“What are you thinking?” Viola asks, staring at me hard.
I smile a little. “I’m thinking, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
She smiles a little back. “If this is you now, I guess I’ll just have to get used to it.”
“You don’t hate it no more?”
“Yeah, but that’s my problem, not yours.”
“I’m still me,” I say. “I’m still Todd.”
She looks away, letting her eyes fall to the bandages. “Are you sure about this?” she asks. “You’re sure none of this is a lie?”
“He knows I’d kill him if he hurt you,” I say. “And the way he’s been acting-”
She looks up. “But it probably is just acting–”
“I think I’m the one changing him, Viola,” I say. “Enough for him to want to save you for me, anyway.”
She keeps looking, keeps trying to read me.
I don’t know what she sees.
And after a minute, she holds out her arm.
“Okay,” I say. “Here we go.”
I start unwinding the old bandages still on the wound. I take off one, then another, and then there’s the band, 1391, exposed to the air. It looks bad, worse than I even expected, the skin around it red and raw and pulled tight in an ugly-looking way and the skin beyond is darkened in wrong shades of purple and yellow and there’s a smell, too, a smell of sickness and badness.
“Jesus, Viola,” I whisper.
She don’t say nothing but I see her swallow so I just take the first new bandage and wrap it right over the top of the band. She gives out a little gasp as the first jolt of medicine enters her system.
“Does it hurt?” I say.
She bites her lip and nods quickly, then gestures for me to do more. I unroll the second bandage and the third, wrapping them round the edges of the first like the Mayor told me, and she gasps again.
“Look, Todd,” she says, her breathing fast and shallow. The bruises and darkness on her arm are already fading and you can actually see the medicine moving thru her, doing battle with the infeckshun right there under her skin.
“How does it feel?” I ask.
“Like burning knives,” she says, a tear dropping from each eye–
And I reach out–
And I touch my thumb to her cheek–
Just gentle-like–
Brushing one of the tears away–
Feeling her skin under my hand–
Feeling the warmth of it, the softness–
Feeling like I wanna just go on touching her for ever–
And I’m embarrassed to think this–
And then I realize she can’t hear it–
And I start to think how awful that must be for her–
And then I feel her press her cheek more strongly into my fingers–
Turning her head, so the palm of my hand is holding her–
Holding her there–
And another tear falls down–
And she turns more–
Turns so her lips are pressing against my palm–
“Viola,” I say–
“We’re ready to go,” Simone says, sticking her head in the tent.
I pull my hand away quick, tho I know we ain’t doing nothing wrong.
And after a long awkward second, Viola says, “I feel better already.”
{VIOLA}
“Shall we?” the Mayor says, a wide smile across his face, his uniform with the gold stripes down the sleeves looking somehow brand new.
“If we must,” Mistress Coyle says.
Wilf has joined us and we’re gathered in front of the ruins of the cathedral, back from a cart with a microphone on top for Mistress Coyle to be heard. Projections of it are being sent back to the hilltop, shown on the two building-sides again and hovering above the rubble behind us.
The crowds are already cheering.
“Viola?” the Mayor asks, reaching out to take my hand to lead me to the stage. Todd gets up to follow me.
“If no one else minds,” Mistress Coyle says, “I wonder if this might just be very short addresses by President Prentiss and myself this morning?”
The Mayor looks surprised, but I speak first. “That’s a good idea,” I say. “It’ll make it go a lot quicker.”
“Viola–” the Mayor says.
“And I’d like to sit for a minute and let the cure work some more, too.”
“Thank you,” Mistress Coyle says, weight in her voice. “You’ll make a very good leader, Viola Eade.” And then, as if to herself. “Yes, you will.”
The Mayor’s still looking for a way to get what he wants but Simone and Bradley aren’t moving and he finally agrees. “All right, then,” he says, holding his elbow out to Mistress Coyle. “Shall we address the populace?”
Mistress Coyle ignores the elbow and starts walking towards the stage. The Mayor follows quickly so he can get in front of her and have the crowds see him let her go up first.
“What was that all about?” Todd says, watching them go.
“Yeah,” Bradley says, his Noise quizzical. “When did you start letting her get her way?”
“A little nicer to Mistress Coyle, please,” Simone says. “I think I see what Viola’s doing.”
“And what’s that?” Todd says.
“Good people of New World,” we hear Mistress Coyle’s voice start to boom over the speakers. “How far we’ve all come.”
“Mistress Coyle thinks her days as leader are coming to an end,” Simone says. “This is her way of saying goodbye.”
Wilf gets a funny look on his face. “Goodbye?”
“How far President Prentiss has taken us,” Mistress Coyle is saying. “To places we never even knew existed.”
“But she’s still leader,” Lee says, sitting behind us. “There are a lot of people, a lot of women–”
“The world’s changing, though,” I say. “And she wasn’t the one who changed it.”
“And so she’s going out on her own terms,” Simone says, some emotion in her voice. “I admire her for it. Knowing when to leave the stage.”
“Taken us from the edge of one abyss,” Mistress Coyle says, “and right to the edge of another.”
“Goodbye?” Wilf says again, more strongly.
I turn to him, hearing the concern in his Noise. “What is it, Wilf?”
But now Todd’s figuring it out, too, his eyes opening wider.