[Todd]

"Wait.. can yer say that again?"

Viola stops readin, and I don't have to open my eyes to know that she's frowning.

"I've already read this part three times, Todd." She says. We're both laying on a blanket in the living room, Viola on her stomach, readin from the journal, while I lay next to her, facin the ceiling. I'm supposed to be listening, but I couldn't help falling in and out of sleep, and am pretty sure I missed the last three pages.

"I kno." I say, pretendin that I hadn't dosed off. "I just wanna make sure I heard you right."

When Viola doesn't respond I turn my head to look at her, and it's obvious that she don't believe me.

"You would have heard me if you weren't ruddy falling asleep." She says.

I blink, knowing there ain't no point in arguing with her. "I promise I'm payin attention. Mostly."

Viola puts the book down before turning onto her side, resting her head in her hand to look at me. "Why don't you just go to sleep? We can always read this later."

"We can't take a break if we're gonna get thru the whole thing." I tell her, rubbing my eyes.

"But what would be the point if you can't stay awake?" She says. "I'm not gonna read this whole thing over again."

"Give it to me, then." I say, reaching for the book. "If I read it out loud it'll help me stay awake."

Viola squints her eyes but hands me the book, anyways. "If so say so."

I turn over onto my stomach, laying there next to her, and open up the journal. "Uhh, wut page were we on?"

Viola gives me a look as if she was saying, "told you so."

"We're still on the part where your father shows up to the spackle community."

"Alright." I start, getting ready to read from the page. "Pay attention now, Viola." I tease her, and she swats my shoulder.

"You're one to talk! Go on, Todd."

I laugh before startin to read. "It didn't take long 'for me to recognize him, when my boy's father came runnin from the trees that evenin." I say, readin my ma's words. "And ain't nothin changed about him, even after all that time a part. It was shocking that he even recognized me. I didn't think the man even remembered my name, but he came runnin up to me anyways, his brown eyes big, his arms opened wide, a smile on his face. I didn't kno if I shud scream or run or both. Instead, I just stood there. Shocked as ever, until he wrapped his arms tight around me, spun me around in a circle. It took everything in me not to smile."

Viola's imagination is showin in her Noise as I read, and when I turn my head to look at her, she's got tears in her eyes. "Are yer cryin?" I say, half askin, half laughin.

She sniffles before givin me a warning look. "It's sweet!"

I furrow my eyebrows at her. "She just said that she didn't kno whether to run or scream. How is that sweet?"

"It's sweet because eventually she was happy to see him." Viola says, and I still don't really get it, but nod my head as if I do.

"I didn't kno you were so sappy, Viola." I laughed.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but her expression hadn't changed. "Just keep ruddy reading."

"Sure." I say. "I asked him wut he was doing here, and he said that he'd run away because the war had gotten worse. Women were bein killed left and right, men were bein forced into Mayor Prentiss's army, the Spackle race had nearly been wiped out. His plan was to take his mother and sister, who'd been hidin in their basement, as far from Prentisstown as he cud get em. But the Mayor had caught on to what they were doin, shot em both dead in the middle of the woods…"

Now my eyes were filling with tears, the words getting stuck in my throat.

"You want me to read this part?" Viola asks after noticing. I shake my head.

"No, it's okay." I say, then get ready to keep readin, despite the emotions it's bringing up. "He knew that goin back wud do no good, and even tho it was the hardest decision he'd ever made, he ran away from them, ran until he couldn't run any longer. That's when he found me."

"I introduced him to the Spackle, who were hesitant at first, but they cud tell that his intentions were alright thru their Noise, knew that he cud be trusted. We stayed with them like that for a few months, learnin how to heal and and take care of the gardens and learned all about the spackle community. But never, not one time, did I mention my son, our son, to him-"

It shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did, but I stop readin anyways. Even Viola's perfect imaginations of the situation come to a halt.

"Todd-"

"He didn't even kno about me?"

"She might have an explanation as to why later on."

But my Noise was startin to rile up anyways, for reasons that I couldn't quite understand. Ben and Cillian were my fathers and I never wanted, nor needed, nobody else. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious about my real father. Where had he gone? Why hadn't he stuck around? I never bothered tryin to supply the answers myself –

But him not knowin about me had never crossed my mind.

"Why don't I read the rest?" Viola suggests.

"Sure." I tell her.

She clears her throat as I hand over the journal, then starts to read. "I never told him 'bout his son fer Todd's protection. What if he'd managed to go back for him? Tried to make us a real family? His father had always talked about havin one, whenever we got older. But how cud we do that in a world that hated women? Wanted us dead? Todd was best off without us. Without me. That was my plan from the beginning, even tho it was the hardest thing I've ever done. We cud never be a real family. But one day, when Todd grew to be old enough, he cud have one of his own-"

Viola looks over at me, her eyes askin if it's okay for her to keep readin. I nod my head yes, but there's no point in lyin to her - she can ruddy see all of the sadness and anger and hurt in my Noise. So she closes the book and looks at me like she always does, when she knows that something is wrong.

"She did it to protect you, Todd." She says. "It's not like she ran away because she didn't love you."

"She could've taken me with her." I look to the ground, tryin to hide my watery eyes from Viola. "It was safe in the Spackle community. They trusted her."

"But she didn't kno it wud be." Viola is still tryin to tell me. "And imagine if your father went back for you. The mayor would have killed you both." There's a pause for a moment before she continues her speech. "She found a way to protect you, and sacrificed everything to do that."

Viola has a point, and I can't argue her on it. Without my ma havin made that decision, I would've never had Ben or Cillian. Would've never met Viola. Would've never changed this ruddy planet to what it is, now.

"But you still have the right to be upset." Viola says, readin my Noise. "Anyone would be, in this situation."

Viola is thinkin that maybe we should stop readin. I don't even have to read her Noise, can tell by the way she's lookin at me, with her soft eyes. But I shake my head no to her unasked question. "We gotta keep readin."

"Not if it's going to upset you-"

"We can at least get to the part about their Noise." I say, a compromise. "That way yer get yer answers, too. This ain't about me, remember?"

Viola huffs out a sigh before noddin, then gets back to readin. "I still thought about my boy every single day. He had to of been four or five by now - wut kinds of things did he like to do? Wut made him laugh? Wut made him cry? I started to feel so guilty, cuz those are the things a mother is supposed to kno. But wut made it even worse was that his father and I, after spendin so many years together in that Spackle community, were fallin for each other all over again."

"I never told his father I was pregnant because I knew we'd never be a proper family. But now, seein how well we were doin in the Spackle community, I started to think, shud I have told him about his son? Shud we of tried to escape together? At the time I was too young to make a decision like that. But now, seein that we were getting closer and closer, it didn't feel right that Todd wasn't here with us. So, one night, I decided, that at the very least, I was gonna tell him about his son."

Viola took a deep breath. At first I thought she just needed a little break, but I cud tell that she was just nervous, thru her Noise. I didn't get a chance to ask her about it before she started readin again, "We were sitting in front of the fire, after everyone had already gone to sleep, when I just came right out and told him everything. He wasn't the sort of man to get really angry, but his Noise was outraged. He called me every name that he cud think of; selfish, unfair, cruel. So then I got angry, throwin whatever else I cud at him. It wasn't much of a conversation, just two people screaming over one another, until somethin crazy happened."

Viola stopped readin out loud. Her eyes were gettin ahead of her words, dartin across the page, tryin to consume as much as the story as possible. I try to read over her shoulder, until she finally gasps.

"Wut?" I ask her.

"They created an explosion with their Noise, too." She tells me. "Their arguing is what caused it."

I look over her shoulder to read the words myself, then furrow my eyebrows. "How come that don't happen between other couples, tho?"

"I mean, men and women were separated for such a long time, so there really weren't any couples." She says.

"But wut about Hildy and Tam? And Jane and Wilf? Those girls don't got Noise. Or at least I don't think they do."

Viola bit her lip, thinkin. "I don't know. I'll just keep reading, maybe your mom explains it all."

I nod, just barely, before she gets back to readin. "Neither one of us knew wut to do – not only had we blown half of the trees down, but all of my thoughts, all of my emotions, were just out there for him to see and hear. I wuz hysterical – if the explosion hadn't woken everyone up, my screamin shure did. That's when the eldest of our community came out, damn near dragged me up the hill, and explained to us wut was goin on."

"She said that the connection we had, how much we loved each other, was the reason behind our shared Noise. It wasn't something she'd ever seen or heard of before, but insisted that Noise was a powerful thing. If we loved the land, as well as each other enough, this was bound to happen. We were connected to the Land. We were connected to each other."

"So, maybe that's what it is." I say before Viola can go on. "You and me. We care about New World. We care about each other."

"It's got us connected." Viola finishes. Now, she's the one that's havin trouble with keepin her Noise calm.

"Let me finish readin." I say. She doesn't argue, just hands the book over.

"The Spackle told us that it be best if we stay away from each other." I read, instantly rememberin the time when me and Viola were told to stay away from each other, too. "She said that our Noise was dangerous, that if we had the power to cause a tiny explosion, we could do even more damage to the community. But both of us knew that couldn't happen – especially now that he knew about our boy. The Spackle sent us away, made us stay on opposite sides of the community, but we spoke to each other thru our Noise, without anyone else knowin. He wanted us to use our Noise to start a rebellion against the mayor, to get our son back. I didn't think it was the best idea – wut if we got hurt? Wut if other people got hurt? But he insisted that this was the right thing, said it like we were fated to do this. And no matter how much I didn't want to – I couldn't argue. I had to do this, for my son."

Viola gasps, and I stop readin. "So, they did the same thing as us. They tried to use Noise to start their own war."

"I guess so." I say, thinkin of how crazy it is that I followed in my ma and pa's footsteps without even knowin it. I gotta flip thru a couple blank pages before findin the next journal entry, which is only about a paragraph long. "Looks like this is the last one." I say, then read it.

"Today marks three months since the explosion. There's been talk throughout the community that the mayor and his army are hunting spackle, so for the past couple of weeks, my boy's father and I have lived away from the community to practice. We practice and practice and practice – and so far, control of our Noise has gotten better. So now, we watch and wait. When they finally do show up, we will attack with our Noise. Hopefully, if we take him down, we'll unite with our boy again, and he'll have this journal so that he kno's wut happened, kno's it better than I cud ever explain it-"

I stop readin. "There isn't anything left." I say to Viola, who looks over my shoulder to see for herself. "It stops right there."

Viola places a comforting hand on my back, cuz she and I both kno the reason my ma never got to finish the story –

She didn't make it.

Tears begin to fall onto my cheeks, and I wipe them away embarrassingly. Why did this surprise me, all of a sudden? I knew my ma wasn't alive anymore, I'd always known that. But readin about it, seein her words just stop, right there on the page – it made it feel so much more real.

Viola takes the journal from me, closes it up. "Are you okay?"

I nod, smile at her thru blurry eyes. "I'm fine."

"I wouldn't have made you read it if I'd known." She says, soundin guilty. I place my hand on top of hers.

"I wanted to kno. I needed to kno." I say. Viola don't say nothin else, but her Noise is askin a lot of questions. "Wut are yer thinkin?" I finally say.

"I just… I don't understand." She says. "You and I were successful with our Noise. We took out an entire army. If your parent's Noise was just as powerful, I don't see how they couldn't have won, either."

"Maybe they never learned how to use it the right way." I reason. "They didn't get much practice."

"They certainly got more than you and I." She says, then shakes her head. "I don't know.. something about this just doesn't seem right to me."

Viola gets to thinkin, which means her Noise is swirling around with all these crazy thoughts, and even tho I told her I was fine, I still don't feel like goin thru conspiracy theories with my ma and pa's death on my mind.

I interrupt her thinkin before it gets out of hand. "Viola. Yer overthinkin it."

"Am I?" She says, and I realize it wuz the wrong thing to say, cuz now she's gettin up to pace across the room. I sigh before rollin onto my back, watchin her from upside down. "Because I think it's obvious that the elder Spackle is keeping something from us."

"How so?" I ask.

Viola don't answer right away – she wants to make sure that wut she says next is correct. Finally, she stops in place, looks at me. "When we met with the older spackle, she told us that your mom's Noise is what killed her. When she was trying to fight off the mayor's army."

I nod in agreement, but that ain't enough for Viola, who's waitin for a real response. "Yer right. That's wut she said."

"But." Viola says, pacin again. "Your parents fled the spackle community. So.. how would the elder spackle have known their cause of death?"

It's a gud question, one that I don't have an answer to. "Maybe she followed them out there?"

"That's possible." Viola credits me. "But for what?"

Again, somethin I can't answer. "Maybe… they forgot somethin."

I'm not sure wut made me joke like that – probably from all the emotions runnin rampant in my Noise. I laugh a little, but Viola only tilts her head. "Seriously, Todd. I feel like maybe the elder spackle was afraid of their Noise, intimidated by it. I feel like she-"

Killed them. I'm already readin it in her Noise, and don't want to hear it said out loud.

And not cuz of wut it meant for my parents.

But wut it cud mean for us.

"Viola." I say, my voice unsteady. "Yer getting ahead of yerself. The Spackle were harmless back then-"

"Until people started threatening them." She says. "And that's exactly what your parents did. Imagine if all couples were able to use their Noise like they did, like we do. We'd be even more powerful than the mayor and Eric combined, and then there would be nothing left of their species."

"Viola." I say with a sigh, then close my eyes, tryin to stay patient. "Yer can't say that to me. Yer can't say that someone else is tryin to kill us. Not after everything we just went thru."

"But what if she is?" Viola says. She sits down beside me, takes my hand, pleadin for me to understand. Her Noise is guilty for bringin up our greatest fear, but also urgent, wantin to make sure it don't happen again. "I don't want to think about it either, Todd, but if we aren't safe here-"

"We are safe here." I say to her, with my eyes just as much as my words. "And we ain't leavin. All of our friends and family are here, and if anyone deserves to say, it's us. We ruddy fought for this place. My ma and pa gave up everythin so we cud have this chance. And even if she is out to get us – I'm not lettin anything happen to yer, Viola."

"But she won't see it that way, and you know it." Viola says to me. Now, it's her turn to start tearin up.

"Most of the spackle are able to co-exist with us, but the elder spackle – she sees this Land as theirs. With us being connected to it, having powerful Noise like we do – we're taking away from them what wasn't ours to begin with."

"Well, they can share." I say now. "None of us asked to be here, and we're all just tryin to make the best with what we can."

Viola huffs out a sigh before laying beside me again, still holdin onto my hand real tight. "I know you want to believe that everything is perfect now. But, it doesn't always work that way-"

"It's got to." I say, squeezing her hand. "I didn't promise yer anything other than that, Viola. So stop thinkin that we're gonna have to leave-"

"I'm not thinking that, Todd."

"It's written all over yer Noise, Viola."

She looks down at our interlocked fingers, runs her thumb across my knuckles. "It was just a random thought. It would be better than having to separate."

"No one is makin us separate." I say, but she don't look convinced. Viola had a habit of doin that, of letting her thoughts spiral before she had a reason to. I felt my heart swell against my chest, seein how fragile and scared she looked, somethin I hadn't seen in a long time.

"Hey, Viola." I say, sittin up. "We got the whole day to ourselves. Wanna do something, just the two of us? We cud walk on the beach, skip rocks in the water. Just to clear our minds."

She kno's I'm only sayin it to get out to this conversation, but agrees, anyway. "Sure." Then, she gives me a small smile. "But you can't cheat with your Noise this time. You know I always throw further than you."

I laugh before standin, pullin Viola up with me. "I won't use my Noise, if yer can't handle bein a sore loser." I go to kiss her on the cheek, but she moves away.

"Really? I'm the sore loser?" she tells me. "Okay. We'll see about that."

I laugh just as she goes to grab her coat and boots, and it's right when I'm watchin her leave, a small bounce in her step, that I swear to myself that Viola won't lose her home. After everything that girl has been thru – leavin her scout ship, losin her parents, fightin for a place that she ain't even a part of – there is no way I cud watch her let it all go. I gotta surpress my Noise when she comes back to hand me my own coat and boots, but that doesn't change the plan I've already made on my own.

I had to talk to the elder Spackle.

I had to convince her that me, and more importantly, Viola –

Deserve to live in this world.

Author's Note: This chapter would not have happened without Garrett02's encouragement…thanks so much, my friend! I've been holed up in my bedroom reading so many novels to combat my writers block, but I'm really happy that I finally cranked this one out. Sometimes I feel like this story has gotten a little confusing, but honestly, who's judging? Happy reading, friends!