The Noise didn’t stop them. Why would it? It hadn’t so far, and it
was as much a point of interest as it was a point of fear, and so they
continued with little resistance from anyone. Song was the most
uncertain, as she didn’t think the Noise had any good things to say, but
even they did not believe it to be evil or with ill intent.
It just was, like the Silence before it.
And
so, the tower continued roaring up into the darkness above. They
brought lights, created fixtures for lamps, torches, blazing or weak,
whatever they could make. As they got up there, the ceiling once again
seemed to grow and the board along with it, forever rising higher and
higher.
Another name landed on the board, but almost no attention was made to
it since Glass was just about to reach up and, as the very first, climb
onto the railings up there. They were all gathered to witness it, all
roared and shouted and cheered when she took the first step, the metal
clanging, echoing down into the hall.
She looked around, a single, bright torch flickering up there.
“There are walkways!” she shouted to the below. “Tons and tons of them. Endless, almost.”
They
saw her light move to the left, then to the right, then back and
another way. Always as if shifting through the darkness, making the
space she walked upon as she did it.
More of them went up there after
her, and soon, there were many lights flickering up in the metal
eternity (as it seemed), and they kept trying to find the top of the
board, and yet, could not see it.
The Noise was indeed louder there.
It resonated with the swinging girders and wires that swayed easily as
they walked and tiptoed across and tossed each other more and more
lights.
From down below, it began looking like stars, like a night sky of their own creation, thousands of dots scattered in dark space.
Glass climbed higher still, and Wayside was with her, and in that
labyrinth of frames and wires like strings and catwalks like needles,
they saw another red flash swoosh by them—and it was another, because as
soon as they saw it, they realized they must have seen it before. It
was another name, indeed, as From had said, falling down from the sky.
They peered over the railings and shouted to the below what they could see on the board.
And truly, the names came from above.
Yet, it caused even more questions.
Kim, a sketch book, a piano
Linus, a father
Fred, a horse
Mary, a doll