Chapter 65- Terra Coppersmith
"Iry! Iry come here! Now!"
"Over here!" I glance over and I see Fletcher, standing on a pile of sand in the middle of the ocean, opposite where Iry is standing on a flooding island. They're both going to drown; I'm going to lose both of them if they don't come to me.
"Please! Please come here!" I scream, holding out my arms to both of them. "Please!"
Snow starts blowing around us, and I can't see Iry anymore, and Fletcher is growing blurry too. "Terra! Where are you?"
"I'm here!" I sob; I can't reach them, I can't move. "I'm here!"
A high-pitched cry rises up through the snow and cold wind. "Iry!" I scream, but I still can't get to her.
Two cannons go off, and as I watch the water, the blue turns red with their blood. I can't scream, can't move. All I can do is watch as Calypso, with her ruined face, and the girl from 3 walk out of the snow with bloody knives and dead, cold eyes…
"Get away from me!"
"Terra, it's me. It's Shuttle."
"No! No! Don't kill them!" I scream, pushing myself backwards; they're here, Calypso and Astrid, and they've killed Iry and Fletcher; they're dead, they're dead. They're dead.
"It's Shuttle, Terra. It's me."
The snow clears enough, and the terror fades, until I can see the room again, the room with the blue flower borders and the wide windows that open onto the street. And Shuttle. Shuttle's standing next to the bed with red eyes, holding a yellow mug. "It's me, Terra," she says, and her voice breaks.
"I'm sorry," I say, gripping my head tight so that I won't go back into that mix of Iry's arena and mine.
They're dead. Fletcher is dead, and Iry is dead, but Calypso and Astrid didn't kill them. The boy from 1 killed Fletcher. He's dead. He's dead, and it hurts, it still hurts so much, but knowing that Iry is dead too is worse. I'm still being strangled by the guilt and the loss, and I've never been in so much pain.
"Don't be," Shuttle says, sitting down on the edge of the bed, holding the mug out to me. "It's raspberry tea. I thought it would help today."
"Thank you. Thank you," I say, taking the cup from her with shaking hands.
"Another nightmare?"
I nod. The heat burns into my hands, but the pain distracts me from the loss of Iry. It's all I can think about, because the emptiness is constant. She would bring me tea in the morning, not Shuttle. She would come in every morning, and not having her is unbearable.
I've lived without her for a week; how can I live for the rest of my life without my sister?
"Do you want to talk about it?" Shuttle asks, but I shake my head. She understands; she never shares her nightmares either. And I don't want to know what terrors visit her in the dark, just like she doesn't really want to know about mine.
"Do you want help with your legs?"
I shake my head again. I can see them, leaning against the side table next to the bed, reminders of everything I lost in my own arena. "I can do it."
"I'll let you get dressed then," Shuttle says, stepping towards the door. "Call me if, if you need me."
"I will." Shuttle pulls the door closed on her way out, and the room is instantly as quiet as a tomb. Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the bells calling the workers to the factories. They used to call my father, and they used to call me. But my father is dead, and I am a victor, so I can ignore the bells now.
While I sip my tea, I look around the room for the hundredth time. It's not my room; it's not even my house. I haven't been home at all since we got back from the Capitol. I can't face it; I can't face the house where Iry and I lived. So I've been living with Shuttle for the past week instead. I just can't go home. Deecey still has Iry's cat, and I don't know if I want her back either.
I knew District 8 would drown me, and it is. I keep trying to come up for air, but I never reach the surface.
When my tea is half gone, I put it down, push back the covers, reach for my legs and put them on, the same way I've been putting them on for the last five years. I don't think I'll ever stop missing the skin and bones that I used to have, but I'd trade my legs a thousand times to get Iry back. For Iry and Fletcher, I'd trade my arms too.
Leaving the cup on the side table, I grab the clothes that Shuttle laid out for me last night on the dresser. I don't know what I'd do without Shuttle; I'm so numb inside that if she didn't insist I get up every day, I would stay in bed with the blankets over my head, and try to block out the world. But she won't let me.
Once I'm dressed, I get out the door and walk down the stairs, holding onto the railing for balance. Hollow, I'm hollow. And no words or actions can change that. Seven days ago, my sister died, and I drowned with her.
But Shuttle and Woven keep pulling me up out of the water, even though I'll never reach the air above the waves.
"Terra, good morning." Woven's sitting in the sunlit kitchen that's similar to mine, but has a few differences to make the Victor Village's houses unique. I wouldn't know what Woof's looks like, since he doesn't let anyone inside, but I know that Woven's is slightly different too.
"Good morning," I say, accepting the plate of toast that Shuttle hands to me. Woven looks more serious than she usually does, even with Iry being gone. What's happened?
"Eat your breakfast," Shuttle says, almost distracted.
"What's going on?" I ask, leaving the toast on the plate. Woven and Shuttle look at each other, and a message travels between them silently. "Just tell me. Please."
"The train came this morning," Shuttle says carefully, sitting down opposite Woven, her fingers interlacing in and out of each other.
"The train comes a lot of mornings," I say.
"It's different this time," Shuttle continues, and swipes at her eyes.
"She's home," Woven says. She's home.
She's home.
Hand above the water, pulling herself out, before she goes down, down into the water and doesn't come back up, she doesn't come back up, she drowns and drowns and drowns-
"Terra, come back," Woven says, gripping my forearms. I'm on the floor, and there's broken china all around me.
"She's home," I whisper, and Woven nods.
"It's okay. She's home."
"It's not okay."
"We can manage this. I promise." I shake my head, but Woven only grips my arms tighter.
"Do it for her."
The pain wraps around my middle until I gasp for breath, as Woven rubs my arms roughly. I can hear Shuttle sob, and it's that noise that brings me back to myself. Do it for her. For Iry.
"Okay."
Shuttle holds my hand as the train workers carry the pine box on their shoulders up the walkway of Victor's Village. Even though it's summer, it's cold, or maybe it's just me who's freezing. Woven stands behind me, hand on my shoulder. And Woof stands off to the side, far away enough that he can leave if he wants to, but close enough that I can feel his support. And I need that support when the workers place the coffin in the living room of Shuttle's house.
"Something for you that they wanted you to have," one man says, tall with a well groomed mustache. Why am I noticing these things? Maybe because I don't want to know, don't want to face what is in the living room. He hands off something to Shuttle, but I don't see what it is, because Woven's guiding me into the living room.
"Pay our respects," she says quietly. "And say goodbye."
No. I don't want to see, because if I see, I can't avoid the truth anymore. I don't want her to be dead. I want it to be a mistake, for it all to have been a mistake. A long nightmare that I'll wake up from eventually.
Woof's followed us inside, and he's the one that lifts the lid of the pine coffin they've put my sister into. Shuttle wraps her arms around me, holding me from the pain, but I feel it anyway when I see her.
She could be sleeping. Still in the uniform they put her into for the Games, her hands crossed over her chest. No expression on her face. And closed eyes, so that I can't even see the brown eyes that had so much life in them, and so much pain before she died. Black hair in braids, the braids I always did for her.
She could be sleeping.
"Terra?" Woven asks, but I shake my head.
"She can't wear that," I get out, the only thing I can say that won't make me cry. I'm too hollow to cry, because I'm so detached from what I'm seeing. She could be sleeping, Iry could be sleeping. But she doesn't breathe, and if I held my hand to her heart, it wouldn't beat. "She can't wear that, Woven."
"We'll get something from her closet," Woven says, and there's so much emotion in her voice that it makes the cracks inside me break apart even more.
"Please. Put her in a dress. A pink dress," I say, then words fail me and all I can do is lean into Shuttle and struggle against the pain. Because it's not a nightmare.
Iry is here, my sister is in front of me, and she's dead.
My sister is dead and cold and in her coffin.
She's dead.
"Put her in a dress," I whisper, then I sink to the floor and reach out to take Iry's hand. The last time I held her hand, it was warm. Now it's cold as ice, like she never lived at all. I never saw Fletcher after he came home, never saw him cold and absent.
"Where's Azlon?" I ask. He's dead too, and they must have carried him somewhere.
"With his family," Shuttle says, kneeling down behind me and still holding me against the pain. "They'll arrange the funeral for him."
"When do we bury her?" I whisper.
"Tonight," she whispers back.
"Please, Shuttle. Put her in a dress." I have to keep saying it, I have to repeat it over and over, or else I'll go insane. I'm holding my sister's hand, and she's dead. Dead. Drowned and gone, but peaceful in front of me. She could be sleeping.
"We will. We will," Shuttle murmurs into my ear.
Put her in a dress. And while Shuttle holds onto me from behind, I clutch my sister's hand as though it will bring her back to life, and keep me from dying alongside her.
But she doesn't wake up, and she never will.
Eight figures all in black, myself included, stand on top of a grassy hill in the setting sun. Shuttle holds my hand, lacing her fingers into mine as best she can, working around the gaps where my fingers used to be. Woven stands behind me, and Woof stands on my other side, but keeps his hands behind his back. Deecey is on Shuttle's other side, hand in hand with Alex; Mrs. Underfall is on the other side of them, holding baby Eli. He's the only one who doesn't understand what's happening.
The men who've dug the grave climb out of it and stand with their hats in their hands. "Ready, ma'am?" one asks, almost nervously.
No. I'll never be ready. But I nod anyway, because the sun is setting. And the air is already missing from my lungs; if I wait any longer, I'll suffocate completely.
Carefully, the three of them lower the simple pine coffin into the deep grave, and I swear they're more careful with hers than they've ever been with others in the past. I can see my mother's grave, and my father's grave too, from where I stand, but I avoid glancing at Fletcher's gravestone. It hurts too much to see it, and I don't want to hurt anymore.
"Where the loom is warped, so must the cloth be finished," Shuttle says quietly. The words said at every funeral.
"And it was woven well," Mrs. Underfall adds, brushing tears away as Eli giggles with joy at the sunset.
I don't feel anything else as the diggers start to shovel the loose dirt over the pine coffin. Just hollowness and pain.
She was wearing her favorite pink dress. With lace at the hem and a ribbon sash. And her hair in those black braids, those two black braids. And dark eyes that won't ever open again.
Shuttle squeezes my hand tightly when we can't see the pine anymore. It's gone. My sister is under the earth, she's going to suffocate in her grave. I'm burying my sister, I'm burying her under dirt and grass and the earth, and I'll never see her again.
"Shuttle," I gasp, bending over; I can't breathe, I can't get air into my lungs, and I don't want to breathe. I want to die right here, right now.
"Terra," Shuttle says, and I can hear her crying. "I'm here, we're here." Slowly she gets me upright, as the men keep shoveling the dirt into the hole.
"Here," she says, once I'm upright again. "The train workers, they gave me this to give you." Shuttle pries my hand open and drops something into it, something that doesn't register for a moment. Then it does, and I lose my breath again.
My mother's ring, hanging on a chain.
"Your token. Mother will be with you, and she'll help bring you home. Okay?"
Iry was wearing this when she died; it didn't bring her luck at all. She's dead, she's dead, and I can't handle this, I can't handle this at all.
"No!" I scream, throwing the necklace as hard as I can onto the ground and away from me. "No!"
"Terra!" Woven says, but I don't give her the chance to reach me. Even while they toss dirt on Iry's grave, I'm taking off, running down the grassy hill that Iry loved to run down, where her ghost is watching me run. "Terra, come back!"
I can't, I can't. I can't. Because Iry is dead and buried, and I can't handle it. I can't.
My feet carry me somewhere automatically, but my head doesn't know where. The streets are darkening, but I don't have room inside me to be afraid. I just have to get away from that hill where my sister is disappearing under the dirt, and where a necklace that reminds me of too much is lying on the grass.
Breathing heavily, I reach out in the half dark street for the place my feet have brought me to, and I realize it's my old house on Engineering Road. Where I lived before my Games, before everything happened and the Capitol took everything from me. The streets are too quiet; the shifts haven't changed yet. The silence rings in my ears louder than any bell.
I fumble my way towards the door, and find it unlocked. The memories here drown me too, but it's not just Iry's ghost that I see. My father sitting at the old table, giving the necklace to Iry. My mother, reading me a story in front of the stove. Iry running around the room while I try to catch her.
My family is everywhere, and yet they're all gone. They're all dead, and I'm the only one left.
The dark presses in on me, and I don't have a match to light the lamps or the stove, and suddenly I think I can see the bear mutt that was bleeding into the snow when I arrived at the Cornucopia that last morning. Before I saw Calypso with her ruined face, before I killed her.
I can't stay here.
I almost fall backwards when I rush for the door, slamming it behind me; I don't have a key to lock it. But the street is almost black now; there must be a power outage because if the power was on, some of the street lights would turn on and give me some light. The July heat has faded completely, and I'm lost in the dark and cold, and in my grief.
Burying my face in my hands, I try to figure out what to do. I'm lost, but I can't cry. And Iry is dead and buried by now, resting under a new mound of earth with a marble headstone to mark where she is. She's dead. And I'm lost in the streets of my own district.
"Terra! Terra, where are you?"
Just as the bells start to ring, I see the light from a lantern turning the corner ahead of me. "Terra!" The girl with the light freezes when she sees me, her light shining out over the cobblestones. "I found her!" she shouts, then runs towards me, the lantern swinging back and forth.
"I knew you would come here," Deecey says, throwing her arms around me, lantern and all. "I knew you would come home. Woof lent me the lantern."
"She's dead," I say, and finally the tears come, they come as I hold onto Deecey with all the strength I have, and I sob into her shoulder. "She's dead, and I'll never have her again."
"I know," Deecey says, and I know she's crying too. "But we're going to make her life count, do you hear me? We're not going to let her die for nothing."
"They don't care about her. They just let her die," I sob.
"We care, and we're the ones that matter."
"Terra!" Shuttle rounds the corner at a run as Deecey pulls away from me. "Terra." Just as she reaches me, Shuttle bursts into tears too, hugging me with more strength than I thought she had.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
"Come home," she whispers back, and I nod.
"I'll come home." This road has too many ghosts for me to stay here, and I don't want to be alone in the dark. I need them, I need my family, I need my mentors, and my best friend.
"Iry would want you to have this," Shuttle says, holding out that necklace again. "She would have given it back to you if she had won, I know she would have." I freeze, then nod. She hangs it around my neck gently, the cold metal ring against my chest.
Then, with Deecey on one side and Shuttle on the other, I let them guide me home.