It wasn’t as high as I thought it should be for whoever won. Above the image, an elegant headline asked Who do YOU want as Queen? Next to my face, a wide line shot out, showing thirty-nine percent of the people were pulling for me. I turned the magazine right side up, finding half of the page full of pictures of the four remaining girls with a graph beside our photos. They love you.” Her voice was angry, accusing. Your little speech on the Report pushed you over the top. Snatching one of her many magazines, she flung the glossy pages at me, and I caught it clumsily. She heaved a sigh and pushed herself up from her seat. I stood there blankly for a moment, confused by her words. The only thing to do was leave, but as she wiped her eyes, she caught sight of me. Up until this moment, I hadn’t even been sure she was capable. I searched for the source and found Celeste, hugging her knees to her chest, sitting on the wide perch of a windowsill. The door of the parlor swung open quietly, and I realized I wasn’t alone. There were a few books on those shelves I’d been wanting to read. I wandered down the hall to one of the rooms on the far end of the floor. I’ll be right back.”Įlise and Kriss each gave me a cursory nod as they attempted to focus on their tasks, and I stood to leave. “I’m going to hop over to one of the libraries. “I’m not that desperate.” She put the tip of the pencil down, making a smooth curve across the page. “I bet Silvia would have work for us,” I offered. “I just need to think about something else.” “But people already have died.” Kriss wasn’t argumentative, only worried. “The king won’t let anyone die,” Elise offered comfortingly. “I know that people are in danger, but I love him. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she finally said. She sat for a long time with a red pencil in her hand, hovering over the paper. She sat down with drawing paper and a collection of colored pencils. Maybe ten minutes later, Kriss walked in with full arms. Elise was reading as I sat with my sheet music, but Kriss and Celeste were missing. I ached to run, to put some of the energy into something.Īfter lunch, our return to the Women’s Room was staggered. The worry was so heavy that it was all we could do to stay put. The next day was much of the same, though I’d never been disappointed to see the sun shine before. Like I needed to know she wasn’t giving up on Maxon. “I’m going to stay no matter what.” Something about the way she said it seemed to be directed specifically at me. “Do you think they’re hiding the number of deaths from us?” she wondered. At parties, people preferred the classics. I hadn’t written anything original in nearly six months. “It doesn’t seem like they’d threaten something huge and then do nothing.” I was penciling out a melody I’d had in my head on some sheet music. “How do you think it’s going out there?” Kriss asked me, her hand paused over the needlepoint pillow she was working on. None of us could quite manage to finish even the smallest task. Elise held a book in her hands, but her eyes were trained on the window¸ lost in the downpour. I watched as she cleaned up her mistakes and tried to carry on. Celeste wordlessly painted her nails at a nearby table, and I could see the slight tremor in her hand from time to time.
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