An arrow fired directly at me–
Viola! it screams, knocking the words right out of the Mayor’s mouth–
I step back from his embrace, his arms falling away–
I turn–
And there, in the afternoon sunshine, in the square, on the back of a horse not ten metres away–
There he is.
It’s him.
It’s him.
“TODD!” I yell and I’m already running.
He’s standing where he slid off the horse, holding his arm at a bad angle, and I hear Viola! roaring through his Noise but I can also hear the pain in his arm and confusion lacing through everything but my own mind is racing too fast and my heart is pounding too loud for me to hear any of it clearly.
“TODD!” I yell again and I reach him and his Noise opens even farther and wraps around me like a blanket and I’m grabbing him to me, grabbing him to me like I’ll never let him go and he calls out in pain but his other arm is grabbing me back, it’s grabbing me back, it’s grabbing me back–
“I thought you were dead,” he’s saying, his breath on my neck. “I thought you were dead.”
“Todd,” I say and I’m crying and the only thing I can say is his name. “Todd.”
He gasps sharply again and the pain flashes so loud in his Noise I’m almost blinded by it. “Your arm,” I say, pulling back.
“Broken,” he pants, “broken by–”
“Todd?” the Mayor says, right behind us, staring hard into him. “You’re back early.”
“My arm,” Todd says. “The Spackle–”
“The Spackle?” I say.
“That looks bad, Todd,” the Mayor says, talking over us. “We need to get you healed right away.”
“He can come to Mistress Coyle!”
“Viola,” the Mayor says and I hear Todd think “Viola”?, wondering all over how the Mayor speaks to me like this. “Your house of healing is too far for Todd to walk with an injury this bad.”
“I’ll come with you!” I say. “I’m training as an apprentice!”
“Yer what?” Todd says. His pain is wailing like a siren but he’s still looking back and forth between me and the Mayor. “What’s going on? How do you know–”
“I’ll explain everything,” the Mayor says, taking Todd’s free arm, “after we get you healed.” He turns to me. “The invitation is still on for tomorrow. You have a funeral to get to just now.”
“Funeral?” Todd says. “What funeral?”
“Tomorrow,” the Mayor says to me again firmly, pulling Todd away.
“Wait–” I say.
“Viola!” Todd shouts, jerking away from the Mayor’s grasp but the movement shakes his broken arm and he falls to one knee with the pain of it, pain so sharp, so loud and clear in his Noise that soldiers from the army stop to hear it. I jump forward to help but the Mayor holds out a hand to stop me.
“Go,” he says and it’s not a voice that’s asking for discussion. “I’ll help Todd. You go to your funeral and mourn your friend. You’ll see Todd tomorrow night, good as new.”
Viola? Todd’s Noise says again, choking back a weep from pain so heavy now I don’t think he can speak.
“Tomorrow, Todd,” I say loudly, trying to get through his Noise. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Viola! he calls again but the Mayor is already leading him away.
“You promised!” I call after them. “Remember that you promised!”
The Mayor gives me a smile. “Remember you promised, too.”
Did I? I think.
And then I’m watching them go, so fast it’s like it didn’t even happen.
But Todd–
Todd is alive.
I have to bend down close to the ground for a minute and just let it be true.
“And with burdened hearts, we commit you to the earth.”
“Here.” Mistress Coyle takes my hand after the priestess finishes speaking and puts some loose dirt into it. “We sprinkle it over the coffin.”
I stare at the dirt in my hand. “Why?”
“So that she’s been buried by the efforts of all of us.” She directs me to a place with her in the line of healers gathering by the graveside. We pass by the hole one by one, each of us throwing our handful of dry soil onto the wooden box where Maddy now rests. Everyone stands as far away from me as they can.
No one but Mistress Coyle will even speak to me.
They blame me.
I blame me, too.
There are more than fifty women here, healers, apprentices, patients. Soldiers are spread out in a circle around us, more than you’d think necessary for a funeral. Men, including Maddy’s father, are kept separate on the other side of the grave. Maddy’s father’s weeping Noise is the saddest thing I think I’ve ever heard.
And in the middle of everything, I can only feel even more guilty because what I’m mostly thinking about is Todd.
Now that I’m away from it, I can see the confusion in his Noise more clearly, see how it must have looked to find me in the arms of the Mayor, how friendly we must have seemed together.
Even though I can explain it all, I still feel ashamed.
And then he was gone.
I throw my dirt on Maddy’s coffin, then Mistress Coyle takes me by the arm. “We need to talk.”
“He wants to work with me?” Mistress Coyle says, over a cup of tea in my small bedroom.
“He says he admires you.”
Her eyebrows raise. “Does he now?”
“I know,” I say. “I know how it sounds, but maybe if you heard him–”
“Oh, I think I’ve heard enough from our President to last me a good while.”
I lean back on my bed. “But he could have, I don’t know, forced me to tell him about the ships. And he’s not forcing me to do anything.” I look away. “He’s even letting me see my friend tomorrow.”
“Your Todd?”
I nod. Her expression is solid as stone.
“And I suppose that makes you grateful to him, does it?”
“No,” I say, rubbing my face with my hands. “I saw what his army did as they marched. I saw it with my own two eyes.”
There’s a long silence.