And just a few more people–
Just a few more–
And the crowd opens up–
And there he is–
There he is in front of my eyes–
And I have to stop–
I have to stop cuz it feels like I can’t even stand up–
And when I say his name, it barely comes out as more than a whisper–
But he hears it–
I know he hears it–
“Ben.”
{VIOLA}
It’s Ben.
I can see him as clearly in the Noise of the crowd as if he were standing right in front of me. There’s the Spackle that tried to kill me, 1017, riding a battlemore, and Ben’s sitting behind him on another one, the song he’s singing coming clear, I heard a maiden call from the valley below–
But his mouth isn’t moving–
Which must be a mistake of the crowd Noise–
But he’s there, riding up the road, and since no one here can know him, his face must be accurate, it must really be Ben–
And I can feel the Mayor’s medicine surging through me and I use my new strength to start shoving people out of the way even harder–
Because in their Noise, I can see the Mayor pushing forward ahead of me, too–
And I see that Todd’s reached Ben–
See it like I’m right there–
Feel it like I’m right there because Todd’s own Noise has opened, as he’s got farther away from the Mayor and closer to Ben, his own Noise is opening as wide as it used to be, opening with astonishment and joy and so much love you can hardly bear to look at it and those feelings are surging back along the crowd like a wave and the crowd is staggering under it, staggering under the feeling that Todd’s transmitting to them–
Transmitting it just like the Mayor can–
[TODD]
I can’t even say nothing, I just can’t, there ain’t no words for it as I’m running to him, running right past 1017, and Ben’s coming down off his battlemore and his Noise is rising to greet me with everything I know about him, everything since I was a baby, everything that means he’s really Ben–
And he ain’t quite saying it in words–
And he’s opening up his arms and I’m throwing myself into ’em and I’m hitting him so hard we fall back against the beast he was riding and–
How big you’ve gotten, he says–
“Ben!” I say, gasping the words, “Aw, Jesus, Ben–”
You’re as tall as me, he says. Big as a man.
And I’m barely noticing that he says it a bit strange cuz I’m just holding him tight and my eyes are leaking water and I can barely speak as I feel him here, right here, right here in the flesh, alive and alive and alive–
“How?” I finally say, pulling back a little but still holding onto him and I can’t say no more but he knows what I mean–
The Spackle found me, he says. Davy Prentiss shot me–
“I know,” I say and my chest gets heavier, my chest weighing down and my Noise feeling heavier, too, heavy like it ain’t felt in a good long while, and Ben can see it and he says–
Show me.
And I do, right there before I can even get any proper words out, I show him the whole terrible story of what happened after we left him and I’d swear he was helping me do it, helping me show him the death of Aaron, the wounding of Viola, our separation, the attacks by the Answer, the banding of the Spackle, the banding of the women, the deaths of the Spackle, and I look over to 1017 still up on his battlemore and I show Ben all about that, too, and everything that followed, Davy Prentiss coming round to being human and then dying at the Mayor’s hand and the war and more deaths–
It’s all right, Todd, he says. It’s all over. The war is over.
And I can tell–
I can tell he forgives me.
He forgives me for all of it, tells me I don’t even need to be forgiven, tells me I did the best I could, that I made mistakes but that’s what makes me human and that it’s not the mistakes I made but how I responded to ’em and I can feel it from him, feel it from his Noise, telling me how I can stop now, how everything’s gonna be all right–
And I realize he ain’t telling me with words. He’s sending it right into the middle of my head, actually, no, he ain’t, he’s surrounding me with it, letting me sit in the middle of it, knowing it to be true, the forgiveness, the – and here’s a word I don’t even know but suddenly do–absolushun, absolushun from him if I want it, absolushun for everything–
“Ben?” I say, feeling puzzled, feeling more than puzzled. “What’s going on? Yer Noise–”
There’s a lot we need to talk about, he says, again not with his mouth, and I start to feel weird about it but the warmth of it is all round me, the Ben of it’s all there, and my heart just breaks open again and I smile back at the smile he’s giving me–
“Todd?” I hear behind us.
We turn to look.
The Mayor stands at the edge of the crowd, watching us.
{VIOLA}
“Todd?” I hear the Mayor say as I stop right beside him–
Because it is Ben, it is, I don’t know how, but it really is him–
And he and Todd turn to look, a dazed cloud of happy Noise swirling round them, expanding over everything, including the Spackle still up on the battlemore next to them and I move toward Ben, my own heart surging–
But I glance at the Mayor’s face as I run past–
And I see pain there, just for a second, fleeting across his gel-shiny features, and then it’s gone, replaced with the face we know so well, the face of the Mayor, bemused and in charge–
“Ben!” I call and he opens an arm to receive me. Todd steps back but the feelings from Ben are so good, so strong that after a second Todd embraces both of us together and I feel so happy about it I start to cry.
“Mr Moore,” the Mayor calls from a distance away. “Reports of your death seem to have been exaggerated.”
As have reports of yours, Ben says, but in the strangest way, not using his mouth, using his Noise more directly than I’ve ever heard–
“This is most unexpected,” the Mayor says, glancing at Todd, “but joyful of course. Very joyful indeed.”
But I don’t see much joy behind the smile he’s giving.
Todd doesn’t seem to notice, though. “What’s with yer Noise?” he says to Ben. “Why are you talking like that?”
“I believe I have an idea,” the Mayor says.