Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy Read Online Free Page A

and pretty much every Sunday you can hear Aaron preaching about why we left behind the corrupshun and sin of Old World and about how we’d aimed to start a new life of purity and brotherhood in a whole new Eden.
    That worked out well, huh?
    People still go to church tho, mainly cuz they have to, even tho the Mayor hisself hardly ever bothers, leaving the rest of us to listen to Aaron preach about how we’re the only thing each of us have out here, us men together, and how all of us have gotta bind ourselves in a single community.
    How if one of us falls, we all fall.
    He says that one a lot.
    Manchee and me are quiet as possible going past the front door of the Church. Praying Noise comes from inside, it’s got a special feel to it, a special purply sick feel like men are bleeding it out, even tho it’s always the same stuff but the purply blood just keeps on coming. Help us, save us, forgive us, help us, save us, forgive us, get us outta here, please, God, please, God, please, God, tho as far as I know no one’s never heard no Noise back from this God fella.
    Aaron’s in there, too, back from his walk and preaching over the prayers. I can hear his voice, not just his Noise, and it’s all sacrifice this and scripture that and blessings here and sainthood there and he’s going on at such a rattle his Noise is like grey fire behind him and you can’t pick out anything in it and he might be up to something, mightn’t he? The sermon might be covering for something and I’m beginning to wonder if I know what that something is.
    And then I hear Young Todd? in his Noise and I say, “Hurry up, Manchee,” and we scoot our way along right quick.
    The last thing you pass as you crest the hill of Prentisstown is the Mayor’s House which is the weirdest and hardest Noise of all cuz Mayor Prentiss–
    Well, Mayor Prentiss is different.
    His Noise is awful clear and I mean awful in the awful way. He believes, see, that order can be brought to Noise. He believes that Noise can be sorted out, that if you could harness it somehow, you could put it to use. And when you walk by the Mayor’s House, you can hear him, hear him and the men closest to him, his deputies and things, and they’re always doing these thought exercises, these counting things and imagining perfect shapes and saying orderly chants like I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME whatever that’s sposed to mean and it’s like he’s moulding a little army into shape, like he’s preparing himself for something, like he’s forging some kind of Noise weapon.
    It feels like a threat. It feels like the world changing and leaving you behind.
    1 2 3 4 4 3 2 1 I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME 1 2 3 4 4 3 2 1 I F ONE OF US FALLS WE ALL FALL
    I will be a man soon and men do not run in fear but I give Manchee a little push and we walk even a little faster than before, giving the Mayor’s House as wide a curve as possible till we’re past it and on the gravel path that heads on towards our house.
    After a while, the town disappears behind us and the Noise starts to get a little bit quieter (tho it never never stops) and we can both breathe a bit easier.
    Manchee barks, “Noise, Todd.”
    “Yesiree,” I say.
    “Quiet in the swamp, Todd,” Manchee says. “Quiet, quiet, quiet.”
    “Yes,” I say and then I think and I hurry and say, “Shut up, Manchee,” and I smack him on his rump and he says, “Ow, Todd?” but I’m looking back towards the town but there’s no stopping Noise once it’s out, is there? And if it was something you could see, moving thru the air, I wonder if you could see the hole in the Noise floating right outta me, right outta my thoughts from where I was protecting it and it’s such a small bit of Noise and it’d be easy to miss in the great roar of everything else but there it goes, there it goes, there it goes, heading right back towards the world of men.

“And just where do you think you’ve been?” Cillian says as soon as Manchee