Part III.
Turning of the Tide.
I open my eyes to sunlight streaming down between the leaves. It's another warm day in the arena. The arena. Already I've forgotten what I was dreaming of. Dreams don't mean anything here. I think again about what I'm looking up at. Leaves. Leaves and a person? They know I'm here. They're waiting until I wake up? They want to make me suffer before they kill me? I sit up.
"Hey," says my fellow tribute. It's Beanpole.
"Beanpole!" I exclaim. I rub my cheek, which aches from where it was apparently pressed up against a rock all night.
"Hey! Coherency!" Beanpole cheers and approaches me. "You went wild yesterday for some reason and then you were out like a light straight through the night. It was pure insanity. When I showed up, you were-" he pauses, reconsidering whatever it was he was about to say. "…Do you feel all right?" he touches my shoulder, "What's the last thing you remember?"
"Red." I don't hesitate to to come up with that image, but as I recall the cause of this word, and its meaning in this context, I begin to feel unwell. On my face, on my hands, on my clothes- blood, blood, blood. I feel sick to my stomach. Most of the blood soaked into my clothing is on my jacket. I can hardly get it off fast enough. I dunk my face in the stream and start scrubbing my face with my hands. Even just the touch of water makes some of the scratches sting.
Beanpole looks on, biting his lip, unsure of what to do to help. He finally settles on taking off his shirt (he's already not wearing his jacket), dipping it in the water, and using it as a rag to wipe my face. "It's okay," he says then repeats himself, "It's okay. It's going to be okay."
"B-but, I- I," I stammer. I think I'm going to start crying.
He looks at me, the set of his jaw is firm, but his eyes are gentle. "Were those the first people that you killed?"
"N-no?" I sniff, "Ada. And, and I fought some others."
"Yeah, that means you can handle it then. You're okay. You'll be okay."
My nose has started running and my bangs are still out and I must be a goopy mess (I am not a pretty crier), but Beanpole hugs me anyway. He feels so solid. Secure. The tributes are supposed to be a bunch of kids and I sure don't feel like an adult myself, but Beanpole might be something more than that. He wasn't like this when we came here. I'm sure he wasn't. He reminds me a little of Papa now. Sheesh. Beanpole. What a good guy. "I don't know why she did it," I let out my swirling torrent of feelings, trying not to sob, "I thought we were in this together to the end! She stuck some darts in me and I thought whatever the stuff was on them was going to kill me, but it was worse-it was worse-it made me crazy. And I would've let her win, Beanpole! If it had come down to Sparrow or me-"
"So that's why you were so wild," he realizes, "I wondered. I really did. You didn't go insane on your own. She did that to you." He thinks about the meaning of this for a minute. "I think she couldn't trust like you do," he says, "She was- I bet she was afraid."
"You think?"
"She shot you in the back, right?" Beanpole touches my injured shoulder. There are holes right through the fabric of my shirt. "It was getting so close to the end and I bet she thought it would come down to the two of you. And when she thought about that- about killing you- she knew she couldn't do it and look you in the eye."
He looks me in the eye in perfect opposition to what he just said about Sparrow and I nod my understanding. I couldn't have done that either- not if I had been myself. …Even not myself I didn't really look her in the eye (right?). "You're right."
Beanpole lets go of me and I wipe my nose on my sleeve like the big baby that I am. "So," I ask, "How long has it been?" I have to move on, at least for now. I have to trust in Beanpole's words or drown in my guilt and sorrow. I have to believe what I said. He's right, he's right, he's right, he's right.
"Today is a new day," he smiles. His face is clean, but bruised above the left eye. I didn't notice right away, being so caught up in my own horror. I try to smile, but I can't quite manage it yet.
"I'm lucky that I made it safely through the night. It's-" Because Beanpole was watching over me, wasn't it? And now I do smile. There really is something to smile about. Here is my best and truest friend. I'm not just lucky to be alive still- I've been protected. "Thanks."
"Hey," he shrugs, "I didn't do anything special. …I didn't have to, luckily. I just sat up in the tree and kept an eye out. Thing is, after the damage you did, there just isn't much to look out for anymore. It's you, me, and the two from Seven."
"Haakon and Meridew."
"Did you know the names of all the tributes?" Beanpole eyes me with a pained squint, like he's looking at something too bright to gaze at directly.
"Most of them. Not all." Of course, most of them is probably more than Beanpole knows, so to him that's going to sound either ridiculous or impressive. Both, I conclude, since Beanpole knows me pretty well. Juna, Jem, Daisy, Ada. Mercy, Heath, Haakon, Meridew, Korona, Laurie…Sparrow. Wiley and Padma. Cadelle Vetiver. Petey? Bailey. The girl from 9 with the name like a flower? ...Then there's us.
"You know who you finished off then?" He doesn't tease me. He's being practical.
"Sparrow… Cadelle… Jem…" I didn't realize exactly who the two boys were when it was happening, but it's clear now by process of elimination, if nothing else. "Did you see everything that happened?" I can see Jem's dark eyes and shocked face in my distorted and fragmentary memory. I can see Cadelle's expectations of an easy kill turning into fear of my fury. I can see Sparrow with her hands up in front of her face and tears in her eyes.
"No, not from the beginning. I showed up around the time you blundered into Jem. It was… Well, it was something to see. I figured out some of the other stuff by working backwards from what I saw there."
He didn't see everything I saw then. He didn't see me kill Sparrow, which had to be the worst- for what it meant, if nothing else. He didn't see me kill Cadelle. But I was crazy still when I encountered Jem. There was still no reason by Jem's reckoning of things that we should have had to fight. "Were you scared of me?"
"Nah." I believe him when he says it. "There was obviously something wrong. But I could never be afraid of you, Mags. I figured you were still you underneath it all. That would snap out of it sooner or later. …There's no one I have a harder time imagining permanently losing it than you, for some reason. You're just…good at handling stuff, I guess. You handled all the Games stuff beforehand pretty well."
I'm not afraid of crying anymore, but my sinuses aren't so quick to agree with my brain's decision and I keep sniffling here and there. "Your hair is doing something crazy," Beanpole lets me know.
I reach up and feel the back. One braid is half loose, hanging in some strange corkscrew. If the pins haven't fallen out somewhere I can fix it. I feel along the lumpy surface of my braid and find two. That might be enough. A third is still poking out of the top part.
"Have you unbraided your hair at all since coming here?" When we talk like this it's not like we're in the arena. We could be standing around on the schoolyard. Beanpole seems grown-up in my estimation, but look at us, Panem, we're only kids, having a stupid conversation about my hair.
"Well, Sparrow did, because it was coming undone earlier, but it's obviously going a bit wild." …Sparrow, who still had pink flowers in her hair when she died. Did my attack on her ruin her looks, or did she die still pretty? Think like a kid, not a killer, I protest to myself. The problem is that I'm both.
If Beanpole's suffering from this same dichotomy, he puts up a good front. "How frizzy will it be when you finally undo it?"
"Depends on how much longer I have to wait. …Hopefully wavy hair is in in the Capitol." Thinking of Apple and Aulie regarding my wild locks with jewel-bright, saucer-wide eyes is an easier and happier thing to consider.
Apparently Beanpole can construct an elaborate mental picture about it too. "You're going to be like a mermaid, even out of the water, with all your hair flowing around you in big, poofy waves."
"It won't look pretty," I protest. Even three days back home could leave me looking like a fraying old rope.
"Well, Capitol tastes are weird, so maybe they'll think it's pretty anyway." Beanpole tries to wring out his shirt, but it's not wet enough for anything to drip out that way. He's going to have to let the sun do its work on it.
"It was all so confusing you know. This weird blur of rage made me so…so…"
"You couldn't help it." I think he wants to stop me short.
"It was an accident, I bet," it occurs to me, "Sparrow probably thought the sticky stuff on those darts, or that she put on them, was poison. She kept it a secret from me. Maybe she thought it would kill me quick. I mean, I thought it would."
"Darn, I should've looked to see if her stuff was intact," Beanpole grumbles, "We could've set up Haakon and Meridew to slug it out with one another."
And then it would be just the two of us. …If he hasn't thought it, I'm not going to say it. "Are you hungry?" I change the subject, just like Beanpole was kind and careful enough to mind the topic by distracting me with that tangent about my hair.
"I'm okay. I ate while you were still out of it. But," he smiles, "I made sure to save something for you."
"Ooh," I try to remain cheerful, "So, what'd you pack me for lunch?"
"Two bananas and, get this, you're really gonna like it-"
"You're building me up for something amazing here," I urge him to get on with it.
I see Beanpole's jacket now. It's lying on the ground with a couple of bananas on it and a thorny tree branch he's probably been using as a weapon. Beanpole leans back and reaches into one of the pockets, pulling out a lumpy piece of foil. Whatever it is appears a bit soft in his hand. "Someone got something pretty lovely but not all that helpful." Whatever it is, it's too precious, apparently, to toss to me.
Beanpole sets it in my hand. It's about half-melted (and clearly previously melted a bit and then re-solidified), but it's chocolate. "You saved this for me?" I gape, "Thank you!"
"I didn't have to save it too long- Cadelle was carrying it. But, hey," Beanpole gives me another easy shrug, "You're my best friend here. Actually, Mags," he adds this part a bit more pointedly, "You're my only friend here."
I can't really pick much of the chocolate off the foil, so I lick it off. "Well, you're a true friend, Beanpole." I eat the rest of my small meal, drink some more water, and appraise the new injuries I gained in the midst of my berserker rage. Obviously they weren't too serious or I wouldn't be so energetic now, but there are a whole slew of new bruises and cuts I didn't have before. "Did you, uh, kill anyone here, Beanpole?" I broach a sensitive subject.
"It was more of an 'aided and abetted' kind of scenario…"
"But you said you didn't have any friends here, so-"
"Have you seen what's in the water?"
"There's something in the water? I've been wondering and wondering about that, but I never saw a thing."
"We should go for a walk then. It's something you should see." He's talking very seriously, but the anticipation of how I'll react when I see what's in the water, or something like that, brings a smile quirking up the corners of his lips. Beanpole's so weird. But I know that, in some different way from the chocolate, this is going to be good.
We gather our things. Beanpole gives me back the large hook I found in the water. It's all cleaned off from its recent, murderous use. The smaller hooks I made are long gone. I'm ready to leave behind my blood-stained, ruined jacket, but Beanpole asks me to take it along. "What for?" I pester him, not willing to merely acquiesce to the request as a result of my curious, stubborn side.
Beanpole tries to stay close-lipped as we push along through the brush, but eventually he lets slip his use for all the dried and half-dried blood I'm carrying around. "I don't think it'll take much to get this creature within our sights today- it's getting hungrier and hungrier, I think. Maybe madder too."
"It's bait then," I say.
"You've got it," Beanpole confirms.
The ocean is strange, swirling up to meet us through the bamboo, but Beanpole seems to know where he's going, so I press on. I'm careful, of course, not to let the "bait" drag in the water and lose any of its potency too soon.
Beanpole scoops up a few pebbles along the way to his chosen spot. A dead tree in the shallows leans out over what must previously have been a sharper slope toward the beach than the one I made my initial descent down. Now it looks over what basically seems like open water. This gives me a rough estimate of how much of the arena's land has been lost under the water- maybe about half? Would the Gamemakers go so far as to submerge it all?
Beanpole walks out along the dry wood. I don't want to remain in the water, even where it's only at mid-shin height, while Beanpole fishes for trouble. I won't strain the branch he's leaning out on his stomach, but I stand on a lower outcropping and put my weight back against the trunk. He looks back to me. "You ready?"
"Ready enough, I suppose, if you don't feel like telling me anymore about your mystery creature."
"I think it's better if you just see it."
One at a time, Beanpole tosses the four stones he picked up out into the water. It isn't to scare something away as it would usually be. In this case, he wants to get something's attention. "I'm ready," he reaches toward me.
"Have at it," I offer. The sooner I'm rid of this whole arena getup, the better (what will they bury me in? What will I wear if I win?).
Beanpole takes my jacket, balls it up to get a better throw, and tosses the torn and bloody fabric into the water.
We wait.
I bite my lip at the shadow I see slinking through the waves. It's some kind of shark, or combination-shark-mutt-thing. Straight shark or not is hard to tell. What I can see is that it's a big one.
It has the scent. It doesn't rush in too fast, but spends a moment circling around its target. Rows of teeth converge on what was part of my outfit for the first six days of the Games. My jacket doesn't fight back, so it's nearly swallowed whole.
"How did you find out?" I quiz Beanpole.
"Right after the bloodbath, well, Wiley'd gotten hurt, so he went down to the water to clean off his wound. He sat on a rock and soaked it for a while, letting his leg dangle down into the water. The shark grabbed him by it." I clutch the tree tighter listening to this tale. Beanpole is somber. "It was a pretty horrific sight."
"Do you think it got anybody else?"
"I know it did," he nods vigorously. He won't be able to shake those images out of his head no matter how hard he tries.
"…You used it," I guess.
"It's hard to say whether it's easier to have the shark finish them or if I should have done it all myself. See, the thing I found is, if I'm clean of blood and swim calmly while someone else is in there bleeding and splashing around, that shark- there's only one- will practically ignore me."
He's braver than I imagined to have figured all that out. …Or he's more like me than I thought and he's really, really lucky. "How do you know? Did you just go out and set it?" Now there'd be a pretty picture for live TV.
"Dumb luck, partially. I was so scared. I guess I know now that I have a good heart, because otherwise it would definitely have given out on me. I was being chased, and when I reached the water, the one who was following me was brave or intent enough to wade in deep after me."
We watch the shark circle around a few times more before lazily moving back to distant waters.
"We could come up with a plan to use that against the two from Seven," I suggest. Between the two of us, there's the necessary hands and craftiness for that. I've never claimed to be the sort of person who works best on her own. …It would probably have all turned out better for me if I was.
"And then there'd be just us," Beanpole reminds me as that difficult truth sinks into him this time around. I can tell he wishes that I hadn't said that. We're in a tough position in regard to one another. Sparrow didn't stick it out with me as long as I thought she would ("Why not?" I ask myself again, "She really didn't trust me?" I tremble all over again). Beanpole and I have come too far. As a pair, we've lived too long. Leaving him would feel like abandoning him. Staying together would lead us to a torturous 4 versus 4 finale. That'd be brilliant television, wouldn't it, in the eyes of the Capitol? Me and Beanpole or Haakon and Meridew.
"Let's go back away from the water," I say. I try to keep the splashing to a minimum as I walk.
"We can stick it out together for the night, right?" I inquire later as Beanpole and I sit under the bamboo, watching the water lap in and out. He looks a little divided in his answer, so I press a bit harder. "I mean, we spent all of the day together up until now and there was no problem, right?"
"Okay," Beanpole relents, "We'll stick together tonight. But just tonight."
We don't talk too much that evening and without much to eat, lack of energy might be part of it. At least we don't have any problems when it comes to water to drink. I've noticed that the water here tastes different than back home in 4.
There haven't been any cannon shots. There are no faces in the sky that night. The week ends with its first day that doesn't include any killing.
I find myself wishing I knew a bit more about Haakon and Meridew. What's going on between them? Are they as silent as Beanpole and me now? Do they have some sort of pact for how they're handling this? What will the outcome be if these Games come down to the two of them?
"I don't want to sleep, sort of, but I'm just too tired," Beanpole admits, interrupting my aimless thinking. "I'm going to drift off any time now."
"Might as well sleep," I say. "What else can you do?"
"Nothing, I guess."
Without any animals to make noise, the arena can get awfully quiet. The night is reduced to wind and water and the sounds of our breath.
"We better not wake up dead tomorrow," Beanpole mutters.
"You can tell me, 'I told you so,' in that case," I offer.
"Oh, that's gonna make me feel great," he scoffs, but soon enough he's lightly snoring.
The next morning, I wake up alone.