calls a moustache and everyone else calls nothing.
“You know this answers the asking, doncha?” He spits some blood and a tooth onto our floor. “You know this ain’t the end.” He looks right at my eye. “You found something, dincha, boy?”
Cillian aims the rifle at his head. “Out,” he says.
“We got plans for you, boy.” Mr Prentiss Jr smiles bloodily at me and gets to his feet. “The boy who’s last. One more month, ain’t it?”
I look to Cillian but all he does is cock the rifle loudly, getting his point across.
Mr Prentiss Jr looks back at us, spits again, and says, “Be seeing you,” trying to sound tough but his voice squeaks and he takes off as fast he can back to the town.
Cillian slams the door behind him. “Todd’s gotta go now. Back thru the swamp.”
“I know,” Ben says. “I was hoping–”
“Me, too,” Cillian says.
“Whoa, whoa,” I say, “I ain’t going back to the swamp. There’s Spackle there!”
“Keep yer thoughts quiet,” Cillian says. “That’s more important than you know.”
“Well, since I don’t know nothing, that ain’t hard,” I say. “I ain’t going nowhere till someone tells me what’s going on!”
“Todd–” Ben starts.
“They’ll be coming back, Todd,” Cillian says. “Davy Prentiss will come back and he won’t be alone and we won’t be able to protect you from all of them at once.”
“But–”
“No arguing!” Cillian says.
“Come on, Todd,” Ben says. “Manchee’s gonna have to go with you.”
“Oh, man, this just gets better,” I say.
??
?Todd,” Cillian says and I look at him and he’s changed a little. There’s something new in his Noise, a sadness, a sadness like grief. “Todd,” he says again, then suddenly he grabs me and hugs me to him as hard as he can. It’s too rough and I bash my cut lip on his collar and say “Ow!” and push him away.
“You may hate us for this, Todd,” he says, “but try to believe it’s only cuz we love you, all right?”
“No,” I say, “it’s not all right. It’s not all right at all.”
But Cillian’s not listening, as usual. He stands up and says to Ben, “Go, run, I’ll hold ’em off as long as possible.”
“I’ll come back a different way,” Ben says, “see if I can throw ’em off the trail.”
They clasp hands for a long minute, then Ben looks at me, says “Come on” and as he’s dragging me outta the room to get to the back door, I see Cillian pick up the rifle again and he glances up at me and catches my eye and there’s a look to him, a look written all over him and his Noise that this is a bigger goodbye than it even seems, that this is it, the last time he ever expects to see me and I open my mouth to say something but then the door closes on him and he’s gone.
“I’ll get you to the river,” Ben says as we hurry across our fields for the second time this morning. “You can follow it down to where it meets the swamp.”
“There ain’t no path that way, Ben,” I say, “and there’s crocs everywhere. You trying to get me killed?”
He looks back at me, his eyes all level, but he keeps on hurrying. “There’s no other way, Todd.”
“Crocs! Swamp! Quiet! Poo!” Manchee barks.
I’ve stopped even asking what’s going on since nobody’s seeing fit to tell me nothing so we just keep on moving past the sheep, still not in their paddocks and now maybe never getting there. “Sheep!” they say, watching us pass. On we go, past the main barn, down one of the big irrigashun tracks, turning right on a smaller one, heading towards where the wilderness starts, which pretty much means the beginning of the rest of this whole empty planet.
Ben don’t start talking again till we get to the treeline. “There’s food in yer rucksack to last you for a bit but you should make it stretch as far as you can, eating what fruit you find and anything you can hunt.”
“How long do I gotta make it last?” I ask. “How long till I can come back?”
Ben stops. We’re just inside the trees. The river’s thirty metres away but you can hear it cuz this is where it starts rushing downhill to get to the swamp.
Suddenly it feels like just about the loneliest place in the whole wide world.
“You ain’t coming back, Todd,” Ben says, quietly. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” I say and my voice comes out all mewing like a kitten but I can’t help it. “What’d I do, Ben?”
Ben comes up to me. “You didn’t do anything, Todd. You didn’t do anything at all.” He hugs me real hard and I can feel my chest start to press again and I’m so confused and frightened and angry. Nothing was different in the world this morning when I got outta bed and now here I am being sent away and Ben and Cillian acting like I’m dying and it ain’t fair and I don’t know why it ain’t fair but it just ain’t fair.
“I know it ain’t fair,” Ben says, pulling himself away and looking me hard in the face. “But there is an explanashun.” He turns me round and opens my rucksack and I can feel him taking something out.
The book.
I look at him and look away. “You know I don’t read too good, Ben,” I say, embarrassed and stupid.
He crouches down a bit so we’re truly face to face. His Noise ain’t making me comfortable at all.
“I know,” he says, gentle-like. “I always meant to try and spend more time–” He stops. He holds out the book again. “It’s yer ma’s,” he says. “It’s her journal, starting from the day you were born, Todd.” He looks down at it. “Till the day she died.”
My Noise opens wide.
My ma. My ma’s own book.
Ben runs his hand over the cover. “We promised her we’d keep you safe,” he says. “We promised her and then we had to put it outta our minds so there was nothing in our Noise, nothing that would let anyone know what we were gonna do.”
“Including me,” I say.
“It had to be including you. If just a little bit got into yer Noise and then into the town . . .”
He don’t finish.
“Like the silence I found in the swamp today,” I say. “Like that getting into town and causing all this havoc.”
“No, that was a surprise.” He looks up at the sky, like he’s telling it just how completely a surprise it all was. “No one woulda guessed that happening.”
“It’s dangerous, Ben. I could feel it.”
But all he does is hold out the book again.
I start shaking my head. “Ben–”
“I know, Todd,” he says, “but try yer best.”
“No, Ben–”
He catches my eyes again. He holds ’em with his own. “Do you trust me, Todd Hewitt?”
I scratch my side. I don’t know how to answer. “Course I do,” I say, “or at least I did before you started packing bags I didn’t know about for me.”
He looks at me harder, his Noise focused like a sun ray. “Do you trust me?” he asks again.
I look at him and yeah, I do, even now. “I trust you, Ben.”
“Then trust me when I say that the things you know right now, Todd, those things ain’t true.”
“Which things?” I ask, my voice rising a little. “Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Cuz knowledge is dangerous,” he says, as serious as I’ve ever seen him and when I look into his Noise to see what he’s hiding, it roars up and slaps me back. “If I told you now, it would buzz in you louder than a hive at honey-gathering time and Mayor Prentiss would find you fast as he could spit. And you have to get away from here. You have to, as far away as you can.”
“But where?” I say. “There ain’t nowhere else!”
Ben takes a deep breath. “There is,” he says. “There’s somewhere else.”
I don’t say nothing to that.
“Folded in the front of the book,” Ben says, “there’s a map. I made it myself but don’t look at it, not till yer well outta town, okay? Just go to the swamp. You’ll know what to do from there.”
But I can tell from his Noise that he’s not at all sure I’ll know what to do from there. “Or what I’m gonna find there, do you?”
He don’t say nothing to that.
And I’m thinking.
“How did you know to have a bag already packed?” I say, stepping back a little. “If this thing in the swamp is so unexpected, why are you so ready to chuck me out into the wilderness today?”
“It was the plan all along, ever since you were little.” I see him swallow, I hear his sadness everywhere. “As soon as you were old enough to make it on yer own–”
“You were just gonna throw me out so the crocs could eat me.” I’m stepping back further.
“No, Todd–” He moves forward, the book still in his hand. I step back again. He makes a gesture like, okay.
And he closes his eyes and opens up his Noise for me.
One month’s time is the first thing it says–
And here comes my birthday–
The day I’ll become a man–
And–
And–
And there it all is–
What happens–
What the other boys did who became men–
All alone–
All by themselves–
How every last bit of boyhood is killed off–
And–
And–
And what actually happened to the people who–
Holy crap–
And I don’t want to say no more about it.
And I can’t say at all how it makes me feel.
I look at Ben and he’s a different man than he always was, he??
?s a different man to the one I’ve always known.
Knowledge is dangerous.
“It’s why no one tells you,” he says. “To keep you from running.”
“You wouldn’t’ve protected me?” I say, mewing again (shut up).
“This is how we’re protecting you, Todd,” he says. “By getting you out. We had to be sure you could survive on yer own, that’s why we taught you all that stuff. Now, Todd, you have to go–”
“If that’s what’s happening in a month, why wait this long? Why not take me away sooner?”
“We can’t come with you. That’s the whole problem. And we couldn’t bear to send you off on yer own. To see you go. Not so young.” He rubs the cover of the book with his fingers again. “And we were hoping there might be a miracle. One where we wouldn’t have to–”
Lose you, says his Noise.
“But there ain’t been no miracle,” I say, after a second.
He shakes his head. He holds out the book. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry it has to be this way.”
And there’s so much true sorrow in his Noise, so much worry and edginess, I know he’s speaking true, I know he can’t help what’s happening and I hate it but I take the book from him and put it back in the plastic and into the rucksack. We don’t say nothing more. What else is there to say? Everything and nothing. You can’t say everything, so you don’t say nothing.
He pulls me to him again, hitting my lip on his collar just like Cillian but this time I don’t pull away. “Always remember,” he says, “when yer ma died, you became our son, and I love you and Cillian loves you, always have, always will.”
I start to say, “I don’t wanna go,” but it never comes out.
Cuz BANG!! goes the loudest thing I ever heard in Prentisstown, like something’s blowing right up, right on up to the sky.
And it can only be coming from our farm.
Ben lets me go right quick. He ain’t saying nothing but his Noise is screaming Cillian all over the place.
“I’ll come back with you,” I say. “I’ll help you fight.”
“No!” Ben shouts. “You have to get away. Promise me. Go thru the swamp and get away.”