I can't get myself to feel quite secure in the tree, even if I really am. I wake up three times before the sunrise, but never to anyone hooked on my lines. Sparrow appears to be sleeping comfortably. It's a talent. She's a bird all right, I smile, laughing inside my head. All she needs to do is tuck her head under her wing, right?
I could almost go back to sleep. It's peaceful. The sunlight is trickling down through the trees. The waves are slinking in and out beneath me… Wait. Beneath me? I look down to see water creeping up the dirt. The tide has not only continually failed to drop significantly, but has continued to rise beyond what I saw as its natural bounds.
"Sparrow…" I hazard waking her, "Sparrow, wake up and look down."
"Wh-what?" she yawns, dark eyes shifting from my face and down to the glimmering water below. "Woah," it hurries her awake, "Are we being flooded?"
"Sort of, I guess. The tide's even higher than yesterday. I didn't expect this."
"If there are ay fish out there, I expect you'll be hooking them soon and not people."
The added difficulty in reaching us the ocean water brings gives me some temporary security. It would be a pain to wade out here and try to mess with us. "Might as well have breakfast in the tree," I shrug.
"This reminds me of something Sunny told me about back in the Capitol- Have you ever heard of a waterbed?"
"No."
"It's a bed where the mattress is filled with water instead of feathers or stuffing or whatever else usually goes in mattresses."
"I wonder what that feels like." I remember the fishing lines and look down then to see that they continue to dangle where I left them. A wet leaf is stuck in the hairpin one. I idly reel them back in while Sparrow gets out her cracker tin.
"Are we going to be able to go back for more bananas?"
"As long as you don't mind wading through the new shallows. The water may be coming up, but the tide doesn't seem particularly strong. It's not receding much. There's no pull."
"If the trees were stronger and, uh, branchier, we could just climb our way over," Sparrow muses.
"If we had some rope, we could make a raft," I counter, grinning at the idea of it, "Bamboo floats very well."
I am considerably better at getting out of the tree than I had been at getting into it. Sparrow hesitates a little at taking the last step down into the water. It's only ankle deep, though the gently sloshing waves take it higher every few seconds. My bamboo pole is floating about a yard away, caught between some stalks of bamboo and a flowering bush. "I can't swim, you know," Sparrow tells me as I turn away to retrieve it.
"I don't see why you'd have to at this point. We'll stock up on bananas and head up and in." Which, of course, is exactly what the Gamemakers want. The less of us there are, the easier it is for all of us to avoid each other. The deaths need to continue at a viewer-pleasing rate. I wonder how visible the night deaths were and how well they went over. "I'm a good swimmer," I try to reassure her. "I know all the things you're supposed to do to rescue from someone from drowning too."
"Here's hoping you don't have to use them." Sparrow lets me take the lead as we slog off to the banana tree. Nothing happens along the way, but once we near the tree, we both stop short. Ada Spelling, from 3, is precariously balanced up between the branches. Dried blood on her cheek has stuck a lock of hair to the side of her face. She looks tired. And possibly dangerous.
Sparrow and I exchange an uncertain glance. "Ada," I venture.
She turns around the rest of the way to fully take us in. "Beto told me," she shrills out nervously, "He told me to watch out for you!" Is she pointing to both of us generally, or one of us in particular? This isn't normal, and there are few things more unpredictable than crazy.
Sparrow starts to edge gradually away further into the trees. I see what she's thinking- maybe. I wouldn't want to turn my back to Ada either.
"'Ada, you can kill,'" the girl from 3 says to herself, "That's what Beto told me. I could kill. I can. Beto, you didn't underestimate me."
Sparrow isn't sneaking away from the scene the way I thought she was. She's moving around behind the tree. I can't follow this plan any further. "Yeah, I'm sure he's proud," I answer, shifting my fingers along the bamboo pole. With my other hand I feel my pockets- the hooks, the knife… Should I get one ready in my hand or would that gesture appear too threatening? Which one should I go for? The big hook is heavy; I can feel it tugging my pocket down. The knife might be best (quickest?), though I've worn off some of the edge with all the whittling and bamboo cutting I've done. I wrap my fingers around the handle, but keep the knife tucked into my pocket.
Ada tenses up. When she finally jumps, the one she goes for is Sparrow. As far as I can tell, the length of rope between her hands is all the weaponry she's got. If she's strong enough, that will be enough.
Sparrow must have thought I would be the target, because she's been taken by surprise and splashes backward into the surf. A person can drown in just a few inches of water.
Ada presses down with the rope, but Sparrow is hardly willing to give up without a struggle. She flails around, scratching at Ada's face and arms.
And, during this, what about me? I don't freeze to the spot in fear. My pole drops into the water. I move, even without thinking about it. I grab Ada's hair. It's a deep, bronzed red. Sparrow sputters and coughs, raising her head out of the water.
I am stronger than I realized. I shove Ada away to pull Sparrow up. "Cough it out! That's good!" I encourage her.
Ada is soaked and confused. Sometimes a more finely tuned instrument is the one more likely to snap.
Sparrow chokes and shivers, clutching my arm as I kneel beside her. We've made a lot of noise here and who knows what kind of trouble it's going to attract. Sparrow had better recover enough for us to get out of the area quickly.
And, of course, there's still Ada to think of. Ada, who's already taking her second chance while I'm focused on Sparrow. She tackles me and we roll over into the tide with a sudden smack and splash. I catch my breath before I go under and peer out through the water at Ada despite the sting of the salt. Her eyes are brown with gold flecks, but as red and puffy as they are wide. She's got my right arm pinned down with her knee. This must be what capture in the shallows looks like to a fish. It feels strange. So fast and so slowed down at the same time. I have one opportunity as I see it. I reach up with all the speed I can manage in one smooth arc.
It becomes red and hideous and frightening as soon as my knife slides into Ada's throat. Instead of sliding toward me, Ada falls to the side, struck by something thrown from the other direction. I break through the surface and blink my pained eyes.
Sparrow's chest is still heaving and she's dripping wet, but her hand remains up in the air, stunned into paralysis after making the throw. I shake myself like a wet dog. The bun in my hair that's less a pin slips partway down.
"You're left-handed," says Sparrow. She lets her hand drop back down.
I'm not, but I don't have the breath yet to speak up. There's blood spreading in the water, swaying forward, inch by inch, with the endlessly creeping tide. I try to focus on the sound of the ocean, not of someone dying right beside me. The cannon doesn't surprise me this time. The silence it heralds is a relief.
I just keep breathing. That's most important right now.
I see Daisy, from District 10. Daisy Arlen? Daisy has come down to the water to see what was happening. …And to take advantage of it?
"You see that, Daisy?" Sparrow speaks up, "Mags did that, so if I were you, I'd get out of here or you'll be next." It's a bluff as far as I'm concerned, but it works on a little girl like Daisy. Sparrow, even drenched, shaking, and bedraggled, manages to sound pretty threatening. Daisy turns around and runs away.
I can't look at Ada. That's it for my knife. I don't want to think about what happened.
The next thing I realize, Sparrow is pressing my pole back into my hand. "Come on, Mags," she urges me in a soft voice not so different from the one she used to frighten Daisy- "Let's not stop here. The next one might not be so easy to handle."
It's not until Sparrow has led me away to some small, dry clearing that my thoughts start to come coherently back together, rattled into place by another cannon shot. "That's half the tributes here," Sparrow notes. She has her jacket hanging in the bamboo along with her backpack and socks. Her boots sit upside down on the ground and her pants are rolled up to her knees as she drips dry in the sun.
"We made it halfway," I echo her sentiment. I don't even remember when I laid down in the scruffy grass, but here I am staring up at the leaves. "Congratulations on making it into the top twelve."
"Likewise," Sparrow comes to look down at me. She laughs. "Mags, you saved my life. And you didn't even need me to return the favor. You were plenty able to protect yourself."
"It's weird. When Ada attacked you, I was terrified. But when she fought with me, I mainly felt calm and sure."
Sparrow listens thoughtfully to this, but doesn't immediately have any response to it. She just seems kind of relieved. She gets out the Crispco tin and shows me how most of the crackers were broken into pieces during the struggle. I finally sit up when she offers me one. We eat crackers and continue to dry off slowly.
"When I was twelve, my best friend was killed in the arena," I tell Sparrow. If I identify my friend by her name, will that be another push for some commentator to bring up her picture? The year and the district are really enough to pick her out already. Their families and friends remember forever, and their home districts recall for a while, but it takes mere weeks for the Capitol, and Panem in general, to forget all the tributes who fell to clear the path for the victor. "Aoko Ayu," I say. At home it's a cause for sorrow; here it sounds like some strange spell.
"That's sad," says Sparrow.
She unbraids her hair to encourage it to dry faster and convinces me to the do the same. It's funny. As the Games move forward, the stress and pressure should be increasing. I shouldn't be sitting around noticing the scent of flowers on the air. Maybe Ada was the entirely sane one and I'm going a tad crazy. "At least our clothes got washed," I try to joke with Sparrow as she runs her fingers through my crooked, twisted hair.
"Well, your friend, she's free from all of this now. She road the train to the stars. …That's what my dad would've said back in the old days."
"Is that where they go in Six?"
"Well, Dad said so before his accident. The past eight years he hasn't said much of anything though." Sparrow's hands dance easily through my hair, braiding, twisting, pinning. She's just as good at this as the stylists. I suppose with as much hair as she has, she's had time to practice. "There you go," she moves to see her handiwork from the front, "It's pretty good. At least it's even."
Sparrow turns down my offer to work on her hair, at least just yet, and convinces me I might as well take my jacket off. Have we just resigned ourselves to letting whatever comes our way here take us? This thought bothers me, stirring me back to action.
Ignoring my questionable skills, I slowly scale the stablest tree I can find in the area. I can see the creek from here, but not much else. My head's lost in the leaves. Are we far from the Cornucopia here? …Not that I expect to find anything, even trash, left behind there, but it would serve as a solid landmark.
"How do you feel about fishing now?" Sparrow asks when I come back down.
"I lost my knife," I stall.
"They wouldn't remove the body until we were a little ways away… I got it back for you." And, lo and behold, she has. It's completely clean, but I feel slightly ill looking at it anyway.
"I still don't like the idea, but…compared to the alternative-" The ambushed rather than the ambusher, the fish rather than the fisherman, the living or the dead.
There are more grasses here than by the beach. "Maybe we can weave a net," I decide.
Knotting and weaving gets repetitive. It can be therapeutic as you think of nothing, or troubling as you allow your mind to wander. After Sparrow gets the hang of it (the way she works with hair, it's no surprise she's so capable at this), she starts to hum a tune. What songs do they sing in 6? Is it a working song, or one just for fun? Sparrow will be a popular victor if she wins. Maybe winning would provide her with the means to bring her father back to his old pre-accident self. She'd probably be a better coach than either of the other victors from 6 might have been, based on what she told me about them. She would be…the third victor from 6, come to think of it. What has 6 got that gets them so far? Both of their tributes this year are still in it (to the best of my knowledge- that twelfth death remains a temporary mystery).
While Sparrow hums, does she imagine herself as a victor, or is she picturing something else? I don't ask.
We don't go "fishing" that day. The deaths of the day are revealed to be Ada and Daisy. I can't help but think Daisy ran from us straight into much bigger trouble.
"At eight left, the camera crews will go out and interview our families," Sparrow notes. Papa will probably enjoy and abhor that at the same time- unhappy to play any part in these sickening Games, but proud that I've survived so long. What will Sparrow's father say? I feel sure of myself, at least as far point. Sparrow and I, and hopefully Beanpole, will make the final eight.
"Goodnight, Sparrow."
"Goodnight, Mags."
"Take me fishing today," Sparrow smiles, braiding back her hair and even working some pink flowers from a nearby bush into the links. She still looks very pretty, even though she's about as dirty and tired as I am. The average Games seem to run about a week and a half now. If these were the First (gritty, merciless, delirious) Games, we'd be going into the last day now. The boy from 4 made it to that last day. Someone else killed him, but Jack Umber broke his nose.
"Picking the right time and location are very important in fishing," I lecture in a mock-serious "old pro" sort of way. Suited back up (aside from Sparrow's jacket, which she's stuffed in her backpack- is it getting hotter here or is it just us?) we tiptoe through the stands of trees. Eventually the sounds of a struggle both concern and entice us.
By the time we've staggered quietly into viewing distance of the event, Jem, already blood-flecked and grim, is turning Bailey over onto his back and checking to see that he's done the job "properly." He's holding a small axe. An, umm, I think it's an awl. The cannon fires. Jem picks some packages off of Bailey. It's worth noting, I suppose, that Bailey seemed to be carrying a lot of things. Taking him out has brought Jem quite a haul of miscellaneous supplies.
"Good morning, ladies," Jem greets us.
Sparrow startles. Bailey's death she can keep her calm through, but being greeted goes too far.
I had a feeling Jem had seen us. "Hi Jem." I doubt his battle to the death with Bailey began with such pleasantries.
"Do the two of us make a scary pair?" Sparrow lets out a nervous laugh, trying to understand this awkward standoff.
"If you attack me first, that's one thing, but I don't fight girls if I've got an alternative."
If Sparrow and I went for him, it would be two against one, but I'm still glad for this. "You've got four more to go then. Good luck with Haakon- I've heard he's got a saw blade or something?"
"Phew, good luck to all of us with Haakon and Meridew up in those rocks," Jem wipes his brow with an exaggerated gesture thats makes me smile. "Maybe if we're lucky, they'll get paranoid and kill each other before it gets to be our problem."
All three of us laugh nervously at that. Jem veers off down toward the side of the rock outcropping we haven't investigated yet. Despite my enthusiastic joking with Jem, I can't say I want him to clean house on the guys' side. I don't want to fight Beanpole, but I hate to wish for his demise either. I wonder what he'd say if we met up with him. Between Sparrow and Beanpole, it would be very hard for me to say who I'd most want to win. …But my feelings probably won't matter in the larger scheme of things. I won't have to make that decision.
I wonder…where is Beanpole?
"If Jem teamed up with us, we might be able to fish for bigger game," Sparrow hints.
"I usually make a point of not baiting sharks." Usually we leave sharks alone. Of course, if there's a particularly bloodthirsty one out there attacking people, sometimes a group of fishermen bands together to take it down.
The Cornucopia is picked clean, as expected. It doesn't look like a prime fishing spot, but it's a good place to get our bearings from. I think this is probably roughly the center of the arena. More of the killing must have taken place down the other side, considering how little of it I saw or heard. Sound and silence have turned out to be equally and oppositely eerie. The mechanical whir of the hovercraft seems out of place as Bailey's body is removed behind us.
"Oh, well, here's all the fresh water," I acknowledge the string of pools and rivulets running down the opposite side of the arena.
"If you weren't worry about all of this kill or be killed stuff, I bet this would be a nice place to visit."
"In some ways, it's a little like District Four," I remark, "You would like it if you saw it."
"You won't miss out if you never see District Six," Sparrow chuckles. "It's pretty ugly."
"There must be something lovely though. Every place has some sort of beauty in it if you look hard enough."
"I guess in Six then, it's the sky. When the sun starts going down, the sky is filled with color- pink and orange and yellow and purple. Part of what makes it so beautiful is how all the ugly smoke particles look in that light. It's kind of funny."
We fall quiet again as we stalk through the brush. "Don't scare the fish," and all that.
Laurie, the sharp-seeming girl from 5, is sitting in a tree. We see her feet first, dangling down below the leaves. I take a deep breath.
Laurie is eating some kind of nuts.
I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt her. Laurie must have lost her boots or stowed them away somewhere, because her feet are bare.
I have a hook ready in my hand. I look at Sparrow and she makes a swinging gesture with her wrist. She doesn't appear to share my scruples about doing this. …Sparrow is better at these Games than I am.
So what do I do? Cast my line? All it would take to throw things into turmoil would be to make a sound and alert Laurie to our presence. …But I sort of agreed that I would go "fishing" with Sparrow, so I don't know how she'd take it… I'm locked, undecided, into this horrible moment.
There's a splash. Laurie drops some nuts. Korona crashes through the undergrowth ahead of Laurie before I can bat an eye. "Mercy!" shrieks a male voice. Korona spits blood onto the ground then meets my eyes. She has a homemade bamboo spear in one hand and a nasty-looking mace in the other. There's blood on both of them. I can't keep an eye on everyone in the picture now, but Korona is definitely a more worrisome and immediate threat than Laurie. I cast my hook and it bounces off her torn jacket.
"Nice try, Four," she glares at me.
The cannon fires for Mercy ahead of her district partner, Heath's, arrival on the scene. His jacket is gone and his shirt is soaked in blood.
It's like too many boats trying to leave a harbor at once. More than one of us is bound for disaster.
Heath throws the rock gripped in his hand at Korona. It strikes her in-between the shoulder blades and she stumbles forward, the breath knocked out of her. It was a heavy rock and a good shot. I've reeled my line back in and am ready to try for a second time- it would be best, I guess, to try and snag her long ponytail and pull her in that way.
But my arm is still pulled back when Heath staggers backward, falling to his knees. There's an arrow protruding from his chest.
Laurie's already drawing another shaft of the quiver she has hidden up in the tree. The second arrow goes into Heath's cheek.
The cannon fire for Heath as he bleeds out all over the dirt covers up whatever words Sparrow is yelling at me (I think it's me). I see her mouth moving, but everything is silent beyond the rush of air accompanied by fear as Korona grabs my leg and pulls me down. She's let go of her spear as we grapple. It's entirely coincidental- right?- that an arrow whizzes by my side and misses when Korona knocks me over.
Panic sets in as she struggle against one another. I can only spare a second to be worried for what might happen to Sparrow as I scramble to hold Korona off and grab my knife. I kick and flail without any strategy as Korona pulls my hair and tried to hold me still enough for her mace to connect with my skull.
"Laurie, hit her!" Sparrow screams and Korona screeches in reply as Laurie sends an arrow right through her forearm. I flip my knife open and slash Korona's other arm, then roll away. Korona curses in pain, but is cut short as- I hate it but I can't look away- Laurie's next arrow goes right into her throat.
I'm panting with shock and fear and exertion. Laurie casually drops down out of the tree to survey her handiwork. I never watched her at the archery station- I never even noticed her there- but she's at least as good, if not better than, Sparrow. And somehow she's on our side. The cannon fires for Korona. My heart won't stop pounding. Peter, Zeno, Elmo, Brendan, Nicholas. Saints of the sea, watch over me. I have a guardian angel and she has arrows.