And that is when we hear the explosion in the distance.
We all turn quickly to face the horizon even though there is no chance of seeing anything with our physical eyes.
What’s happened? asks the Source. Have we been attacked?
“We”? I show back to him.
Wait, shows the Sky. It will come–
And it does a moment later, the voices of the Pathways’ receiving the voices of the Land from down below, showing us the explosion in the middle of the city, an explosion at the head of a great crowd of the Clearing, though the eyes we are seeing it through are high above the city on the lip of the hill, and all we can really see is a flash of fire and a column of smoke.
Is that the Land? the Source asks. Has the Land done this?
It has not, shows the Sky. He steps quickly out of the Pathways’ End, gesturing us to follow. We go to the steep path where I will have to help the still-weak Source climb down, and as we reach it, the Source’s voice is filled with one thing–
Fear.
Not for himself, not for the peace process–
Fear for the Knife. All his voice can show is how much he fears losing the Knife on the very morning they were to be reunited, fear that the worst has happened, that he has lost his son, his most beloved son, and I can feel his heart aching with worry, aching with love and concern–
An ache I know, an ache I have felt–
An ache that passes from the Source to me as we climb down–
The Knife–
Todd–
Standing in my voice, as real and fragile and worthy of life as any other–
And I do not want it.
I do not want it.
[TODD]
A small intake of breath is all the Mayor gives when Mistress Lawson presses the bandages against the back of his scalp, tho the burns there are horrible to see.
“Severe,” Mistress Lawson says, “but shallow. The flash was so fast it didn’t go very deep. You’ll scar, but you’ll heal.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” the Mayor says, as she wipes a clear gel over the burns on his face, which ain’t as bad as on the back of his head.
“I’m merely doing my job,” Mistress Lawson says sharply. “And now there are others to be treated.”
She leaves the healing room of the scout ship, taking a pile of bandages with her. I’m sitting in a chair near the Mayor, burn gel on my hands, too. Wilf is on the other bed, burnt up his front but still alive cuz he was already falling when the bomb went off.
Outside is another story. Using the Noise of the crowd, Lee’s out there helping the dozens of people who were burnt and injured in Mistress Coyle’s suicide.
Killed, too. At least five men and one woman in the crowd.
And Mistress Coyle herself, of course.
And Simone.
Viola ain’t spoken to me since the bomb. She and Bradley are off doing something.
Something away from me.
“It’ll be all right, Todd,” the Mayor says, seeing me keep checking the door. “They’ll realize you had to make a split-second decision and I was closest–”
“No, you weren’t,” I say. I clench my fists and wince at the pain from the burns. “I had to reach farther to grab you.”
“And you did grab me,” the Mayor says, marvelling a little.
“Yeah, yeah, all right,” I say.
“You saved me,” he says, almost to himself.
“Yeah, I know–”
“No, Todd,” he says, sitting up on the bed, tho it obviously pains him. “You saved me. When you didn’t have to. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
“You sure keep trying.”
“I’ll never forget this, that you think of me as worth saving. And I am, Todd. And it’s you who’s made me that way.”
“Quit talking like that,” I say. “Other people are dead. Other people I didn’t save.”
He just nods, nods and lets me feel crap all over again for not saving Simone.
And then he says, “She won’t have died in vain, Todd. We’ll make sure of that.”
And he sounds truthful, like he always does.
(it sure feels true–)
(and the faint hum–)
(it’s glowing with joy–)
I look over to Wilf. He’s staring up at the ceiling, soot-covered skin poking out thru white bandages. “Ah think you mighta saved me, too,” he says. “Yoo said, Jump. Yoo said, Get offa the cart.”
I clear my throat. “That ain’t really saving you, Wilf. It didn’t save Simone.”
“Yoo were in mah head,” Wilf says. “Yoo were in mah head sayin, Jump and my feet were jumpin afore Ah even tole ’em to. Yoo made me jump.” He blinks at me. “How d’yoo do that?”
I look away at the thought of it. I probably did do it, reached out and controlled him, and if Simone didn’t have Noise, she wouldn’t have responded to it.
But the Mayor might have. I might not have even needed to grab him.
The Mayor sets both feet on the floor and painfully, slowly, brings himself to standing.
“Where do you think yer going?” I say.
“To address the crowds,” he says. “We need to tell them that the peace process doesn’t end because of the actions of one mistress. We need to show them that I am still alive and that Viola is.” He puts a hand gingerly to the back of his neck. “This peace is fragile. The people are fragile. We need to tell them there’s no reason to give up hope.”
I wince a little at his last word.
Mr Tate comes thru the door carrying a pile of clothes. “As requested, sir,” he says, handing ’em to the Mayor.
“Yer putting on clean clothes?” I say.
“So are you,” he says, handing me half the pile. “We certainly can’t go out there in burnt rags.”
I look down at my own clothes, what’s left of ’em after Mistress Lawson peeled the burnt ones off my skin.
“Put them on, Todd,” the Mayor says. “You’ll be surprised at how much better they make you feel.”
(and the faint hum–)
(the joy of it–)
(it’s kinda making me feel not so terrible–)
I start putting on the new clothes.
{VIOLA}
“There.” Bradley points at the screen in the cockpit. “He is closer to Simone, but Prentiss is closer to the edge of the platform.”
He slows down the recording and stops it at the point where Mistress Coyle is about to press the button on the bomb. The point where Simone is still heading straight for her and where Wilf is stepping backwards to jump off the cart.