Chapter 10
Elphaba wakes her for her watch a few hours before dawn. Glinda scoots out of the blanket they’ve wrapped themselves in and moves to sit near the shelter’s entrance. She can’t really see much through the branches they’ve twisted together, but the air is a little colder here and it helps keep her awake.
Not much happens, and eventually Glinda’s mind wanders. She finds herself going through the tributes in her head, drawing little marks in the dirt as she counts them off.
Nine died at the Cornucopia. She shivers and pushes down the image of little Boq stepping off his platform. The last Munchkin boy, Pfannee, and Sarima were next. Again, Glinda has to shove away her guilt at the thought of Sarima. And then there was the Vinkan boy she killed yesterday. Glinda swallows and looks down at the tallies she made. Thirteen tributes dead. How many days has it been? She has to think about it for a moment.
Six. They’ve been here six days. It feels like years. Or maybe just hours. She doesn’t know.
Elphaba wakes up so quietly that Glinda doesn’t realize it until she’s sitting next to her and handing her the blanket. Together they watch the sky pale through the little holes in their shelter. No words pass for a while, until eventually Elphaba clears her throat and pushes her way out into the open.
“I should have gotten a drink at the stream yesterday,” she says as Glinda crawls out behind her. Elphaba starts dismantling the shelter, her movements significantly less clumsy than the first day.
Glinda digs around in her bag. “I have a bottle, I think it’s full. Here.” She holds out the water bottle for Elphaba, who takes it after just a moment’s hesitation.
“Thanks.”
When every sign of their presence has been erased they start moving. Neither one of them has a specific destination, so they head northeast, hugging the base of the mountains.
They feel more confident today, ever so slightly more secure, and the occasional conversation rises out of their quiet travel.
The first time is when Elphaba makes a small noise in the back of her throat. Glinda slows down and looks over at her.
“You okay?”
Instead of answering, the green girl holds out the dagger she’s been carrying all day. Glinda feels her lips twitch.
“Keep it,” she says. “I still have my other one.”
“And I still have the first one I took from you.”
Glinda looks at her, glancing up and down with her brow furrowed. Elphaba grins and reaches down to her hip, pulling the blade seemingly out of nothing. She laughs out loud at Glinda’s expression.
“Concealing charm,” she says. “I was practicing, and it seemed kind of useful.”
“That’s…I didn’t even…”
“Impressive, huh?”
“Uh huh.”
They walk on.
Glinda starts the next conversation. She waits as long as possible, not quite wanting to break the companionable quiet that falls over them as they walk, but eventually her curiosity wins out. There are so many questions—so many mysteries around the green girl—that she doesn’t know what to ask first. Then she remembers the necklace she noticed yesterday.
“That charm around your neck,” Glinda asks. Elphaba’s hand automatically reaches up to the necklace. “What is it?”
“Do you mean what is it, or what is it for?”
“…Both?”
Elphaba chuckles. “It’s just a charm. Colored glass, hand-made. It’s nothing secret or useful or anything.”
“No, no way that’s handmade. It’s too intricate,” Glinda says, stepping closer to peer at the charm. She doesn’t think anything of it until she feels Elphaba’s breath almost at her cheek. Glinda stumbles back, feeling the heat rise to her face.
“Um.” Elphaba seems to be struggling with words. “I-it, uh, it is. A Quadling named Turtle Heart made it.”
“Turtle Heart?” The name sounds familiar to Glinda. “Wasn’t he a victor?”
“Yeah, a few years ago, when I was…three? Maybe four?”
“How did you know him?”
Elphaba shifts her pack onto her other shoulder. “My grandfather is the Eminent Thropp. Every year during the Victory Tour, he hosts a dinner for the visiting victor and company.” Her voice is bitter, and Glinda suddenly remembers what Morrible said about the Thropp family.
“So that’s how you met him?”
Her lips twitch. “Yeah. He came from a family of glassblowers, and his Emerald City representative kept having him show off his skills.” She lowers her voice, glancing around as if she can see the cameras placed around the arena. “He obviously hated it—the attention, the celebration, all of it. I don’t remember much else about him, except that he was much calmer after all the Emerald City people went to bed. He made the necklace for me and I’ve kept it ever since.”
“Huh.” The story is strangely captivating to Glinda—not unlike the green girl herself. “I never imagined you to be the jewelry type.”
“It’s something to remember home. Don’t you have a token from Frottica?”
“No.” Glinda looks down. “I…didn’t even think about it.”
She feels Elphaba staring at her, but looking up doesn’t seem like an option. She just shrugs and starts walking again. When had they stopped? No, it doesn’t matter. Elphaba follows her and doesn’t comment, and for a long while it’s quiet again.
***
“So…Elphie?”
Noon has come and gone by the time they speak again. Glinda has fallen so deep in her thoughts that Elphaba’s voice startles her. Her head jerks up to see the green girl smirking at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh.” Glinda scratches the back of her neck, running her fingers through her hair. “I don’t…I’m not really sure where it came from. It’s just easier to say, I guess.”
“It’s perky.”
“I think it suits you.” She giggles at the look Elphaba gives her. “Not because it’s perky. It just…It’s a different side of you.”
“And you think you know me well enough to know my different sides?”
Glinda bites her lip. “Well, some of them.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Elphaba is the girl who stole my dagger and keeps saying she doesn’t trust me. But Elphie is the one who saved me from the rockslide and who wears a handmade charm around her neck.”
She works up the courage to glance over at Elphaba, and is pleasantly surprised to see her looking thoughtful.
This is the conversation that seems to be the tipping point. Some part of Elphaba’s defense comes down and stays down, and—perhaps even more surprising—Glinda leaps at the opportunity. They talk, quietly but endlessly, sharing stories about their pasts, their families, their homes.
Glinda tells her about her small house on the outskirts of town. She tells her about being the smallest kid at the training academy. Mostly, she talks about Ama Clutch—how she loves to sit in her rocking chair and knit, how she is always awake to have tea and breakfast with her before school, how she actually raised her, far more than her parents ever did.
She says this last part without thinking about the cameras that are probably recording their every move. Glinda inhales sharply and looks down at her feet.
Elphaba glances around them. “It’s okay,” she says softly. “They try to keep the districts so separated, they’re probably editing out this entire conversation.”
Glinda lets out a breath but stays quiet.
“So, your Ama.” Elphaba watches her carefully as she speaks. “She seems pretty great.”
That almost makes Glinda smile. “She is. You actually remind me of her, a little bit.”
“I remind you of an old woman?”
Now she really does smile. She looks up at Elphaba, who is trying hard to keep the scowl on her face. “Not like that. You’re both very strong-willed, and not afraid of speaking your mind. And both of you are smart.” She glances down again, letting out a breath. “Smarter than I am, at least.”
Elphaba’s forehead wrinkles. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re smart.”
“I can be clever, or resourceful, or whatever,” says Glinda, “But only because I was trained to be.”
“What do you mean?”
She takes a moment to respond. Glinda has always thought of herself as intelligent, talented, special. And in the arena, she is. But outside the arena? What would she be if she wasn’t a tribute? She trained and trained until she became powerful, dangerous, deadly. But is that really all she is?
Yes. Yes it is. She’s a killer—it’s all she ever wanted to be—and outside these Games she is absolutely useless.
Elphaba is still looking at her, so she half-heartedly mumbles something that sounds like, “I don’t know.” She can tell Elphaba doesn’t believe her, but these thoughts are starting to make her feel sick.
Elphaba opens her mouth to say something, but Glinda is saved by the sudden rumbling that echoes through the valley. Both girls subconsciously take a step closer to each other as they turn toward the source of the sound. Glinda sees dust rising from one of the mountainsides, hears the crash and crumble of rocks, and feels a shudder run down her spine.
“Unpleasant memories?” Elphaba asks, glancing down at her.
For a long moment all she can do is stare at the mountain. There’s no sound of a cannon, but she swears she hears shouting. Sound is so weird here in the valley.
Finally she rolls her eyes at Elphaba and turns back around to keep walking. “It’s okay,” she says. “They weren’t all bad.”
Glinda bites the inside of her cheek. She doesn’t even know what she means by that. She expects Elphaba to roll her eyes, raise an eyebrow, maybe even make some teasing remark. Instead, she looks up to see her cheeks flushing a darker green.
The sight is oddly pleasing.
As the day goes on, the girls learn more and more about each other. Glinda is fascinated with Elphaba’s tales of Munchkinland, of the endless farmlands and the winding, crumbling path of the Yellow Brick Road, of the ancient, castle-like Colwen Grounds. She’s especially interested in her family—her mother, dead from drug abuse by the time Elphaba was old enough to go into the reaping, her father, a fiery preacher who almost always has the Wizard’s men breathing down his neck, her brother, still too young to be chosen as tribute.
“Tell me about your sister,” says Glinda after a while. Elphaba hesitates, her walls coming up again, and Glinda wonders if she’s crossed a line. She feels a slight panic at the thought of Elphaba ending the conversation and quickly continues. “I mean, you volunteered for her. You must care about her a lot.”
Elphaba snorts. “You want to know about Nessarose? Her condition—I’m sure you saw it in the videos—leaves her almost completely dependent. She requires constant care, and between Nanny and I, she gets it.”
“Nanny?” Glinda asks. “She was at the reaping, right? The woman you gave Nessarose to?”
“Yeah.” Elphaba sighs, and a moment passes before she speaks again. “Nessa is ridiculously religious, like our father. But she’s stubborn as anything, too.”
“Like you.”
“Miss Glinda, I’m insulted.” But Elphaba grins, the amusement reaching her eyes, and Glinda feels as if she’s won something.
“Good. Tell me more.”
Elphaba rolls her eyes. “She’s irritable and bossy, she can hold a grudge forever, and she has an incredible tendency for condescension.”
“Wow, so much for caring about her, then.”
“Are you kidding?” says Elphaba. “I’m completely devoted to her.”
Glinda laughs, though Elphaba is being entirely serious. She asks about Nanny next, and the stories Elphaba tells her are so ridiculous that Glinda wishes she could meet the old woman—or, more importantly, that Ama Clutch could meet her. She thinks the two would get along all too well.
One thing they never do, though, is talk about the Games.
It’s not like they forget. Elphaba can make the hours pass by—she can even, astonishingly, make her feel a little safer—but Glinda never quite forgets where she is, what she’s doing, what a mistake this is going to end up being. But they just don’t talk about it. Really, how can they?
The day begins to fade around them, and they let their conversation settle into comfortable silence. Glinda twirls one of her daggers in her hand and lets the quiet whisper of the breeze put her at ease.
They make camp while there’s still some light in the valley. Building the makeshift shelter takes even less time than the night before, and Glinda is surprised at how well they work together—they move automatically, wordlessly, as naturally as if they’ve been doing it all their lives. It scares her, and at the same time makes her feel pleasantly warm.
There are no pictures that night. Eleven tributes still remain. Glinda doesn’t really know why that’s so relieving.
She glances sideways at Elphaba as the sky goes dark. There’s one question she’s wanted to ask all day, maybe since the beginning of the Games, but she’s afraid of saying something wrong.
She tries anyway.
“Hey, Elphie?” Elphaba makes a short, hum-like sound. “Can I ask…can you tell me about Boq?”
There’s a long silence, and Glinda fears she really has said something wrong. But then Elphaba just shakes her head, her lips twitching into a weary sort of smile. “Dear old Boq. He was the smartest boy in our school, always had a book in his hand.”
“So you did know him. Before.”
“Yeah. We were friends, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m not exactly that good at friends.”
Now there’s something they have in common. Glinda waits for her to go on. Elphaba shrugs a little and clears her throat.
“There isn’t much to tell, really,” she says. “He was intelligent. He was kind. He was going to take over his father’s farm, or maybe just become the bookkeeper. None of it matters.”
“Why not?” Glinda realizes how stupid the question is as soon as it’s out. “Sorry,” she mumbles.
Elphaba shrugs again. “He deserved better,” she says after a while. “But, I suppose, so does everyone in here.”
“You really think that?”
“You don’t?” Elphaba’s voice is sharp as she turns to stare at her. “You really think someone deserves to be thrown in an arena to fight to the death on national television?”
Glinda curls in on herself, trying to become smaller. She remembers the years of tearing down her classmates so she could be on top, the way she argued with Ama Clutch after the reaping, the boy whose wrist she broke in training, how she had been so set on murdering the girl who now sits in front of her, and she thinks of one person who certainly deserves to be in these Games.
She presses her forehead to her knees and turns slightly to look at Elphaba again. She wants to apologize, but she doesn’t know how. “Why did Boq do it?” she asks instead.
It takes a moment for Elphaba to respond, but when she does, her voice is softer. “He knew he probably wouldn’t survive the first five minutes. And even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to kill anyone.”
“He stepped off the platform on purpose.”
“Yeah.” Elphaba’s voice is bitter, but there’s a certain fondness to it. “He ended it on his own terms. He let the Gamemakers, the Emerald City…the Wizard—he let them know that they don’t own him.”
A sort of thrill goes through Glinda with these words, like the excitement she felt at the reaping, only better.
“So he knew what he was doing,” she says softly.
“Oh yeah.” There it is again, that almost reluctant affection. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was planning it all along.”
Glinda remembers Boq’s face, the look of peace that crosses his features in those last seconds, and for the first time, the image isn’t unnerving. She looks up at the sky and smiles when she sees the colorful lights dancing above them. Elphaba is looking at her—she can feel her steady, attentive gaze. Glinda wonders what exactly she sees.