AN: Hi, Whirlers! I've finally decided to upload my Chaos Walking tales now that the movie is finally being released. This story, 'The Miracle', centres on Davy Prentiss Jr; I wanted to take a look at his life before the events of the first book and explore the relationship he has with his dad a little deeper. I've tried to mimic Ness' distinct style from the books so I hope the slang & dialect quirks aren't distracting. Quick note to save confusion for anyone who hasn't read the books; in the novels animals have Noise and can talk, too!

(TW: discussions of sexual violence, though there's no actual sexually violent content.)

THE MIRACLE

Chapter One:

A Girl and a Boy

"Die, Spackle scum, die die die!"

"Get off, Davy!" Todd whines, smacking me and my stick away as I thrash him, kneeling on his chest in the grass. Seb and Liam laugh behind us, both with a few bruises of their own. I'm getting too big to play with the boys; give it three months and I'll be a man, and men don't chase each other round the fields pretending they're fighting Spackle. I've gotta make the most of beating the crap out of 'em while Pa still allows it.

"I'll tell yer Pa if you don't get off!" Todd whines, poking around in my Noise.

"No you won't," I snap. "We both know you ain't got the stones to say so much as a 'Good morning, Mayor Prentiss' to him, you big girl. They say they're all dead, but you know what, Hewitt, I reckon you might just be the last one on New World."

"Give 'im a kiss, Davy," Liam jokes. I fire a bit of Noise at him, red and raging, and he backs off. Todd is still fighting, snapping at my arms now; he catches my wrist with his teeth. I whip my arm away.

"You little shit!" I yell, shaking off the pain, "rabid, you are. I was only playing."

"How come you never play the Spackle?!" Hewitt moans, managing to scramble to his feet while I check out the bite marks, white on red. "One of us should be the Sherriff for a change."

There are murmurs in both Liam and Seb's Noise, but neither is brave enough to agree with him.

"You, the Sherriff?" I laugh, kicking some dirt at Todd. "Who'd ever listen to you, Pigpiss?"

His Noise goes all stormy, like a little raincloud over his head.

"I'm done playing, anyway," he grumbles. "Cillian says I've gotta feed the lambs before supper."

I grin at him. "You know why your Pa's want you out the house so much, don't you?"

I flash up a picture in my Noise, only imaginary but something Todd don't wanna see, and now it's his turn to hit me with the stick. I laugh as he thrashes my legs; it hurts about as much as being smacked by a feather duster.

I stop laughing when a sound erupts from the town, so loud it damn near cracks the ground beneath us. A gun's just been fired, and more than once. Todd stops kicking. On a planet where you ain't got none of nothing, you don't waste a bullet unless you've got a damn good reason. Seb and Liam both look at me, figuring that seeing as I'm the oldest maybe I'll have some clue as to what's going on.

"that ain't none of your business," I say curtly, as though it's any of mine. "You lot get back to your farms. I'll see to that trouble."

I kick Todd away and head back into town with my head held high, walking quickly so that they don't pick up on the little jump of fear in my Noise. It must be some drunken idiot at the pub who's got into an argument and pulled a pistol, pistols which are all supposed to be kept in the armoury at the back of my house but almost everyone in town has got one hidden away. My house is bigger than all the rest and stands on the furthest edge of our town, up a long driveway.

Our town. God, what a shit hole; I take a look up at my house to be sure that no one inside heard me curse in my Noise, but there's not a sound at all, none of the usual I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME or IF ONE OF US FALLS WE ALL FALL which Pa and his deputies, Mr. Collins, Mr. O'Hare and the younger Mr. Tate, spend most of their time chanting. Looking around, it seems like they ain't the only ones who aren't up to their usual business; the streets are dead, which ain't in no way normal for a Saturday. Usually the market's up and running, a few people here and there trying to flog their wares for coins to spend down the pub which I'm still not man enough to be allowed in yet. I wouldn't wanna go in there anyway; the clanging music blares loud as can be, trying to cover up the men's thoughts inside which is the worst kind of Noise, all sad piss-heads moaning about their dead wives and their dead daughters and their dead friends that they lost in the Spackle war. I realise something's really wrong when I see that the pub is empty, too. Even the church is deserted with none of Aaron's usual freakish Noise swirling about.

A light bit of Noise comes my way, pushed over by the breeze; it's excitable, jittering, and I start running in its direction, down past Doctor Baldwin's office and the petrol station, past Mr. Phelps' store which is the last building still inhabitable and then, right where the swamp ends and the forest starts, I see just about the whole town are gathered around in a little circle, their collective Noise buzzing like a hive.

I spy the top of Pa's white hat, peering out over them all he's so damn tall. Preacher Aaron is there too, the frayed sleeves of his robes waving about in the air as he stomps around ranting like the world's about to end, his Noise blazing in an inferno around him.

"And so he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness!" Aaron is yelling, quoting scripture, louder even than the roar of Noise. The flames start coming offa him even higher. I run right into the middle of the crowd, stopping as Anderson Tate puts a hand on my shoulder. There in the middle of all these men I spy the strangest sight I ever did see.

There's a blond man on the ground I don't reckernize, with Dr. Baldwin leaning over him, not that the Doc will do him any good. The man is dead, shot through the stomach more than once; by the smile on his face and the rifle in his hands, I'd say it was Mr. Hammar who did it. That ain't the thing worth looking at, though, even the dead bloke's guts almost hanging out. Cuz right next to the body, kneeling on the ground and shaking the corpse's shoulders like the poor bugger might just sit up and be right fine, there's a woman.

A real-life, in-the-flesh woman.

"And I saw her there upon a scarlet-coloured beast!" Aaron is screaming, parroting more nonsense from his holy book though no one is taking any notice of him. "She being full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns! And upon her forehead was a name written, 'Mother of Harlots and Abominations!'"

The woman looks at him like he's mad, which he is. I ain't never seen a woman before, but I know that's what she is, and she for sure ain't got seven heads or any horns. She looks about the same age as the dead man, somewhere in her twenties. Her skin is a warm brown colour, and looks clear and soft, like if you touched her it'd be like putting your hand through a cloud. There's no Noise coming off her, just this weird feeling of nothing that I didn't even know existed, like even if I closed my eyes I'd still know she was there because of how she ain't there, like she's a big hole dug right into the middle of all us men, a hole you ain't never gonna fill.

Pa makes a gesture to Mr. Collins, his closest deputy, who hauls her to her feet, and what do you know, there's the rest of it, too, hips and boobs- can you believe it, real life boobs!- and shapely legs which according to every vid I've ever seen should be hidden up under a long skirt but ain't, cuz she's wearing a funny pair of trousers of a kind I've never seen before, cut off above her knees like they were made for a toddler and she said to the tailor, I'll take 'em anyway, please-!

"David," says Pa, in my head as well as with his mouth. "If you could be quiet, please."

"Sorry, Pa," I whisper. I didn't say nothing out loud but I guess my Noise must be so surprised it's coming out louder than all the rest of 'em. Cuz they've all seen women before, ain't they? Not in ten years or so, but they've seen 'em. I don't even remember what my own Ma looked like.

The woman is crying and fighting to get free, her hands all done up with dirt and blood. I see that under the muck she's wearing a ring, which means the dead geezer must be her husband. I've never seen a woman cry before, except in Mr. Hammar's Noise when I ride past his house at night, and it ain't a pretty sight.

"You killed him," the woman says, and her voice is all high and flutey, like a little boy's. Aaron hisses like a snake, taking a few steps back from her as though her words might be poisonous.

"He should have ran faster," Mr. Hammar says, digging into his pockets for a cigarette. The woman spits at him, missing, and there's a bright red flash in his Noise as he imagines hitting her. Instead he steps away from the crowd to smoke; Pa won't let no one light up around him on account of the fact he can never get the stench out of his hair.

"Jesus," Mr. Phelps says behind me, and I turn to see that he's crying, actual tears streaming out of him, and he's thinking about Julie, his wife, the only thing he ever seems to think about, the sorrow from his Noise creeping up my back. Mr. Majoribanks, to my left, looks tearful too.

I know how they feel. The silence of this woman just ain't right. It feels as though it's burrowing deep inside me, finding its own little home down there with every bad thing that's ever happened to me, snuggling up with every fear and every anxious thought. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve quickly when I hear the woman start talking again.

"We never meant any harm," she's saying to Pa, looking up at Pa all pleading-like like he's the only one who can help her. Mr. Collins holds her steadfast, twisting her arm up into her back. "We only wanted to see New Elizabeth, to see if the stories were true."

"Prentisstown," Pa says in that summery voice I know is dangerous but everyone else seems to think is charming. I reckon the girl knows it's dangerous, too. "You'll see a lot more of it before the day is through."

There's a bit of chuckling from some of the men around, and I start feeling a little weary about them, too. Shouldn't they be a little more surprised, share a bit of the shock that's buzzing off me like sparks off faulty wiring? You know, seeing as all the women are supposed to be dead, and the rest of us to follow after 'em shortly enough? Shouldn't they be a bit happier to see that they ain't?

And then I start to see that some of them are happy about it, but in the wrong sorta way. The shock and the weird heavy sorrow that's running through a lot of the men's Noise had managed to drown most of it out, but I start picking up pictures, pictures not too far off from the ones I showed Todd about Cillian and Ben earlier, except these ones all involve the girl. Mr. Royale has got her taking off her shirt and her weird trousers, but he's embarrassed about it, trying to hide it down under lots of different thoughts. Through the haze of his smoke I see that Mr. Hammar's got her down on her knees with his hand in her hair, and she's still crying. He ain't trying to cover that up at all.

"Gentlemen," Pa says, in an angry way that makes them all try and hide their Noise, even Mr. Hammar, who he sends off with Dr. Baldwin to collect a stretcher to move the body with. Anderson Tate puts a hand on Mr. Phelps' shoulder, whose Noise quietens down ever so slightly but still sobs oh my Julie my beautiful Julie every couple of seconds.

Pa starts walking away from us all, Mr. Collins following after him with the girl, who looks so frightened at what she's been seeing that I don't think I could stand to look at her Noise even if she had any. As Mr. Collins ushers the girl through the crowd, , grinning, reaches out a hand and grabs at her; and even though he's ahead of us all, even though he ain't seeing it happen with his own eyes, Pa sees it happen in the Noise of all us men and spins around in a half-second, pistol drawn, and shoots Mr. Gault in the knee.

He goes down screaming. No one moves to help him, all too concerned with backing up away from the girl as fast as possible. Pa carries on towards the house, Mr. Collins dragging the girl along too, who's watching Mr. Gault howling and bleeding in the dirt. Preacher Aaron steps over the wounded man and follows after them, and I follow too, as the rest of the men start muttering among themselves and thinking about maybe helping Mr. Gault or calling for Dr. Baldwin. The pictures flare right back up, all the sex and all the misery, the sound coming off 'em so loud you wanna tear your own ears off. I start jogging to get ahead of Aaron.

The sainted child, he thinks at me, reaching out a hand and touching the hem of my coat fondly. I jog a little quicker to keep out of his reach. I ain't ashamed to admit that I'm a little scared of him because everyone else is, too, on account of all the crazy that comes offa him in waves like a heat. Heir of all things, his Noise sings behind me, and other sorts of nonsense I can't get any meaning out of like sins of the father and prodigy and all things into his hand.

The woman is struggling like crazy against Mr. Collins but he's got one hand gripped round the back of her neck and the other twisting her arm tight enough to bruise so all her efforts ain't doing her no good. Even though she's calling him all sorts of words I ain't allowed to say and trying to hit him it's not making no difference, just the same way I was with Todd earlier. I know from the voices about town that women ain't got no strength to 'em, they're just like little boys in that way, so you can pretty much do what you want to them and there ain't much they can do about it but scream and cry. The woman calls Mr. Collins a word I really ain't supposed to say and Aaron gasps aloud.

"Ain't you gonna take her to the interrogation room, Pa?" I say as we pass by the police station, watching as he pulls the keys to our house from his pocket. Pa laughs, that false sticky laugh he does when he's trying to get people to like him. It ain't the sort of laugh you usually hear from a man who'se just shot someone.

"There'll be no interrogation," he says, like the word ain't even existed in Prentisstown until I just said it. He turns to the woman and says,

"Forgive my son, he's a little spirited."

Spirited, I think. He's never called me spirited before. Makes me sound something like a horse that needs breaking in. I think of how he used to whip Morpeth to high heaven when he was taming him and shut up for a good long while.

Pa hands me his hat when we get to our doorstep and heads inside, Mr. Collins shoving the girl in after him. He tries to shut the door on me, but I jam my foot in the gap. I head in quickly and shut to door on Aaron, who stays out front ranting and raving, bits of scripture flickering off his Noise like embers.

In the hallway Mr. Collins is searching the woman for weapons, putting his hands all over her which makes her swear even more. Once he's done he pulls her into the kitchen and sit down at the kitchen table, keeping his hands firmly on her shoulders. She squirms beneath him, and he pulls her back hard against the chair, making it skirt across the tiles with a screeching sound.

"No need to be so rough, Cliff," Pa says from where he's stood at the sink, filling two glasses with water.

"Sorry, boss."

I come up behind Pa, whispering askings at him, though there's little point in keeping my voice down when my Noise is screaming as loud and as crazy as Aaron's.

"Where'd she come from, Pa?" I ask, "how can she still be alive? Who's that dead bloke? Is she gonna get the Noise germ off us? Is she gonna die?"

"We'll talk later," he says shortly, which after all these years of living with him I know just means we ain't never gonna talk about it at all. He ushers me out of the kitchen, putting one glass in front of the girl and sitting down opposite her.

"Out, David," says Pa.

I make a huffing sound loud enough for all of them to hear and sit on the couch in the living room, rooting around behind the sofa for a bag of sunflower seeds I've been saving. I can still hear most of what's going on in the kitchen; Pa's being polite as can be to the girl, using his I-only-want-what's-best-for-you voice, but it ain't doing anything to stop her crying about the dead man now that she's started again. She says he weren't her husband but her fiancé. I get to wondering if she'll take her ring off now that he's dead. Most folks around Prentisstown still wear theirs as a way of remembering their dead wives. I've never seen Pa wear his tho.

The woman is way too upset and scared to get any sense out of. Eventually Pa loses patience and his voice gets a little sharper. She sharpens up too at his tone and pretty soon she's telling him everything he wants to know.

"We were out camping," she says, "just taking a few days away from our town."

Town?! who ever knew there were other towns?!

"That town being Farbranch, of course," says Pa. "You had no business crossing that bridge."

From where I'm sitting I can just about see girl lowering her head.

"We did," she says, her voice somehow even sadder, so sad it could break your heart. "We really did."

Cliff Collins notices me listening and comes into the living room, shutting the kitchen door behind him. He sits down next to me on the couch and punches me in the arm fondly. I pretend it doesn't hurt.

"Ain't nothing in there to do with us, scamp," he says, grabbing a handful of my sunflower seeds without asking. "Best we keep out of it."

I don't say nothing to that. With only Pa and the girl in there, there's no Noise clear enough for me to hear what's going on. Cliff and I talk for a little bit, just the usual stuff about how I'm getting on with practicing my shooting and when we'll have our next lesson. Believe it or not, not all the men are as bad as you might think, living in a hell hole like Prentisstown. There's Cliff, who Pa gets on best of all with, and who talks about me in his Noise like I'm his nephew or something. Then there's Mr Kearney, who would always carve wooden toys for us boys growing up, and Anderson Tate, who's only a few years older than me but already one of Pa's best men, and who damn near pulled a library out of his house when Aaron convinced Pa that all the books should be burned. That's what you learn, living among so many men; some men are hard, some are soft as a runny egg. Ain't none of 'em happy, though, not living here.

Both me and Mr. Collins sit up straighter when Pa comes out of the kitchen.

"David, saddle up Morpeth for me."

I do as I'm told, heading out to the stables. Aaron is still out front of the house, yelling up at God like he's expecting him to answer. His Noise is blistering with heat. I keep out of it's reach, as though it might burn me if I get too close. Aaron follows me to the stables, calling after me.

"Beware the harlot, my boy! Beware the deceiver of man! Through Eve sin entered into the world!"

"Will do, Aaron," I say, getting to the stable door before he can get his claws on me. Our guard dog comes out barking, her pregnant belly swinging a little.

"Preacher!" she yammers, spittle flying; she hates him, because he hates her, and has been known to give her a good kicking if she wanders too close. "Preacher man, Preacher man! Back, back, back!"

Aaron backs away, retreating to the sanctuary of his church. He won't touch no animals, reckons they're unclean since they started talking, something to do with a serpent in a garden. I reckon if he's got a problem with unclean things he might want to think about having a bath once in the blue moons.

I pull our bitch back into the stables and get to work. By the time Pa comes out to meet me I've got Morpeth freshly brushed up with oil, looking fit for a King to ride, but Pa don't seem to notice which I ain't much surprised at. He's got his riding coat on and a big frown on his face. My Noise is firing off every kind of asking you could think of, but he ain't answering none of 'em so I just come out and say what I'm thinking.

"Where you going, Pa? You going to that bridge? I didn't know there was a bridge. Can I come with you? I ain't never seen a bridge before! You gonna go find this town she's talking about? She's gotta be lying, ain't she? There ain't no other towns."

"Are not, David. There are not any other towns. I'm going for a ride to clear my head and have I can enjoy five minutes away from the Noise in which to sift through which thoughts are my own and which belong to everyone else."

"But how can she be alive? The Spack germ killed every last woman. But if she ain't- uh, are not- lying and there really is a town, then maybe there's other women. Maybe they've got a cure! Ain't that great, Pa? Ain't that just about the greatest thing you've ever heard?"

You can never pick much out of what little there is of Pa's Noise, it's all so orderly and clean, but I can feel that it's scowling. He doesn't say nothing, so I just keep on talking, trying to hide the weird churning feeling that's rising up in my Noise.

"You ain't gonna let no one hurt her, are you, Pa? I mean, some of the things they were thinking… Mr. Hammar…"

"They won't hurt her, David. That's why I brought her to our home, where we can keep a safe watch over her. Do you understand?"

I feel my Noise blush a rosy pink, cuz he said we, didn't he? He's trusting me with all this craziness, me and him in this together looking after the impossible girl. The pink gets rosier and rosier until he can't even stand to look at me, but I'm that chuffed I don't care.

"Hurry inside, now. We wouldn't want her left alone with Mr. Collins for too long… and don't talk to her."

As Morpeth's hooves thunder off across the fields I head back home, glad to have a job worth doing. This is all good practice for when I become the Sherriff. When I get back to the kitchen Cliff is talking to the woman. He must have upset her cuz she's got her head buried in her hands.

"That's one thing I haven't missed about women," Cliff is saying. "All the bloody dramatics."

She don't say nothing back. I slip underneath his arm and sit opposite her in the chair where Pa had been sat, feeling all kinds of nervous but trying not to let it show up in my Noise. I flash something rude at Cliff; he shakes his head, hiding a smile, and slinks back into the living room, his rifle gleaming silver on his back.

I look at the woman, trying to make some sense out of her. Pa's let her wash her hands of all the dirt and blood, though her cuticles are still crusted with red. Her engagement ring gleams silver on her hand. She moves her hands to the sides of her head and I can see that her face is as blank as anything. I start to wonder how men and women ever managed a conversation, when men had no clue what was going on in women's heads and women knew way too much of what was going on in men's. Then again, from the pictures you see about town, it seems men and women never really did much talking in the first place; that thought reminds me of the pictures being thrown about when we were outside, and I shake them off quickly.

I glance shyly at her. Pa said not to talk to her; but Pa ain't here.

"Sorry about your friend," I say, quiet enough that Mr. Collins won't hear. "Sorry about them, too."

"He wasn't my friend," she says, looking up at me. "He was my husband. Or at least he would have been."

Her eyes well up. My Noise fills up all with thoughts about how stupid I am for saying something that's only gone and made her more upset.

"Sorry," I say quickly, "oh, Jesus, don't cry."

She doesn't. She looks sad but she don't look scared no more, not now Pa and Mr. Collins are out of the way.

"You're a girl," I say, and of course it's the most stupid thing ever but it's all I can think of.

"A woman," she corrects. "And you're a boy."

"Nearly a man. I've only got three months left 'till I'm thirteen."

She smiles a little, like she can't help herself. "Very grown up."

She says it in a way that's condescending, that's what Pa would call it, but I don't mind. The smile she says it with is the first I've ever seen off a woman and if they all used to smile as nice as that then I can maybe understand all the weeping and the moaning men like Mr. Phelps do over their wives. The heat in my cheeks tells me it's not just my Noise that's turning pink, so I try my best to sound authoritative, another one of Pa's favourite words.

"You don't look like the women you see in the Noise, or the ones from vids. What's your name?"

She looks to the doorway, checking that Mr. Collins isn't listening. He is of course, and chewing on my bloody sunflower seeds, too but she just lowers her voice and smiles at me again in a secretive way that makes me feel like the only person in the world.

"I'm Cinda," she says. "Cinda Patel. And you're David."

"I like Davy better," I tell her. She holds her hand out and I shake it, my Noise sparking off in all sorts of directions. Her skin is soft as anything, way softer than a man's, though it feels oil-slick and clammy from all the fretting she's been doing. Just from the touch of her I can feel my eyes welling up, because God damn it she's real, even though there's no Noise just dark heavy nothingness coming off her she's a real woman, and they ain't all dead, they can't all be dead, she's real just like my Ma was and my aunties and grandmas were and any sisters I mighta had would have been if the stupid Spack virus hadn't come along and killed 'em all…

I can see that she's reading my Noise, trying to keep up with all the pictures buzzing off of it. The little smile starts to slide off her face, like it was all the effort in the world to keep it there for just a few seconds.

"You think a virus killed all the women here?" she says, her voice too loud, loud enough for Mr. Collins to hear. He stops chewing. I hear him getting up from the couch.

"Whole damn planet's what I thought," I say, my attention back on Mr. Collins as he makes his way into the kitchen with a face like thunder. The woman don't notice his look until it's too late. She's still holding my hand, not in a hand-shake way but in a tender way, like we've known each other all our lives.

"No, sweetheart," Cinda says, a thing I ain't never been called before, and her touch is so good and so gentle I almost can't stand it. "No, Davy, that's not what happened…"

And BAM!

Mr. Collins hits her so hard round the face with the butt of his rifle that he damn near cracks her skull in two.

AN: Thanks so much for checking out this first chapter; please leave a review if you enjoyed it! I'll be uploading the sequel to this story, 'Sins of the Father', at the same time as this one goes up; the sequel takes place during the events of the first and second books and introduces a love interest for Davy. Both stories can be read independently of one another, though I hope you'll check out 'Sins of the Father' if you end up enjoying 'The Miracle!'