The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

chance at best, but maybe he's not lying."
    He got up and looked out over New Prentisstown. "Maybe," he said, "the war really is over."
    "Oi!" I hear Davy call as I'm halfway to the bog. I turn round. A Spackle has come up to him.
    It's holding its long white arms up and out in what may be a peaceful way and then it starts clicking, pointing to where a group of Spackle have finished tearing down a fence. It's clicking and clicking, pointing to one of the empty water troughs, but there ain't no way of understanding it, not if you can't hear its Noise.
    Davy steps closer to it, his eyes wide, his head nodding in sympathy, his smile dangerous. "Yeah, yeah, yer thirsty from the hard work," he says. "Course you are, course you are, thank you for bringing that to my attenshun, thank you very much. And in reply, let me just say this."
    He smashes the butt of his pistol into the Spackle's face. You can hear the crack of bone and the Spackle falls to the ground clutching at its jaw, long legs twisting in the air.
    There's a wave of clicking around us and Davy lifts his pistol again, bullet end facing the crowd. Rifles cock on the fence top, too, soldiers pointing their weapons. The Spackle
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    slink back, the broken-jawed one still writhing and writhing in the grass.
    "Know what, pigpiss?" Davy says.
    "What?" I say, my eyes still on the Spackle on the ground, my Noise shaky as a leaf about to fall.
    He turns to me, pistol still out. "It's good to be in charge."
    Every minute I've expected life to blow apart. But every minute, it don't. And every day I've looked for her.
    I've looked for her from the openings outta the top of the bell tower but all I ever see is the army marching and men working. Never a face I reckernize, never a silence I can feel as hers.
    I've looked for her when Davy and I ride back and forth to the monastery, seeking her out in the windows of the Women's Quarter, but I never see her looking back.
    I've even half looked for her in the crowds of Spackle, wondering if she's hiding behind one, ready to pop out and yell at Davy for beating on 'em and then saying to me, like everything's okay, "Hey, I'm here, it's me."
    But she ain't there.
    She ain't there.
    I've asked Mayor Prentiss bout her every time I've seen him and he's said I need to trust him, said he's not my enemy, said if I put my faith in him that everything will be all right.
    But I've looked.
    And she ain't there.
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    "Hey, girl," I whisper to Angharrad as I saddle her up at the end of our day. I've gotten way better at riding her, better at talking to her, better at reading her moods. I'm less nervous about being on her back and she's less nervous about being underneath me. This morning after I gave her an apple to eat, she clipped her teeth thru my hair once, like I was just another horse.
    Boy colt, she says, as I climb on her back and me and Davy set off back into town.
    "Angharrad," I say, leaning forward twixt her ears, cuz this is what horses like, it seems, constant reminders that everyone's there, constant reminders that they're still in the herd.
    Above anything else, a horse hates to be alone.
    Boy colt, Angharrad says again.
    "Angharrad," I say.
    "Jesus, pigpiss," Davy moans, "why don't you marry the effing-" He stops. "Well, goddam," he says, his voice suddenly a whisper, "would you look at this?"
    I look up.
    There are women coming out of a store.
    Four of 'em, together in a group. We knew they were being let out but it's always daylight hours, always while me and Davy are at the monastery, so we always return to a city of men, like the women are just phantoms and rumor.
    It's been ages since I even seen one more than just thru a window or from up top of the tower.
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    They're wearing longer sleeves and longer skirts than i saw before and they each got their hair tied behind their heads the same way. They look nervously at the soldiers that line the streets, at me and Davy, too, all of us watching 'em come down the store's front