Chapter Forty: The Liminal Space
The commander of Eastwatch, Cotter Pyke, is gruff and unpleasant, but in more of a Haymitch sort of way whereas based on stories I was expecting another Thorne. While he's not thrilled with Jon for bringing a wildling and a girl, he's mostly dismissive toward Tormund and me, though he spends a couple of minutes making jabs here and there after he's received us.
"So it's true," the old man hoots as he's leading us through the halls. "Castle Black has its own little songbird. Brought her along for the journey, did you… Are you going to make her sing tonight, Lord Snow?"
Tormund snorts for some reason, and Jon tenses in front of me. "What, at dinner?" he asks after a moment. "Only if it pleases her. It's been a long day; I think we all just need to rest."
Cotter laughs and sneers something else I barely hear, but I decide to tune him out, and eventually we're shown to our rooms. On the way, relieved to be rid of Cotter, I think of the Nightfort and make the mistake of asking the Eastwatch men escorting me, half-seriously, if this place is haunted.
"No, but the room you'll be staying in is," one of them says cheerfully.
"They say that late at night, you can hear a baby crying," a second chimes in without hesitation.
"I thought it was a woman sobbing," says the first.
"I thought it was both!" counters a third.
The first two shamelessly get to bickering about the ghost story that I half-suspect they made up on the spot to terrorize me. It carries down the hall to said room, where I roll my eyes as the third brother ends up being the one to open the door while the other two keep adding in and arguing over details in the background. Blood and lullabies and a body never found. The joke's on them, I think they've gotten so invested that they don't even notice I'm partially ignoring them.
Except when they leave, and the door closes behind them, I get that weird feeling again as I'm setting my things down on the bed. I go to the window and it's got a remarkable view of the sea at night, so maybe that has something to do with it. I'm not about to fall for the men's dumb ghost story. A woman's ghost I would have believed, since they have hosted women in the past, but they lost me at the crying baby. Unless Gilly and Baby Sam's situation isn't as unheard of in the Night's Watch as I thought…
Gilly. That reminds me. I need to reach out to her and Sam soon, let them know we're at Eastwatch and see how things are going at Castle Black without us. I start to dig out my devices, then think better of it, since it's close to supper for them too and I don't know for sure if they can be disturbed right now. It might be wiser to try to connect later tonight, when they're more likely to be somewhere private like the library or the maester's quarters.
After making sure the coast is clear around my room, I contact Beetee instead and ask him if the footage came in all right. His cameras are pretty good quality, even when they're passing information between worlds, but I know he's said there have been times where it's just a little grainy. The dim lighting of twilight probably wouldn't have helped.
"No, no, it's excellent," Beetee assures me. "Now that you mention it, the connection at Eastwatch is surprisingly strong. You usually only come in clear like this when you're at the weirwood tree or Castle Black. Places you've been before, or stayed at for a period of time."
"But I haven't been here before," I say, frowning as I pace around the edge of the bed. My eyes drift toward the window again, where the wind and the sea are waging war just outside, and suddenly it's as if I'm hiding inside the concrete house back in Twelve, staring out at the waves on the lake as I wait out a summer storm. There goes that unsettling feeling again. "Beetee, isn't there a word for this? Being in a place that feels… weird? I don't know, familiar in an unfamiliar way? It's like it's comforting but strange at the same time. It's disorienting."
Beetee muses on the other end for a few seconds. "One term that comes to mind is déjà vu," he says. "An illusion of memory, the phenomenon of feeling like you've already experienced something before." I make a noncommittal noise in response. "But the word I think you're looking for is liminality. Or a liminal space."
"Liminal space?" I echo. That sounds right. My father used it once when I woke up from a nightmare at three o'clock in the morning and the energy in the house felt… pretty much exactly like this. An in-between period of sorts.
"Essentially it's like a threshold," Beetee explains. "A middle space, or a state of transition. People often get the same disoriented feeling of unreality in train stations, corridors, areas where you are meant to cross from one place to another. It makes sense that seeing the ocean would evoke this feeling in you, especially at nightfall. The transition from day to night."
"Well, what about this room?" I press. His explanation is solid, but I'm not entirely convinced.
"It's unfamiliar, and you're only staying there for the time being," Beetee says easily. "You might have felt the same way in the Training Center, or your room on the train. Or perhaps your room at Castle Black, unless you've gotten used to it by now."
The thing about the Training Center settles it for me, but the last part makes me blink. The implication – or reminder – that my situation at Castle Black may be temporary. Does it still feel that way to me?
It's been a month, I've known my way around the castle for a while now, and my room… well, it's my room. Even though up until the end of July, the one at the house in Victor's Village was my room. Then again, two years ago, it was the one in our house at the Seam. Things change.
I never cared for my new house, anyway. Back when we moved in, it was the Seam room I missed, the one I shared with Prim, simple yet sufficient. But that's lost to me now, burnt to ashes. The closest thing I've got to it is my room at Castle Black and I don't even know how long that's going to last.
In an effort to ward off these thoughts, I change the subject to anything else I can think of. The drone. Panem. Shireen and Gale. He doesn't have much to tell about the drone other than its continued route southwest from the great tundra. Lucy Gray is still Panem's hottest topic, Beetee admits, but he thinks I'd be interested to know that under a piece of What happened to Lucy Gray? graffiti, someone recently added What happened to Katniss Everdeen? Meanwhile, in Westeros, the Baratheon army should be making camp near Winterfell by midday tomorrow. Footage from Gale today featured Shireen and several of her father's men singing some Panem songs.
"I'm almost tempted to ask you to send me that footage," I tell him, smiling at the prospect of hearing Shireen sing.
Beetee laughs. "It would have to be discreet, but just say the word and it could be waiting for you on the beach," he promises.
Maybe I'll hold off. I didn't bring my projector with me, so I would have to wait to play it until we get back. But I do try to connect to Gale so I can hear Shireen's voice, talk to her tonight while I can.
He doesn't respond, which leaves me feeling restless. And cold. And honestly, a little grubby. After days of riding with the Night's Watch, bundled in layers, I'm sure I smell like horse and sweat and campfire smoke. Usually at Castle Black, I wash up at the lake or use a basin, avoiding the castle's bathing area when I can to limit the chances of anyone seeing me. But here at Eastwatch, possibly the coldest part of the Wall, what I need is a hot bath. I've never craved one more.
A fleeting temptation to make use of the ones here drives me to the door, but before I reach the knob, intuition pulls me back. There's no way they aren't occupied right now. And even if they were available, I wouldn't be able to guarantee my privacy.
Instead, another idea occurs to me. On a whim, I reach out again. "Beetee, as long as Gale's here, if I left I could come back, right?" I say.
"Correct, he's like a bookmark," Beetee replies.
I mull this over for a second, before asking: "Can I use your shower?"
Amused, Beetee generously agrees, but asks if I have a change of clothes with me. I'm about to go to the effort of digging through my pack when I have a sudden thought and snoop around the room instead. Sure enough, when I look in a dusty wooden chest, there are fine clothes hidden away inside. Well, fine by Westeros standards, as far as I know, and they smell a century old, but most are warm and black and look like they'd fit me. One's more of a nightgown, and the skirt looks too summery, so I pull out a shirt and trousers instead, briefly making a face at the crumpled linen with the dried, faded blood on it lying at the bottom of the chest. Closing the lid, I get ready for Beetee to summon me back.
After a couple minutes of deliberating if I can be safely recalled from inside this room or underneath a roof – he's always delivered people and parachutes to places that are out in the open, and there's some uncertainty over whether it will return me to the same spot – we concede it's worth testing the recall at least, but he has me bring my shadowskin in case when I come back it drops me off outside. I shudder at the thought of missing my room and falling through the air but decide to trust him, and the next thing I know, I'm frozen in place like I'm about to be pulled into a Capitol hovercraft. That seafoam sensation engulfs me again, cold pinpricks raising the hair on my neck and arms before overtaking my whole body, and the world goes bright, then white, then rippling with a haze of color.
The color fades to grey, my vision clears, and within an eyeblink, I'm facing Beetee's lab, standing behind the protective glass of the portal, which raises for me in an instant.
"Welcome back," he says with a smile.
"Thanks," I say, still in disbelief as I step off the plate and into his lab. The tingling numbness falls away just like that, and it's as if I've been dropped into a pot of soup. "Wow, it really is late August here, isn't it?"
Beetee laughs as I shrug off my shadowskin and fold it over my arm. "I have air conditioning down here," he counters. "But I can understand why you would still feel the difference."
He directs me to his shower, which is a lot closer to the one in the Training Center than the one I have at home. The panel with the multiple options for scents and oils and precise water temperatures. Being a victor from the technology district, he either used his winnings to have it installed or he actually designed it himself, which wouldn't surprise me. I shed my Mockingjay uniform, then step into the shower and program in a pleasing cycle, releasing a blissful sigh as warm water greets me like a welcome summer rain. The temperature increase is gradual, per Beetee's suggestion, so as not to shock my system. As it heats up, I lather and rinse with various soaps and shampoos and breathe in the sweet-smelling steam. The pool in the cave was nice, but you can't get luxury like this in Westeros.
I've started to sing "Rose of Gold," and I'm thinking to myself that it must be the first song from Westeros ever sung in Panem – unless Beetee has secretly crooned a few to himself now and then – when the thought slows me. My voice dies down until all I can hear is the hot running water pattering down around my feet. Water that's coming from Panem.
Only now does the reality of the situation sink in. I am in Panem, taking a shower, literally a world apart from Jon and the rest of them and he doesn't even know. He's in Westeros, somewhere in Eastwatch, possibly laughing with his brothers or discussing provisions and arranging things with Cotter so we can set sail in the morning. Completely unaware that I'm no longer on the same continent as him, or even the same planet. If I lose track of time, he could come to my room and fetch me for supper – and find not a single living soul inside.
It's surreal at first, the distance between us, like he's merely on the other side of the country but also practically in another Victor's Village house and I can just go through a door and walk across the road to him. Then a sting of terror blooms in my chest and locks in my throat. An irrational fear that Beetee will talk to Gale while I'm in here and let slip that I'm back and Gale will come back too, slipping from the pages of Westeros like the good-for-nothing bookmark he is…!
I manage to calm myself by remembering that Gale can't come back on his own, he'd need Beetee to let him through. And Beetee wouldn't do that. At least, I hope he wouldn't. If not for my sake, surely he'd prefer to hold on to this world for research purposes.
Satisfied that I can rely on Beetee's curiosity, I enjoy the last few minutes of my shower. But the surrealness stays the same, especially when I step out onto the mat that blow-dries me off with heaters. Beetee even has the box that blows a current through your scalp and untangles and dries hair instantly. As it makes short work of turning my snarls into silk, I can't help wondering why he has it installed. Maybe Wiress would come over and use it, or it's from a time when he lived in this house with his family. The thought saddens me, but I'm glad he has it. Saves me time that the Eastwatch baths wouldn't.
I change into my spare clothes, then take the devices and nightlock pill out of the Mockingjay suit's pockets and let Beetee graciously put it through another gadget for laundry. While that's running, I go outside onto the front steps and stare up at a sky I haven't seen in weeks.
Crickets are chirping. The air smells like a summer night. Bright stars shine exactly where I've always known them to be, and a half-moon appears from behind a moving wisp of cloud. Across the nation, under this very moon, people are wondering where I've gone.
Well, here I am. Like a ghost coming back to the place of my death, passing through on a whim. The pleasant breeze that makes my hair flutter is my only witness. One blink and you'll miss me.
"I shouldn't be able to do this," I say to myself with a little laugh. Then I turn around and head back in.
Beetee hands me my shadowskin I'd left draped on a chair and gives me my compressed Mockingjay suit in a bag, along with a chip of the Shireen singing footage since I'm here and it saves him the trouble of a parachute. I try to turn it down, because it's so small and I don't know if I can protect it and I'd hate to lose it during my travels, but Beetee shakes his head and gladly slips it and the nightlock pill into the suit's sleeve pocket for safekeeping while I reattach my devices. Then he wheels back to his computer and gets the portal program started with a flourish.
I glance over at his screen, which shows an unfinished map of northern Westeros with various shades of green. Close to the center, there's a pulsing dot labeled "G." He taps and drags at the screen, zooming further in on a horizontal stretch that must be the Wall. The light green spot in the middle must be Castle Black. To the right, Eastwatch is eclipsed by a patch of golden yellow. A few clicks and it's taken up the entire screen, showing several flecks of deeper orange. This must be what he meant when he said the connection was strong. Finally, he gives me the go-ahead, and I approach the portal as it comes to life with color.
"Did you make the metal plate bigger?" I ask, hesitating right in front of it.
"Gale had us adjust it so that the two of you could be summoned at the same time," says Beetee. "Obviously you could have come back alone, but this would've been the only thing he'd agree to. You and him leaving simultaneously by making physical contact somehow."
I scoff. "Because he knew I'd let him leave first and then just not go. And if he waited for me to go first, we wouldn't leave at all."
"Little does he know," Beetee says with a laugh, nodding to me.
The irony brings a half-smile to my lips. "I don't think I'll make a habit of it," I say.
After deliberating over the odds of being sent back to the exact spot of my recall point, and Beetee jokingly suggesting we send me through with a silver parachute, I take a deep breath and step into the energy. Beetee's lab and District Three and Panem fade away, overwhelmed by the ocean of colorful matter. The pins-and-needles feeling comes back again in full force and everything looks like the patterns and lights that flash across your vision when you rub your eyes too hard.
Then my body jolts and the temperature drops, leaving me breathless. Fully expecting to fall through the sky and hit the waves, I clutch at my shadowskin, close my eyes, and brace for impact. The world opens up and the surface beneath my feet is unsteady, making my eyes fly open as I topple forward. Flinging my arms out to balance myself, I let out a cry as my legs give out underneath me and I land awkwardly in a sitting position on the bed. I'd start cracking up if I weren't so stunned. There's a sudden revelation I've had from my return…
Not two seconds later, Beetee contacts me. No crackling in the earpiece, just the static beneath my skin. "Katniss? Did you get back all right?"
"Yeah, I'm here," I say. "And I just realized what else that weird feeling reminds me of. It's like going through the portal. Only in the portal, it feels a lot stronger."
He makes a sound of pleasant comprehension. "As it should. It's another liminal space," he says. "A more straightforward example of it, in fact. The threshold between two worlds."
"Then, do you think…" I struggle on how to word it. "I mean, could that be why the connection here is so good? Because of the liminality thing?"
"It's possible," Beetee replies, though he sounds amused. "But if that were the case, then you'd be crystal clear in every hallway and every staircase and every temporary bedroom across Westeros."
We take a couple of minutes to laugh over the hypothetical expressions on the Night's Watch brothers' faces if I had materialized in the middle of the dining hall just in time for supper, or even the bathing area in a horrifically ironic twist. I let him know about what happened when I did reappear, and he laughs about that too. Out of curiosity, I ask if this means he can send parachutes directly into my room. He's not sure, since Eastwatch could be a fluke. We could test it when I get back to Castle Black, as long as I'm comfortable with the risk. But it would mean no more having to go beyond the Wall.
I like going beyond the Wall, so I decide against it. The thought of receiving parachutes directly into my room feels too convenient, just like the shower. A comfort I might request too frequently if given easy access to it.
"I think I rely on you too much as it is," I admit.
He tut-tuts the thought. "Nonsense. Considering that dragging you into this experiment was my idea, I'm happy to help you with anything you need."
I didn't need the shower, I almost say. There's a basin of water in my room, a bathing area I might have braved, and if I was crazy enough, an ice-cold ocean just outside. A shower and footage and even hot chocolate – those are things I can do without.
"And I am grateful," I tell him. "But even so, it's probably a good thing I'm going to be on a ship for over a week. Good excuse for you to start focusing more on Gale and Shireen, at least until then. With them being so close to Winterfell, to the Boltons…"
Beetee finishes the thought for me: "They'll need me more than you do."
About half an hour later, I'm sitting in the dining hall, surrounded mostly by my Castle Black traveling companions, distracted by my thoughts but joining in on laughter here and there. I'm just glad they've gotten past the subject of my appearance. As soon as I joined them for supper, the brothers had stared at me like they didn't even recognize me, the way my mother used to when I'd come home from the lake totally clean, except not as exaggerated. I almost panicked on the spot, thinking Beetee had sent me to a universe where we'd never met, until Edd said, "All right, who are you, and what have you done with Katniss Everdeen?"
Many of the brothers had laughed, making me breathe a little easier. But Jon had voiced his concerns about me using the baths here, and I had to assure him – repeatedly and vaguely – that I wasn't seen and nobody bothered me. Before he could press further, sitting across from me, Halder had interrupted him to ask with all due respect a question he had always wondered and simply had to know: "How the fuck do women always smell so good?"
It turned out I didn't even have to answer, because soon his brothers were making fun of him for his own hygiene habits and a lot of the attention shifted off of me. But Jon kept stealing odd glances at me for the first ten minutes, which made me nervously smooth my conspicuously silky hair and brush most of it to the side, wishing I'd had time to put it in my trademark braid. I think that's the last shower I'll be taking for a while, unless I find a good waterfall like the one in the cave.
Since then, the conversation has switched to Hardhome, the Bay of Seals and the Shivering Sea, and getting to the ships in the morning. They've started talking about how treacherous the waters can be during this time of year, how I should anticipate some severe storms and us having to navigate rocks and even icebergs. Unfazed, I make what I expected to be an offhanded comment about how at least I know my first time on a ship will be interesting. At this, some of the men pause and stare at me in confusion, putting me on alert.
"Your first time on a ship? What do you mean?" Jon asks, his eyes crinkling with more puzzlement than humor.
I try to hide my defensiveness with a laugh. "What do you mean, what do I mean? You know travel was forbidden in Panem up until recently."
"Yes, up until recently, but after that. Surely, you've been on a ship before. I mean…" Jon furrows his brow, then chuckles at me. "How else did you get to Westeros?"
I feel the grin vanish completely from my lips as realization hits. He's right, I've said something stupid. Naturally the only solution is to blurt out something even stupider. "I swam, of course," I say, briefly dropping my attention to my dinner. "Don't tell me you missed the mermaid tail."
Even Edd snorts, with a ripple of laughter going around the table from the rest of the men. Only Jon remains silent until the snickers die down, before giving a small scoff that makes me look up. "Are you seriously not going to give us a real answer?" he asks, with a laugh that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
Tensing up, I take another bite of food and let silence linger for a few seconds as I rack my brains for a lighthearted response. "I thought it didn't matter where I'm from or how I got here," I say at last. "Nothing wrong with being a little mysterious."
Jon laughs again, albeit hollowly. "Well, there's mysterious and then there's mis…leading," he says, and falters as he gives me a look.
The brothers go quiet, just as they did outside earlier, save for a handful who laughingly let out low, scandalized hoots. One of them whispers something about a lover's quarrel, which I pretend I didn't just hear. My eyes are fixed on Jon's as I carefully arrange the muscles in my face into my usual indifferent mask. Trying to hide the fact that he has hit me where it hurts.
"There was an ocean," I say, thinking of the colorful matter in the portal. "I crossed it. But not with a ship, with a different vessel." Lowering my voice, I return my attention to my plate, not wanting Jon to read a lie in my gaze when I say this last part. "As I told Maester Aemon, it's a bit hazy."
He doesn't immediately have a response for that, but there's still a very real risk of follow-up questions. Mumbling a believable excuse about needing to catch up on sleep, I get up from the table and walk out of the dining hall. I don't know if Jon tries to stop me or something, but he must not leave the table because I make the rest of the trek through the castle alone.
Back in my room, I'm pacing and chewing my nails, trying to get the image of Jon's wary expression out of my head. I hate it when he distrusts me, at least for the wrong reasons. But I can't blame him for this one. Under normal circumstances, what I said wouldn't make any sense. How can I be from a different continent without having been on a ship before? Unless, being the Mockingjay, I sprouted wings and flew here. Another joke that I doubt would have gone over well with him.
These aren't normal circumstances, though, and I wasn't lying. At least, not about this. But I'd better either work on watching what I say – cue Haymitch, back in Panem, wondering why he's suddenly laughing so hard – or get used to confusing moments like these. Because they're going to keep happening until I tell him everything.
I'm just not sure how to go about doing that. Hey, Jon, remember when I snapped at you earlier? About knowing that no one else has traveled between Panem and Westeros before? Yeah, well, my friend Beetee recently invented a world-traveling portal and I was the first to test it out. That's how I know. Anyway, now you know. You can go back to focusing on Hardhome now.
Unlikely. Forget storms and icebergs – that would make for a stressful sea voyage.
I remember how he laughed when I insisted that I knew better, how he cast doubt where he shouldn't have when he had no right to, and that burns me up inside. But I don't want to be angry at him, not just because it's not his fault that he doesn't know, but because it's riling me up in some sort of way, filling me with a frustrated energy that I don't even know what to do with besides pace or fall on my bed and kick restlessly like a child. And because when I close my eyes, I can see that confused, doubtful little grin spread across his lips and it just makes me want to…
Stuffing a pillow over my face, I muffle a long, pathetic groan.
After giving myself ten minutes to rest and calm down, a yearning for the comfort of those in Westeros who already do know my secret overcomes my patience. I adjust my earpiece and reach out to one of the spares that Sam and Gilly have in their possession, quickly cheering up when Gilly picks up. I hear Little Sam cooing on the other end, which makes me think it's the maester's quarters, but for the most part it's as quiet as the library.
Pleased to hear my voice, she asks about Eastwatch, and I sit up in bed and describe the view out my window. Even through my earpiece, she can hear the thrashing of the waves in the distance. The sea and starlit sky look even more beautiful than the Capitol from way up here. Gilly admits she wishes she could see it, sounding kind of weary and wistful, and it occurs to me that before fleeing to Castle Black, she's only ever known Craster's Keep. Her very own District Twelve.
I promise to try to show her the footage sometime, then scoot off the bed to go stand at the window. Remembering another breathtaking vision that probably appeared right above her head, my mood perks up and I fire off a few things at her at once. Asking how things are at Castle Black, if Buttercup's been a handful, if Thorne or the rest of the men still there are giving her and Sam any trouble. I lightheartedly give fair warning to pass along that that the men here have learned a new song that rhymes with Sam Tarly so they may be insufferable about it when we get back, which makes her laugh. She wants to hear it, but I'm laughing too as I assure her it would get stuck in her brain.
I'm still grinning as I ask if Aemon's health has improved at all, and if she and Sam were awake last night, did they see the lights? And there's a moment of hesitation this time before Gilly answers, and that's when she tells me: "Actually, Katniss, Maester Aemon died last night."
My heart does something akin to a slowed-down dream fall as her words register in my mind. I know Sam said he didn't have a week, but it still feels like I've missed a step while walking down the stairs.
"Oh," I say softly. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."
"I know," she says. "We would have told you earlier, but we weren't sure if it was a good time. They burnt his body just this morning. Sam's only just resting now. I couldn't get him to leave his side all night."
Poor Sam. As Maester Aemon's steward, he probably spent more time with him than anyone else. In the library or the ravenry or the maester's quarters, tending to him or reading raven scrolls. By the time I get back, probably he will have taken over most if not all of Aemon's duties, but now those places are going to feel very empty.
I frown slightly. This hurts a lot more than I expected it to, and I don't quite understand why. I thought I'd seen it coming from the beginning, thought I'd braced myself for it since the second night at Castle Black when he mentioned feeling ill. To think, just a few days ago I was in the maester's quarters, singing a final song to him, as I am apparently wont to do with doomed or dying men at Castle Black. But he seemed fine – lively, in fact – especially when he spoke of this world's Lucy. The one from seventy or eighty years ago, whom he apparently knew well.
That bubble of tension builds up in my chest again. Despite everything I know to be true about our separate worlds, Jon has sown seeds of doubt in my head. I told myself I would let the mystery die with Aemon, but now this world has called my bluff. I wonder if that's what's upsetting me so… I have lost my only lead.
"Did he say much of anything towards the end?" I can't help but ask. "Like, maybe about Lucy Gr—I mean, Lucy Flowers, or Lucy Snow?"
"Yes, he mentioned her," Gilly says. "And some things about eggs, too."
"Eggs?" I blink, then remember. "Oh, Egg. Aegon."
"Right," Gilly says uncertainly. "It wasn't always clear. He was delirious a lot. He thought you were still here. Wanted you to sing 'Rose of Gold' for him. I think he missed you."
My breath catches sharply in the back of my throat. One hand flies up to cover my mouth, and a flood of shame weighs me down so heavily that I need to go and sit on the edge of the bed. For some reason, though we said our goodbyes, I had not put much thought into being missed. Of being thought of, or merely existing in his mind when I'm gone. Like I am someone he… like I was someone he cared for.
Gilly's going on about how he said he hadn't heard anyone sing the song so beautifully in almost eighty years and how it was Lucy's favorite, but all I can do is swallow my guilt past the lump that has formed in my throat. Here I am, getting the news that Aemon has just died, and one of my first concerns – one of my first selfish thoughts on why this could possibly affect me – was that he couldn't help me solve the mystery of Lucy fucking Gray.
Never mind that this is the first person I've grown close to that I've lost in the past nine months. The first in a long time taken not by tragedy or war or the Games, but by natural causes, simply slipping through life's fingers. It's been seven years since my grandmother died, but you'd think I would remember what that felt like.
Then Gilly tells me Buttercup stayed with him too, these past few days, and even though she said that he made him happy, I find myself rolling my eyes. Stupid creepy cat. I've heard they can sense death. Amidst the rolling, a tear slips out, which stuns me as I wipe it away.
We talk a while longer, about Little Sam and how Shireen's doing since I mentioned I was able to get hold of her, but I think she can tell from my voice that I'm shaken by the news. So she lets me go, with a firm Gilly-like recommendation that I get some sleep if I really was up as late as Sam last night watching those lights. I warn her that I won't be able to reach out again when I'm on the ship, but again she insists on the sleep suggestion. But then she throws in, before she says goodnight, that she and Sam will miss me until then.
I echo the goodnight, but I'm overwhelmed as I slowly click the earpiece off. There's that word again. She'll miss me, she says, from just over a hundred miles away. More when we get to Hardhome. I didn't even bring up the fact that I was in Panem tonight. An entire world away. If anything had gone wrong—
My heart folds in on itself with anxiety, just as it did in District Three, even though the danger is long past. It comes again – the terrible, paralyzing thought that if Gale found out I was back in Panem he would come back too and make me lose my place in that world possibly forever and I would never see Westeros or any of the people in it again all because I wanted a shower.
Maybe he wouldn't do that to me, and neither would Beetee, but it's the risk that I took. What I was risking, and what I was risking it for. The people I would lose. Real people, who would honestly miss me. And I would miss them back...
A knock startles me, and I look up with a shuddering gasp. It's a knock I recognize. Sucking in a breath, I get up from the bed, wiping at my eyes on my way to the door. I hesitate at first, then open it to find Jon waiting just outside, an unreadable expression on his face.
Whatever I saw in his eyes goes away in a heartbeat when he takes me in. "Are you all right?" he asks, because apparently I'm not as good at masking my emotions as I think I am. Being Jon, he hastens to apologize. "Look, Katniss, about earlier, I didn't mean to embarrass you… I know you aren't comfortable talking about certain Panem things in front of the other men—"
"No, it's fine, it's not that," I say quietly. Though I flounder for a bit, I figure I might as well pass along the news. "Maester Aemon died."
Jon blinks, clearly not expecting that, and frowns in confusion. "There was a raven?"
I hold up the earpiece. "Panem raven," I clarify. When he looks more bemused, I add, "I gave Sam and Gilly my spares."
This offers only a few seconds of comprehension before the frown lines not only return but seem to deepen on his forehead. He opens his mouth as if he wants to ask more questions, but doesn't know how to put it.
After a moment of this, a silence hanging in the air, I shuffle awkwardly and hug at my arms. "So yeah," I say. "That's what's going on back there."
Jon's expression changes to one of sadness as the news finally sinks in. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "I know you'd gotten close to him."
"But you knew him longer," I counter, still feeling guilty. "He must've been like a grandfather to you. Or, great-grandfather, at his age." Jon gives an appreciative scoff. "A whole century old. He lived a long life."
With a small sigh, Jon drops his gaze to the floor. "And now his watch is ended," he says.
"And now his watch is ended," I murmur in agreement, since it sounds like something they probably say at funerals. Just like District Twelve with our three-fingered salute.
There's another silence that follows, until I remember that he's the one who came and knocked. Thinking back to the look on his face when I answered, it seemed like some sort of resolve.
"So, did you want something?" I ask carefully, not wanting to linger in the doorway for much longer.
For whatever reason, the question appears to fluster Jon. "Oh," he says, blinking. "No. I'll… uh, I'll let you rest." He wets his lips, runs his fingers through his curls. They slide down to rub nervously at the back of his neck, before his arm drops to his side and his soft grey eyes flick up to meet mine. "Goodnight, Katniss."
"Goodnight, Jon," I manage in barely over a whisper.
Then we both kind of waver there in the corridor, before he walks away and I retreat into my room, closing the door behind me.
Sleep doesn't come. Or maybe it does, dreamless, but there's no rest to be had. I lie in bed for what feels like hours, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling, adjusting the pillows. But it's not a matter of whether the bed is comfortable. It's the room. It's become haunted after all.
Giving up, I throw off the covers and go to the window, gazing out over the shore. The waves are beckoning. I can see the ships rocking in the distance. I throw on my shadowskin over a few more layers, then quietly slip out of my room.
Save for the men on the Wall, Eastwatch is dormant, so there's nothing to shake me from a daze as I sneak out of the castle and follow the siren song of ocean waves and whistling wind all the way to shore. But as I approach my destination, my senses sharpen and I become aware of the finer details. The pleasing crunch of sand, pebbles, and gravel under my boots. The hiss of the seafoam on the tide as it ebbs and flows. The smell of salt and ice in the air.
I stand there for a while, watching the waves, wincing now and then when a particularly frigid breeze lashes at my face. But in the moonlight, it's kind of beautiful, seeing the billowing white foam sweep across the shore to kiss the coarse black sand.
After finding a spot at what I judge to be a safe distance from the tide, I sit down and bundle myself tightly in my cloak. Then I take off my boots and dig my hands and feet into the gravel and sand, as if to ground myself to something, to this world, to feel my place in it. And now, as I drink in the peculiar comfort of this spot rather than the unease, I'm reminded of something else. The beach from the Quarter Quell. The sand is rougher, the water more of a dark grey than a dazzling blue, and it is not balmy here by any means, but the sensation is the same. Right down to the urgent feeling of being ready to move on by morning.
Even now, I am still comparing this world to an arena. Something I can leave behind, either by winning, or by escaping as I have. I wonder what that says about what it means to me. Despite what I told Gale about fighting for it if I have to, am I taking Westeros as seriously as I should be…?
"Do you have any idea how cold that water is?" a voice calls out from behind me.
I jolt, shooting a glance over my shoulder, and my heart subsequently relaxes and starts racing again as I see Jon coming this way. Either I must've tuned way out, or the sound of footsteps on gravel were muffled by the roar of the ocean.
"If you're thinking of going for a swim, then I've changed my mind," he says. "Maybe you are completely mad."
Despite myself, I snort and concede with a shrug. "That's what I've been trying to tell you all along," I say dismissively, turning back to the water.
I hear a light chuckle, then Jon wanders around my right side and turns to look at me with a small smile, equal parts sympathetic and amused.
"At this point, I might have to consider your mermaid theory," he says, grunting while he crouches to take a seat next to me. "The men ran with it after you left. Said you washed up on the Frozen Shore, gained some legs, but lost your memory. Said it would explain the pretty voice, and your curiosity towards the ocean, and why you were so clean for supper even though no one saw you go near the baths." At this, I tense up but try to disguise it with a snort of laughter. Jon grins at me and continues, "I think it would explain why you hardly ever sleep. Maybe you need to be in water."
I roll my eyes at him, returning the grin. "You've seen me sleep. I'll sleep on the ship."
Raising his eyebrows skeptically, he laughs and gives a shake of his head. "Right, then, good luck with that. Perhaps being rocked about by violently choppy waters will do the trick. You seem to find them rather soothing," he says, punctuating this with a suspicious side-glance. When I scoff in disbelief, the pretense slips and he breaks into a laugh. "I know you're not a bloody mermaid, I'm just teasing you. You'd reek of fish and salt water."
"Oh? What do I reek of?" I counter, but promptly regret it since I've raised enough of his suspicions tonight. "Don't answer that."
Jon chuckles again, but looks oddly relieved, before his expression grows thoughtful as he watches the waves with me. "I'm starting to understand why this place feels so strange to you. It does have a certain… haunted air to it. Especially so late at night." He glances over at me fleetingly, curious, then faces the shore again. "Did you ever figure out what it reminds you of?"
I fall silent, rolling through my answers. The beach in the Quell. The lake in Twelve. The portal, of course, but I can't tell him that.
"It's a liminal space," I say at last, and when I feel Jon's confused gaze on me, I think back to Beetee's explanation. "A threshold, or place of passage. Somewhere you feel like you're in between. Tunnels, ocean shores, midnight, just before dawn." Closing my eyes, I breathe in deeply, and the smell of saltwater reminds me of the foamy sea that nearly drowned me in my dying fire mutt dreams, so I open them again. "Where you're supposed to be leaving something behind and moving on to the next. Going from the known to the unknown. So when you're hanging there in the halfway land, things feel familiar, but… unreal."
"And that's what this is," Jon says, his tone questioning.
"Or so my friend Beetee would tell you," I answer with a half-shrug. "To me, it still seems kind of haunted. Like strange things have happened here."
A groan from Jon. "Oh, don't, you'll get it stuck in my head again," he says in mock despair.
Inspired, I laugh and begin to sing under my breath, "Strange things did happen here…"
"No stranger would it be," Jon chimes in, to my utter surprise. I compose myself and join in so we're both singing the second part. "If we met up at midnight—"
"—at Eastwatch-by-the-sea," I finish with a grin.
Jon laughs. "That actually kind of works," he says, impressed.
Indeed, I'm proud of myself, but I'm just as pleased with him. "So, you can sing," I say. "Shireen told me you had a good voice."
"Oh, did she?" Blushing, he turns his face away. "I try not to subject people to it."
"No, she's right, you do," I assure him. "My father would've said it has real authority."
"I don't know about that," Jon says, chuckling bashfully.
But I know it's true, even if I'm just going by the one line he sang. His voice is sweet and clear and melancholy, like a wolf's howl. Softened by shyness, of course, but I think if the mockingjays were here, they would all fall silent to listen.
"There's another song I can't get out of my head," he admits after a lull. "It's been in there since this morning."
"Which one?" My cheeks heat up, thinking of the song about shining stars, night breezes, and craving a kiss.
"The one with Abraham, and the daughter with the bow," Jon says, and my shoulders relax. "It reminded me of Craster and leaving his boys in the woods. I assume Isaac was his son." His brow furrows in thought. "What's an angel, is it like a god? I never asked you about your gods."
I frown, trying to remember what I know about religion. He may be on to something about the song. In Thirteen, during the rare Nuclear History class I was present for, they said the most prominent religions in the past were called Abrahamic, and an elderly woman from Eleven said people still sang songs that were inspired by them. This same woman thanked me for being Rue's "guardian angel," which makes me wonder if the song came from there and the Covey just brought it to Twelve.
That would explain the dream I had after Rue's death, where she sat in the trees with her mockingjays singing songs I'd never heard in a clear, melodic voice. How can you dream of songs you've never heard before? I must've conjured them up somehow, subconsciously, from memories of Grandma Maude singing the ones she learned from Barb.
"We don't really have religion in Panem," I answer, mentally shaking the thought away. "Not anymore, at least. It started dying out even before the Dark Days." My mind drifts to the woman from Eleven, and the people I saw during my stay in Two last year who sprinkled breadcrumbs on dead bodies "for their journey back," and I reconsider. "Maybe some people do still believe in a God or gods in certain districts, but…" I shrug feebly, then lean forward and hug my arms around my knees, "when everyone around you is starving, and the government's started taking away your children and forcing you to watch them die… either you cling to your faith tighter than ever, or you give up on it entirely."
Though maybe that's what the Capitol wanted. To crush all symbols of hope, so we'd have faith in only them.
When I glance at Jon out of the corner of my eye, he looks surprised, even if mostly understanding. "You don't pray to anything?" he says, a question and a statement. "What about your family, your ancestors, what did they believe in?"
I give it some thought, running through my memories for what my family has held sacred, and look up to the heavens with a sigh. "Stars and spirits," I say, thinking of how Grandma Maude used to say things were written in the stars. "Celestial bodies. Natural elements. Earth, air, fire, water. Things you can see or feel. That give life, things you need. Things that are free, that grow and heal and endure, or tell you something about the world, that have been around long since before Panem and will still be here long after we're gone."
"Spirits of nature," says Jon thoughtfully. "Sounds like the old gods. If you don't mind me saying so."
Knowing what I do of the old gods, I silently admit he has a point. I was even going to mention the woods, with the medicinal plants that brought my parents together, the mockingjays my father would sing to, the trees I'd climb for protection from wild dogs when I was hunting alone to feed my family, and the rock ledge that had such a glorious view of the valley and mountains. Birds, beasts, trees, stones, streams… if the old gods existed anywhere in Panem, it would be in the forests of District Twelve. Though I guess it makes sense that in any world, people would build some kind of faith out of a respect for nature, or believe in things as old as life itself.
"No, I don't mind you saying so," I say after a moment, turning my gaze toward him.
"Good, because…" Jon says, and hesitates as he meets my eyes.
I try at an apologetic smile, which feels more like a grimace. "I know," I say. "Sorry I've been so defensive about it today. Haven't been myself lately."
Jon nods in acknowledgement. "I assumed it was because you missed Shireen, until I heard you talking to her the other night." He looks at me, his eyes gentle yet coaxing and curious. "Has there been something else on your mind?"
The kindness in his tone lures out my answer. "Missing Shireen was some of it. We only started talking again a few days ago. The concept of earpieces is… something people need to be eased into," I explain with an awkward laugh, earning a small conceding scoff from Jon. "It's just… thanks to Gale, I got caught up in a mystery from back home."
"A mystery?" he says, intrigued and even a little amused. "Seems to me that quite a few of them come from Panem."
I actually crack a grin, though it wavers in seconds. "It's the singer of 'The Hanging Tree,'" I say. "The story I told you, about the girl who ran away into the woods with her lover and was never seen again, that was all true."
Jon appears to be thinking hard, as if trying to recall the story. "And it's not you?" he asks promptingly.
"No, but we are blood-related," I say. "Her name was Lucy Gray. I'll spare you the long story, but basically I'd only ever heard she disappeared and was presumed dead. Never really put much thought into it, since it happened almost seventy years ago, until Gale went and told me she was District 12's first victor. And that her lover was…" I pause and throw Jon a weary glance. "Well, suffice it to say, if her lover was the one who caused her death, I'm not surprised it was him."
"But you still don't know," Jon says.
I shake my head softly. "And ever since Gale told me about all this, it feels like I still have one foot in Panem," I say, turning my attention back to shore. "Or maybe it's been like that since I left. Maybe it's not just Eastwatch, it's Westeros that doesn't seem entirely real. It's like I'm… treating this place as if it's a dream, or a vacation, or… an escape."
He lets this sink in for a second, then chuckles under his breath. "You'd think the scratch from the shadowcat would've woken you up."
"Yeah, you'd think," I agree, rubbing absently at my arm. A dull ache returns to my chest. "But it didn't fully hit me until Maester Aemon. He wasn't even my first death in Westeros. I liked Mance, to an extent I even respected him. But I only knew him for a few hours. With Aemon…" I trail off, bunching my fingers in my cloak.
"He was the first person here you truly lost," Jon finishes for me.
My fingers unclench, and my hands fall to the beach, burying themselves in grit and gravel. "It's kind of like Lucy Gray," I say. "People are going to die no matter where you go. It just hurts more once you've gotten to know them."
A reflective silence passes over us, before I huff the windblown hair out of my face.
"Not that I know how or where or when or if she even died. Maybe she's an eighty-two-year-old woman, living it up somewhere well beyond Panem, not saying a word about her identity because she's loving the mystery." Rolling my eyes, I mutter, "Mysteries are overrated."
"Oh, are they now?" Jon says pointedly, and laughs.
Despite everything, I find myself snorting too. "I'll tell you everything after Hardhome," I promise. "But I warn you, it'll only raise more questions."
"It's all right. I told you, your secrets are your own," Jon replies. "Only, things don't add up sometimes. And I wasn't sure if it was a matter of… of you not trusting me, perhaps."
I turn to look at him in surprise. "I trust you," I say, with a nervous swallow. "It's just a lot, and I don't want it to distract you."
A fleeting grin crosses his lips as a scoff slips through. "It isn't a distraction to get to know you," he says, which for some stupid reason makes me blush. "Besides, you know that I of all people would understand what it's like to wonder what happened to your family." Compassion flickers in his eyes as they find mine. "To not know if they're dead or alive."
I feel a pang of remorseful understanding. "Because of Benjen," I realize, my words barely audible over a harsh gust of wind.
"Uncle Benjen, yes," Jon admits. "But my brother Bran as well." He falters, averts his eyes again as if uncertain or embarrassed. "It was Nightfort where he went beyond the Wall."
Nightfort. The abandoned castle with all the dark tales. Halder's playfully sinister voice creeps into my mind. They say that some who pass north through Nightfort's gate never come back again.
"But that's just a legend, isn't it? The disappearances?" I remind him. "I thought it wasn't limited to the Nightfort, since they were just deserters. Deserters who never got caught."
"That's one theory," Jon says, sounding doubtful as he stares out at the edge of the Wall by the sea. "Northerners find it difficult to believe, though. Happened to too many Starks, and Starks aren't known for breaking an oath... At least not usually." A conflicted look darkens his eyes, before his features crease with deep thought. "Maybe, sometimes, that's just the way it is. A person sets out for somewhere beyond, and they're never seen again."
Briefly I follow his gaze, before my own drifts back to the beach as another ominous wave climbs, topples, and pushes burbling seafoam towards shore. Just like me, I think to myself.
"Old Nan used to tell us stories," Jon continues, breaking the silence. "Of bastards and youngest sons of Starks that took the black, joined the Night's Watch just as they have for thousands of years. Every so often, a century or two or five, one would disappear. It was always just one man who would vanish without a trace. She used to blame the Children of the Forest or the old gods, said they were the ones who took them. Said they used to do the same with the First Men." He laughs weakly to himself, as if it must sound ridiculous. "With no word of Benjen even from the wildlings, I was about ready to believe that's what happened to him. Until you came along and said he was alive and well… Perhaps they took Bran instead."
I chew on my lip, wrestling a wince of guilt. I never said alive and well. "Do you really believe that?" I ask.
We're sitting so close, shoulder-to-shoulder for the sake of shared body heat, that I feel him shrug and lean forward, folding his arms over his knees. "It's just an old story," he says. "But it's the only explanation I have for why they went north of the Wall and still haven't returned. Other than them being dead."
His words seep in slowly, and I realize something annoyingly ironic. I have done to Jon almost exactly what Gale has done to me. Plagued him with a reopened mystery that it's possible he was never meant to solve.
Maybe we both should have left well enough alone. And I think I could accept that with Lucy Gray, but too many uncertainties come tied with the Benjen thing. If I should have told him everything or nothing at all, if any of this would have played out the same way if I had, if we ever would have met or become friends had I not run into Benjen in the first place.
If Beetee had never succeeded, and I had never agreed to go through that portal…
I glance over at Jon, as if, despite feeling the warmth of his presence beside me, still needing proof he's truly there. Tousled black curls and eyebrow scars and all.
"What do you think is worse?" I ask, lifting my eyes to his. "Knowing, or not knowing?"
He ponders this for a second, then cracks a rueful half-smile. "I don't know."
Scoffing, I make a weak attempt to return it. "Me neither," I whisper.
The halfhearted grin lingers on his face, twitches as if I've said something funny, then slowly falls away as his eyes lock with mine. They darken again, the same way they did earlier today, and I recognize something in them that makes my heart skip a beat. Something I feel stirring in my chest when I see them flicker to my lips, when he purses and slightly parts his own. And this is where I usually recoil, this is where I'm supposed to flee, to scramble backwards across the sand and gravel and get to my feet and run back to my room. But now it's all I can do not to lean in instead.
This is not good, I think. I've been tired all day, too tired to filter my thoughts and secrets, to rein in my impulses. I've already said something stupid twice today, I should get out of here and go back to bed before I do a third stupid thing like kiss him.
I feel my resolve weakening, trembling like my fingers at the bowstring that night I almost shot Mance. Maybe it's this place, or maybe it's the proximity, but I'm lost in the grey of his eyes and ready to break under the longing, to give in and release the arrow, even knowing it could only lead to trouble for the both of us…
But just like that night, Jon gets there first.
If I even have time to gasp, it's cut off by his lips, soft but swift as he draws me in to him with nothing but his mouth, which feels deliciously hot pressed against mine in the wake of Eastwatch's bitter chill. And if I have a coherent thought in my mind, it is this – Jon Snow certainly knows how to kiss. He kisses like I might expect a man of the Night's Watch to kiss, like someone who is starved for it, someone who hasn't tasted a pair of lips in months. And I would know. I haven't been kissed like this in a long time, not since the beach, maybe not ever.
I'm feeling that thing again, from the cave and the beach with Peeta, though it's not a warmth that spreads through me but a blaze, one that threatens to consume every sensible thought I have. The only relief comes from Jon's frozen fingers as he turns toward me and cups my face in his hand. I shudder at the icy touch, but when he tries to take it away, I reach up and hold it there, moving into him and kissing him harder.
We break away for barely a second, foreheads pressed against each other as his warm breath tickles my chin. Then he's kissing me again, fingers sliding from my cheek and chin down to my neck, and I know he feels the burn scars and my involuntary flinch because his touch gets lighter there, inquisitive, gentle, before he drops his hand and his arm comes around my waist instead to pull me closer. I bring my own hand up the back of his neck and tangle my fingers in his curls, and he makes a sound not unlike the ones he made in his dreams, and I don't know if he's lowering me to the ground or if I'm falling and bringing him down with me, but somehow I end up on my back in the gravel with him on top of me, our bodies dangerously intertwined.
Remembering that hunger from the beach, the way kisses never satisfied it and only made it stronger, I grow increasingly aware of what this sort of kissing could turn into. What Jon has done before, but I haven't. Thorne nearly had his head for it last time. I doubt they'd let him get away with it again, even if he is Lord Commander. But the kiss becomes more insistent, and I can't tell which one of us is more desperate for it to continue.
Is it Jon? I wonder, confusion slipping through my blissful haze. Would he really break his vows for me?
A voice that sounds like Peeta's creeps into my head. You still have no idea, do you? it says. The effect you can have.
But the possibility that it's me, that on top of everything I would let Jon break his vows simply because of how much I want him, is the force that finally rips me away. I make a small sound against his lips and push firmly against his chest, see his eyes open, darkened and dilated, and then he reels back in shock as we both come up for air. Panting, he drags a hand down his mouth and averts his gaze, looking not only guilty but utterly astonished with himself.
"Apologies, my lady, that shouldn't have happened," he gets out in a breath.
Despite my own racing heartbeat and panicked thoughts, I can't help but notice with some disappointment that we're back to "my lady" again. Two steps forward, three steps back.
"No, it shouldn't have," I agree after I've caught my own breath, and struggle to think of something else to say, to salvage what we have before we're stuck on a ship together for days on end. Glancing his way, a thought occurs to me, and I raise my eyebrows at him. "Good thing we're in a liminal space where nothing is real."
Jon blinks in surprise, and then a look of comprehension crosses his face, which gives way to a faint grin of relief that I've given him an out.
"Right," he says, albeit unsurely. To the best of my abilities, I've managed to make it lighthearted. Enough for him to actually meet my eyes, if only for a few seconds.
I smooth the grit and sand from my hair, my cloak, pull my boots back on and get to my feet. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to bed and pretend it was all a dream," I say, then turn and leave him there on the beach, walking back towards the castle.
Resisting the urge to tell him that my bedroom is a liminal space too.
A/N: From the shortest chapter in 20 chapters, to the longest chapter ever... haha, whoops. Happy belated Valentine's Day though! Thanks to all new faves/follows/(re)views!