maisie fray, district one | finished

"Child, hush."

"Mother, I—"

"Sh. Sweet daughter, sleep."

"Everest? Where's Everest?"

"They came for her. They took her, but it's okay."

"Who? Mother, who took her?"

"Sh, my sweet. You've yet to hear them; yet to see them."

"Mother, I'm afraid. Everest—"

"You should be, child. Don't shed a tear for your sister. She's safe."

"Why did they take her?"

"'Cause they found her. Maisie, my love, don't let them find you."

"Who? Please tell me." 

"They'll come for you. They always come. They came for Everest, just as they came for me."

"Mother, who? Who? Mother—"

"Close your eyes."

"Mother, please—"

"Count to ten."

"Mother—"

"Sh, child. Count."

"One."

"Don't look for Everest."

"T-two."

"Don't look for me."

"M-mother?"

"Count."

"Three."

"..."

"Four."

"..."

"Five."

"..."

"Mom?"

"Keep counting. Sleep. Sleep, baby."

"Six."

"..."

"Seven."

"..."

"Eight."

"..."

"Nine."

"..."

"Ten."

"..."

"Mother?"

"..."

"Everest?"

"..."

"Anyone?"

---

They found my mother's body that night. Peacekeepers said they found her dead on the pavement, and that she had jumped from the roof of the abandoned warehouse that we were living in. They said I was better off when they dragged me away, dropping me off at a community home. "Your life wasn't a good one, eh?" one had said, glancing over the caked dirt on my pallid flesh. One of his fingers curled itself around a  matted strand of my hair, and he chuckled to himself.

He hadn't let me in on the joke, though. An elderly woman had ushered me into the dismal building that looked no better off than the places my family had originally found shelter in. Food was rationed, but it was better than having to hunt for rats in alleyways, or begging for scraps near the outskirts of the town square. I had always known I was lesser than the majority of my district, just now I alone.

("Where's Everest Harmon?")

No one knew the answer. "She probably starved," I usually overheard. "I heard the mother was crazy. She probably killed the poor girl, and left her in a ditch. That's what I say," also a common assumption.

"No! They took her!" I urged, but no one listened; no one cared. There wasn't a soul in the world who could help me, and I was in no place to complain. I was able to bathe, I had food in my stomach, and enough playmates that not every night ended in tears, but I couldn't stop myself from wondering. I refused to be like the other children, more than just a shell whose eyes only sparked when adults walked in, glancing us all over like we were mice being cornered by cats.

They never stopped for me; not for me or my teeth that were too large for my thin lips, or the freckles that dotted my skin. I was one of the more malnourished children in the home, and whenever a rare couple did show interest, the officials always confessed: "Wouldn't bother with her. She's got bad blood. Mother was crazy. Killed her sister, killed herself, and left this one to die."

My mother hadn't killed Everest. Every time they brought her up, that was the first explanation. "Give up on her, Maisie," an older girl in the home had once told me. "The sooner you move on, and the sooner you just leave 'em behind, the more likely you'll get taken in. No one wants a girl from a family like yours."

"Everest is my family. I can't give up on her. I know she's out there. I— I can't."

"Maisie? She gave up on you."

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I aged, and I grew into myself, but still no one came. The floor beneath my bed grew crowded with scrawled clues, and all the ideas I could muster for the location of my missing sister were etched on that petrified wood. "Maisie, what are you doing?" the other girls would laugh as I slid under. "Searching for monsters?"

"Yes."

They giggled, as always. They all grew accustomed to my antics, seeing me as nothing more than a peculiar girl scarred by the death of her family.

("Where's Everest Harmon? She's alive. I— I know she is.") 

Year after year, the younger children were adopted, and eventually the older youth came of age and left. I became one of the eldest, helping with tidying around the house, and comforting the new orphans. "I believe you," I was known to say to the children when they gave me even the wildest reasons for their abandonment. I wasn't crazy — not like they said my mother was, or like they said my sister would have become. I was desperate, and I was paranoid, but—

They hadn't come for me. Not yet. I was okay. I—

I had decided before I turned eighteen that, when I was old enough to leave the home, I'd also leave the district; that I'd run away, and that I'd find where Edith was. I had a list of districts written on a small patch of wall near my bed, and beside each one I wrote what I knew of them by the Games we were forced to watch on our nearly crumbling television set.

Half of them were blank, and half of them were guesses, but I learned at a young age that hope was what mattered. I was reckless, brash, and terrified in so many ways — but I taught myself the one way to fight away fear: by hoping, and by refusing to give in.

Tick, tick, tick — became the melody of each day leading up to the day I'd be able to leave, and I found solace in it. ("I'll find you, Everest.") I had a purpose in life, and it was to save my sister from whatever stole her from me. Tick, tick, tick — just another day closer. Tick, tick, tick — almost there. Tick, tick, tick.

("Everest, I'm—")

Click, click, click — and suddenly the song shifted. When the clicking heels of  Baphilda Fray entered the home, all of the children found the air sucked from their lungs. Glittering jewels lined her hands, and her body was adorned in the finest of fabrics. She was an older woman, far beyond that of contemplating birthing a child, but one glance was all it took to see that she could have other means of obtaining one. Her lips were pursed tightly, hand at her face as if shielding her nose from a foul odour.

"Lady, may we help—" one of the officials began as they approached the woman, but they were quickly waved off.

"No. I'm here to adopt, simple as that."

"Ma'am, you're certain there's—"

"Certain that there's no better selection of children? Oh, I'm sure there is, but I'm feeling generous, and I do so terribly want a child. A good child, not one used to the luxuries of life."

"What are you looking for? An infant?"

"Oh, no. Too much of nuisance at that age."

"Toddler?"

"My bones are too brittle for that."

"Well, we have a few teenage occupants, but—"

"Bring them forward."

One by one, I and the others of my age group were lined in front of the woman. She walked down the line, looking each of us over. "No. Too skinny. Too robust. Too—" she droned, before stopping at me. "Nice skin," she began, her fingers caressing my hair with a simple stroke. "Lovely hair, too. Good shape. She'll do."

"Well, it's good that you came today. She was just about over the age limit. Isn't that great, Maisie? You've been adopted — just in time!"

Jealous mutters began to flutter about my ears, but my voice was trapped in my throat. ("Why her?" "Why Maisie?" "Lucky bitch.") I wanted to scream, to lash out and refuse. "I—" I began, but the woman extended a finger, pressing it to my lips.

"Don't thank me, child," she said, smiling with an air of sickly sweetness. "Come, let's make this official," she said, waving along the elderly woman beside her. Small children and older youth alike swarmed around me, congratulating me, though some stood in the corner with narrowed eyes. I couldn't speak. I— I couldn't— I couldn't—

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I was torn away from the community home, just as I had been earlier in my life. I was forced to leave all of my work behind on that floor and those walls, and I couldn't force out words until we arrived at Baphilda's house. "Must be a shock," she mused, chuckling to herself. Everything seemed to shine, and if the circumstances were different, I'd swear that I was a princess straight out of the tales my mother never read to me as a child. 

"I— I'm not sure about all of this," I said in a shaky voice, suddenly unsure of myself. I was made of fire and gasoline, eternally keeping myself aflame, and I had never once been muted by my fear, but— Suddenly all of my hope was gone. ("Everest— Everest, I'm sorry.")

"Child, I swear it was all my idea. They'll say I did it for my image, but no. I'm glad to have you."

"That's— That's not what I meant."

"Then what, girl?"

"I had plans. I—"

"And you can't pursue them here? Such glamorous plans, eh? Darling, look around you! You have the world at your disposal, now. What can't you do?"

"I—"

"That's what I thought, sweet girl," she said, walking forward. "Allow me to show you to your room. Hope you like pastel shades, m'love."

I found myself following in a daze, though my mind was in overload. I could find Everest. I could do it here, now that I had the means to act. I could mean something and be someone, and when I found her— When I finally found my sister, she could join me. I could— I—

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Everest Harmon was out there somewhere, and I'd find her.

table: zoë