Metal glints in the sun. Cool, dark earth covers it for a fleeting moment. The earth flies through the air and lands the short distance to the growing pile. Repeat.
A mockingjay flitters from tree to tree, watching me. A stranger in her woods. Who is this boy, intruding in her territory, making loud, uneven foot prints into her earth? She has never seen him before. She has never seen another human quite like him. He limps, his skin is covered in scars, he is broken. He walks as though he is not quite sure where he is going. He is unaware of his surroundings. The woods are a bad place to be unaware. She lets out a warning call, and I start, looking around for the bird, the bird. Her bird, that has made this unexpected noise. I watch the mockingjay jump into a tree with low limbs, right in front of me. White flashes against coal black as she flaps her wings to steady herself on the branch. The bird peers at me with bright, intelligent eyes. Sing, she commands. Sing! But I am not the singer. The mockingjay will be disappointed. I cannot sing.
Insert shovel into hole. Place foot on edge. Kick forwards further into the dirt. Scrap dirt out of hole. Throw dirt on pile. Repeat.
The mockingjay waits for me to sing. Waits for sweet melodies that she can mimic and teach to her fellow birds.
"You're going to be disappointed," I tell her. She excites at the sound of my voice, thinking I might break into song. "I can't sing."
She pauses and waits. When she realizes I am not going to sing she looks disappointed. But she twitters anyway, and breaks into a melody that a human must have taught her. A human that can sing. A human with a beautiful voice that the mockingjay would fall silent for, just to listen to her. I know the song the bird is singing. I have heard it before. It conjures up memories of her. Flashing cameras lenses. A five second clip before she's gone. Confusion. Fire. A warning. Blood. Beatings. More torture. Burning pain in my veins. Fear and distorted memories. Real or not real?
Shovel dirt. Throw dirt. Repeat.
The mockingjay flits from tree to tree, following me, still singing. I wish she would stop. I love the sound, but this mockingjay reminds me too much of her. And thinking of her is confusing and painful. But I went into the woods. I was asking for it. The woods belong to her. This is her territory. Of course I'm going to think of her.
Feel sweat drip down into my eye. Pause to wipe dry. Grasp handle again. Receive splinter. Curse.
A stick breaks under my foot and the mockingjay stops singing abruptly, looking at me reproachfully.
"Sorry," I whisper. I miss the sound of the bird's voice. "Please, keep singing," I tell her quietly. But of course, mockingjays don't speak English. The bird glares at me. I'm going to have to do something desperate if I want her to continue singing.
Hesitantly, because I know this is way out of my territory, I whistle a couple of notes as best I can to the bird. I'm not really surprised when the mockingjay looks affronted. As if to say, 'here, I'll show you how it's done,' she starts to sing again, prettier than before. A stab of longing hits me because all of this reminds me so much of her.
Remove splinter. Shake off pain. Grab shovel and shove into earth more ferociously. Grit teeth. In anger or annoyance? Or simply to fight against the pain in my chest? No. No thinking. Shoveling. Insert shovel. Remove dirt. Throw into pile. Repeat.
The mockingjay jumps out of the tree, and flies some distance ahead of me. I call out for her to wait. Quickening my pace, I try to keep up with her. She has landed in a willow tree and looks down at me with mocking amusement. Does she realize how desperate I am to stay with her? How much I need her? How much I want to hear her sing? I realize I am no longer thinking of this mockingjay, but another. The Mockingjay. My mockingjay.
The bird in front of me hops down a few branches until she is on eye-level. She lets out one quick, high peep. Knowing she has caught my eye she flitters down even further, to bushes at the trunk of the willow tree. A flower is disturbed and falls to the ground. I know this flower. I have seen them before. I have frosted them onto cookies and cakes before. For her. I rush forward abruptly. The mockingjay shrieks in alarm because I have gotten too close, and flies away to a higher branch. Just like another mockingjay I know would do. Does. Too often. The bird looks down at me critically and I glare back at her like she is the one causing me pain. Offended by my sudden hostility the mockingjay turns and shows me her tail feathers.
Feeling suddenly very sad I turn back to the bushes. I kneel down and scoop the bright blue flower, hold it out in my palm so I can examine it. Yes, this is the flower. How the mockingjay knew to take me to them I don't know. Maybe it was pure chance. Maybe it was fate. All I know is that the evening primrose in my hand does not belong in the woods. Prim never liked the woods. She was afraid of them. Sweet, innocent Primrose. Prim. Bursting into flames before my eyes. I am too late to save her. We are both too late to save her. She would have saved her if she could. She would have done everything to save her. She already had. Everything she had done had been to protect Prim. We had been there because of Prim. Everything that had happened had been set into motion by her protecting Prim. And it was all for not. She failed. She went through everything for nothing.
This hole is good and deep now. I stop to take a breather, stretch out my back, my leg, wipe the sweat from my brow, before moving onto the next spot a few feet from the freshly dug hole. The shovel breaks into the untouched grass and earth. Gains leverage from the foot that I do not feel. The grass roots rip up and are tossed into the growing mound of dirt.
Cupping the bloom gently in my palm I straighten and look up at the mockingjay.
"Thank you," I whisper to her. She ruffles her feathers in response, her beak in the air. A laugh escapes my throat. It is a strange sound and I do not recognize it at first. Slightly shaken by the unexpected and unwanted laugh, I turn on my heel and go back the way I came, taking careful note of my path through the woods so I can find this spot again.
When I reach the point where the trees fade and the broken fence comes into view I pause, and very carefully place the primrose in my breast pocket. The sound of many scraping shovels reaches my ears and I repress a shudder. Whose burnt bones are they burying now? My father's? My brothers'? My mother's? I freeze, and almost forget my task in the fresh reminder of bitter losses.
The scent of the flower in my pocket rises up to my nose, reminding me of what I have to do, spurs me into the edges of the meadow. Not the meadow. The graveyard.
I hear her voice in my head.
'A bed of grass, a soft green pillow . . .'
An ominous premonition, that lullaby. Did whoever first sing those words know they were about the final resting place of half of our home?
The scrap of the shovel echoes around the houses. It seems abnormally loud in the emptiness. Or maybe it is just because I feel the desolation of what was once a fully populated district all around me. Feeling like I'm waking up ghosts I look around nervously. There's no movement anywhere at all. Dead still. Dead silence.
Trying to be invisible I look around for the tools I need. There are plenty to choose from. All I really have to do is take my pick. Preferably one that is not filled with dead bodies. I spot a good candidate and hurry towards it. It's guarded by an old friend of mine from school. He looks around as I approach, recognizes me. I'm afraid he's going to want to engage me in conversation. I do not want to take part in painful small talk. I don't want to be reminded of an old life. A person I once was, who once had friends that did not have sympathy in their eyes whenever they saw me. That person is dead. Long since dead. He died in a Capitol torture room where he lost all the proper memories of the person he loves. The empty, broken shell of myself stands in front of that person's friend now. That friend does not know me anymore. No one knows me anymore. I do not even know me anymore.
"Can I borrow this?" I ask the old friend, gesturing to the wheelbarrow and shovel. He shrugs. He doesn't need to ask. Doesn't want to know what I need it for. To him I probably need it to pick up another body. It's close enough.
"Go ahead," he says. He stares at me like the celebrity I am…was, because I am not even that anymore…and he does not see the friend I was before I was a celebrity, or the madman and a broken soul and the piece of a body, the mutt I am now. I hurriedly take the wheelbarrow and shovel and scurry out of sight. I do not want to be watched anymore. By him or anyone. I am sick of being watched. I only feel safe when I reach the isolation of the woods. Where I cannot be surveyed by anything except disturbed wildlife.
I continue my shoveling, conscious now of every scraping sound. I'm glad the place is empty. It means there are no cameras nearby. It means I do not have to act. I do not have to pretend. Scrape. Dig. Kick. Raise. Throw. Repeat.
My mockingjay friend is gone by the time I get back to the willow tree. I feel a profound sense of loss. That mockingjay felt like more of a friend than the one I had just left behind. She'd been a good friend. She sang when she realized I couldn't. She stayed with me even though I was a terrible whistler. She led me to this place. She showed me the primrose bushes. She showed me I can do something good.
In the stillness I can hear everything that happens in the house I dig beside, but I do not notice it at first. The creaking sound of floorboards. The hurried sound of careless footsteps that are normally silent. The bang of the front door opening. The only thing that alerts me to her presence is her voice, hoarse from none-use, mumbling from eternal grieving. Clearly discernible only because she is the Mockingjay, and she has a voice.
"You're back."
The upturned ground underneath the willow tree seems bare without any color. Without the primrose bushes now sitting in my wheelbarrow. I feel like I have stolen something precious from this willow tree. I cannot leave it like this, bare and colorless and alone. I do not know what to do. I cannot return the primrose bushes. They do not belong there. They belong under her window. They belong where she is. Once again I must pick between the lesser of two evils. And as always, I will pick Katniss.
"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," I tell her. "By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone."
But I will not leave this willow tree without a token. My fingers brush the blue primrose in my pocket, remove it. I press the flower to my nose and inhale the fresh scent. It smells like springtime. Like hope. Like something innocent and good and lost. I place the bloom gently at the base of the tree, arranging it outward so everyone can see the bright blue.
I frown at her appearance. She looks a mess. Her hair has matted into clumps. Her new skin is flaking and peeling. She is still in the clothes she left the Capitol in, aside from her father's hunting jacket hanging off her thin frame. I know she has been eating reasonably well, but it's like it didn't take. She is so thin. And pale. She hasn't seen the sun in weeks, months, however long it has been. I have lost track of the days. Instantly I am worried about her.
But I am so glad to see her again. At least she is semi-alive. At least she is safe.
She makes a half-hearted attempt to push her hair out of her eyes as we take in each other's appearances. She must realize she looks like hell. I realize I probably don't look much better.
"What are you doing?" she asks me, sounding defensive.
"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," I explain. "I thought we could plant them along the side of the house."
Perhaps my mockingjay friend will find my flower, and take it. Will know I was here and thinking of her. And Prim. And Katniss. Especially Katniss. Always Katniss.
Her eyes travel over the primrose bushes in the wheelbarrow. For a second she looks shocked and then an angry fire consumes her. She turns on me, no doubt to shout nasty things at me, and I worry I've done the wrong thing. But then she pulls up short, realizing fully what the bushes are. She gives a jerky nod and then rushes back into the house, locking the door behind her. And at soon as she's gone I find the perfect metaphor for us, the situation, myself, Katniss, and Prim.
Prim is the lovely, lost thing, taken from us. Prim is the primrose bushes. Katniss is the mockingjay, flitting about, staying with me as long as it suits her, becoming afraid when I get too close, urging me to create and singing herself, to find the good and bring it to her or leave it for her to find. And I have the precious thing taken. I am damaged and laid waste with nothing but a token as a reminder of what I was. My memories of Katniss, my love for her, the reasons forgotten but the feelings still there. I am the willow tree.