"Mom, what's this?"
I turn around, accidentally slicing off part of the groosling I'd caught along with its feathers. I'd been careful up until now to hide my path into the abandoned house by the Meadow. I couldn't pretend that it wasn't there, but I could not go inside with Peeta, or with my daughter or son, leaving the sad memories hidden inside, locked with a turn of my wrist, a slam of a door. Somewhere in district 2 stood the one person I would gladly let inside, but I know I won't—and the most I can do is keep the sadness inside for myself. I know Peeta would understand if I tried talking to him about it, but I'm not ready to bring Gale up in a conversation again.
At the doorway stands my ten-year-old daughter, her bright blue eyes curious and wide open, her small olive-skinned Seam hands holding what, to anyone else, might seem like an innocent little silver package. Her dark hair, combed into a perfect braid by hands I can only assume are my mother's, shifts down her shoulder as she holds out the small silver parachute to me.
"Where'd you get that?" I ask silently, my hand enclosing over my last physical memory of the arena. Hadn't I kept it as well hidden as the house? Perhaps I did—not like it matters, because now she has found both. My fingers look through what is too painful for my eyes to see, feeling the little spile, the pearl that began as an innocent joke but ended in a memory of the boy with the bread. My last gift from the arena I'd fought so hard to escape.
"In your game bag," she says innocently, walking around to sit on an empty chair, a chair that, in other times, had been filled by the one person that knew—knows—how I function. No, not the one person—Peeta is returning to his normal state, slowly, and his mind is clearing and so is his understanding of me—but certainly the first. "You told me you'd take me out hunting this afternoon."
Hunting. Right. I'd told her earlier this morning I would take her hunting with me. Peeta had said it might be better to teach the boy, but he's so young and I'm getting old, my nimbleness for climbing trees and—why not admit it?—holding a bow and arrow is diminishing. While Peeta takes our son to the bakery to frost cookies, or paints the walls with him, I'm supposed to take her hunting, just like my father did. Some might argue that it's not necessary—we have all our food supplies—but I'm still afraid it'll all end, all become a memory. "I'm sorry," I tell her, my eyes quickly veering downwards to eye the pearl.
Immediately I get the flashbacks, and I know it was a mistake to look. The memories come flooding back in—Finnick and I sizing each other up at the Cornucopia, Johanna dragging Beetee and Wiress out of the jungle of bloody rain, the force field exploding as my arrow collides with it, holding the wire. My eyes are filled with tears, and I quickly wipe them off and tuck the pearl back into the package.
"What is it?" she repeats, eyeing me carefully. No doubt I've frightened her—I seldom cry—and she's worried that what makes me cry might make her cry in turn.
I wordlessly shake my head in disbelief and tighten my grip around the parachute, standing up. She stands up as well, holding my hand, which is now frozen with fear. Her hand, so warm against mine, is my only anchor to reality, and I'm thrust back in time, back to another hand, another little girl, so happily strolling through the same empty streets as us. It's almost the same delightful reaction when we come across the frosted cakes, eyeing both the lifelike ones made by Peeta and the childish, colorful ones made by the boy with his hair, his talent, and my eyes.
I lead her into the bakery, where Peeta and our son sit hunched over the table, the boy with his tongue out, gleeful eyes bouncing around the cookie until he deems it finished, and Peeta with intense concentration, carefully arranging every line, every color. "Dad!" the girl cries, running down and almost tipping him off his stool. He hugs her tightly, pulling her up on his prosthetic leg, and his eyes search for her mother.
He smiles at me, that smile that is the same no matter if camouflaged by mud, washed up on the beach, or in our home in 12, but his eyes see before he can understand the sadness in my eyes. He quietly glances down at the packet in my hand and sorrowfully puts down our daughter. We walk the boy back to the house, Peeta tucking him into his bed and me kissing his brow, before we walk into the untouched room of my sister, Prim. Without acknowledging each other, we sit our daughter on Prim's bed, which is perfectly made for her arrival after Snow's fall from power. Then Peeta looks into my eyes, and mine look back into the sadness that has overcome the brilliant sparkle in his eyes, and without a word his fingers twine in mine. We look back at our daughter, so full of life, and, without even saying a word, decide it's time.
And we begin the story.