whispered secrets // zoe

"Little Citrine," she says with a small smile, motioning for me to take a seat at the table next to her. Mom was out of the house, so she couldn't stop Grandma from filling me with dangerous thoughts. I brought the two cups of tea I had been working on over to the table after stirring in a little bit of honey into grandma's cup just like she wanted. I fell into the seat, wrapping my hands around the cup, letting them its warmth engulf me.

Mom had gone to get groceries, so it would be a while before she got back. It took her ten minutes just to read the label of a box of crackers to make sure they didn't have any partially hydrogenated oil and really were vegan. It would take her even longer now. She wanted to stock up. The recent curfew that the capitol had placed on district one had seem to shake her slightly. Nothing like this had ever happened before in her lifetime, and the same devoutness to the capitol she's been trying to fill me with seemed to be the only thing keeping her from going insane form worry.

Taking a moment to look out the window at the darkening sky, grandma began to talk, "This has happened before." Her voice was quiet, probably for dramatic effect. She was about to start a story, stitching history together with her words. If mom had been here, she would have seen the sign immediately and would have cut grandma off, equating her to a blasphemer. Look at everything the capitol has given us, she would say, per usual, gesturing to the grand house.

But there was no one to stop grandma right now. I listened to her, entrapped with wonderment. I can't imagine the capitol committing the atrocities she speaks of, but she assures me that they happened. She says this is how the rebellion started the first time, when she was a little girl. There was a tension in the air, peacekeepers lining the streets, a curfew, a stay at home order, and then chaos. If what she says is true, we're two steps away from chaos.

I can't imagine the capitol, the same one that helps people become victors and provides everything in our lives, would do everything she says. Thoughts about the stories we are told in school flash through my head, rebels killing children, burning the giving capitol to the ground. They deserved anything the capitol gave to them afterwards, right?

As if she sensed my thoughts, grandma chuckled a little in that way the elderly do. As if she was all knowing and that whoever she was talking to was simply naive. That put me on edge a little. "Don't worry, my little gem," she says. I can hear the door opening down the hallway. "I know you don't believe me, but with everything going on, I think there's someone you can talk to..."

By the time she finishes telling me about the Aquinos, mom had finished unpacking her groceries. Grandma fell silent with a conspiratorial wink. Mom eyes us suspiciously before talking about how peacekeepers were everywhere in the district center and how they're doing such a great job protecting us and then moving on to complaining about how all the gluten free crackers were out of the store.

The next day, I walked into the training center a bit later than usual. Leaving the house at 7am felt odd to me. Normally I had at least two hours more in the day to train. I looked around for the girl that my grandma had told me to talk to. I had seen her around a few times. I knew her name, barely. There were so many careers here that often they blurred into one hulking enemy.

I didn't see her yet, so I walked over to the swords, running my hand over one of the glistening hilts. It was early enough that the popular station was not yet crowded. I take a few slashes at the dummy before I spot her out of the corner of my eye. I remember the words my grandma said, make sure no one else knows you're talking about what I told you besides her.

Wiping a spurt of fake blood off my cheek with a cloth, I walk over to her. "Hey there, Vera." I say, my voice slowing gently on her name as I try to remember it. "For some reason my grandma says she knows yours. Weird, right? Is there some grandma club that I don't know about?"

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