“’s Ben,” Wilf says. “Lookin poorly.”
Next thing I know he’s setting me down on the back of his cart. It’s piled rag-tag with parcels and boxes covered in leather skins, bits of furniture and large baskets, all tumbled together, almost overflowing with itself.
“It’s too late,” I say. “It’s over.”
The woman’s walked over the back of the cart from the seat and hops down to face me. She’s broad with a worn dress and flyaway hair and lines at the corners of her eyes and her voice is quick, like a mouse. “What’s over, young’un?”
“She’s gone.” I feel my chin crumpling and my throat pulling. “I lost her.”
I feel a cool hand on my forehead and it feels so good I press into it. She takes it away and says, “Fever,” to Wilf.
“Yup,” Wilf says.
“Best make a poultice,” the woman says and I think she heads off into the ditch but that don’t make no sense.
“Where’s Hildy, Ben?” Wilf says, trying to get his eyes to meet mine. Mine are so watery it’s hard to even see him.
“Her name ain’t Hildy,” I say.
“Ah know,” Wilf says, “but at’s whatcha call her.”
“She’s gone,” I say, my eyes filling. My head falls forward again. I feel Wilf put a hand on my shoulder and he squeezes it.
“Todd?” I hear Manchee bark, unsure, a ways off the road.
“I ain’t called Ben,” I say to Wilf, still not looking up.
“Ah know,” Wilf says again. “But at’s what we’re callin ya.”
I look up to him. His face and his Noise are as blank as I remember but the lesson of forever and ever is that knowing a man’s mind ain’t knowing the man.
Wilf don’t say nothing more and goes back to the front of the cart. The woman comes back with a seriously foul-smelling rag in her hands. It stinks of roots and mud and ugly herbs but I’m so tired I let her tie it round my forehead, right over the bandage that’s still stuck on the side of my head.
“At should work onna fever,” she says, hopping back up. We both lurch forward a little bit as Wilf snaps the rein on his oxes. The woman’s eyes are wide open, looking into mine like searching for exciting news. “Yoo runnin from the army, too?”
Her quiet next to me reminds me so much of Viola it’s all I can do not to just lean against her. “Kinda,” I say.
“Yoo’s what told Wilf about it, huh?” she says. “Yoo’s and a girl told Wilf bout the army, told him to tell people, tell people they had to gettaway, dincha?”
I look up at her, smelly brown root water dripping down my face, and I turn back to look at Wilf, up there driving his cart. He hears me looking. “They lissened to Wilf,” he says.
I look up and past him to the road ahead. As we go round a bend, I can hear not only the rush of the river to my right again, like an old friend, an old foe, I can see a line of carts stretching on up ahead of us on the road at least as far as the next bend, carts packed with belongings just like Wilf’s and all kindsa people straggled along the tops, holding on to anything that won’t knock ’em off.
It’s a caravan. Wilf is taking the rear of a long caravan. Men and women and I think even children, too, if I can see clearly thru the stink of the thing tied round my head, their Noise and silence floating up and back like a great, clattery thing all its own.
Army I hear a lot. Army and army and army.
And cursed town.
“Brockley Falls?” I ask.
“Bar Vista, too,” the woman says, nodding her head fast. “And others. Rumour’s been flyin up the river and road. Army from cursed town comin and comin, growin as it comes, with men pickin up arms to join in.”
Growing as it comes, I think.
“Thousands strong, they say,” says the woman.
Wilf makes a scoffing sound. “Ain’t no thousand people ’tween here and cursed town.”
The woman twists her lips. “Ah’m only sayin what people are sayin.”
I look back at the empty road behind us, Manchee panting along a little distance away, and I remember Ivan, the man in the barn at Farbranch, who told me that not everyone felt the same about history, that Pren– that my town had allies still. Maybe not thousands, but still maybe growing. Getting bigger and bigger as it marches on till it’s so big how can anyone stand against it?
“We’re going to Haven,” the woman says. “They’ll pruhtekt us there.”
“Haven,” I mumble to myself.
“Say they even got a cure for Noise in them there parts,” the woman says. “Now there’s a thing Ah’d like to see.” She laughs out loud at herself. “Or hear, Ah guess.” She slaps her thigh.
“They got Spackle there?” I ask.
The woman turns to me surprised. “Spackle don’t come near people,” she says. “Not no more, not since the war. They’s keep to theirselves and we’s keep to ourselves and such is the peace kept.” It sounds like she’s reciting the last part. “Tain’t hardly none left anyway.”
“I gotta go.” I put my hands down and try to lift myself up. “I gotta find her.”
All that happens is that I lose my balance and fall off the end of the cart. The woman calls to Wilf to stop and they both lift me back up on it, the woman getting Manchee up top, too. She clears a few boxes away to lay me down and Wilf gets the cart going again. He snaps the oxes a bit harder this time and I can feel us moving along faster – faster than I could walk at least.
“Eat,” the woman says, holding up some bread to my face. “Yoo can’t go nowhere till yoo eat.”
I take the bread from her and eat a bite, then tear into the rest so hungrily I forget to give some to Manchee. The woman just takes out some more and gives some to both of us, watching wide-eyed at every move I make.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Ah’m Jane,” she says. Her eyes are still way open, like she’s just bursting to say stuff. “Didja see the army?” she asks. “With yer own eyes?”
“I did,” I say. “In Farbranch.”
She sucks in her breath. “So it’s true.” Not an asking, just saying it.
“Told yoo it were true,” Wilf says from up front.
“Ah hear they’re cuttin off people’s heads and boilin their eyes,” Jane says.