The idea came long ago, by the Black Smith's daughter. Ellena saved, often missing a meal or two to keep a coin. Often giving up clothes that were not rags, and staying up long hours into the night in the shack where she worked washing clothes for the shop owners and Mayor's family of District 13. Until she had enough money. A secret. That is what it was. Not anyone in the family knew. They knew Ellena as the youngest of four. Always hungry. Always suffering. Not as someone able to hide something. Fragile. Heartbroken.
She wanted hope. And nobody gave it to her, so she made her own. Long dark hair covered, Ellena hurried through the grey rain under the crescent moon. She'd snuck out of the house late, after even her eldest brother had come home, smelling strongly of spirits. Through the dirtiest, darkest streets, away from eyes that could care.
Ellena made her way to the Mayor's back door, painted red, and knocked once, quietly, softly as she could manage, and stepped into the darkest shadows. There she watched. Seconds passed. The door opened just a bit, and a sliver of a dark eye was visible. She drew out from the shadows onto the doorstep.
"Miss Ellena." The young man said, slipping out onto the doorstep with her. He had fair hair, and a mischievous sort of smile, the kind that made Ellena wish she had come in daylight. He towered over her.
"Mister Hennsworth." She said quietly.
"I almost mistook your knock for thunder, but thunder could never be so soft, Miss Ellena. Please explain to me how the moon is visible through the rain. Almost like the opposite of sunshowers, wouldn't you say?" Millans Hennsworth said, "And please call me 'Millans,' Miss Ellena Dells, all of my friends do."
"I am not your friend, Mister Hennsworth. Do you have what you said you would bring?" She forced herself to meet his eyes.
"Yes, Miss Ellena, of course. And I presume you have what I want?" He raised a single eyebrow and smiled slightly at her. It was the same look that made all the girls willingly submit themselves to his wishes. But it did not work on Ellena. Twenty-three years is long enough to have love ripped away.
"I have the coins." She slipped her hand into her pocket, fingering the worn leather pouch.
Millans Hennsworth reached a hand out and caressed her pale cheek. It was the best she could do not to bite it.
"You always favored my older brother." He said, unexpectedly bitter. "How old would Bentley be now? Twenty-seven, yes? Much too old for you. Not like me, I'm only twenty-five." He kissed her roughly, knowing she wouldn't protest in the fear of being discovered. But Ellena did pull back and push Millans away.
"That is not what we agreed to. I have the money."
"Why not have a little fun."
"Your brother is dead because of you and this is how you treat me."
"That was years ago, Miss Ellena. I think my brother would like for you to move on."
"I would just like what I came here for. My father will soon discover me missing and send a search." Ellena knew no such thing would happen, though.
"You know as well as I do that won't happen. For now, I shall be content with our conversation, but you can't evade me forever."
"You'd be surprised." Millans smiled at her and drew a small, cloth rapped package from his pocket.
"For you. The finest I could find." He said, with a slight bow. Ellena slid the cloth off her treasure and gasped. Inside was a solid gold pendant that fit inside her hand. It was an ornate flower. She handed Millans the pouch of coins, but he slid it back into her pocket.
"For my brother." But then he promised, "And this is for me." Millans Hennsworth kissed her again and disappeared into the dark house.
Ellena clutched her treasure tightly as she ran home.
She kept her pendant secret.
Several weeks, she waited. Then one night, she snuck again from the house. Down to her father and brothers' forge, where she melted the flower. Ellena worked through the heat from the fire for hours, carefully shaping the soft metal. And in the end a magnificent pin was finished. A bird. The exact one she had seen with Bentley.
It had been a warm spring day, late in April. Ellena and Bentley were walking in the forest, but not far enough that they couldn't see the yellow-white sunlight from the meadow. Bentley had pointed to and said,
"I've never seen a bird quite like that before."
"Yes, it's quite peculiar." Ellena agreed. And to their surprise, the small, black-and-white bird flew toward and landed on a branch nearby. Ellena sang a soft melody she had once heard her mother sing when she was a small girl. The bird sang back the sweet tune and looked at her as if asking for more. The couple spent hours singing back and forth with the bird, until Bentley decided it should have a name.
"Ellena, you are my shinning light, my hope, and this bird can be our hope in this war." He said, referring to the District war against the Capitol. "We'll call it a Wishing Bird."
"I love that."
"And I love you."
"And I love you." And then they were laughing, with the Wishing Bird mimicking the sound of happiness.
Ellena sat for hours, waiting for her creation to finish cooling. A Wishing Bird and an arrow. The arrow was the symbol of the District's rebellion, and the Wishing Bird was her Hope.
She remembered when Bentley said he was going off to war. After Millans, who was seventeen, made a public scene about his father's paying to get his eldest son out of the draft, and the officials had no choice but to take Bentley to fight, where he was killed. The Mayor had not had to fight, for he had a bad leg. Millans was too young to fight. His mistake was in that when he turned eighteen, the officials came for him too. But days before his childhood passed, he jumped from a roof and ruined his right arm. His shooting arm. But he had a secret. He, like his older brother, was ambidextrous, which Bentley had mentioned one day to her. And it was this secret that Ellena knew. Not even Millans knew she had his secret tucked away, for such an insignificant detail had not been passed to him from his brother. That Bentley's lover knew they could write with both hands.
It was then, in the middle of the night, with Ellena holding her Hope close to her heart, when the first came. The rest followed an instant later, fast and strong. Before, there was an eerie silence, then the world exploded with noise. And that is how Ellena ended: thinking of her Lost Love, Hope, and the Wishing Bird.