The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,39

hard science and ethereal spirit, whatever the hell that meant—they were full of their own garbage. But at this point, he didn’t care. If the Toll could give some sort of purpose to calm his soul, then he’d be more than happy to worship the man as the Tonists did. At the very least, he could find out if there was any truth to the rumors that the Thunderhead still spoke to him.

But as he drew nearer, the artist found himself increasingly disappointed. The Toll was not a wizened man—he seemed little more than a boy. He was thin and lackluster, wearing a long, rough-woven purple tunic, covered by an intricately embroidered scapular that draped over his shoulders like a scarf and flowed nearly to the ground. Not surprisingly, the embroidery was some sort of sound pattern.

“Your name is Ezra Van Otterloo, and you’re a mural artist,” the Toll said, as if magically pulling the fact out of the air, “and you want to paint a mural of me.”

Ezra found his respect dwindling even further. “If you know everything, then you know that’s not true.”

The Toll grinned. “I never said I knew everything. In fact, I never said I knew anything at all.” He threw a glance toward the welcome center. “The curates told me that’s why you’re here. But another source tells me that they’re the ones who want the mural—and that you agreed to paint one in return for this audience. But I won’t hold you to it.”

This, Ezra knew, was nothing but smoke and mirrors. It was a scam perpetuated by the Tonists to build their following. Ezra could now see the small device in the Toll’s ear. No doubt he was being fed information by one of the curates. Ezra found himself increasingly angered that he had wasted his time coming here.

“The problem with painting a mural of my accomplishments,” the Toll said, “is that I haven’t actually accomplished anything.”

“Then why do you sit there as if you have?” Ezra was done with ceremony and etiquette. At this point, he didn’t care if they threw him out—or for that matter threw him off the broken bridge.

The Toll didn’t seem offended by his rudeness. He just shrugged. “Sitting here and listening to people is what’s expected of me. After all, I do have the Thunderhead’s ear.”

“Why should I believe that?”

He expected the Toll to slough off the question with more smoke and mirrors. Platitudes about leaps of faith and the like. But instead he got serious and cocked his head to one side as if listening to something in his earpiece. Then he spoke with absolute certainty.

“Ezra Elliot Van Otterloo, although you never use your middle name. When you were seven and got angry at your father, you drew a picture of a scythe coming for him, but got scared that it might actually come true, so you tore it up and flushed it down the toilet. When you were fifteen, you put a particularly awful-smelling cheese in your brother’s pocket, because he was going on a date with a girl you had a crush on. You never told anyone, and your brother was never able to identify the source of the smell. And just last month, alone in your room, you drank enough absinthe to put a mortal-age man into the hospital, but your nanites protected you from the worst of it. You woke up with nothing more than a fading headache.”

Ezra found himself weak all over. He trembled, and it was not from the cold. These weren’t things the curates could be feeding him. These were things that only the Thunderhead could know.

“Is that enough proof for you?” the Toll asked. “Or do you want me to tell you what happened with Tessa Collins on the night of senior prom?”

Ezra dropped to his knees. Not because he was told to by some officious curate, but because he now knew that the Toll was what he claimed him to be. The one true link to the Thunderhead.

“Forgive me,” Ezra begged. “Please forgive me for doubting you.”

The Toll approached him. “Get up,” he said. “I hate when people kneel.”

Ezra stood up. He found that he wanted to look into the Toll’s eyes, to see if they held the infinite depths of the Thunderhead, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because what if the Toll saw all the way though him, to places Ezra didn’t even know existed? He had to remind himself that the Toll wasn’t