I look across at Hollis. He hasn't spoken to me once since I left the arena. He hasn't spoken much to anyone. He holds a whiskey in one hand but he doesn't drink from it, just lets the amber liquid move to the rhythm of the train. District 4 may have a victor this year but it occurs to me that there are still only two people returning on this train. I don't exactly know who Jeannie was to him but when she died he died with her.
I don't know what to say to him. I don't think I know a way of bringing him back so, rather than face it, I go to my compartment. Soon I am going to see my family again, my friends- all the people who ever knew me. I wonder if they saw what I did when they watched the games. Will they even recognise me?
I pull off the clothes the Capitol dressed me in and climb into the shower trying to make it all wash away. I imagine the mask slowly slipping- no more flirting, no more posing, just Finnick- a simple fisherman's son- a boy from District 4. That's who I'm supposed to be.
As I slowly cleanse away all traces of the Capitol I wait to feel like myself again. Maybe once it is all gone I will be able to grieve. Be able to let it all go. God, I hope so.
I stand soaking in the shower for a long time, waiting to feel it- urging whatever it was that allowed me to feel these things to come back. Mags calls to me, telling me it is time to eat but I'm still waiting, still scrubbing at my skin, waiting to feel it. I repeat my ritual, methodically cleaning each part of myself. I can still smell the perfume of the Capitol on me, still sense the blood on my skin but I don't feel the disgust or the sadness I expect. Will I ever feel like myself again?
Someone knocks on my door.
"Finnick?" Mags again. "Are you all right?"
"I'm in the shower." I call to her.
"Yes, dear, I know that. You've been showering for three hours."
Three hours? I hear the squeak of the door as it opens and through the steam of the shower I see Mags. She is carrying a bundle of clothes. Without looking at me she goes and sits on the toilet lid, thoughtfully running the shirt through her fingers.
"I thought I would bring you something to change into."
I rub soap across my back, reaching as far as I can over my shoulder. There is just one part that I can't reach…
"Come on," she says, "You can't stay in there forever."
She reaches in to the shower cubicle and switches off the water, passing me a towel with her other hand. She still doesn't look at me but I don't feel awkward about her being here. After the events in the Capitol with the prep team and the stylists and the arena it is hard to feel embarrassed. I have been on display for so long.
I begin to dry myself and she passes me clothes, item by item until I am once again fully dressed but I'm still not myself. It is just another costume.
"What's it like- coming home?"
Mags softly sighs, "I like to think of it like waking up from a strange dream. Everything feels more real back home. You'll see, you'll find your feet again."
"I'm-"
"Yes, I know, you're fine." She reaches towards the top of my shirt and uncurls the collar which must have been tucked under. "Better make sure you at least look the part."
"What if I don't want to? What if I just want to look like myself? I don't want to meet my family as a victor I just want them to see me as I was- as I am."
"They'll see it, don't you worry." She takes the towel and wraps it around my head, rubbing my hair dry so it no longer drips water onto my clean shirt.
"But what if they don't? Mags I- I don't think I'm the same person I used to be." Somehow in Mags calm company the truth tumbles from my mouth. Really I want her to tell me things are all right, that I am still the same person I was before the games, that things get better with time. But she doesn't but she understands and that's something.
"You're afraid they'll treat you differently?"
"I couldn't stand it if they did."
"Even if they do you will come to accept each other. Time might not heal but it accommodates."
She leads me back to the dining car where Hollis is still propped up in a chair. He doesn't acknowledge our return. I wonder if Mags tried picking him up as well, tried to sort him out and piece him back together as she has tried to do with me. If she did then it is clear she didn't succeed.
The remainder of our journey is spent in near silence. My hands find a piece of rope which I knot mindlessly. Mags sits reading. Hollis just sits.
Before I step off the train onto the platform Mags takes a moment to straighten me out again. She might not be able to fix me but she can at least make sure I look as though I am together. I have to put on a good show.
"You ready, kiddo?"
"Ready as I'll ever be."
As I step out into the bright sunlight I shield my eyes, struggling to see my first glimpse of my home. A crowd has gathered to welcome us, I can hear their cheers. Yet, somehow, I get the impression that these cheers are not quite as sincere as they might be. It is not like in the Capitol when people call out my name, vying for my attention. There is an icy chill in the air.
Cameras flash in my face.
At the end of the platform I see my parents stood arm in arm. My mother is crying, daubing her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief, while my father scolds her for being silly. Reporters stand by waiting to bombard us with questions the moment they get the chance.
As soon as I am close enough my parents wrap their arms around me and the three of us embrace. My mother is actually shaking when she looks up at me, tears still steaming from her eyes.
"How do you feel about your son's return?" One of the reporters asks her, holding a microphone in her face, but my father steps forward and answers instead.
"We are very proud," he says, "I had hoped he would do it and now… well now he has."
"Is it true that you were the one who taught him to use a trident?" another asks.
"That's right. He was a bit of a hopeless case to begin with, though. He was always so loud that he would scare all the fish away. I remember telling him- he must have been about seven at this stage- I told him that he had better stick to making nets because a family would starve waiting for him to catch a fish. And now look at him…"
He doesn't mention how I can now use a trident to kill not just fish but people as well but I can see by the way his smile fades that he's thinking of it. Certainly he is glad I am home and he always knew that in order to do that I would have to eliminate my opponents but I suspect, like me, he was not entirely sure what that actually meant.
The three of us walk along the platform together where I catch sight of Eoghan and his family. "Hey Finnick!" Eoghan calls. "I was wondering when you were going to get back!"
Eoghan laps it up as reporters descend upon him, asking him all about me- whether he is jealous that I got to compete in the games, what he thought of the way I performed, did he always know that I could win? His little sister stands just behind him, unlike everyone else she is not even pretending to cheer, just silently watching me, as if trying to figure something out. I turn quickly from her- I can't stand knowing that she can look through me that easily.
I have almost reached the end of the platform when someone behind me begins to shout. "Murderer!"
I turn around. A small bedraggled man rushes towards me. He looks half mad; his hair stuck up at odd angles, dressed in only a soiled dressing gown, unshaven, pointing right at me.
"Murderer!" he repeats, "You should rot in prison!"
There is murmuring from the crowd and two peacekeepers march forward and grab hold of him- one on either side- but he is determined and forces himself free. "You killed my daughter! We all saw it. You won't be allowed to get away with this." He turns towards the crowd, pleading for them to join his cause. "We shouldn't be cheering him, celebrating his victory- he deserves to be hanged!" He is almost upon me before the peacekeepers grab hold of him again.
Mr O'Brien screams and curses as they take him away. All I can do is watch in horror, the blood draining from my face. The crowd too watch in silence. The same icy chill that met me off the train still lingers in the air. None of them say that they agree with Mr O'Brien but I can see they are thinking it.
"You were meant to help her!" Mr O'Brien calls as he disappears from sight. "You should have been a team!"
Even when he is gone from my sight I can still hear his rants. Hollis, who was walking just behind me and my parents, begins to follow Mr O'Brien and the peacekeepers.
"Where are you going?" Mags asks.
"Someone should talk to him," is all Hollis says. He probably agrees. I am almost surprised that he didn't join in and call me a murderer himself.
I assume that the broadcast was interrupted because someone calling the new victor a murderer certainly doesn't fit in with the celebratory image they, no doubt, want to convey. The cameras still follow us, though.
I am led through the town and up the path to the Victor's Village. As we pass the lake I can't help but notice the flowers that are growing there. Just like the one Jeannie received in the arena.
There are twelve houses in the Victor's Village all of them positioned around the magnificent lake with balconies looking over the sea at the rear. As a child on the boats I would always look up at the houses and wonder what it would be like to live there- they seemed so big that I always imagined getting lost in them- somehow falling into another world. A world without work or hunger or misery. It made a great fairytale.
I am directed towards the middle of the row. "That's mine on the left," Mags whispers pointing to the house to the left of the centre. "Hollis is two doors down." She slowly points down the line, "Sorley, Ardal, Paddy. That one used to belong to Caitria."
They take us to the house next door to Mags- a bronze number seven is hanging on the smart green front door.
"House number seven for our seventh victor," Mayor Sullivan says. I hadn't even noticed he was here but he walks up to the front door and gestures to me to come forward. "Welcome home!" he beams.
Yeah, I think bitterly, welcome home.