3
“What are you doing?” Tara screams, stumbling to a stop. “You’ve got to run!”
“Tara?” Margery Wingard says. “Where have you been?”
“There’s a giant . . . thing tearing through the city! It’s killing people.”
Burly frowns. “More of that god nonsense.”
This makes me furious, because I realize, all at once and too late, that Burly is the liar Pop always said he was. Because of course Burly knows, and like he said he would, he’s pretending not to know for the benefit of a crowd.
But this crowd has guns. And they’re pointed at the Land.
I look at the Land’s faces. I recognize most of them.
I’ve been here enough to know the lady who sells fruit, the old man who sells chemicals, the guy with the two older kids who sells furs and blankets.
They’re all watching this conversation go back and forth, their Noise racing from one to another, analyzing the situation, but there’s plenty of fear there, too.
“Come off it, Burly!” Tara yells. “It takes kids! It takes kids our age and younger and it kills everyone else. Where’s Taper?”
“I’m here,” Taper says, off to the side, holding a rifle. Because of course he is.
“Stop this scaremongering!” Burly shouts. “Everyone knows the Spackle are responsible. First the bacteria they infected us with and now they’ve taken that little girl.”
My mouth is actually gaping with rage, rage at what he’s saying, rage that I can’t contradict him.
“Are you completely blind?” Tara screams. “People are dying! You know they’re dying! And because you don’t know why, you’re blaming the Spackle!”
“And what do you know about it, Tara?” her mother says, still pointing her rifle. “All this trouble started with the Spackle. All the trouble we’ve ever had on this planet started with them.”
I want to say how we’ve given them plenty of trouble, how we killed them and enslaved them, how there are so many more of them than us and despite everything we’ve done to them, they still allow us a place to live because they seem to know we’ve got nowhere else to go.
Yet here we are again, acting like they’re the ones on our land, like they’re the ones who invaded us, like they’re the ones responsible for all the stupid mistakes we’ve made.
But I have no voice.
I have no stupid voice.
“Look,” Tara says, “I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m telling you, there’s a burning, screaming god outside and it is cutting through the town and it is killing people.”
“Lies,” Burly says calmly, dismissing Tara as easily as that. “Lies to distract from the real problem.”
And I’m thinking, where is my mother?
But I’m also thinking, what would she do here?
Because there’s no way she’d just let this happen.
Burly turns back to the Land. “I’ll ask you again. Where is the girl?”
“They don’t have her!” Tara yells.
“Get your daughter under control, Margery,” Burly says.
“Tara, you come here right now,” Margery Wingard says.
But Tara’s shaking her head. “You’ve all gone crazy. Taper?” She looks at her brother. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Taper just shifts on his feet, holding his gun on the Land.
“You stay right where you are, son,” Margery Wingard says.
“I’m telling you, Taper,” Tara says. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“You hush your mouth!” Burly says, snapping now.
“You know Mom is full of shit,” Tara says.
“Hey!” Margery Wingard says, her mouth all ugly.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I love you, but your head is so packed with hate you’re not thinking straight. You made the bacteria you’re blaming the Spackle for!”
She what?
But of course. Of course she did. It makes perfect sense. It’s just a variation on what she did all those years ago. Of course.
“Tara!” Margery Wingard shouts.
“Oh, please, who else? And now you’re putting your own children in danger because you’ve chosen to blind yourself.” She turns back to her brother. “Taper, come with me. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“And go where?” Taper says.
“Nowhere,” Burly says. “You’re not going anywhere.”
And he turns the rifle on me and Tara.