With her hood tugged low over her eyes and her scarf shielding her nose and mouth, Johanna is indistinguishable from the other lumberers. She keeps her eyes lowered as she trudges past the line of Peacekeepers that guard the electric fence's single opening. No one stops her, not as she slips in with one of the crews heading out to the western ridge, not as she sets to work on a big, healthy fir tree.
Not as she slips away during the first break.
Apart from the wind that rattles dry, bare branches and the occasional scattering of a squirrel high in the trees, she is alone. Out here, her solitude is gratifying, nothing like the loneliness that hangs over her in the Victors Village. There are no cameras here to monitor her every movement, no Peacekeepers to drop by on random welfare checks every time the cracks surface and she throws something at the wall, curses Snow, curses herself for being stupid enough to live. Too stupid to die, too stubborn to obey, and now, too bitter to care.
She hardly thinks about them anymore. Johanna read about grief in the weeks afterwards. They all agreed it would take at least many months, more likely years, for her to recover from such a devastating loss. It's only been seven months. She doesn't remember what color her mother's eyes were, hadn't remembered the six-month anniversary of their deaths until a week after it passed.
In the house they should have shared, the very walls seem to beg her to remember them, and she doesn't. Out here, where there are no such expectations, she does. Johanna has never given much respect for rules.
It is rare this time of ear to have no snow on the ground. She chose to enact her plan today for just that reason. Though Johanna has no expectation her absence will go unnoticed, she hopes at least that the Peacekeepers will not drag her back before she is ready, and footprints that lead to her would make that all too likely. Even without snow, Seven's winters are unforgiving. She is cold to her bones, and her fingers have long since lost feeling. There are matches in her pocket if she needs them and a flare gun on the off chance she both needs saving and wants someone to rescue her. She leaves them for now and moves deeper into the woods.
She has reached a part of the forest she has never seen before. Judging by the trees, nearly all old growth that towers stories above her, this area has never before been logged, and it is thrilling to think that she might be the first person in centuries to lay foot here. The remoteness may scare some, but Johanna has always felt a magnetic tug towards home, and she trusts that it will be enough to lead her back to safety.
She wanders for hours and through countless memories. The sun sets, and the forest fades from its daytime gray to blood red to a deep, shadowy blue. She ought to have turned around hours ago to get home before the wolves come. She won't make it. When she set out, Johanna had not intended on wandering so far off. She just needed an hour or two away from the cameras to convince herself she was not entirely Snow's puppet, that she could still act without being prompted by a tug on her marionette strings. Johanna shivers and tugs her scarf up even further. There are miles between her and the district, and already she hears the wolves' howls in the distance.
Her eyes narrow when she spots the soft, golden light. Johanna knows that she is much too far from the district to see its few electric lights and that she has most likely stumbled upon one of the guard stations the old-timers say are littered through the forest. She moves towards it all the same.
When she reaches it, Johanna is surprised to find a small, weathered cabin nestled in the brush. The light that guided her to this point disappears, and she has only the shadowy remnants of daylight to study the sight before her. The cabin's wooden walls have been bleached by years of sun and wind, and she sees no smoke floating up from its slim chimney. There are no worn paths leading to the door, no tools strewn about, no sign of human life whatsoever. More worryingly, she sees no obvious source of the light she saw earlier. Johanna waits until every trace of daylight is gone and only silver moonlight remains to move into the clearing. Her entire body tenses as she knocks, but silence pervades.
She ducks low and moves to the other side of the house, which boasts a small glass window. The moonlight fails to reveal the cabin's secrets, and so she lights one of her matches to peer inside.
Freshly-baked bread sits on the windowsill, the loaf golden-brown and so familiar she can practically smell it. She presses her nose against the window to see more, but the match fizzles out before she can make out anything more.
She strikes the second of the five matches in the book. A meal, a proper winter feast really, with potatoes and roast chicken and carrots and other dishes she can't quite make out, wait out on a table set with plates and cups she remembers but cannot place. Candlelight flickers from inside, warming the space with its golden glow. The flame of her match licks at her fingers, and she drops the match to the ground below.
Johanna raps at the window, but no one comes to answer. The cabin is dark. "Hello? Is anybody there?"
She receives no reply. Knocking at the door again yields the same result. Johanna only has three matches left, but nevertheless, she strikes another against the window frame. This time, a family congregates around a fireplace. Their heads are turned away from her, but Johanna can see their love in the way they sit close together, how one woman rests her head on the shoulder of the man beside her. She counts six figures, and though Johanna has never met the family, she longs to make it seven. It is too easy to imagine herself there among them, part of a family again.
When this match dies, she wastes no time before lighting another. A child of no more than two sits before her, playing with his blocks, his chubby cheeks stretched in an enormous grin. His hair is still a little sparse around his temples, but it grows thick and curly everywhere else, so much like her baby nephew that it makes her heart hurt. Johanna presses her nose against the glass, ignoring the way her warm breath fogs the window before her. No, it can't be. It's imposs –
The match dies, and she is forced to use the last of her matches. The toddler is gone, for none of them seem to stay for long, but the figure that replaces him is even more recognizable. "Elizabeth!" she shouts as she pounds against the window, struggling to catch her older sister's attention. "Elizabeth!" Her sister turns her head slowly, for even when they were their poorest, Elizabeth had always been elegant, and Johanna would swear that she caught her eyes for just an instant before the match went out.
She runs towards the door again, pounds against it with all the force she can muster. "Please! Please, let me in! Elizabeth, it's Johanna! Please, you have to let me in!" She waits for any sound, but now, even the forest has gone silent. "Mom? Dad? Are you in there?"
Desperate, she grabs for the axe, and with a few swings that she punctuates with pleading screams, the door breaks down, and she squeezes inside. The fireplace is there, as are the table and chairs, but it is obvious that no one has lived here in years. A thick layer of dust coats every surface, and Johanna's eyes water as what she's kicked up reaches her face. A skittering comes from the far corner, and her heart stops.
A mouse. It's only a mouse. Everything she saw, and there's only a mouse here.
She stares at the creature for a moment, grabs a nut out of her pocket and tosses it towards him. He studies the nut and her for a long while before grabbing it and scurrying back into his hidey-hole in the wall. Hoping to tempt him out again, she reaches into her pocket for another nut, and her hand brushes against the flare gun.
It's stupid to hope when one's situation is hopeless. All the same, she moves outside and points the gun straight up in the air, bracing herself as she pulls the trigger. The forest lights up, and her mother watches her from the door, amber eyes misted over, a small, sad smile toying at her lips. Johanna moves closer, and Mom reaches out towards her. Then the light is gone.
Johanna collapses to the frozen ground, and for the first time since she came home to discover her childhood home burnt to the ground, her family trapped inside, she cries. Tears freeze on her face, but she does not stop. Not when the wolves' howls return. Not when she hears the shouts of Peacekeepers. Not when they grab her by her shoulders, hauling her away from the home and back to hell.
A/N: For Belle, and because The Little Match Girl has always been my favorite Christmas story. Happy holidays!