One part of the road goes left, the other goes right.
(Well, it’s a fork, ain’t it?)
“The creek in Farbranch was flowing to the right,” Viola says, “and the main river was always to our right once we crossed the bridge, so it’s got to be the right fork if we want to get back there.”
“But the left looks more travelled,” I say. And it does. The left fork looks smoother, flatter, like the kinda thing you should be rolling carts over. The right fork is narrower with higher bushes on each side and even tho it’s night you can just tell it’s dusty. “Did Francia say anything about a fork?” I look back over my shoulder at the valley still erupting behind us.
“No,” Viola says, also looking back. “She just said Haven was the first settlement and new settlements sprang up down the river as people moved west. Prentisstown was the farthest out. Farbranch was second farthest.”
“That one probably goes to the river,” I say, pointing right, then left, “that one probably goes to Haven in a straight line.”
“Which one will they think we took?”
“We need to decide,” I say. “Quickly now.”
“To the right,” she says, then turns it into an asking. “To the right?”
We hear a BOOM that makes us jump. A mushroom of smoke is rising in the air over Farbranch. The barn where I worked all day is on fire.
Maybe our story will turn out differently if we take the left fork, maybe the bad things that are waiting to happen to us won’t happen, maybe there’s happiness at the end of the left fork and warm places with the people who love us and no Noise but no silence neither and there’s plenty of food and no one dies and no one dies and no one never never dies.
Maybe.
But I doubt it.
I ain’t what you call a lucky person.
“Right,” I decide. “Might as well be right.”
We run down the right fork, Manchee at our heels, the night and a dusty road stretching out in front of us, an army and a disaster behind us, me and Viola, running side by side.
We run till we can’t run and then we walk fast till we can run again. The sounds of Farbranch disappear behind us right quick and all we can hear are our footsteps beating on the path and my Noise and Manchee’s barking. If there are night creachers out there, we’re scaring ’em away.
Which is probably good.
“What’s the next settlement?” I gasp after a good half hour’s run-walking. “Did Francia say?”
“Shining Beacon,” Viola says, gasping herself. “Or Shining Light.” She scrunches her face. “Blazing Light. Blazing Beacon?”
“That’s helpful.”
“Wait.” She stops in the path, bending at the waist to catch her breath. I stop, too. “I need water.”
I hold up my hands in a way that says And? “So do I,” I say. “You got some?”
She looks at me, her eyebrows up. “Oh.”
“There was always a river.”
“I guess we’d better find it then.”
“I guess so.” I take a deep breath to start running again.
“Todd,” she says, stopping me. “I’ve been thinking?”
“Yeah?” I say.
“Blazing Lights or whatever?”
“Yeah?”
“If you look at it one way,” she lowers her voice to a sad and uncomfortable sound and says it again, “if you look at it one way, we led an army into Farbranch.”
I lick the dryness of my lips. I taste dust. And I know what she’s saying.
“You must warn them,” she says quietly, into the dark. “I’m sorry, but–”
“We can’t go into any other settlements,” I say.
“I don’t think we can.”
“Not till Haven.”
“Not until Haven,” she says, “which we have to hope is big enough to handle an army.”
So, that’s that then. In case we needed any further reminding, we’re really on our own. Really and truly. Me and Viola and Manchee and the darkness for company. No one on the road to help us till the end, if even there, which knowing our luck so far–
I close my eyes.
I am Todd Hewitt, I think. When it goes midnight I will be a man in twenty-seven days. I am the son of my ma and pa, may they rest in peace. I am the son of Ben and Cillian, may they–
I am Todd Hewitt.
“I’m Viola Eade,” Viola says.
I open my eyes. She has her hand out, palm down, held towards me.
“That’s my surname,” she says. “Eade. E-A-D-E.”
I look at her for a second and then down at her outstretched hand and I reach out and I take it and press it inside my own and a second later I let go.
I shrug my shoulders to reset my rucksack. I put my hand behind my back to feel the knife and make sure it’s still there. I give poor, panting, half-tail Manchee a look and then match eyes with Viola.
“Viola Eade,” I say, and she nods.
And off we run into further night.
“How can it be this far?” Viola asks. “It doesn’t make any logical sense.”
“Is there another kind of sense it does make?”
She frowns. So do I. We’re tired and getting tireder and trying not to think of what we saw at Farbranch and we’ve walked and run what feels like half the night and still no river. I’m starting to get afraid we’ve taken a seriously wrong turning which we can’t do nothing about cuz there ain’t no turning back.
“Isn’t any turning back,” I hear Viola say behind me, under her breath.
I turn to her, eyes wide. “That’s wrong on two counts,” I say. “Number one, constantly reading people’s Noise ain’t gonna get you much welcome here.”
She crosses her arms and sets her shoulders. “And the second?”
“The second is I talk how I please.”
“Yes,” Viola says. “That you do.”
My Noise starts to rise a bit and I take a deep breath but then she says, “Shhh,” and her eyes glint in the moonlight as she looks beyond me.
The sound of running water.
“River!” Manchee barks.
We take off down the road and round a corner and down a slope and round another corner and there’s the river, wider, flatter and slower than when we saw it last but just as wet. We don’t say nothing, just drop to our knees on the rocks at water’s edge and drink, Manchee wading in up to his belly to start lapping.