Papa says he met my mother not long after President Coin took the Capitol. An order had been given that anyone who had been close the President Snow was to be executed, and that included his wife, children and grandchildren. Daddy was a solider in Coin's army at the time. He claimed that catching mommy's older siblings was easy. They were Capitol idiots and thought they were safe in the shelter of their big homes with their crazy hair and bizarre outfits; they thought their families were protected. But my mom, she ran, she had nothing and no one to worry about. She knew how to blend and ran from one district to another. Just when they thought they had her, she would disappear again.
One day, a man stationed in what had been District 8 to assist the citizens in adjusting to the new president reported having seen Andromeda Snow. My papa was the one who found her but what she was doing when he found her astounded him. He had expected to find a wild woman who looked somewhat fake due to her life in the Capitol, but what he saw was a short, natural blonde. He expected that any child of Snow would be self-important and unwilling to reach out to others, but she was helping a widow take care of a three-year old while the district woman nursed an infant.
"It came down to two choices," Papa would tell me, "I could figure out why, or I could take her as my prisoner. I chose the first option."
"How?" I remember enthusiastically asking him the first time he told me this story.
"I asked her,"
"And she didn't run."
"She didn't know who I was,"
"What did she say?"
"She explained that she had always found the Capitol a repulsive thing and her father was the worst man to walk the earth. Few people knew it, but her mother was a woman from District 3 and had instilled in her youngest daughter a respect for the Districts that none of her other children had cared develop. That befriending the worst off of the District people, had made running and hiding over the last three months easier. They were willing to cover for her. And that's when I fell in love with her."
"Then what?" I probed.
"Then we ran for years and a good friend married us to each other and you were born."
"And then?"
"You know what happened after that."
"Mama died."
"And you and I began to run, because running is what keeps you alive, my dear one."
I never knew my mother but these three things I know; I am Lydia, the granddaughter of Coriolanus Snow and all I've ever known is running.
Sometimes, papa would let me watch the children play while he went in search of dinner. I was only allowed to watch; never play. Papa was afraid that I looked too much like my mother and one of the children's parents might get suspicious and take me away from him.
Sometimes, if I had room, I would play along. My favorite game was hide-and-go-seek. I was so good at hiding, the other children never seemed to find me. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they didn't know to look for me. But my favorite day was the day I was found.
Two children, a girl around ten and her younger brother who seemed to be my age, had decided to play hide-and-go-seek in the same area of woods where I had been watching them from inside a hollowed out log.
The blond boy went first. "One, two, three, four…" He trailed on, and I watched as his sister calmly went to a nearby tree and hid in a nook there. About half a minute passed and then, "Forty-nine, fifty!" he finished. He found his sister quite easily and then she took a turn.
She began counting just as her brother had before, but he began frantically looking for where to hide, there were only so many trees.
"Thirty, thirty-one…" He still hadn't found a spot.
"Forty-five…" He saw it, my log.
"Forty-eight…" He began to hurriedly crawl in.
"Forty-nine…" We both screamed.
"Rye! Are you alright?" His sister shouted.
The boy had already crawled out the way he had come, I was backing out the other side.
"Willow, there's someone else here."
I began to run as fast as I could.
"Wait," the girl called out.
I didn't stop, but I did turn back to look. Then I tripped.
"I'm Willow and this is my brother Rye," the girl said when she caught up, "I was going to ask you if you wanted to join our game." She offered her hand to help me up.
"Please say you'll play," the boy pleaded, "I was just surprised to find someone else in the log."
The look in his grey eyes was hard to say no to, and they looked like my dad's eyes. "Why not?"
I answered.
We played for a few more hours, until my father came to get me. I could tell he was mad but something in him seemed sad when he saw my new friends. I tried to introduce him to them, but he took my hand and left without saying a word to the children.
When we were out of ear shot I turned to papa, "Are you disappointed in me?" I asked.
"I'm not mad if that's what you mean, but I told you to stay hidden," he said, shaking his head at me.
"I tried but they found me!"
"So you run," he said, starting to get irritated.
"I tripped," I began to cry, he had never before acted like this ever, and I was scared.
"I'm sorry, please don't cry. You did nothing wrong. I'm so sorry."
"Daddy, I'm scared."
"Don't be. I love you my dear one."