“Leave her alone,” my voice rasps but no one hears me. Aaron’s Noise is blazing so loud I’m not sure he’d hear me even if I yelled. THE HOLY SACRAMENT and THE SIGN FROM GOD and THE PATH OF THE SAINT and pictures of the girl in a church, pictures of the girl drinking the wine and eating the host, pictures of the girl as an angel.
The girl as a sacrifice.
Aaron gets both of her wrists in one of his fists, fumbles off the cord belt of his robe, and starts tying her hands together with it. The girl kicks him hard where Manchee bit him and he hits her across the face with the back of his hand.
“Leave her alone,” I say again, trying to make my voice louder.
“Alone!” Manchee barks, still limping but still ferocious. What a ruddy good dog.
I step forward. Aaron’s back’s to me, like he don’t even care I’m here, like he don’t even think of me as a threat.
“Let her go,” I try and shout but it just makes me cough some more. Still nothing, tho. Still nothing from Aaron or anyone.
I’m gonna have to do it. I’m gonna have to do it. Oh man oh man oh man I’m gonna have to do it.
I’m gonna have to kill him.
I raise the knife.
I’ve raised the knife.
Aaron turns, not even fast like, just turns like someone’s called his name. He sees me standing there, knife in the air, not moving like the goddam coward idiot I am, and he smiles and boy I just can’t say how awful a smile looks on that torn-up face.
“Yer Noise reveals you, young Todd,” he says, letting go of the girl, who’s so tied up and beaten now she don’t even try to run. Aaron takes a step towards me.
I take a step back (shut up, please just shut up).
“The Mayor will be disappointed to hear about your untimely departure from the earthly plain, boy,” Aaron says, taking another step. I take another step, too, the knife in the air like it’s of no use at all.
“But God has no use for a coward,” Aaron says, “does he, boy?”
Quick as a snake, his left arm knocks into my right, sending the knife flying out of my hand. He hits me in the face with the flat of his right hand, knocking me back down into the water and I feel his knees land on my chest and his hands pressing down on my throat to finish the job but this time my face is underwater so it’s going to be a lot faster.
I struggle but I’ve lost. I’ve lost. I had my chance and I’ve lost and I deserve this and I’m fighting but I’m not nearly as strong as I was before and I can feel the end coming. I can feel me giving up.
I’m lost.
Lost.
And then, in the water, my hand finds a rock.
BOOM! I bring it up and hit him on the side of the head before I can think about it.
BOOM! I do it again.
BOOM! And again.
I feel him slide off me and I lift my head, choking on water and air, but I sit up and raise the rock again to hit him but he’s laying down in the water, face half-in, half-out, his teeth smiling up at me thru the gash in his cheek. I scrabble back from him, coughing and spluttering, but he stays there, sinking a little, not moving.
I feel like my throat is broken but I throw up some water and can breathe a little better.
“Todd? Todd? Todd?” Manchee says, coming up to me, all licky and barky like a little puppy. I scratch him twixt the ears cuz I can’t say nothing yet.
And then we both feel the silence and look up and there’s the girl standing over us, her hands still tied.
Holding the knife in her fingers.
I sit frozen for a second and Manchee starts to growl but then I realize. I take a few more breaths and then I reach up and take the knife from her fingers and cut the cord Aaron bound her wrists with. It drops away and she rubs where it was tied, still staring at me, still not saying nothing.
She knows. She knows I couldn’t do it.
Goddam you, I think to myself. Goddam you.
She looks at the knife. She looks over at Aaron, lying down in the water.
He’s still breathing. He gurgles water with every breath, but he’s still breathing.
I grip the knife. The girl looks at me, at the knife, at Aaron, at me again.
Is she telling me? Is she telling me to do it?
He’s lying there, undefended, probably eventually drowning.
And I have a knife.
I get to my feet, fall down from dizziness, and get to my feet again. I step towards him. I raise my knife. Again.
The girl takes in a breath and I can feel her holding it.
Manchee says, “Todd?”
And I have my knife raised over Aaron. One more time, I’ve got my chance. One more time, I’ve got my knife raised.
I could do it. No one on New World would blame me. It’d be my right.
I could just do it.
But a knife ain’t just a thing, is it? It’s a choice, it’s something you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don’t. A knife takes a decision out of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again.
Aaron’s gonna die. His face is ripped, his head is bashed, he’s sinking into shallow water without ever waking up. He tried to kill me, he wanted to kill the girl, he’s responsible for the ruckus in town, he’s gotta be the one who sent the Mayor to the farm and cuz of that he’s responsible for Ben and Cillian. He deserves to die. He deserves it.
And I can’t bring the knife down to finish the job.
Who am I?
I am Todd Hewitt.
I am the biggest, effing waste of nothing known to man.
I can’t do it.
Goddam you, I think to myself again.
“Come on,” I say to the girl. “We have to get outta here.”
At first I don’t think she’s gonna come. There’s no reason for her to, no reason for me to ask her, but when I say to her, “Come on,” a second time more urgently and gesture with my hand, she follows me, follows Manchee, and that’s how it is, that’s what we do, who knows if it’s right, but that’s what we do.
Night’s well and truly fallen. The swamp seems even thicker here, as black as anything. We rush on back a ways to get my rucksack and then around and a little bit further away in the dark to get some distance between us and Aaron’s body (please let it be a body). We clamber round trees and over roots, getting deeper into the swamp. When we get to a small clearing where there’s a bit of flat land and a break in the trees, I stop us.
I’m still holding the knife. It rests there in my hand, shining at me like blame itself, like the word coward flashing again and again. It catches the light of both moons and my God it’s a powerful thing. A powerful thing, like I’d have to agree to be a part of it rather than it being a part of me.