CHAPTER THIRTY:
Velvetta Cordwip
Snow, when it fell, didn't stay for long on these plains. Some folks called it a "dusting" because they expected much more than this accumulation, but for citizens of District 10, this amount was just right. It was enough for footprints to be left of such visibility that their owners could be easily tracked by amateur scouts, and yet in the making of such prints, the maker rarely saturated their trousers or stockings. Even though the mountains were far away, their snow-capped peaks were highly visible on a clear morning. Any children rushing to school either by the paved road or many of the unpaved dirt paths could look across the plains in the direction of that magical city called The Capitol, and they would see the white caps resting on the mountaintops like winter hats pulled snug upon a bare head.
Beneath the snow, the ground froze. Long after the snow would have melted, the hardness of the earth would persist; it was a symbolic denial of penetration by nature against the ambition of humanity.
Up the road from the town square, down a side alley marked Cobblers Pass, and at alley's end passing under a brick archway in desperate need of white washing, a strange little market square – long since forgotten by all but its few inhabitants – opened like a courtyard in a foreign land with spices floating on the breeze, or some such silliness from a paperback romance. Four imposing homes bordered the forgotten market, their doors alighting upon impressive stone steps. Each home had a small window facing into the square at ground level and two matching windows on the top level, both looking down into the market, now vanished. The square was enclosed by the houses around it, yet it had an open feeling to it – not to mention the pervasive suggestion to any wayfarers that stepping beyond that archway between the alley and the market dictated that silence – not a comfortable or reverent silence, mind – was to be strictly observed in this place. For that reason (and many others) Mildred Hatch could not stay. She made a little extra noise as she closed her door, the trace of a smile gracing her old face as her noisiness made echoing ripples around the square, perhaps magnified in defiance of this shocking infraction. She tucked her walking cane under her arm and strode quite ably across the square, defiantly whistling to further upset the solemnity of the secluded cul de sac. When she passed under the arch, however, she transformed into a wobbly and tired old lady, weighed down by years of living in District 10. Because she shuffled her feet along Cobblers Pass, she pushed whatever light snow had fallen in her way. It was better than dropping bread crumbs, in the end: though in likeness to Morse code, the only message her tracks left was one: I'm outta here.
When the note had been delivered to her door the evening previously, Mildred Hatch hadn't known what to make of it. She'd never been invited exclusively to tea at the mayor's home. It was a thing unheard of: and it had been a very long time since she'd had a proper tea. Velvetta made a good herbal tea and they enjoyed that on occasion, but this was a note invitation on frilly stationary, so homemade chamomile and honey tea wasn't likely to be on the menu. Mildred Hatch hadn't even been inside the Town Hall before; only Tributes and dignitaries from the Capitol, and the Victors, were ever allowed inside those walls. Mayor Stewart had been dictating policies for District 10 from between those walls for nearly twenty years now. Not once had anyone been known to receive an invitation to tea within them.
Millie wasn't due there until four o'clock, and she knew enough to know that one never arrived on time to tea, so she'd go over around five minutes past four to maintain a good appearance of manners. First, though, she wanted to see Velvetta. She put on her faux hobble, leaning not too heavily on her cane, and with the guise firmly in place, she stepped out of Cobblers Pass and into the street of the Town.
Somewhere over the roofs and in the town square, she could hear a commotion: folks were shouting and a dog or two was barking; the voices were primarily women, but some men and some children were included in the noise too. As Millie got closer to the square, she could begin to distinguish genders and ages belonging to the voices; most were women (yelling, screaming), but some were men (shouting, barking, cussing). As soon as the commotion hit her ears, Millie heard it die out against the sounds of breaking glass. Then there came a breathless silence, save for Millie's false hobbling on a street over the rooftops from the drama unfolding. Suddenly, shouting, yelling, cursing and crying burst out all at once. A man was screaming indiscernibly and several women's voices were hurling horrible words at someone or someones. Millie turned the corner and faced a shocking scene: a man Peacekeeper had a young man by the hair caught in the act of ruthlessly dragging him down steps into the street. The young man was bleeding and some chunks of hair were in the Peacekeeper's hand independent of his head. A woman around the man's age and a woman about a generation older were clutching his ankles and shouting at the same time at the Peacekeeper, who was shouting back. The young man was whimpering. Beyond them, a few houses down, teams of Peacekeepers were using the butts of their firearms to smash in shop front windows and kick down doors, dragging young men out by their hair. The scene was one that Millie had never dreamt of seeing, despite the horrible things the Capitol had done to the Districts. Like so many others who were present and not being harassed, Mildred Hatch made the conscious choice to ignore what was happening, to keep her head down and to go her own way as quickly as possible. She arrived at Vetta Cordwip's back door before anyone could notice her, knocked three times and leaned back on her walking cane.
A symbol of her sense of humor – though she appeared to be little more than a miserly old woman on the surface – Millie Hatch had selected the name Michael for her walking apparatus: though no longer a name anyone might find significant, Millie enjoyed her strolls with Michael cane when she wasn't in Cobblers Pass. He was a support, a companion even, when she was out about Town, but in Cobblers Pass, where she could be herself, Michael cane was just a friend who knew, excellently, when to speak and when to be silent (being an inanimate walking cane, he was more of the latter than the former, and she being an incurable chatterbox found that Michael cane's reticence suited her well!). Out of respect for her support, her strolling companion and her reticent friend, Mildred Hatch tapped him against the door lightly. After all these years, she knew Vetta would hear it. None of this came to mind for her until she had waited more than the usual five seconds for the door to be opened to her. Frowning – adding to her supposed miserly exterior – Millie tapped the door again, a little harder this time. She could hear movement inside, but it was stuttered as though the body on the other side of the door had a gimpy leg or was being burdened by something. Her frown deepened as she tried to guess what had happened that her oldest friend might be burdened or hindered. It can't be the shenanigans going on around me, was her first thought, quickly followed by another: Vetta hasn't misbehaved since Iffy lived here. Out of respect, Millie held all other thoughts for a few moments, reminiscing on Iffigenia Cordwip, no longer among them. For whatever reason, she couldn't remember Iffigenia Cordwip without Drake Tyler – that scoundrel! So, she shook her head as though that might help her clear out memories of the boy; it didn't, so her frown deepened still. Where is that boy now? She thought. She hoped he wasn't close by because wherever he went, disaster struck soon thereafter. As far as Millie Hatch was concerned, there was nowhere else in District 10 that she could live except for the Town. If Drake Tyler was, truly, the harbinger of bad luck and he was nearby the Town, Millie would gladly put an end to him if she caught him.
The boy who opened the door threw Millie for another shock: he didn't look like Drake particularly, but her thoughts cast Drake's image onto the stranger staring at her. He could be a younger version of Drake, she thought as she scowled at the boy. "Are you going to stand aside and let me in, or should we all wait until the Peacekeepers decide to visit this house?" she snapped at him. He nodded and made a move to step aside for her, and he might have done it successfully at a pace Millie preferred if it hadn't been for his dead left leg in the way. Millie hadn't seen it behaving like that until she almost ran him over out of impatience. He stumbled, grasped for anything that might break his fall, and when he'd found nothing, he braced himself for the collision. Millie had relatively quick reflexes and had thrown Michael cane out to reel in the falling boy without thinking about it. She was able to support herself and him as she helped lower him to the ground before retracting Michael cane and resuming her role as a withering old lady displeased with the world and its people. The boy's eyes were wide, but he said nothing to Millie as she approached him, cast a look down upon him, and then stiffened and passed him by. She managed to call over her shoulder to him, "Close the door. It's drafty in here."
"What are you playing at?" Millie demanded of Vetta when she'd been received and invited to sit. Vetta frowned at her.
"What are you talking about?"
"That boy. Is he a Tyler?" Millie said in an accusatory tone.
"No," Vetta replied, realizing what she meant. "How could he be? Drake hasn't been in Town in well over sixteen years." Millie sniffed.
"He's your apprentice then," she decided. Vetta nodded slowly. "Because you know what happens when you take in children that aren't your own. That's why he's your apprentice." None of what Millie said was expected to be given an answer. Vetta obliged in not attempting one. "What's wrong with his left leg?" Millie asked after a moment of silence.
"He got injured and I am trying to heal him," Vetta answered, unwilling to reveal more than that.
"How does an apprentice get injured?" Millie asked, sharply.
"He was presented to me injured." Vetta offered.
"Is that how it happened?" Millie challenged, but Vetta knew her friend well enough to know that she wasn't seeking to upset her; Millie was merely being nosy.
"Not everyone comes out of their packaging all shiny and new, Mildred," Vetta said, using the power of her friend's first name to warn her about being nosy. Millie nodded stiffly.
"Seems I need some of your help too, Miss Velvetta Cordwip," Millie said, changing the tone of their conversation.
"I hope I can give it to you," Vetta replied. "What is it you need me to heal?"
"Not heal," Millie said. "Help." She offered a long and dramatic sigh before launching into her reason for visiting. "I have been invited to the Mayor's home for tea. Xavier sent the invitation himself. You remember his meticulously cramped handwriting, don't you?" Vetta nodded. "It rather suited him, I thought, in those school days when he seemed so cramped and meticulous himself." Vetta offered a wistful half-grin. "Of course, we had no idea then that he'd be where he is now," Millie said.
"Or that we'd be where we are now." Vetta finished for her. She looked deep into her friend's gaze across the table: they had been through a whole lifetime of memories before this moment arrived for them. On the doorstep of an unprecedented invitation into Mr. Xavier Stewart's manor home, Vetta and Mildred saw in each other the girls they had been, playing in the gravelly school yard just outside the walls, perhaps even dreaming about what they'd be like when they were older. "You always wanted to be older," Vetta said.
"Older folks got to do a lot more than we got to do," Millie sighed. "I wanted to travel like I saw the rich folk doing, you know, like the Stewarts. Iris and Virginia always came back to us with stories about the mountains and the forests beyond the plains. The islands out in bright blue oceans, and the miles and miles of sandy beaches in the West. Do you remember when Iris came back and told us that ridiculous story about a canyon that opened up like a massive hole in the ground for miles and miles and miles? And then she tried to tell us that it isn't far from here!"
"Iffy always knew, though," Vetta said in a resigned tone. She had drifted into thinking about her older sister without wanting to, all the while very present and conscious for Millie's reminiscing. "I do remember that. I remember thinking that she was insane, but also thinking I wanted to go there and see it for myself. Not like we could leave 10…"
"Well, now, it wasn't 10 back then," Millie corrected her. The simplicity of her statement rendered the two friends, nonetheless, speechless for a drag. They sat looking at each other almost motionless. In the doorway, the boy with the straw-colored hair paused and watched the two women as they sat in silence, their faces reflected those of persons far off and away.
"Why do you think Xavier is calling on you now?" Vetta said softly. Millie shrugged.
"His letter suggested that he was making an effort to better know the folk of District 10, but I don't believe him."
"Anyway, isn't it too late to do that?" Vetta asked, though she expected no answer. Millie shook her head but said nothing. "I know," Vetta said after another pause. "These are the things we vowed never to talk about. I'm sorry to bring it up." Millie shook her head and took on such a piteous look that the boy in the doorway, unnoticed still, felt his heart sink merely looking at her. Mildred Hatch leaned forward and took one of Vetta Cordwip's aging hands in her own, stroking it with her thumb and squeezing it with her other four fingers. Thatcher thought it was the most comprehensive image of companionship, and it stuck with him from that moment on.
Elka Tyler came in to clear away the dishes over an hour later, well after the shop hours had expired, and she found Vetta sitting there still, alone now, looking out the window into the school yard.
"Do you think the school will ever re-open, Miss Vetta?" she asked innocently. It took a few arm-loads of dishes before Vetta answered her.
"Of course it will. It always has stayed open. Even when there were no more children left to attend. That's how it works here in 10." She maintained an even tone, a voice that scared Elka just a little. It was a voice that possessed no emotion, no feeling, no resolve nor any fight. It was an inhuman voice.
"There will always be children, Miss Vetta." Elka said, no longer authority over her own words. This feeling of being possessed by something more powerful and more graceful than herself gave Elka both thrills and chills. She thrilled at being able to see through a window that was invisible to most other people, but she was chilled by how her own words came out without her authorization. True, there were times when she could choose when to speak what she saw, but this was a case in which she had no control over seeing or speaking.
"Stop that nonsense!" Vetta snapped at her suddenly. "What kind of fool are you, huh? There won't always be children if folks stop breeding together. If folks are all dead then how can they breed? Can't you see, you foolish girl, that's the purpose for our lives here! If we can't continue to create life, what good are we?" Vetta turned away from the window violently and glared at little Elka Tyler, frozen at the table, her eyes wide and her face rigid. Softness fell over Vetta again and she moaned as one might who is deeply sorry for something they've done. "Oh child," she began. "I didn't mean that. I didn't. You've got more of a purpose than to breed. Don't you listen to Miss Vetta when she's like this, you hear?" But it appeared that the only word Elka heard was listen.
"Listen," she said in a voice that was not entirely her own. Her movements were robotic, forced almost and definitely stiff. She moved as if she were being forced to, as if something paralyzed her but simultaneously gave her motion. Her expression didn't change either. Vetta couldn't help but stare, but she wanted nothing more than to look away, to run away. Still, this changeling form of Elka Tyler – so it seemed, at least – began to move toward Vetta, forcing Vetta to move back. "Listen," she said again. Vetta was listening, but she didn't want to; still, she could see no way out without upsetting this possessed child. "Listen." Elka said for a third time, and immediately a memory clicked in Vetta's brain. She stopped moving and stared at the child, not horrified any longer; she felt trapped in that murky space between horror and intrigue. "The lady wanders with them," Elka began in a level voice. "She is like wind and water, always moving and always hard to contain. She wanders with them of the clay, purely earth, also mixed, and some of fire – new and innocent to the wandering life. The lady wanderer has no reason to come back, but soon she will, and when she does, the storm will come with her. Steel and string, blade and arrow, powder and fire, metal jacket and casing. Will you go with them…when they come for you?" Vetta had backed into her own counter and Elka had advanced far enough so that she was almost on top of Vetta. As she had borne down on the older woman, her voice became raspier and took on a more ancient sound. As she ran into Vetta's knees, she giggled as a girl of her age might, but her eyes flashed in such a way that Vetta thought she was looking at three different stages of womanhood at once. She yelped and the spell seemed to break. Elka grabbed Vetta's knees saving herself from tumbling over. Her gaze broke from Vetta's, and suddenly the child seemed to be herself again; Vetta, though, was shaken to her core. "Why are you looking at me like that, Miss Vetta?" Elka asked innocently.
"Get out," Vetta said in a hushed voice. "Now."