Elowyn Applering, 15
From More Than Chance
The cardinal whistles back, his voice high and sweet. He's a bright red beacon on the snow covered trees; every time he moves a small shower of snow falls, just a dusting on the deep piles already under the pine tree.
"Ow." I didn't notice the large bush next to me before; in summer it's full and leafy, but now it's bare sticks and attached to my braids. "Let go of me."
When I talk, the cardinal flaps his wings and flies through the white tipped trees to a new roost, one that I can't see. It's going to be dark soon, I can tell that the light is changing through the tree tops, but for now it's light enough for me to stay here. It's Wintertide, and my family will be coming for supper now that the work day is almost over.
I don't want to go home yet, because Gwennie won't be there. She hasn't been there for two years now, and when I think about Wintertide without her I want to cry. I cried enough two years ago to last me a decade, but it wasn't enough.
The snow is soft but ice cold when I sit down against the rough bark of a pine tree; my pants are almost instantly soaked through, but I want to stay out here, just for a few more minutes before I go home.
Somewhere, off on his roost where I can't see him, the cardinal sings again, that high note that Gwennie could replicate almost exactly. She could make the mockingjays sing as well, but there aren't many in District 7.
She wasn't perfect. Gwennie was an awful stickler for keeping our room clean; I'm tidy too, but not like she was, crisp corners on the bedsheets and perfectly smoothed quilts. She couldn't cook to save her life; she burned every piece of toast she brought near a fire. And she knew just how to annoy me when she wanted to.
But she was my best friend. She was selfless and generous, and funny, and one of my favorite people in the whole of the world. Then she had to get herself reaped and died on Day 2 of the 39th Hunger Games.
I won't cry again. Not on Wintertide, it's bad luck to cry on a holiday, that's what my mother says, just like if you cry on your birthday; you'll cry every day for a year if you do. I don't know what happens if you cry on a holiday, but I won't.
The cry of a crow startles me; overhead and through the trees I can see the sky starting to change to mauve, the beginnings of the sunset; the first crows appear, flying black against the purple, then their families follow. My father says that the night is brought in on the wings of the crows, because they always appear at day's end.
Time to go home.
"I'm soaked." I twist around to see the whole of my pants are soaked through with snow. Mother won't be happy, but I'll hide them upstairs until she goes to bed, then I'll put them in front of the fire to dry overnight.
"O pine, O spruce,
O cedar tree,
Bring all tidings here to me.
O hey, o hey,
Blow the snow down,
O hey, o hey,
Blow the snow down.
Call out towhee, call out sora,
Call out vireo,
Sing about tomorrow.
O hey, o hey,
Blow the snow down,
O hey, o hey,
Blow the snow down."
The man's voice comes through the trees, lifting high and making his song just as much a part of the forest as the snow and the cardinals.
Echoes of his song follow me through each step in the deep snow, following the path I made, towards my home.
"Ellie! Are you coming down or staying up there all night?"
I quietly put my hair brush down on my dresser. I have my hair braided more often than not, but tonight is Wintertide and I want to look pretty for it. Unbraided, I can sit on my hair, and it gets caught in and on things. Like bushes in the forest.
"Right here, Auntie," I call down, hanging onto the banister.
"It's like you have a ghost living in the house, Ada," Auntie says to my mother, who is out of my eyeline.
"She's not as quiet as all that," Mother says. "Come down, Ellie."
I'm halfway down the stairs when Auntie says, "What a lovely dress, Elowyn; I know I've seen it somewhere before."
Mother's voice is rough when she says, "It was Guinevere's."
It's Uncle Cye who saves the moment, and me from crying. I'm finally tall enough to fit into Gwennie's dresses, and I wanted to remember her tonight. I forgot that it might make Mother cry.
"How'd you get the tree back without a whipping, Shaw?" He's holding a mug of Mother's apple cider; she managed to get a bushel of the apples for only a few pecuniae, and made a pie with the rest. Having apple things plays on our last name, and it's my favorite fruit because of it.
Father clears his throat. "Peacekeepers were distracted, or feeling generous."
"The Peacekeepers aren't generous with anything but bullets and whip-strokes."
"Maybe so."
"Now Elowyn, what are you learning in school these days?" Auntie looks at Mother. "She is going, isn't she?"
"Math, and identifying trees and what they're used for," I tell her. Of course I go to school. Even the girls from the Sap go to school.
"You'll be a foreman in no time, dearie," Auntie says. I don't stand close enough to let her ruffle my hair. Mother has her lips pinched tight; she wants to say something back to Auntie, I just know it. If it was Gwennie here, she would have said something, because she knew I want to be a carver like my parents.
The gifts hidden under my quilt will tell them that, even though they know.
"Ellie, will you get the door?" Father asks, giving me a reprieve when the knock comes. I look at him gratefully; I love my great-aunt and uncle, I do, but they always push. And tonight, I want them to pull back and watch the snow outside instead of reminding me of my sister.
The someone knocks again before I can open the door. Mother hung pine boughs on the outside, to make it pretty; in the summer she hangs flowers on the outside instead, braided into a wreath that dries slowly in the sun.
And two years ago she hung a white ribbon on the door, after Gwennie. I don't know the boy that went with her, and I don't know if his parents hung a white ribbon. But every time I saw that ribbon my heart sunk again, like it did when I watched her on the screen.
"Aunt Rhoda!"
"Hello Elowyn!"
Uncle Cye and Auntie are Mother's aunt and uncle, but Aunt Rhoda is her younger sister. And the person I love best in the world after my parents. She reminds me of a robin, always cheerful, and with her brown hair and red cheeks.
"Happy Wintertide," I say, letting her pull me into a hug. She's cold and lightly covered in snow, like she's been sifted over with sugar.
"How are you?" As though I didn't see her last week.
"I'm okay."
"It's not easy," she says. She understands. She knows, because she was there, and she loved my sister too. "But shh, I've got something for you that I don't want them to see. They'll throw a fuss over that I didn't give them something too."
I smile at her. "Take off your jacket or you'll be damp."
"Smart girl, I didn't even think about that." Aunt pulls something out of her pocket before she takes her red jacket off and hangs it on the coat hanger by the door. "Don't tell them."
"I won't tell," I promise. I don't promise things I know I can't keep, so Aunt knows she can trust me.
"Here." Aunt pulls my hand towards her and opens it, then places something smooth and hard into my palm. It feels like a small, thin book. "Look at it, Elowyn."
Tears come to my eyes when I look at Aunt's gift properly. It's a painting in watercolor, in a smooth wood frame, of Guinevere, smiling and looking off into the distance somewhere. Somewhere happy.
"I like to think she's in a field by a forest somewhere," Aunt says quietly. "Somewhere beautiful where she can wait for us."
"I don't want to cry," I whisper, brushing my eyes with the back of my hand. "It's not lucky."
"The year is going to be what it's going to be, tears or not," Aunt Rhoda says. "I don't hold with the superstitious things the rest of the district seems to believe."
"We need something."
"Hope's good enough." Aunt kicks her boots off; she never cares which way they go. "We'll make it a better year because we want to. Gwennie would want us to."
"Thank you. For the painting," I say. I'll prop it up in my room so I can see my sister every day. "How did you remember her?"
"Reruns," Aunt admits. "And from my head."
"It's beautiful."
"So was she." Aunt looks over my shoulder. "They'll be fussing if we don't go in soon. Are Kinnie and your cousins coming?"
My father's sister and my cousins. I shake my head. "Not this year. Maybe for the New Year."
"Suits me fine; that young one almost fell in the fire last year."
I look at my painting one last time, then tuck it into the pocket of my dress. Aunt's right; they shouldn't see. This is mine and Aunt's memory now, and I'll cherish it alongside the memories of my sister.
The snow is falling softly outside my window when I put the lamp up into it, where it can glow into the street until I put the fire out. The power failed an hour after Aunt Rhoda arrived, and that was the end of the evening. I wasn't sorry to see Uncle and Auntie go, but I thanked Aunt Rhoda one more time before she left.
My eyes fall on the portrait that I have propped against several books on the dresser next to my bed. Gwennie really was beautiful. If Aunt's right and she's waiting for me in a field somewhere, then I'm looking forward to seeing her again. Maybe not soon. But one day I'll go find Gwennie and see where she's been all this time.
"Ellie? Are you still awake?"
"Can you come in?" I ask. I'm not going to sleep until I see my parents.
The door opens and Mother steps in. Losing Gwennie has weighed her down; she used to sing before. My father whistled while he worked. We've lost too much music in my house.
"I have something for you. And Father."
Father is right behind her, coming into my small but soft feeling room. I love them, I love them both so much, and I know they love me too, and are terrified of losing me. They don't say so, but I see it in their faces when they look at me.
"Here," I say, reaching under my quilt and holding out my gifts to them. "For you."
"Did you make these?" Father asks, taking his. Mother holds its twin; two robins carved of smooth cedar, that smell sweet when you hold them close. The first carvings I've made by myself, without my parents watching over me and guiding me.
"By myself." I pause. "I want to be a carver. Like you."
"You've been carving for a while," Mother says, a soft smile at the corners of her mouth. "I've seen the boxes you've made."
"With your help. I want to help you, I want to carve like you do." If my work goes to the Capitol, then it helps District 7, and my family. And maybe someone there will wonder who made it.
"They're beautiful," Mother adds, holding her robin close, stroking the carved lines of the wings.
"Tomorrow," Father says. "You'll come out to the shed with me tomorrow. Your first project; a jewelry box. We'll see after that."
"Thank you!"
"Thank you, Ellie," Father says. He ruffles my hair, then turns and leaves. He hasn't seen the painting, and neither has Mother. I don't want them to see it yet. I want it to be mine, just for a little while more.
Mother kisses my forehead; she's cool to the touch. "Your sister would be proud of you."
"I want to make her proud."
"Goodnight," Mother says. "Don't let that lamp burn too long."
"I'll put it out soon. I promise."
"I trust you."
Then Mother's gone too, and I'm left in my room that I shared with my sister almost my whole life.
Aunt Rhoda might be right; tears might not change the New Year, but I won't give it a chance. Gwennie wouldn't want me to cry on Wintertide, so I won't.
No, my sister would smile and stick out her tongue, and I would tease her back. When I look at her now, standing painted in a sunlit field, I like to think she's waiting for me to come so she can tease me again.
I just hope she's willing to be patient.