ELOISE BYERS— twelve [finished]

Mama told me the cicadas sang and the fireflies glowed when I was born. She said I clawed my way out of her, I was a butterfly scratching away at the cocoon. I was a blessing, she said, a candlelight in the darkness. We lived in the Seam, the poorest part of District twelve. Mama thought she didn't have a future, her husband died and her parents were long gone. Mama didn't have anything to live for, until me. I was the light at the end of the tunnel for her, I was what she fought to live for. Mama said I was a blessing because I was the only thing keeping her alive.

I lied in the field of wild daises and poppies, the sunlight glowing on my sun kissed skin. The silence was comforting, a soothing embrace. I let the flowers curl around my fingers, their petals stroking my fingertips. I picked the wild poppies and decorated my light hair with them, letting them flow down my back. Flowers are gentle, delicate, they dance with the slightest bit of wind and blossom with drops of rain. I liked to watch the birds while laying in the flowers, how they flew through the air, the wind carrying them to wherever they wanted to go.

Birds are a remarkable species, sometimes I wish I could soar in the wind like them, cut the air with my wings like them. Mama called it a fascination. I found one once, it was tiny and it's wing was broken. Mama runs an apothecary so she helped nurse it back to health. She taught me how to heal, how to help the broken. Mama told me that I had a knack for fixing broken things.

Sickness started to take hold of Mama, it grasped her by the ankles and poured inside of her, eating away at the parts of her that remained. It was too advanced for our apothecary, Malia, one of our apothecary workers, said it would require expensive medicine. We had to let Mama go, the medicine's value was too much for us. When she was laid to rest, I picked wild flowers from the field behind our house and set them on her grave.

Malia and her husband took me in, held me like I was their own. They weren't Mama though. They didn't sing to me under the moonlight, they didn't pick flowers with me, their tongues never spoke legends or myths. I used to fix broken things, but now I've become the fragmented piece.

---

"Mama, why can't we go beyond the fence," the little girl whispers, curiosity on the tip of her tongue. The older woman kneels down, placing her hands over the little girl's. "Because it's not safe out there," she says with a sad smile on her face, "and there are monsters out there." She pokes the little girls nose, a now cheeky smile climbing on her face. "Never go beyond this fence, Eloise. Promise me that you'll never do that, can you do that for me?" The little girl nods willingly, now afraid but strangely intrigued by what's beyond the fence. 

"Good. Pick up the last of the flowers and we'll head back. I'll cook you a good soup for dinner for ya'."

---

Broken things are meant to be put back together, their puzzles that constantly have a missing piece. Mama told  me I had a knack for fixing broken things, but I didn't know how to fix myself. I was the broken bird, wounded. I was the small girl, bitten fingernails and tear stained eyes. My wings were broken and I needed to heal.

I helped the bird with it's broken wing, and now I need to help myself. I'm not sure how I'm going to fix myself, but I know it needs to be done. Broken things are meant to be put back together, and I need to put myself back together.

Because I have a knack for fixing broken things.