AN: Hi there and thanks for checking out 'Sins of the Father.' This story is a spiritual successor to my story 'The Miracle,' which follows Davy's life before the events of the first book, but both stories can be read independently of one another. This story was born of a desire to write a love interest for Davy, as well as explore what life would be like for a trans person in a world full of 'Noise.' This story follows the first and second books in the trilogy and has spoilers for both. Please be aware before reading that this story deals with themes of violence, misogyny, transphobia and discussions of sexual assault.
Sins of the Father
Chapter One:
Our Quiet Town
In spite of the arrival of a strange boy and girl that morning, it had been an exceptionally ordinary day in Farbranch. It was late evening and Lana and her younger sister had just returned home from working the orchards. Lana busied herself with stitching a sundress for her sister while Avery pottered about preparing the evening meal. The two sisters were similar in looks, tall and tawny-haired, though Avery was lean where her sister was curvaceous, and was already the more striking of the two. Avery's Noise hummed gently over the day's events as she peeled vegetables for dinner.
"Did you see their dog?" she asked, throwing a potato into the air and splitting it on the edge of her knife. "He's so cute! He peed up Ivan Farrow's leg earlier, which makes him the best thing to happen to this town in recent memory if you ask me."
Lana laughed from her seat by the window.
"Let's hope he sticks around; maybe he'll bite him next. I'm not so sure about the other two, though. Did you hear the boy humming that song in his Noise? Oh never leave me, oh don't deceive me… he's got it stuck in everyone's heads by noon. Mayor Hildy said he's called Todd."
"And she's called Viola. You've heard what everyone's saying, haven't you? That she's come from space, and the boy has come from Prentisstown. That's why Hildy's called a town meeting."
Lana locked eyes with her sister. Avery had better control over her Noise than anyone she had ever met, having more reason than most to practice, but the word Prentisstown still lingered as though it were a curse.
"You shouldn't listen to gossip."
"It's hard not to when everyone's thinking out loud. It's about time something exciting happened around here. Anything that'd tear you away from your sewing for five minutes would be a welcome change."
"Hush."
"Come on, Lana, I'm only joking-"
"No seriously, Avery, hush."
Lana was peering through the lace curtains, drawn by the sound of horse's hooves. Avery came up beside her, still clutching the knife. She gasped as Lana pulled her down by the collar of her dress as the sound of gunshots filled the air. The two sisters curled up beneath the windowsill, too stunned to act. Avery's Noise, usually so quiet and controlled, flared loud enough to match the screaming outside. Their home was one of the eldest in the town, a run-down shack built from scrap metal by the first settlers more than twenty years ago with only one door and one window. There was no way out of the house other than in full view of the approaching army; and an army it was. There were a dozen men on horses and many more on foot, kicking in doors and setting fire to houses. The arrival of the strange boy and girl must have been the catalyst for the attack. What hell had those two innocents brought with them?
Lana shook some sense into herself and snuffed out the lights before locking the door.
"We should get out there," Avery whimpered after some time, watching the carnage from her position below the window. A stray bullet shattered the glass and smoke from the burning houses filled the girl's nostrils. "We should fight!"
"With what, Avery?" Lana said, searching the drawers for something which they might use to defend themselves. "They've got rifles, we've got kitchen knives. If we step out there we're as dead."
"They're not killing the women," Avery observed, with a glimmer of hope. Lana was not so naïve. The screaming grew quieter as more and more of their neighbours were slaughtered. Blood drenched the cobbled pavements, glittering black in the light of the moons. The two sisters watched from the window as soldiers dragged women from their houses and looted corpses in the streets. Lana held back a sob as she spotted the body of a little boy beside the orchard gate, face down in the mud. A young man was staring transfixed at the body from atop his horse. He was around Lana's age, lanky and dark-haired.
Further down the street, glowing whiter than the moons, was a single rider atop a huge stallion, wearing a pristine suit. He seemed bored by the carnage around him, scarcely even bothering to look down as his horse picked its feet up over the bodies in the streets. Beside him rode a thick-set man with a frightening smile who looked as though he might be having the greatest day of his life. The man in white stopped alongside the dark-haired boy. Lana recognised in an instant that they were father and son. The boy would have been as handsome as his father were it not for the feathery excuse for a moustache on his top lip. The Noise of the two was nothing alike; the boy's was as dizzying as a kaleidoscope, alive with the sights and sounds of the battle. His father's Noise was a deathly, spectral thing.
"What now, Pa?" the boy asked. "What do we do with the survivors?"
When the man in white spoke, his accent was as sharp as diamond. "The men with any sense will join our army, and step into our New World."
"Nah, but the women, I mean."
The grinning man gave a chuckle, exhaling smoke. His Noise was an ugly thing, red and raw like an open wound.
"There's only one good use for the likes of 'em, lad," he said. "The whores you keep, and you shoot the rest."
"I'll thank you not to set a bad example for my son, Captain Hammar," said the man in white. "The lesser men among us might have needed the promise of ravagement and rampage in order to leave their homes and seek out a better life, but some of us can see the bigger picture."
"Each to their own," the Captain said, smiling as he lit a cigarette.
"What about the kids?" the boy asked his father, unable to keep his eyes off the body of the little boy.
"That's none of your concern. You, David, will ride on ahead and see if you're able to get word from any of the other settlements on where Todd and his new friend might be hiding. I'll meet you in New Prentisstown."
The boy's Noise glowed pink with pride at having been trusted with such a task. Lana sensed a secret relief that he would be leaving the horror and the bloodshed to men more accustomed to the taste of it. He saluted his father and steered his horse along the forked road which lead out of Farbranch.
"Come on," Lana whispered, getting to her feet. Avery lingered a moment, her eyes on the man in white, his face obscured by the lace curtains. She found herself enraptured by his Noise. It was similar to her own, like trying to see the world through heavy rain. She had never met anyone who could hide their Noise the way she was able to, and the thought that she might not be alone both frightened and intrigued her. The man turned his head, and Avery could have sworn that he was looking right at her.
Lana grabbed her sister's hand and pulled her into the bedroom which had once belonged to her brother and his fiancé before they had disappeared. Lana had kept all of their clothes, hopeful that they would one day return. She laid a baggy shirt and a pair of cargo pants out on the bed.
"Put those on," she said to her sister. Avery understood what she was planning right away.
"No way-!"
"You heard what their General said," Lana barked, taking the bobble from her own hair and handing it to her sister. "They'll let any man who surrenders join the army. If they come for us, you have to pretend until you can get away. This is the only way I can keep you safe."
"I'm not joining their army! Besides, what about you?"
Lana said nothing, only insisted that her sister get changed as she pulled on an oversized denim jacket. Reluctantly, Avery pulled changed into her brother's old hunting gear. As she buttoned her shirt, there was a startling bang at the door.
"Open up!" came the voice of Ivan Farrow. It was no surprise to either sister that Ivan had aligned himself with Prentisstown. He was a hot-blooded, mean little man, and not someone they would invite into their home at the best of times.
"Kee your Noise quiet and stay hidden," Lana said. "If they find you, don't put up a fight. You join their army if that's what it takes. You stay alive, do you hear me? You stay alive."
Lana took a deep breath, brandishing a kitchen knife as if she knew how to use it for anything more than skinning a rabbit.
"I love you so much," she said, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.
Ivan had kicked the door almost off its hinges. The gap was wide enough for her to see his crazed smile through. The two had always quietly despised one another; Ivan did not approve of the sort of clothes Lana would make for the women of Farbranch, the short skirts and dresses which the Church disapproved of. He was not a religious man, but he disapproved all the same.
"Usually I'd ask to speak with the man of the house," Farrow quipped.
Lana narrowed her eyes at him. "You'll just have to deal with me."
Ivan grinned. The words Prentiss and brothers in suffering and teach the bitches a lesson were jumping in his Noise like fleas on a mad dog.
"I'm sure I can manage that."
With one final kick the door flew off its hinges. As Ivan made a move towards Lana she slashed at him with the knife, driving him out of the house and leaving a clean gash across his forearm. Though Ivan was shorter than she was, he was wide as an ox and almost as strong; before she could swipe the blade back the other way he had his trunk-like arms gripped around her. He pushed her down to the ground, grabbed her by the back of the neck and smacked her face against the cobble stones. She heard her sister yelling, and tried to raise herself to her feet. As she did so, she found herself looking up to the man in white, doubled in her vision. He seemed a frightening figure, the heat from the fires bending the air around him so that he rippled like some unknown beast below the ocean's waves. Lana pulled herself upwards to find that her sister had ignored her demands, and had instead followed after them and struck Ivan in the collarbone with her own knife.
"Run, Lana!" Avery cried. Lana did not run. Instead she lunged at Farrow, swinging the blade high; he would have been done for, had it not been for the sudden appearance of the grinning man who had been riding beside the general. He pointed his pistol back and forth between the sisters.
"Don't make me have to ask," he said.
Lana and Avery exchanged a glance, and dropped the knives. Lana swayed on her feet; her vision unfocused; had she not been so dazed, she would have recognized the pain as that of a broken nose. Ivan Farrow began to wrestle with her sister, and she felt an unknown pair of arms clutch around her own middle.
"Put her in the Town Hall with the rest of them," the grinning man said.
"And bring that one to me," the man in white said, flicking his wrist in Avery's direction. Lana screamed as she was pulled away from her sister. As they approached the Town Hall, Lana recognised the Noise of the boy holding her; it was Alex Pepperstone, an acne-ridden boy who her sister had dated last summer. She saw in his Noise how he had pledged his allegiance to the army to avoid being exterminated by it. She saw too, as she always did, how much he still cared for her sister.
"Please, Alex," Lana said, struggling beneath his hold. "You don't have to do this. We can fight!"
"No," Alex said, his grip loosening a little. "We can't."
Avery saw clusters of frightened women through the windows of the Town Hall, all kneeling before their captors. Most of the men were strangers but some she recognised; they were Farbranch men, pointing rifles at their wives and sisters in an attempt to save themselves. Alex diverted Lana away from the Town Hall and to the side of a burning barn, where he released her all together.
"You need to run," Alex said, "they've killed Mayor Hildy. The rest of the women will be next."
"I'm not leaving them! I'm not leaving Avery!"
"I'll take care of your sister. Now go, while you still can."
He turned and ran back towards the town. Lana was unsure of what to do. Suddenly screaming began from the Town Hall, which was quickly silenced by dozens of gun shots. Lana stumbled back in fear, vanishing into the dense forest surrounding what had been her home.
~oOo~
Avery stood shakily in the town square, overwhelmed amongst the bodies of her friends and neighbours littering the streets. The gunshots from the Town Hall still echoed in her mind. Avery had stared dumbly at the building as soldiers began to spill out of it, most of them visibly shaken and with their Noise screaming of what they had just done. Avery had seen her ex-boyfriend, Alexander, joining the gathering ranks in the square; they exchanged a look which reassured her that he had found a way to spare Lana from the slaughter in the Town Hall.
Ash swirled all around, drifting in great waves like a macabre snow storm. Ivan Farrow had brought her before the general of the army. The general stared at down at her from atop his horse, his face a stone mask, his Noise a gentle like an ocean wave in comparison to the thunderous racket which rattled around the heads of most men. The smell of smoke was maddening. It seemed to choke her mind as well as her lungs, mingling with the blood running down her throat from her altercation with Farrow. Avery's Noise remained quiet as a pulse, even under such duress.
"Your control over your Noise is exceptional," the man in white said, fascination glittering in his eyes. "What's your name?"
"Avery."
"And how old are you, Avery?"
"Fifteen."
"A man by our own rules," sneered Captain Hammar.
"I'm not a man," Avery scowled. There were murmurs from some of the soldiers, Farbranch men included. The man in white considered Avery for a long moment, then steered his stallion forward into the crowd.
"I'd expected a fight when we rode into this town; a real fight against real men. See what you have allowed yourselves to become, neutered beneath the rule of women. We have taken your wives, your children, and many of your lives. Yet those of you who remain- men who would murder their own mothers and daughters to save their own wretched lives- sneer at this child who has more courage in standing before me than any of you wretched cowards, the only one with the strength to control their Noise. You have no control over your Noise, and therefore no control over yourselves. But those of you who have joined my army tonight will be given the opportunity to prove yourselves real men."
He stopped his horse in front of Avery. She found herself both frightened and flattered by the notice he had taken of her. He gestured for a rifle from a nearby solider and handed it to her.
"You will make a fine addition to our army. Will you pledge yourself to fight for the future of this planet and die for that future if necessary?"
Avery glanced back at Alex, who gave her a firm nod. Knowing she had little choice but to join or die, she took the weapon. This was how she survived to find her sister, however wrong it felt, however strongly she wanted to resist. There was a sudden flicker of Noise which she couldn't hide as she imagined turning the rifle on the man who had given it to her. The general smiled.
"Welcome to the New World, soldier."
His right hand man ordered his soldiers into formation. Avery found that she was stationed at the front beside the man in white. She looked back over her shoulder, unable to spot Alex in the crowd; and so the pair of them vanished, just two more reluctant recruits in the army which had grown as it had conquered.
"All together now, men!" roared Captain Hammar, leading the army in a chant. "The Foot! The Foot! The Foot upon the Neck!"
Avery did not join in. The stock of the rifle felt uncomfortable in her hands. She did not even know how to fire such a weapon.
The man in white smiled down at her. "There are lots of things you'll learn in my company, Avery... and perhaps I'll learn some things from you."
Avery glanced towards the woods, where she knew her sister had escaped to. Soon, Lana, she promised. They would find a way to be together again.
Avery clutched the rifle to her chest and marched on towards her new, uncertain life.