CHAPTER ONE: ANNIE
Whenever anyone asks me about that morning it's hard to remember. Hard to focus on it. It feels like a day from somebody else's life. And I suppose it was.
Back then I was just a girl. No, even that doesn't sound like me. My family is...was my life. I was just one small part of a family that had beaten the odds so many times... I guess we should have known it couldn't go on forever. Maybe in some way we did.
So when they ask me about it, I don't answer for a moment. I close my eyes and don't focus on the detail. Just listen to the waves, the wind and the laughter.
They think I'm mad. Everybody thinks I'm mad. They don't understand that I'm torn between two worlds. The world of hard work, family, laughter and innocence – the one I'm so desperate to go back to. And the world where I've seen too much. Done too much. The one I'd be desperate to escape from.
Only I can't.
Because if I let myself leave this world I leave him.
He tells me that keeping me with him is a habit he can't break. Even when I'm so tired of hurting that I'd welcome it. Even when I beg him.
He says it with a smile, as always.
"You can't leave me here alone." He says. "I've got nowhere else to go."
"Get down, idiot." Leo calls, half-heartedly from where he was lying idly back against the bow watching the rest of us work. As the eldest of the five of us, he fancied himself as something of a father-figure when we were out without Dad.
"I'm not in the way." I answer, lightly. My arms outstretched, feet balanced carefully on the smooth, weathered wood of the gunnel and body braced against the wind. It whipped my hair and dress chaotically around me but I held my balance.
"Show off," Tate calls from his crouched position ready to adjust the sail for the crowded home run up onto the beach.
"There's already too many hands on deck, even with Leo sunning himself," I say, contrarily, with a laugh at Leo's hand gesture.
Our tiny sailing boat is really too small for the five of us but it's not like Dad can afford anything more. Not with a family of seven hungry mouths to feed. But the five of us would never pass up a chance to be out on the water. Out here, we don't have to worry about saying the right thing, doing the right thing, giving the monstrous Career wannabes the 'respect they deserve'. It doesn't matter that the food we provided for the Capitol meant that their stupid academy got funded.
No. We're second class citizens. Anyone that doesn't fight. A vicious circle of working to feed your family so that they're strong enough to work to feed the family. The fishing families rarely had the energy after a morning's work to excel enough at school to be picked for the academy. And unless you're a student of the academy, your family doesn't get their share of the food packages if we happen to have a victor that year.
I remember way back before Joss and Caleb were born and Tate and I were too young to really help with anything. Leo was angry back then. He must have been about ten, that's when they first consider you for the academy. The scouts came into school that day. It was stormy. It must have been an exhausting morning's work for Leo, Mum and Dad. He didn't make the cut. He didn't keep his mouth shut about the injustice of it all.
On the way home, he'd made Tate and I promise to keep it quiet from Mum and Dad. Tate had washed the blood out of his shirt before they got home from the shop, and I'd spread gel over the long lines the whip had left on his back to stop anymore blood soaking through his clean shirt.
It was when I'd first learned that there were some things we could never say on land. We all knew that now. I've never heard Leo say anything like it since.
The angle of the wind changes, pulling my hair across my face. Judging by the angle we needed to hit the beach at, Tate is about to yell out. Before he can even open his mouth I leap, hands on the mast for stability and land nimbly on the other side of the boat out of the way of the sail. I almost overbalance with the change of the wind, wind-milling my arms to keep myself upright before getting back my centre of gravity and balancing once more as Tate secures the sail to the opposite side.
"Show off." Fourteen-year-old Joss echoed Tate's grumbles but with a wide grin. He catches Caleb's eye and together they yank out the dagger-board and throw their weight against the opposite side of the boat. Without the stability of the board, our tiny boat is left vulnerable to the waves and their little stunt leaves it even more unsteady.
I bend my knees to try and ride the roll of the boat but I can only stay strong so long before the giggles get the best of me. Knowing I'm not going to last, I spin and fling myself into a shallow racing dive, narrowly avoiding the sandy seabed now that we're rapidly approaching the beach.
I hear two raucous laughs and brace myself for the two splashes as Joss and Caleb follow suit, making sure to narrowly avoid my head.
I dive under again and surface by Caleb, who only has time to open his mouth in surprise before I spray a mouthful of water into his face.
"Hey." He splutters diving for me and yanking me down by the ankle.
After a few minutes of being ganged up on by the pair of them I make a break for it back towards the beach. Only, with the boat now beached, my way is blocked by Tate and Leo who decide to join their brother's side in this tiny war.
"Not fair!" I pull myself up to stand in the waist-deep water. My clothes are heavy and my hair's in my eyes. "I give up, I -"
I lied. I tried to make a break for it to Tate's side but had to laugh when he'd been expecting it.
"I'm sorry. You win. Stop!" I beg, still weak from laughing, as he and Leo take an arm and a leg each and prepare to toss me back into the waves. "I give up! You -"
Not very forgiving, my brothers. I land on my back just in front of a wave breaking into my face and tumble into the shallows with it.
I'm just pulling myself up to a sitting position and wringing out my hair, shaking my head at the boys' laughter when I heard my father's voice yelling from the sand.
I flinch. Dad didn't yell.
"Annie! Leo." He gets our attention. His face is unusually sombre and he glances around at the other fishing families already lining up on the beaches to haul in the nets. Usually they wouldn't mind waiting a moment or two to watch some fun. But usually others would be likely to join in. Usually wasn't...
Dad shakes his head. "Not today." He says, his voice low.
I bow my head and stand up. "Sorry, I -"
I don't know what I was going to say. I was only having fun? Only trying to forget? Only trying not think about how our family has beaten the odds so many times?
"It's ok." He says, offering a hand and pulling me up. My dress continues to drip onto the wet sand.
"Sorry Dad." Caleb and the others join me, faces now clean of laughter and back to reality. The way it always is. Out of the water, into reality. Today, especially.
"You're alright." Dad says. "I have to get back to the shop. Your mother's laid out clothes for you all. You still need to get these nets in and Old Gil says you lot have offered to dive for shellfish for him today." Dad presses his lips together and his eyes soften. Old Gil's only son died in the Games nearly twenty years ago, they say. He's never been quite right since and if it weren't for us, he wouldn't have been able to carry on selling his shellfish at the markets. For a moment I think Dad might tell us he's proud.
He doesn't. "Just hurry home to your mother, ok? She's worried as hell."
Of course she is. She's had to go through this for ten years, since Leo was first eligible. Watching all of us turn twelve and knowing that one of us might be taken away. Fortunately Leo turned eighteen before Caleb turned twelve. I don't know how she would have coped if every one of us were in those bowls. At least she's always had at least one of us to hold her hand.
The rest of the morning seems to fly by. Usually hauling in the nets is one of my favourite parts. The way we all line up along the ropes and work as one to pull them in. Not just the family, but the whole beach. All chanting to keep in time and slowly but surely the nets are beached. Of course, then we have to load them immediately onto the Capitol trailers backed up against the sand and it's unlikely we'll see those fish again. You can practically hear all the stomach's grumble as one.
Old Gil pushes a crate of shellfish into our hands after we've finished the dive and crated them all up for him. He never speaks aloud, just uses those strange hand gestures that most of us are used to by now. He backs into his house, shaking his head as Leo says we can't accept it. You're only allowed to keep five crates to sell in the district, the rest have to go straight to the Capitol. That's one whole crate he won't be earning anything on.
But he refuses to let us leave without it.
The afternoon flashes by too. It seems like no time at all passes before I'm separated from my brothers, herded into the penned section for seventeen-year-old girls. If I try to remember what's gone by all I see is a moment wrapping shellfish into bread, a moment hugging my mother tightly, a moment straightening Joss's collar.
All I'm left with is a salty taste in my mouth and a dry thirst.
As always, I spend the entire reaping repeating their names to myself. I don't know when it became a habit, but it did. I seek them out, each in their separate pens.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
I seek out Leo, Mum and Dad over with the rest of the parents and siblings that are too old, too safe. I see the suffering in Leo's face that he's trying to hide and think for a moment about how I'll have to do that same thing. Tate will be eighteen before me. This is his last year. But I'll have to spend the next four years watching Joss. The next five years watching Caleb. Even after I'm safe. I think for a moment that it's worse to be standing where Leo is than where I am.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
I look away from them and search for the others. Tate is ahead of me, in the group closest to the stage. He stands aside and talks quietly to some of the other fishing boys, away from where the academy students boast loudly about how they'd volunteering no matter what. I don't know why they talk like this every year and then watch silently as someone gets chosen.
The speeches start and I watch Joss stare straight ahead, his eyes glassy as if he's not really here. He has that same ability I do to switch off and not be present with this world when he doesn't want to be. Except I won't, not today. I watch them and I repeat their names to myself.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
Caleb looks down at the floor. He's tall for his age – just like the rest of us. Beanpoles, Dad says. Beanpoles with the unruly mop of dark hair. We didn't have a chance, Tate always retorts, not with him and mum looking like they do.
Caleb doesn't look up. Just like last year. I can't help but wonder what my youngest brother is thinking. We never talk about the reaping. I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone about it. We spend the morning laughing and playing like always and pretend it's not happening. Then we go home and carry on like someone else's brother and sister hasn't been sent away to die.
It sounds cruel. But it's a way of survival.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
I repeat them to myself. Almost as if, because I'm saying them, Alexia Summerby won't. Surely that would be too much of a coincidence? Us both saying their names at the same time?
It's stupid. I know. But it's what keeps me sane.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
I barely notice as Alexia announces that she's calling the girls. They're still safe. For a few more moment, they're still safe.
A name is called.
I'm still reciting.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
It doesn't seem right. It fits. That weird, too much of a coincidence fit. But not quite.
Annie Cresta.
All I remember is the taste of salt.
I don't remember walking up the stage. I don't remember them saying the same old thing about the honour that they always do.
I do remember the patchy applause. I don't blame them. District Four are always disappointed when their tributes aren't from the academy. It reduces their chances.
I'm think all these things quite rationally. As if it wasn't happening to me. Perhaps I'm in shock, I think, idly. I hadn't even thought to prepare for this. I was too busy focusing on the boys.
I continue to repeat their names to myself.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
My eyes are becoming blurry. Perhaps I am affected by it after all. I just haven't registered it in my mind yet.
I blink until I can see again. My face is enlarged on the giant screens around the marketplace. I can't let the others see me with tears in my eyes. I doesn't work. I can already see on the screen that my eyes are too wide, too shiny, my lips too firmly set. The Careers don't look like this. They're usually sneering, smirking or smiling. But for some reason I can't make my face move.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
"What's that dear?" Alexis asks. "Did you want to say something?"
I stare blankly at her for a moment. She must have seen my lips move. I try to remember what other tributes have said in the past. I can't remember a thing.
"No." I say. It comes out more defiantly than I meant to. Perhaps that's a good thing.
She blinks in surprise, but carries on and brightly announces the boys name.
Tate Cresta. Joss Cresta. Caleb Cresta.
Dante McMaster.
It's not them.
I can breathe again.
But now I can't stop the tears gathering in my eyes as he approaches the stage. He's a sixteen-year old Career. He sneers at the crowd and they love it. Thankful that they have at least one viable tribute to root for. I should be bitter. Afraid.
All I can register is that I'm happy. Happy that he goes to his possible death as long as my brothers aren't. It's wrong, I know. That registers. On some level.
Along with the feeling in my gut that I've tried to ignore.
I acknowledge it as the anthem plays and I shake hands with one of the twenty-three people I will face in the arena.
I am going to die.