Author's Note: A quick thanks to JB for the review...and now onwards!
Chapter 39
Clock!
Timing it all comes down to timing and timing has to mean a clock.
Heavensbee made the arena into a clock!
I almost fall off the swing bench when I realize what Wiress was talking about. Things are falling into place.
"It's a clock!" I burst into the house. I startle Mrs. Everdeen and Gale shoots up from the couch, his hair an untidy mess.
"What's a clock?" he asks groggily, and although part of me wants to laugh because if it was a two year old it would mean something else but I know better, he means what am I saying is a clock.
"The arena that's what Wiress was trying to tell them last night, tick tock, it's a clock" I run to my satchel and take out pen and paper, "if I am right it should look like this" I say as I crouch by the coffee table to sketch it, I draw a big circle, the center I draw the cornucopia and put twenty four dots to signify the pedestals with land bridges between cornucopia beach and then outside the water area a large land mass that surrounds them. "Every twelve hours the lightning strikes we know this because we saw it in the recap, the timer had said twenty-four. We know that the fog didn't pass a certain area like a wall, we know it doesn't reappear every hour, something else happens"
Gale looks at the map, "great so what does that mean"
I rock back on my heals, "I don't know, there has to be a reason for this, I just don't know that part yet" I rock a bit, "has to mean something, has to be useful somehow"
"Why does it have to be useful?" Mrs. Everdeen come in with cereal for us, "it's an arena"
"Yes but everything in an arena has a reason to be there" I say taking my bowl, "from forcefields, to water producing trees, to tree rats. Everything has a rhyme and reason for being there and Wiress figured it out, they are timing the hazards, they are making it possible to time them"
"But what's the point of timing them?" Prim pokes her head around the corner just as the TV comes on.
"To avoid them" I reply as the games begin again.
The gang of Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, Johanna, Wiress and Beetee are heading for the center, Flickerman sums up the night saying if anyone got killed. No one had. He also fills in on weapons that have been removed from the game from dead tributes. No crossbows so my two are still there…somewhere…
Johanna, Katniss and Finnick replenish their stores of weaponry and ammunition. Peeta has stationed Beetee by the golden horn to rest while Wiress in one of her usual moods starts to softly sing 'hickory dickory dock' while washing a heavy looking cylinder.
"Has she always been like that?" Gale asks and I nod, "was it the games?"
"She was introverted before the games, the games just made it worse, Beetee looks after her I guess that's why she came so she wouldn't be far from him" I reply, "she was a nice person just a little off the midline"
Gale chuckles, "are all victors nice?" he asks
I shake my head no, "no some are real jerks and stuck up and non remorseful, Enobaria comes to mind"
When Wiress stops singing it draws my eyes. Prim is crying, we see that Gloss has killed Wiress, it's the last thing he does because he gets shot by Katniss. Cashmere falls to Johanna's axe work. That's when Brutus and Enobaria come out of the jungle and rush the cornucopia.