“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, calm. Like normal chatter you’d have with yer mates. Nothing accidental nor abusive.
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.
My hand goes right behind my rucksack to my own knife.
“Leave it, Todd pup,” Hildy says, keeping her eyes on the man. “That’s not how this is gonna go.”
“What do ye think yer a-bringing into our village, Hildy?” the man says, hefting his machete in his hand, still looking at me and there’s real surprise in his asking and–
And is that hurt?
“I’m a-bringing in a boy pup and a girl pup what’s lost their way,” Hildy says. “Stand aside, Matthew.”
“I don’t see a boy pup nowhere,” Matthew says, his eyes starting to burn. He’s massively tall, shoulders like an ox and a thickened brow with lots of bafflement but not much tenderness. He looks like a walking, talking thunderstorm. “I see me a Prentisstown man. I see me a Prentisstown man with Prentisstown filth all over his Prentisstown Noise.”
“That’s not what yer a-seeing,” Hildy says. “Look close.”
Matthew’s Noise is already lurching on me like hands pressing in, forcing its way into my own thinking, trying to ransack the room. It’s angry and asking and Noisy as a fire, so uneven I can’t make hide nor hair of it.
“Ye know the law, Hildy,” he says.
The law?
“The law is for men,” Hildy says, her voice staying calm, like we were standing there talking bout the weather. Can’t she see how red this man’s Noise is getting? Red ain’t yer colour if you wanna have a chat. “This here pup ain’t a man yet.”
“I’ve still got twenty-eight days,” I say, without thinking.
“Yer numbers don’t mean nothing here, boy,” Matthew spits. “I don’t care how many days away ye are.”
“Calm yerself, Matthew,” Hildy says, sterner than I’d want her to. But to my surprise, Matthew looks at her all sore and steps back a step. “He’s a-fleeing Prentisstown, pup,” she says, a little softer. “He’s a-running away.”
Matthew looks at her suspiciously and back to me but he’s lowering the machete. A little.
“Just like ye did yerself once,” Hildy says to him.
What?
“Yer from Prentisstown?” I blurt out.