Chapter 63- Astrid Clearwater
The whole room spins in the early morning light, but I just keep looking up at it, eyes unmoving. Wrinkled blue silk against my skin, soft blankets under my fingers. And no thoughts whatsoever.
Once upon a time, when I was younger, my brother was close to dying in the middle of winter. A doctor saved him, a doctor sponsored by Beetee Latier. So if Beetee could save my brother, why couldn't he save me instead of leaving me to my own devices? Why did he watch Agrippina cut me and Circuit strangle me and do nothing?
He sent the medicine that saved my life, but it was Elowyn who injected it into me. Elowyn who saved my life over and over in the arena. And now the girl from District 7 is dead. Gone. Sent back to her district in a pine box, while I, the girl she helped, is lying here in a silk dress. The ceiling is still spinning, and there's a soft humming in my ears that I don't think is coming from anywhere else but inside my head. But it's quiet. It's early, and everyone is asleep and leaving me alone.
I would trade the silk and the soft blankets under me, this whole apartment, for my leaky apartment and threadbare clothes at home if it meant I could get my head together. I won. I won the Hunger Games. The first girl from District 3 to ever win, and I don't know what they think of me. What anyone thinks of me. I can't be a victim; I have to be a victor. I can't ever be weak, not even to myself. I won't let myself be broken by the arena like other victors I've seen. I won't let myself.
Everything is stiff from lying on my back all night, and it hurts to roll over, but I do it anyway. I feel sick, the kind of sick that won't go away for days. Part of it is my head and the constant nausea, but the other part is due to my dreams last night. Nightmares, really. I was lost in a crowd of people that I knew hated me, in all the colors I could ever think of, then the room flooded and Tilling dragged me down with her rotting hands to drown with her.
Maybe I shouldn't have left her to drown, but I would be dead with her if I had gone back for her. I couldn't save the girl who was broken by the arena, and drowning was a better death than handing her over to Agrippina.
For a moment, I can feel Agrippina's knife in my forehead, then the memory slips away with the rest of my thoughts. How can my head be so empty and so full at the same time? The pressure is still there, pushing out at my temples until I feel like I will burst. Yesterday I was in the hospital, today I'm in my room in the Training Center waiting for my final interview. I can go home today.
I have no idea what's waiting for me at home.
The room is going to spin whether I'm lying down or not, and the one thought I clutch at is curious about the Capitol, so I force myself to roll off the bed and get up. As soon as I'm on my feet, I slam into the wall as the floor shifts under me. No weakness, not even here when nobody can see me. I can see me, and I won't be weak even for myself. I'm better than that.
The room shifts and I almost fall onto the bed again, but I keep my balance at the last minute and weave towards the windows. On the way I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wall; I look horrible. Makeup smeared, dress wrinkled. My prep team are going to have heart attacks when they see me, but I don't care. All the Capitol people can die, it doesn't matter to me. They wanted me to die in the arena, they can do the same.
I almost crash into the window, falling to the side instead and hitting the wall before sliding down it and landing in a heap next to the glass. I want my head back, with all my thoughts and wits that I don't have. And I'm going to need them today during the interview. I can't go on and talk to Panem with scattered thoughts. I want the nausea to go away, and I want the room to stop spinning. I want a lot of things, but the Capitol isn't going to give them to me.
I knew when I came here that the Capitol takes everything from us, and gives nothing back but our tributes in pine boxes. I knew that. But I didn't know they would take me from me too. They took Elowyn, they gave me metal plates in my leg, to remind me that I'll always be part Capitol now. But I can't forgive them for taking my thoughts.
The glass is cool on my head and actually helps clear the headache away slightly while I look down at the candy colored streets below. People dressed like the guests at the party last night walk up and down the road, apparently straggling back from parties of their own. The Games are over; they've probably been celebrating my win.
I'm so far away from home, and I haven't really felt the distance until right now. Somewhere out there is District 3, with the factories and the slums and the shops around the square. Somewhere out there are my mother and my brother, waiting for me. I kept my promise to them. I'm going home. But I don't think they're getting the same daughter and sister back. Maybe it won't matter.
No weakness. I have to keep reminding myself that. I can't focus on the fact that everything is different, because I'm a victor and victors don't care about that. District 2 doesn't, and they seem to enjoy the Games every year when I see them on the television. Agrippina didn't seem to mind-
No. No weakness. Agrippina didn't break me, Circuit didn't break me, the arena didn't break me. I'm stone, and stone isn't easily broken.
Even though the floor is still moving back and forth under my feet, I push myself up to standing and walk as straight as I can to the machine that gives out food. Almost falling on it, I whisper into it, "Bread from District 3." I hold onto the machine for the minute it takes to give me my food, then a plate of a dozen District 3 rolls appears. Food from home.
Grabbing the plate, I place it on my bed and take a handful to eat while I practice walking. The familiar food helps to clear my head slightly, and the bread combats the nausea that keep threatening to overwhelm me as I walk from one end of the room to the other and back. Then I do it again. And again. And again, until I can cross it twice without weaving. I have to walk as straight as I can today, because there are going to be cameras and Panem is going to be watching how I'm reacting to being a victor.
I can play off the broken leg, because that was obvious during the finale, but I didn't let it affect me in the arena. If I can act like it wasn't that important to me, then I'll look stronger to everyone. But they can't know about my confused head. And if they ask, I'll lie. I can't let anyone know how confused I am inside my mind, because I don't know what they would do if they found out. I can't be weak. I can't.
I'm crossing the floor and eating my last roll when Delia bursts into the room without knocking.
"Oh, you're awake!" she chirps, but I can see the startled look in her eyes when she looks at me. "You didn't change last night?"
"I was so tired I fell asleep right after we got home," I say, carefully choosing my words. I won't admit how confused and close to a breakdown I was last night, because nobody needs to know that.
She recovers well. "Sparkle will have a time with you, but that's what she's here for!" she chirps. "Your interview is at ten, so they will be in straight away to get you ready!"
"I can't wait," I say, smiling at her. There. Nothing wrong with me. And I'm standing straight up and down with no wobbling at all, even though the floor is still slowly spinning around me. There.
As soon as Delia clacks out of the room, wearing heels even this early in the morning, Sparkle, Lara, and Spila rush in with their makeup kits. Spila squeals when she sees me, her eyes wide. I almost laugh when I see how shocked she is at my messy face and hair, but then her wide eyes are replaced with Tilling's before the Cornucopia went down. I have to shake that girl, because I never cared about her when she was alive. I shouldn't care about her now she's dead.
"Astrid, what did you do to yourself?" Lara says, her voice even squeakier than usual.
"I fell asleep."
"Oh, look at that dress," Sparkle says exasperatedly, looking me up and down.
"You can do something with it I'm sure," I say as dismissively as I can. I'm clutching at whatever thoughts I can gather, and I hope it's going to be enough to get me through today. I can shut up at home, but I have to sound intelligent for the cameras. I can't let them think an idiot won the Games.
"Sit down, we have so much work to do," Spila moans, pushing me over towards the bed.
"Don't push me," I snap, turning around and sitting down on the bed myself. These Capitol people don't know when to stop. Don't ever touch me. I never want to be touched again.
After Sparkle pulls the dress over my head and wraps me in a soft robe, Lara goes to work clearing my face of makeup while Spila undoes my tangled hair. Every so often one of them complains about what a disaster I am, but I ignore them. I don't have enough space in my stuffed head to worry about what they think of my hair and makeup.
"Now we're getting somewhere," Lara says proudly, painting my face with something. Sparkle cranes her neck over to look.
"More blush, and dark pink lipstick, Lara."
"Obviously."
Spila brushes my hair out behind me, and it makes my stomach tighten unexpectedly. It reminds me of Mama and how she used to brush my hair. Sentimental. Isn't that what Elowyn said she was called? The strangest thoughts and memories keep swimming up to be caught. She's dead, and it's time to move on.
"Alright, we're all ready for the dress!" Sparkle squeals. "Now don't you mess this one up!"
"I won't."
She pulls the robe off me and says, "Step into this one."
The fabric is gauzier than the silk; green gauze that floats around my ankles, with flowing see through sleeves, and artificial flowers decorating the top. It's pretty, and I like my hair loose like Spila has done it, but I think I prefer the blue silk.
"It's nice," I say, the only thing I can come up with before it all slips away again.
"We are on in twenty minutes!" Delia says, clacking back into the room with her eyebrows furrowed together. She hasn't changed her wig since she got here, and a thought occurs to me; does she take it off to sleep?
"Alright, out you go," Sparkle says, right after stuffing my feet into green shoes that pinch at the toes. "You follow Delia, and have fun!"
"I'm sure I will," I say with a sarcastic edge to my voice. This interview will be anything but fun, but it's the last obstacle that I need to get through before I go home. Sparkle's looking at me so expectantly that I add, "Thank you."
She beams. "You are so welcome, Astrid. You don't look horrible at all now!"
"Good to know," I say before sweeping out the door, blaming the one trip I have on my dress.
"Over here, sit right down here," Delia calls, waving me into the living room. It looks very different than it did yesterday; there are cameras and cameramen everywhere, most of the furniture has been cleared to the side, and whatever tables that are left are covered in vases of flowers. Marcus Fireglen is sitting on the one couch they put in the middle of the room, fiddling with his collar.
"Astrid, lovely to see you again," he says, finishing with his collar and reaching out to shake my hand. I don't want to touch him, but I don't have a choice. I have to act as normally as possible. Untouched by the Games. I'm not going to let them know how much they've affected me, and I won't even let myself think it.
Of course, it's hard to think about it when my thoughts keep sliding all over the place.
"Don't you be nervous today; I won't give you any questions that are too hard to answer," Marcus continues, looking at me almost pityingly.
I brush my hair over my shoulder and hold my head high, ignoring the wave of nausea that's washing over me. "Ask me any question you like, Marcus. I'll have answers to them all."
"That's a girl," he says, smiling and patting my knee. Don't touch me or I'll plant an axe in your head.
Lara and Spila come out and flutter around my head like birds, adjusting my makeup, my hair, the sleeves on my dress until I want to scream at them to go away and leave me alone. It takes Delia calling out the five minute mark to make them retreat back to their rooms, or wherever they're supposed to go.
"We are live in three, two, one," one of the cameramen says, then Marcus springs into being the presenter and actor that I've seen for the past decade.
"Welcome back Panem! We are here with our victor of the Forty-First Hunger Games, our very own Astrid Clearwater from District 3!"
I give the cameras the brightest smile that I can manage while giving them a small wave. This is where it counts, and I can't let myself go now.
"It breaks my heart, Astrid, that this is the last time we will see you until your Victory Tour," Marcus says, turning to me now.
"Those months will just fly by, Marcus. You'll hardly miss me before you see me again!" I say, my wits starting to lock in. Just like when I stood on my broken leg in the arena, that's what I have to do now. My head is broken, but I have to get up and stand on it anyway. And I have to look good doing it.
"They better! Astrid, I think this has been a very special journey for you. You're from District 3; no other girl from your district has ever won. And you were coming from a disadvantage, considering the fact that there were only two victors before you. How did you feel coming into the Games like that?"
I was convinced that I was going to be dead in a few weeks, but he doesn't need to know that. "As soon as that piece of paper was pulled out of the reaping bowl, I knew that I was going to be the victor this year," I say, pulling myself up straighter. "So I never thought otherwise."
"It must have been such a huge adjustment, coming from 3 into the Capitol."
"I think I adjusted quite quickly. I'd never say no to a gadget or two, and it's even better knowing that my district was the one who came up with them. So in a way, I always had a piece of home with me." The Capitol stole our creations, that's what they did, but I can't say that. My backhanded barbs are the only way I can say what I really think, and they're all too stupid to figure it out.
"Very clever! And of course we all knew that when you got that 7 in Training. One of the highest we've ever seen from District 3, if I'm not mistaken."
"Higher than Beetee Latier's," I say with a wry smile. Where is Beetee, anyway?
"I won't be surprised if you turn out to be more brilliant than Beetee Latier, then," Marcus says.
"I won't be either, then." I can feel my mind trying to shut down again, but I can't let it now.
"Now, Astrid. I think we're all dying to know what you did in your private sessions that got you that 7."
"Isn't that against the rules?" I ask, leaning back against the pillows next to me.
"Nothing to hide now!" Marcus says, grinning too wide. All I've seen since yesterday is people smiling at me, and not one of them has been sincere about it. "Remember, you don't have any competition anymore!"
Because they're dead, Marcus. Because they're all dead.
"No harm in telling you then," I say smoothly, sitting back up. "I threw axes, and I threw them well."
"I think we all saw your skill in the finale! But we'll get to that soon enough. Don't want to pull out the show stopper at the beginning, now do we?"
All I can manage in return is a smile. I don't want to discuss the finale. Ever.
"Had you ever thrown axes before?"
"Never. But I'm a quick study."
"So you are! Are you quick at picking anything else up?"
I have to think fast. "Math," I say honestly. I always was good at math in school, but there's no way I can do it right now. "I was top of my class for math."
"Impressive! I never was very good at math," Marcus says, laughing. "But I don't need it now, now do I?"
"Overrated for everyone here," I say, smiling at him.
Marcus smoothly moves into his next topic, and it's the start of the subject I dread. "We all know what happened in our first interview, so let's talk about what happened after. What did you think when you came up out into that jungle?"
"It wasn't anything like District 3," I say, forcing myself to laugh. Careers laugh at that sort of thing; they like the bloodshed and they don't care about the dead. Not that I do either. The others are dead, it's time to move on.
"Just a little different from your district, now wasn't it?"
"You can't find another place more unlike it, Marcus," I say, still smiling.
"You made the decision not to go to the Cornucopia. Why was that?"
Because I wasn't stupid. "There wasn't anything in that Cornucopia that I needed. All I needed was right in here," I say, tapping my head.
"So you found Elowyn and took off into the jungle."
"Yes."
"Why did you choose her to team up with? Well, who wouldn't, didn't you see her?" Marcus says, turning back to the camera. I feel a wave of hatred rising up at him, at the Capitol. Because Elowyn was more than a pretty face; she was a real person. I couldn't trust her completely, but she was my ally all the same, and I don't like to hear Marcus saying she was nothing but pretty.
"She was smart," I say, tossing my hair behind me. "She could throw an axe better than any of us, and she was the most trustworthy of the other tributes. We were each other's best chances of getting out alive."
"And yet only one of you survived," Marcus says, suddenly quiet. He's playing for the cameras; he doesn't care about me, or Elowyn, or any of the other twenty-two tributes who died in that arena. Just another person in this city that I can't trust. I hate them all, and the pain in my head isn't helping anything.
"Yes. I wasn't afraid to use her to get myself ahead, and I knew I would win."
"Why was that?"
"Because I wasn't afraid to kill her when the time came. I know she wasn't afraid to kill me either, but we worked better as a team than alone."
"You brought in Tilling to your alliance, why don't you tell us about why you did that? If you'll all excuse me saying this, but she wasn't the strongest tribute this time around."
"She was harmless," I say, shrugging. "She wasn't a threat to us, and she would have tagged along anyway, and we weren't ready to kill anyone yet at that point. So we let her come along, knowing that we could kill her in a moment if we had to."
"It ended very badly for her, didn't it?"
"She got the easy way out," I say, and that hatred is rising up in me again. "We made the decision to leave her there in the Cornucopia because one of us would have died getting her out. We made a choice and stuck by it, and I still think we made the right decision. I would be dead if I had went back for Tilling."
"You did indeed make the right choice," Marcus says, reaching out and patting me on the knee. My hand twitches, ready to slap him, but I stop myself in time. I doubt the whole of Panem would react well to me hitting Marcus Fireglen right in the middle of my interview. I'm playing the Career, and Careers don't attack the interviewer. "And what do you mean about her getting the easy way out?"
"Drowning was a better end than some of the others got." Strangled, speared, stabbed. Three girls went out easily, and those were the three girls that needed to. But all I can see when I think of Tilling are her corpse hands pulling me down to drown with her.
"Sharks aren't anything to play with, am I right?" Marcus laughs, as though the boy from 1's death was just a joke.
"He should have been a bit more careful," I say, trying for a sharp and uncaring tone. "Bad luck for him, but just another cannon for me." There. I'm ruthless, and I didn't care about anyone in that arena. Because I didn't. I couldn't.
"Astrid, you ended your alliance with Tilling at the Cornucopia, but what made you keep it with Elowyn until the very end?"
"We were both waiting to make the first move. We could have both killed each other, but we were just waiting for the right moment. And I was ready to on the last night."
"She did keep you alive, didn't she?"
"She did." I have to give her the credit for this. I can't let my ally go unnoticed and unmentioned for what she did for me. "She saved my life several times, and I couldn't have won without her."
"What a lovely gesture for a lovely girl." Marcus presses his hand over his heart and wipes away his tears. I hate him. I hate him for pretending to care.
Marcus wipes away more tears and chokes up for a few seconds more, then gets back into bombarding me with questions. "Let's talk about that last night in the arena." No. Let's not. "It was surprising, to me at least- I don't speak for everyone in Panem of course! But it was surprising to have Elowyn gone, and then you killed Dominicus in just a matter of seconds."
Dominicus. I forgot his name, and now he has one. Now he's real, not just a boy I'm trying to forget. He had a name. "It was a jolt, but it ultimately brought me a few steps closer to the crown."
"You must have been absolutely terrified when Aggie brought you down."
"No. I wasn't. I knew I would get out of it somehow; I just needed to play my cards right." The floor is slowly moving back and forth, and my hands are starting to shake, so I hide them under my skirt. "I was never scared."
"But the biggest twist in these Games, in my opinion, was Circuit. Did you know that he was actually a killer? We saw him kill Nell, and then Agrippina, and every time my heart stopped. Did you know?"
Lie. "I knew all along, Marcus," I say casually. "As soon as we were reaped I knew there was something off about him. He pretended to be this helpless tribute, but I knew better. You know, he was the one who decided to be coached separately, and that's exactly when I knew that he wasn't what he was pretending to be. Even so, it's a miracle he made it to the final two." My hands are shaking so hard that I'm scared Marcus might feel the couch trembling.
"I think this was the first year that we've had two District 3 tributes in the final two. How do you feel making history?"
"It feels exactly right." I might be sick. Right here. No weakness, Astrid. I have to keep a grip on my mind, because if that drifts away, I'm going to be lost again.
"What did you think when he killed Agrippina for you?"
"He didn't kill anyone for me. I was working up a plan when he strangled her. I had her knife, and I knew exactly what he was going to do, so I killed him, and I won. Just like that."
"Just like that," Marcus agrees, nodding his head. "Winning came at a price for you, didn't it now? You got some nasty injuries in that arena. Rolling down hills, those mutts at the Cornucopia- which was the worst in your opinion?"
"The mutts weren't fun," I say, which is a massive understatement. "But my mentor got me the medicine that made it better again, and it didn't hurt after the first few minutes. I'm perfectly fine now."
Another understatement.
"The mutt at the end of the Games as well. That was very impressive how you killed it, but what happened afterwards was terrible. Tell us about it, won't you?"
"I think you all noticed me falling out of that tree," I say, trying to turn it into some sort of joke, and somehow it works, because Marcus laughs.
"It wasn't hard to notice that!"
"It was a long drop, which wasn't the most fun thing I've ever done."
"The rumor around here is that you broke your leg. Is that true?"
"I did. They put a metal plate in it to put it back together," I say, holding my head up high.
"And you ran and finished the Games with a leg broken that badly?" Marcus says, sounding somehow awed.
"I did."
"Astrid, it's rare that we see someone with that much determination in those Games."
"Thank you. I wasn't going to go out without a fight." I wasn't planning to go out at all. But I did think that I was going to die when Aggie-
"I also heard a rumor that you hit your head quite badly. Am I correct on that?"
He is, but I'm not going to say that. "Saw a few stars when I hit the ground, but there's nothing wrong with me now," I say, tapping my head and watching the floor shift downwards. Don't be sick.
"Astrid, you have been very brave during the past few weeks, and I think you should be very proud of yourself," Marcus says, smiling insincerely at me.
"I am. I am proud of myself. I was the best of them, and it shows now, doesn't it Marcus?"
"It certainly does. One last question before we go, if I may?"
It's almost done. Almost over. "Ask away, I have the answers."
"What are you going to do now that the Games are over?"
Forget. Forget everything that happened here. "I'm going to get my family settled into our new house in Victor's Village, where we belong," I say, smiling back at him. "We've earned it."
"So you have," Marcus agrees, patting my knee again. "So you have. Astrid, it has been a true pleasure to have you here with us, and we can hardly wait to see you again in a few months for your Victory Tour. Are you excited for that?"
"I can't wait," I say, pressing my hands into the couch so that they'll stop shaking.
"Until then, Astrid, all of Panem wishes you the best," Marcus continues, holding his hand out. I force myself to take it, and he raises our hands together in a sort of triumphant pose. "The victor of the Forty-first Hunger Games! Astrid Clearwater of District 3!"
"And we're clear!" one of the cameramen says, shutting the cameras down. It's over. I'm free.
My thoughts scatter outwards until I'm lost again, lost in my own head. But I'm free. I can go home.
Home.