Chapter 18- Oak Peacewood
In my head, I keep seeing Tulsee as I last saw her, sitting in the grass beside the train tracks. Looking at me with that strange wonder on her face. It's funny how she looked the same both wreathed in flames, and in the tall grass outside of District 5.
I can't say I knew her well, but in a way, she was a connection to my family; she was there at the Capitol when the world ended, she was there when my mother was taken, when Katya disappeared. I hope beyond hope that I never see Tulsee Skyforge again, because if I do, that means she's a tribute and prisoner again.
Well, I kind of wish I got off when I could several hours ago, because having all these Peacekeepers pounding through the train, and on top of it too, is both annoying and nerve-wracking. I don't like Peacekeepers at the best of times, and having them board up this morning's hard work is a blow.
"Where did they go? How long ago was it?"
Beade looks up at the Peacekeeper who's interrogating her. His voice seems too deep, as though he's forcing it down. "I don't know where they went; I barely know where we are now! And they got off a little while after Osa and the other one got on this morning. Outside of 10, I guess. Maybe."
I'm going to get off this train once we get to the Capitol, and then I'm going to find Katya, but it would almost be worth it to go into the Hunger Games to kill Beade, that absolute loyalist idiot. She obviously traded all of her morals for a pretty face.
The Peacekeeper shouts out the door, "We're looking at three fugitives, two from District 8, and one girl from District 6, got off between 10 and 5!"
"Descriptions?" a woman calls back.
Does nobody communicate to each other here? You'd think that they'd have a record of all the tributes on hand, that they would have kept track of who was reaped and participating in their first Hunger Games. It's probably on tape somewhere, but the lack of communication is appalling.
"Let's hear it, blondie. What'd they look like?" the Peacekeeper says, turning back to Beade. She looks up at him with a smug grin on her face.
"The two from District 8 had orange hair, and Tulsee from 6 had brown hair."
"Two redheads and a brunette!" the Peacekeeper shouts out the door.
"You're not going to catch them," Osa says vehemently, surprising me. She's not very tall, but she's got some spirit in her. And I'm biased; I have to like her because of her hairpins that got my hands loose. The two girls beside her, however, aren't looking very good; Willow from 11 looks tired, and Cass keeps getting thinner and thinner.
I shouldn't worry about them, because it's none of my business whether they live or die. I thought I had stopped caring for anyone besides my family, long ago when I started living in the Sap. I had to stop feeling for the people who died there every day; I would have splintered into pieces long ago if I had, like a clay pot dropped onto a stone floor. I would be the shards, and nobody would be able to put me together again.
Seeing Tulsee leave, and the younger kids slowly starve to death, frightened and alone, is making me crack inside, and I don't like it. I don't have anyone left to cry for, except Katya, but Cass does, and Willow does, and so does everyone else in this train car. These are the people I tried to liberate, and I only helped condemn to an unimaginable death.
"We're not going to catch them, are we?" the Peacekeeper says sarcastically. "The Capitol never fails. We won the war, you lost, kid. You just focus on getting ready to die, and we'll work on finding them."
With that, he moves to get out of the train car; stepping onto the platform, he leans down and picks something up. In one swift movement, he throws the rock at Osa, and it hits the girl in her side, making her cry out. The Peacekeeper laughs and shuts the door, leaving us in that horrible eternal twilight.
"Osa! Are you okay?" Cass says, picking up the rock and clenching it in her fist so tightly her knuckles turn white.
"I'm fine," Osa says, her voice thick with tears. She impresses me, though, and she doesn't let herself cry. She's stronger than me today; after Tulsee left I sobbed, for her, for myself, for my family, and even for Aldar. My friend, my best friend, and now we're hardly more than strangers.
I loved him, he was my brother in more ways than one. If he hadn't left me alone in the woods that day, if he had agreed to come with me to the Capitol, if he hadn't been such a coward, maybe things would be different.
Maybe he would be dead if he had come, though. We'd still be here; Aldar being at the Capitol wouldn't have changed anything for the war. One boy couldn't bring down the Capitol alone. For the first time, I think maybe I've been unfair to Aldar. The wave of regret and loss washes over me, further splintering me down until I can almost feel myself crack in half inside.
Tears prick at my eyes again, but I rub them away; I've had enough crying for a lifetime. I need to focus on Katya, and my plan to get out and find her. Of course, it's difficult when I don't know where they're going to take us when we get to the Capitol, if they're going to restrain us, and what kind of security we're going to have while we're there. I think this might be a make-a-plan-on-site mission.
When I look up and across the room, I meet Aldar's eyes. I used to know exactly what he was thinking, but I can't now. He sits a few feet away from the door, leaning against the wall with his knees drawn up and his hands clasped around him. He's always sat that way, always, and seeing him like that, in that familiar position, brings me back to a time before the rebellion, when the world was still fairly simple.
Aldar leans against the tree for which he's named, his knees bent and his hands clasped around them loosely. When I look at him, I see dark hair against white bark- and a boy who looks far too tall to just be thirteen.
"It's just not fair, Aldar! The Capitol's making Katya start work soon, even though she's a year older than you are." I pace in the clearing, from one alder tree to the other. The grass is cool, and tickles my bare feet, but I don't mind.
"My mother says that I might have to leave school soon to get a job in lumberjacking," Aldar says. I stop short and stare at him.
"Isn't that against the rules? Don't you have to be seventeen to do that?" I'm appalled that Mrs. Grovepath is making Aldar leave school, and the idea that I might have to start work in a year is even more awful. I'm only twelve; I want to go to school and stay home with Mom and Katya.
Aldar shrugs. "The Capitol doesn't really care what we do, as long as we meet the lumber quota. And now that- that Dad's gone," he says, his voice breaking a little on the last words. "I've got to help out or we'll lose the house."
I stop pacing and just look at him; I don't really know what to do. Aldar's dad died in the winter, in an accident in the sawmill. Mom didn't let me see Mr. Grovepath before they buried him, it was that bad. Since he died, though, Aldar and his mom have been struggling. I feel so lucky to have both Mom and Dad, and to not have to worry about leaving Cherry Lane.
"I'm really sorry, Aldar," is what I finally say. He smiles up at me, and I reach down and pull his hand until he's standing next to me. "Mom and Dad are talking about the Capitol again," I whisper.
"What are they saying?" Aldar whispers back as we walk deeper into the woods, away from the sunlit clearing and into the shadowy trees, where not even the Capitol can find us.
"They don't think it's fair to make everyone work for so little. See, if your mom made more money, then you could stay in school. And they don't like how the Capitol keeps Peacekeepers here all the time, like we're criminals. There's a lot of things that aren't fair, Aldar, and I think my parents have an idea to stop it."
"Don't you go and get mixed up in it," Aldar says, poking me. I slap his hand away and laugh a little.
"The way Mom talks about it, it would be an adventure to bring down the Capitol and put in a proper government."
"You're twelve; why do you even care?"
"I don't want Katya to get hurt like- like some people do when they work," I say, trying to steer clear of his dad, but he knows what I almost said anyway. "I don't want you to get hurt, or anyone. And it's not fair that hardly anyone makes any money. I don't know. I just agree with them. And it's not just me! There're other people who come by the house at night and talk, and Katya and I listen from the top of the stairs. People want change."
"I'm not even going to try and change your mind," Aldar says, always playing the part of the older kid. He grew up fast after his dad died, and it's hard to get used to. "Just don't drag me into it. I'm not going to cause trouble for the Capitol, because then trouble will find me, and then Mom and I will lose the house. You play reckless, I'm going to play it safe."
"You won't tell anyone, will you?" I ask, absentmindedly wrapping a lock of hair around my finger, then unwrapping it again.
Aldar grins at me, the same grin he gives me when we climb trees or jump over streams while tracking deer. "Course I won't. I wouldn't let you down, you know that. Together…"
"Or not at all!" we finish together, walking into the shady trees.
The rumble of the train under me wakes me up from my memories. We're leaving?
"Why is the train starting? Aren't they trying to find the others?" the newest little girl says from where she sits beside Silver. Silver's impressed me today; she left the loyalists to go look after the District 5 girl, and even though she looks scared and worn, she looks happier than I've seen her all trip. I have to give her credit for that.
"Guess they have to keep to their schedule," Aldar says. "We've stayed here too long."
He's right; but I can't help hoping that we're leaving because they think there's no point in looking for the others. I look up to the ceiling, where the hole used to be; it's completely covered over with a plank. The opportunity for escape passed this morning, and now, even if I wanted to leave, I have to stick it out until the end.
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the photograph I took from Cherry Lane, and then again from the Sap the day of the reapings. It's wrinkled now from being battered around the past few days, but even in this twilight I can see their faces. Especially the face that matters most to me right now.
Like always, her mouth is open in that familiar grin, her hair dark around her shoulders. My sister, with the graceful fingers that could draw anything or make creations out of seemingly nothing. Who would laugh until her face was red at nothing at all. When we were younger, she and I would gather flowers in the clearings of the woods and bring them home to decorate the house.
I remember our room we shared, painted lavender, and the dark bedstead covered in this very quilt. We made this quilt a long time ago, with our mother's help. My world was happy, but Panem was not, and that's why I helped rise up against the Capitol. That's why Katya left me, taking a piece of me with her that I haven't gotten back since. Why our parents died, and I returned home alone.
My whole world ended with those bombs.
I have to find her, my laughing, smiling sister. Without her, I don't know what world is left for me. The Capitol captured me, and I hope it captured her, because otherwise she's dead and buried in a grave that nobody will ever bring flowers to; a grave I will never visit. Without Katya, I might as well dig a grave for myself.
"Are you okay?" Aldar's sudden appearance next to me startles me, and I stuff the photograph back into my pocket.
"I'm fine."
"I'm sorry I kept you here. I know you wanted to go with Tulsee," he says in a low enough voice that nobody else will hear him.
"I did," I agree. "You're right, though. I need to find Katya."
"I meant what I said earlier, too; I should have gone with you and fought at the Capitol; maybe we could have gotten Katya out alive. I should have gone with you," Aldar says.
"It's okay. Having one extra person wouldn't have changed anything for the war. We'd still be here," I say. "I told you I wouldn't drag you into the rebellion, and I did, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything."
"We're going to get Katya out of the Capitol, and you too," Aldar says determinedly.
"What about you?"
Aldar smiles sadly at me. "I'm a tribute. I'm going to stay. Once you're gone, I've got nobody else to go back to."
"What about your mom?"
He freezes for a moment, then says, "She's dead. She died a few weeks ago. She got sick and- and I couldn't save her."
"I didn't know; I'm so sorry," I say in a half whisper.
"You wouldn't have known. I was a few days away from losing the house when I got reaped, so why would I go back? To live in the Sap forever?"
"Doesn't mean you have to die, you know. You could win."
"I'm going to help you get out and find Katya, I promise," Aldar says. "I'll help you escape, and then you can forget about me and just worry about her, okay? Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
"Are you sure? You could come with us."
"I'm going to stay here and make sure that the younger kids get good deaths," Aldar says, and his words worsen the cracks inside me. "I'm going to make them peaceful, and then I can die too. I'm not afraid to die, Oak."
"You never were scared of much," I say, trying to lighten the mood a little. Aldar talking about death and dying makes everything so much worse. No matter what we've been through, what he said and what I did, I don't want him to die. "We're all going to get out, Aldar. Come with me and we can find Katya together."
Aldar smiles a little. "We'll see what happens when we get to the Capitol."
"Together, Aldar," I say, gripping his hand and making him meet my eyes with his own. "Together."
"Or not at all," Aldar finishes, and squeezes my hand back.