Nada's Escape

77- Worm.

Fit for a gala? Maybe. I tap my heels together in the mirror, the orange leather straps of my shoes cushioning the movement. As I let them go, too many layers of green tulle and satin swoop towards the floor, crunching as they settle around my legs, masking my feet. Beneath emerald rhinestones the bodice the puckers at the sides, obviously for a woman taller and bustier than me.

From across my bedroom you don't notice such things, just the jewel tones, the light catching on the rhinestones and the emptiness of my arms and neck beside them. I pick up Finley's note, left on my bed sometime this afternoon, and I sigh discordantly.

Nada,

You think you shouldn't take these... but you should. For one, it's traditional that you to wear the gift of a promise fulfilled on a day like today. For two, like you said, when am I going to wear them?

See you at the gala, Finley.

I pick up the pearl necklace he'd loaned to me as a promise. In for penny in for a pound, I guess, and add the jewellery to the worm-like spectacle of my attire. I fasten my watch on to make myself feel better.

It's just three others who 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 to 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. Eww...

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 instead of staying aloof.

I rearrange the soft fabric around my shoulders and remind myself that I've already submitted to the worm clothes and a part in the Huntsmen's traditions and ceremonies. I can also pretend to enjoy myself. I smile back at Martin, but his eyes are closed now, lost in the music.

I sigh and push my misgivings aside for a moment. I try to feel the dress not as a constricting, itchy inconvenience but as a statement of beauty, holding me up tall. I catch Amy's hand and swing it between us. She slows to let me catch up and clutches my hand with a grateful glance.

I notice she's wearing little pointed heels that must be a devil on the gravel path. That's gotta be Percival's doing, I groan. Well forgetting my misgivings worked for exactly two seconds.

"What's worse, shoes or no shoes?" I ask jokingly.

Amy grins, "Shoes," and kicks them off one by one, catching them like a circus performer. I laugh wholeheartedly then and rouge smiles plant themselves on my face.