Nada's Escape: Fighters' lies

28.1 Worm

Worm enough? I ask myself as I tap my heels together in the mirror. The orange leather straps of my chosen sandals cushion the movement. I hike my skirts up higher to reveal cargo shorts underneath, a singlet already stuffed in one of the pockets. It will be easy enough to change outfits before we steal the garage key from Hart's house. Much easier than I'd thought. I had never realised just how many things you can hide under a full ball gown. Though its going to be warm with the extra layer underneath.

I slide Finley's sacrilegious letter into another pocket, contemplating where to leave it to gain us the most time. Probably just the kitchen table. But until we actually escape the letter had better stay with me.

I let my skirts go then and layers of green tulle and satin swoop towards the floor. They crunch as they settle around my legs, masking my mismatched shoes. I pull at the puckers in the bejewelled emerald bodice but it's no good. Whoever wore this before me was taller and bustier. You don't notice from across my bedroom though, just the jewel tones and the way the light catches on the rhinestones. Like the subtle glow of the symbol on my arm.

I shouldn't cover it, for appearances, but it makes me a little squeamish how prominent it is in this outfit. I seize the pearl necklace from Finley off the bed and try fruitlessly to attach it around my wrist instead. I sigh and throw it back onto the covers. I'm not sure why I want to wrap things around my wrist. All the other girls were groaning at me earlier about having to wear their pledge ribbons.

I strap on my watch, only then feeling myself enough to clasp the pearls back around my neck. I don't let myself another look in the mirror in case I balk.

Just three others meet me out the front of the Warrior Circle, a skeletal crew of our real escape team. I greet them with hugs, not a usual fighter gesture but we're all on the same side now anyway. They're dressed in hand-me-down gowns like mine; red, blue and yellow. The green ribbons symbolising their new life pledge to me dangle from their wrists like dead birds.

"You're ready?" I whisper to Laura, Beth and Tanja. There's a twitchy excitement to their answering grins that echoes my own feelings. One last gesture of fake loyalty and we'll be gone.

The sun is low but hot as we make our way to the meadow, the meeting place for the parade. Though it's too warm for this formal wear I can't yet smell my own sweat, so I ignore the feel of it. The paths between the hedges are thick with Huntsmen, gathering a thrumming energy between them, far more potent than the busy atmosphere of the past few days. I feel it inside me too, though for different reasons.

The meadow is packed and buzzing in a way that has nothing to do with the hundred conversations filling the air with noise. I spot Amy, in light green, who's somehow gotten her ribbon to sit neatly like a sash across her torso. We wade through a pool of tiny boys to her and I hug her too.

The other ex-Seveners are already milling here in other rainbow hues, fiddling with the drape of their ribbons. I fiddle with the pearl necklace self-consciously as I greet them. Macie tugs my hand away from it as she hugs me.

"Don't worry, you're not the only one." She gives me a dry smile and plucks a large silver locket from her chest, trailing its chain. "And here see what's inside."

She flicks the catch and shows me a photo of Percival nestling there with a self-satisfied smirk.

"God." I roll my eyes and feel a whole lot better, "You have to be a saint to put up with that."

Old Nancy, wearing a great black smock of a gown tries to force a gold flag into my hands but I decline with some garbled excuse. The purposeful nod of a thin Huntsman behind her catches my attention, until I realise he's nodding to Martin behind me. Martin, one of the nicer wardens from Seven, lifts a fiddle to his neck with a secret smile. A drumbeat begins from somewhere else, a rhythm to quiet the burden of conversation.

"It's time." Nancy shouts in her gravelly voice, pushing her hair out of her face, "You all follow me!" She carves a path through the youngsters, all boys, to the town-side entrance of the meadow. She holds her arms out above her head, left-over flags and pom-poms exploding from her fists. The youngsters cheer and lift their own paraphernalia; gold white and green.

The music seems like it begins from everywhere at once, the thin Huntsman belting out a triumphal note on a decorative horn. I whirl and find Stacey's sponsor beating a pattern from a two-sided drum. Martin's stretching a bow across the fiddle and I watch a woman with long hair stalk up behind him with wooden flute pressed against her lips. It sounds like there's more of them but as turn to find the other musicians the girls around me start to move and I'm distracted.

We seem to be at the front of the parade, behind only Nancy and the score of boys. Henry waves from their midst, though I don't know why I didn't see him before. Nancy sets a snail's pace, giving plenty of time for the boys before us to do cartwheels and leap from each other's shoulders in semi-orchestrated patterns.

"Maybe we should have come up with some choreography?" Tanja whispers to me as we enter the streets and I wrinkle my nose. Ew.

The musicians are excellent though, escalating the atmosphere to pure, heady excitement. I don't know how they keep time, seemingly dancing along in their own world, separated by space and other marchers. There's probably more further back in the column but I feel self-conscious looking over my shoulder for them.

I notice the bunting now, strings of gold, white and green triangles connecting lampposts and trees, leading us deeper in. I share smiles with the other girls, who are acting triumphal with stellar results. Martin catches my eye and smiles too, inviting me to enjoy myself.

I rearrange my bodice and remind myself that I've already submitted to the worm clothes and the ceremony of the thing. It's all just part of the act. So I smile back at Martin, trying to fake the excitement I should be feeling.

I try to feel the dress not as a constricting, itchy inconvenience but as a statement of strength. I try to find the joy in the music. Amy's hand falls heavily on my shoulder, pulling me back in line with her. I spin, noticing the little pointed heels that Percival picked for her. They've got to be impossible on the gravel path.

"I hope you have some emergency shoes stashed away?" I ask jokingly.

Amy grins and slaps the skirts around her hips, "What do you think is under all this fabric?"

I laugh wholeheartedly then, a real smile planting itself on my face.