He puts a hand on Angharrad, rubbing her flank gently. She shifts a little but lets him.

So I let him, too.

“I think you’re the one the settlers are going to want to talk to, Todd,” he says. “Forget me, forget Mistress Coyle, it’s you who they’re going to see as the leader here.”

“Yeah, well,” I say. “Let’s wait till we get peace first before we start handing out credit, okay?”

He breathes out a cloud of cold air thru his nose. “I want to give you something, Todd.”

“I don’t want nothing from you,” I say.

But he’s already holding out a piece of paper in his hand.

“Take it,” he says.

I wait for a second but then I take it. It’s got a line of words written across it, dense and black and unknowable.

“Read it,” he says.

I suddenly get real mad. “You looking to get hit?”

“Please,” he says and it sounds so gentle and genuine that, even angry, I actually drop my glance back down to the paper. It’s still just words, written in what I think is the Mayor’s hand, a dark thicket in a line, like a horizon you can’t get nowhere near.

“Look at the words,” he says. “Tell me what they say.”

The paper flickers in the firelight. None of the words is too long and I reckernize at least two of ’em as my name–

Even a dummy like me knows that much–

And the first word is–

My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.

I blink.

That’s what it says, right across the page, every word burning clear like the sun.

My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.

I look back up. The Mayor’s face is all hard concentrayshun, looking deep into me, no buzz of control, just a faint hum.

(that same hum, that one I hear when I think I am the Circle–)

“What does it say?” he asks.

I look down–

And I read it–

I read it out loud.

“My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.”

He lets out a long breath and the hum dies away. “And now?”

I look at the words again. They’re still on the page but they’re slipping from me, slipping from their meanings–

But not all the way.

My name is Todd Hewitt and I am a man of New Prentisstown.

That’s what it says.

That’s what it still says.

“My name is Todd Hewitt,” I read, saying it more slowly cuz I’m still trying to see it, “and I am a man of New Prentisstown.”

“That you certainly are,” says the Mayor.

I look up to him. “That ain’t real reading, tho. That’s just you putting words in my head.”

“No,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about how the Spackle learn, how they must pass on information. They have no written language, but if they’re connected to each other at all times, they don’t need it. They just exchange their knowledge directly. They carry who they are and what they know in their Noise and share it in a single voice of themselves. Maybe even a single voice of this world.”

I look up at that. A single voice. The Spackle who came to the square. The one voice that seemed to be the whole world talking. Talking to me.

“I didn’t give you words, Todd,” the Mayor says. “I gave you my knowledge of reading, and you were able to take it from me, in the same way I shared my knowledge of how to stay silent. I think that was the opening of a larger connection than even I imagined, a connection like the Spackle have. It’s a blunt and inelegant process right now, but it could be refined. Just think of what we could do if we mastered it, Todd, how much knowledge we could share, and how easily.”

I look at the paper again. “My name is Todd Hewitt,” I read quietly, still seeing most of the words.

“If you let me,” he says, his voice open and honest-sounding, “I believe I could give you enough knowledge to have you reading your mother’s journal by the time the settlers arrive.”

I think about that. My ma’s book. Still cut thru with Aaron’s knife stab, still hidden away, read only once in the voice of Viola . . .

I don’t trust him, not never, he ain’t redeemable–

But I’m seeing him a bit different, seeing him as a man, not a monster.

Cuz if we are connected somehow, connected in a single voice–

(that hum–)

Maybe it’s a two-way thing.

Maybe he’s showing me how to do stuff–

And maybe I’m making him better in return.

We hear a distant booming, the familiar one of the scout ship taking to the air. In the eastern sky, the ship and the sun are both starting their rise.

“We’ll have to return to this discussion, Todd,” the Mayor says. “It’s time to go make peace.”

{VIOLA}

“A big day, my girl,” Mistress Coyle says to me where we’re all gathered in the healing room as Simone flies towards the town. “For you and for all of us.”

“I know how big it is,” I say quietly. Bradley’s watching the screens to monitor our progress. Lee’s stayed back on the hilltop to listen out for how things go with Ivan throughout the day.

I hear Mistress Coyle laugh to herself. “What?” I ask.

“Oh,” she says, “just the irony that I’m putting all my hopes into the girl who hates me most of all.”

“I don’t hate you,” I say, realizing that, despite all that’s happened, it’s true.

“Maybe not, my girl,” she says, “but you certainly don’t trust me.”

I don’t say anything to that.

“Make a peace, Viola,” she says, more seriously. “Make a good peace. Make it so well everyone knows it was you who did it, and not that man. I know you don’t want a world where I’m in charge, but we can’t let him be in charge of it either.” She looks over at me. “That has to be the goal, no matter what.”

I feel the nerves in my stomach. “I’ll do what I can,” I say.

She shakes her head, slowly. “You’re lucky, you know. So young. So many chances ahead of you. You could turn out to be a better version of me. A version of me who’s never forced to be so ruthless.”

I don’t know what to say to that. “Mistress Coyle–”

“Don’t worry, my girl,” she says, standing as the ship comes in for a landing. “You don’t have to be my friend.” Her eyes get a little fire in them. “You just have to be his enemy.”

And we feel the small bump of the landing.

It’s time.

I get myself up out of bed and to the bay doors. The first thing I see when they open onto the square is Todd at the front of a sea of soldiers, standing there with Angharrad on one side and Acorn and Wilf on the other.

In the midst of the ROAR of the soldiers watching us and the Mayor watching us, too, his uniform pressed and sharp and that look on his face you want to slap off, and the probes in the air broadcasting everything back to a projection on the hilltop for the crowds there to watch, and with everyone gathering behind me on the ramp, all of us ready to start this huge, huge thing–

In the midst of all this, Todd sees me and he says, “Viola.”

And it’s only then I really feel of the weight of everything we’re about to do.

I walk down the bay door, the eyes of the human world on us, the Spackle world, too for all I know, and I brush past the Mayor’s outstretched hand and let him give his greetings to everyone else.

I go straight to Todd between the horses.

“Hey,” he says, that crooked smile on his face. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as anyone could be,” I say.

The horses chat to each other over us, Boy colt, girl colt, lead, follow, with all the warmth that one herd animal feels for another member of its herd, two happy walls boxing us in for a moment against the crowd.

“Viola Eade,” Todd says. “Peacemaker.”

I give a nervous laugh. “I’m so scared I can barely breathe.”

He’s a little shy of me, I think, after the last time we talked, but he takes my hand. Just that. “You’ll know what to do,” he says.

“How can you be so sure?” I say.

“Cuz you always have. When it’s counted, you’ve always done just the right thing.”