Chapter Ten:

God's Own Roof

"Pa!" Davy yelled, as though he might somehow be heard from across the town. He ran down the steps and to the stables, calling for his horse as he went. His Noise kept on screaming Pa Todd Pa Pa oh God Pa please please be alright.

Lana shouted after him, clattering down the stairs and reaching his side as he swung himself atop his horse. Deadfall was jittery from the explosion, his hooves hopping up and down as though the ground was hot.

Davy looked at Lana, his expression hot and angry. Though he never said it, she heard what he was thinking loud enough.

Did she have something to do with this? Would she do this to me?

"No," Lana said hopelessly, reaching out to him, "no, Davy, I-"

"Wait here," he barked.

"But I'm supposed to meet my dad and Avery at the water tower!"

"You can't go running around out there. I'll take you to the tower when I get back. Just stay put."

And with that, he left her. Davy clipped his heels into Deadfall's sides, spurring the horse forwards and down the road towards the Cathedral. Lana watched his hooves strike spark against the cobbles. For a minute Lana was lost for what to do. This disaster for the President might be a blessing for her family; the carnage was the perfect cover for them to escape the town. But there would be no escape if she wasn't at the water tower to meet them. Lana pulled her brother's jacket around herself and darted out into the night towards the carnage.

The square outside of the Cathedral was in chaos. Soldiers ran back and forth, trying and failing to calm the citizens of New Prentisstown. Lana kept to the outskirts, running towards the bunkers where she hoped her father might be. As she got nearer to the soldier's quarters she heard a cry from one of the President's men, and in an instant she was being manhandled by one of the soldiers. Another soldier came hobbling towards them with a rifle in his hands. It was Ivan Farrow, with a newly acquired limp and a bandage around his leg. Lana glared at him as though he were the devil.

"What the hell are you doing running about?" Ivan growled, keeping the rifle aimed at her. "Curfew for women was two hours ago."

"I was with Davy Prentiss," Lana said, struggling. "I need to talk to Captain Collins."

"You're in no position to be dishing out orders," Farrow said.

"Neither are you by the looks of it, Private."

There was a jittery flash in Ivan's Noise. He dismissed the soldier handling Lana. She kept her eyes on the nose of the gun, certain that he would happily just shoot her and be done with it, and make up some excuse about catching her in the act of fleeing the town.

"Move," Farrow said, and began leading her back towards the Cathedral. Ivan cocked the gun at her. He'd have no chance of keeping up with her if she made a run for it, that much Lana knew, but she'd seen from the assault on Farbranch that he was a good shot, when he'd gunned down his friends and neighbours. With the gun trained on her there was little she could do but advance down the cobbled street, moving slowly enough that he could keep up.

"President isn't going to let you off so easily this time."

"Me? You think I planted the bomb?!"

Of course he does, Lana thought to herself, dread setting in. She'd already been discovered at the last bomb site, and her sister had been pinned as it's aggressor. She was the only woman who'd been allowed into the Cathedral since Prentiss had declared it his Presidential Palace, and now she'd been caught running around the town just minutes after an attempt on the President's life. For once, Ivan Farrow was being smart; unfortunately for Lana, he was still wrong.

"You should take me to Captain Collins," Lana said. "He's your superior. I told you, I was with Davy. You're making a mistake, Ivan… how many more of those can you afford to make?"

Lana saw in Ivan's Noise how he had come across his injury; Prentiss had shot him in the leg, for seemingly no good reason. She saw in his Noise that he was hoping that the blast had been enough to kill the President, and that maybe there would be an opening for someone else to take over.

"Well let's go and ask Davy himself, shall we?" Ivan said, his Noise still eating at the air around him, raging with thoughts of the President. The town square was a riot of Noise and panic. The air was thick with a fine dust which itched at Lana's lungs. She felt a tugging at her heart as they passed by a young soldier weeping over the body of a man who had been killed in the blast. She was the only woman in the square, the rest being imprisoned under the increasingly restrictive curfew.

The doors of the Cathedral had been blasted clean away, the huge oak panels lying at the bottom of what was left of the stone steps. Farrow led Lana towards the rubble just as Captain Hammar was leaving the building, dragging with him a girl who Lana immediately recognised. It was Viola Eade, whose impulsiveness had led to the death of Maddy Poole. She was screaming in pain, her ankles twisted and broken.

Next came another of the Mayor's men, dragging with him the boy Lana knew to be Davy's friend. He was unconscious. The soldier dragged him down the steps as though he were an enormous slug. Another soldier brought two horses and Todd was heaved atop one while Hammar struggled to get the girl atop the other.

"Todd!" Viola was shouting, trying to twist beneath Hammar's hold, "Todd!"

Her screams of pain rang through Lana like a hammer on an anvil. She remembered how she had felt towards the girl on the night she had learned of Maddy's death, and how she had found it almost impossible to feel any empathy for her. She did not feel that way now. Now all of her anger was directed at its rightful source. She remembered what Hammar had done to her brother, and to Cinda, and to Maddy, and found herself marching towards the man with no thought of Farrow's rifle pointed at her back.

"Leave her alone!" she shouted, pulling at the back of the Captain's shirt. He turned on her in an instant, striking her face with a closed fist and knocking her back against the crumbled steps. He grinned, recognising her from the banding. He thought about kicking her, and the picture was so clear in his Noise that Lana flinched in anticipation of the blow.

"Stay down, or I'll do the other eye to match."

Lana locked eyes with the girl on the horse, neither needing Noise to understanding the other. Hammar took the reigns of the horse and began leading her towards the Office of the Ask. Ivan pulled Lana to her feet.

"If you've got that much of a death wish you might as well have blown the Cathedral up while you were still inside."

"Private Farrow!" called a voice from inside the ruins, and Lana knew that it was the President. Ivan could do nothing to hide the fact that he was overwhelmingly disappointed to hear that Prentiss was alive.

"I can hear your Noise mithering out there. If you've something to say, come in and say it. I suddenly find myself rather busy."

Ivan looked suddenly unsure of whether this had been the right call after all; but dragged Lana inside anyway. She wanted to resist, but he had a rifle, and she had nothing. The inside of the Cathedral looked as though it had been struck by the wrath of God. The golden candlesticks had partially melted in the blast. Miraculously, the huge stained glass window had not been blown out.

Davy and his father stood in the middle of the room. Lana was struck again by how similar they looked, like two photographs taken years apart. The father was silent, but Davy's Noise was raging with concern over the unconscious boy Lana had watched being dragged from the Cathedral, and now over her; in the doorway behind him Lana could see the remains of what was unmistakably a leg. She held back vomit, her head still spinning from Hammar's blow.

"Found the Farbranch girl lingering about outside, sir," Ivan said. "Here's your terrorist."

Prentiss scoffed. "I've already caught my culprits, thank you, Private. I know exactly who is to blame for the destruction of my home, and I do not appreciate you wasting my time. I suggest you hobble out of here while you can still walk."

Farrow saw that the threat was genuine and grabbed Lana's arm to pull her from the room.

"She stays," Prentiss said. "Wait in the foyer until I call you."

Davy's Noise was screaming so loud about Lana that there was no room for anything else. President looked between the two of them, almost but not quite amused. Lana was still transfixed by the disembodied leg.

"Who is that?" she croaked.

Davy's face turned white as ash.

I'm sorry, his Noise said. It was then that she saw a picture of her father in his Noise.

Davy caught her by the shoulders as she tried to push past him into the room. Just beyond the doorway lay the body of Clifford Collins. He was intact, lending no clue to who the dismembered leg had belonged to, though his clothes and skin were blackened from the blast. His uniform jacket was wet with blood, and he had been shot three times. Lana felt her legs give way beneath her. Had Davy not been holding her, it would have been impossible to stand.

"Strange company you keep, son," the President said. "I can't imagine it's easy maintaining a friendship with a woman you've mutilated. I thought you had quite recovered from your 'damzel in distress' phase."

Davy's pallid complexion turned beetroot. His Noise flickered with memories of the banding, and of all the time he had spent with Larina over the past months, the truth becoming, as it so often does, swept up in the lies. His memories coloured the air, red and sparkling, with imaginings of what had happened between the two of them and what Davy wished might have happened. An image of Cinda flashed so clear and bright above his head that Lana felt she had seen her ghost.

"We haven't done anything wrong," Lana said defiantly. Prentiss only raised his eyebrows.

"David, ride out to the Office of the Ask and assist Captain Hammar. Send Private Farrow back in on your way out to take your little friend back where she belongs."

"I can do it-"

His father silenced him with a look. Davy was reluctant to leave but did as he was told, giving Lana a helpless look as he passed. Lana and the President stood in silence as Davy's footsteps dissipated. Prentiss walked over to the disembodied leg and gave it a gentle tap with his white boot.

"This is the unwitting idiot who detonated the bomb," he said. "Well, what's left of him. The bomb was meant to kill me, of course, but I was across town trying to salvage what remains of Captain Tate's work. You don't look overly happy to see that I survived the blast."

"I'm pleased for Davy's sake," Lana said, which was as honest an answer as she could give. Prentiss wandered over to the body of her father.

"It's a shame about Cliff, though," he said, and Lana sensed genuine feeling in him. "He and I have been friends for a long time. It's unfortunate that you and Avery will never have the opportunity to know him as I have."

Something twisted within Lana. "You knew?"

"I knew from the moment I spoke with your sister-in-law back in Old Prentisstown. Cinda, wasn't it? Charming woman. When she told me your brother was one of three siblings, it was easy to narrow down who the father was. I remember the three of you when you were very small; I told you, I never forget a face."

"He was your friend. You knew his family lived and you never told him."

"It would hardly take genius to figure out. Unfortunately, Cliff was no genius... perhaps that much is hereditary. Your little dream of running away as a family would never have come to fruition."

Lana's heart sank.

"David told me about your plan this afternoon, not that he even knows it. He did all he could to keep your little scheme quiet in his Noise, but self-control has never been his strongest suit."

"Don't punish him or my sister," Lana implored. "It was all my idea, mine and my father's. They had no part in it."

"I hardly think you of all people are in a position to defend my own son to me."

Ivan Farrow hobbled into the room. Prentiss gestured for him to take Lana away.

"Wait," she said, gesturing to Collins' body. "At least let me say goodbye."

The President considered a moment, then nodded his consent. He stepped away from the doorway and Lana knelt down beside her father's body, closing his eyes and neatly closing his jacket over the bullet wounds. Very gently she kissed his stubbled cheek, already long since cold. A sob escaped her throat as she stood back up.

Behind her she heard an odd wooshing sort of Noise. Ivan jolted as though he had been hit.

"Yes, Mr. President," the man said, though no verbal instruction had been given. He latched onto Lana's arm and began pulling her from the room with a force which suggested his limp had vanished. Lana turned back to the President and asked,

"What are you going to do with that girl who set the bomb?"

Prentiss gestured to the sky where the roof of his Cathedral had stood only minutes ago.

"First I will deal with this. Then I will deal with her, and both of my sons."

He turned to a stack of blackened papers recovered from the blast and began to frown over them.

"and then, Lana," he said, not even giving her another glance, "then I will deal with you."

~oOo~

The glassy look was leaving Ivan's eyes by the time he and Lana were out in the town square, and his limp replaced it. The soldiers were yelling at the crowds to go home. There were mutterings in the Noise of men as Lana passed by, wondering if she was another of the captured terrorists.

"You don't have to grab me, I can walk of my own accord," she hissed at Farrow, shrugging out of his grip. His limp began to worsen as they advanced up the road towards the Office of the Ask. As they crested the hill, Lana saw the lights of the building glowing in the valley.

She was not surprised that that was her destination; in fact, she had been hoping for it. Still, her feelings did not offset the terror she felt as she was dragged into the infamous building. Weeping could be heard from the room to her right, and as she passed by what appeared to be a two-way mirror she could see that Viola Eade was being strapped to a board by a gleeful Captain Hammar. There was no sign of Davy or Todd, even as she was led through the building to the cells where the prisoners were kept.

"Avery!" she called, looking into each of the cells she passed by but not recognising a single gaunt face. "Avery!"

Ivan dragged her to the furthest cell and unlocked the door. There was very little light in the prison, but Lana could make out a sleeping figure lying on the bench in the cell. Seeing her sister lying there, Lana put up no resistance and went into the cell willingly, crouching down at Avery's side.

"Well, Lana, looks like you got your way after all," Ivan said, locking the two sisters in. "Enjoy your time together… or what's left of it, at least."

He left the pair. Lana could see that her sister had been at the mercy of Captain Hammar, and was badly beaten. He had cut away her beautiful hair. There were burn marks on her arms from the blast at the artillery warehouse. Avery wrapped her arms around her sister, smiling in spite of it all.

"I'm guessing this is part of the escape plan?" she said weakly. Lana plunged a hand into the pocket of their brother's jacket. When she withdrew it, the set of master keys which she had taken from her father's body glittered between her fingers, silver in the light of the moons.

"Not exactly."