PROLOGUE
The heat swelled beyond boiling, even after the sun had dropped below the grassy canyon edge and out of sight. At the edge of the still, defeated landscape of the Gaming Reserve – the last of its kind in District 10 – was the Compound; it was a complex of burnt out prairie hovels with turf roofing and pitch-poor deadwood planks as walls. The knots and roughly sanded edges left cracks between the planks, and some inventive Prairie Dogs stretched old Sioux canvases over the top and sides of their homes. In a drought season such as this one, though, canvases helped start fires. If the Compound caught another fire, its forty-something inhabitants would have to wander again, away from the Gaming Reserve and back toward the Ranches and Town. Given the short supply of freedom they could exercise out here, nobody wanted a fire to catch and send them flying back toward the stuffy Ranches – the special plot of land set aside for the Victor's Village – and the Peacekeepers. Besides, the only clean source of water was in these parts, though the basin was beginning to look more like a small part of the canyon drop than anything close to a pond.
The heat swelled beyond boiling, and Miss Velvetta Cordwip – the gold-skinned midwife from the Town – did not like it one bit. She mopped her brow with an already drenched bandana and grasped the slick hands of Miss Violet Tyler, a pretty young mother in the final throws of childbirth. One boy was out and in his Daddy's arms, but the second hadn't decided if he was going to live in this world or die with his Momma. His head and right shoulder were peeking out of his mother's womb, but she had no strength left to push him the rest of the way, and Miss Velvetta Cordwip had no intention of trying to pull him out herself. From the look of her, Miss Violet Tyler was fighting three battles at once: the battle of childbirth, the battle for her life, and the battle against dehydration. The heat seemed to be drinking up every last drop of water the poor mother had in her body. She was beginning to look parched, her cries were broken by her crackled dry throat.
Velvetta Cordwip gripped her hands tightly and locked her gaze like a Rancher stares down a steer. "Ya gotta push one more time, gal," she said, giving her strength to the dying woman. Maybe it weren't no use, she thought, But we've seen too much of death 'round here to let this'un go now. Miss Violet Tyler shook her head and whispered, "Miss Vetta, I cain't push no more. Is he outta me?" Velvetta Cordwip followed the Momma's eyes to her first born son in his Daddy's arms and she shook her head.
"He's jus' the first'un. Y'all have a second'un a-comin' too. So long 's ya give another push Miss Violet. One more good'un." But Miss Violet could only scream, and it brought her four little girls out of their small dark room at the back of the hovel. Moxie, Bess, Arvensis and little Elka clung to each other in the doorway. Vetta Cordwip tried to shoo them off but they were too paralyzed with the baby half in and half out. And outside, the smallest whisper of wind swept across the sundried plains. The brittle grass broke under its dancing, and the parched dead trees groaned, their limbs clanging against the other like a death rattle. What small trace of wind could slip into the hovel did so through the holes in the wall where once a knot had been and through the cracks between boards. Outside in the dirty enclosure of the Compound, life stirred just a little. And then, low but unmistakable, a growling rumble of thunder. Then, the world was breathlessly hot and stiflingly humid again, still… too still.
"One more push for Miss Vetta Cordwip, awright gal?" Vetta kept the urgency out of her voice. Drowsily, Violet Tyler nodded, then scrounged up her face and gave the very last of her strength to one final push, releasing such a howling cackled scream that the girls, led by little Elka, raced from the hovel with looks of terror on their faces. Vetta Cordwip had no time to care about them – they wouldn't stray far anyway. Her arms were covered in fluid, blood and newborn child as the baby emerged from his mother into them. Swiftly, she wiped him down with a cloth at her side, withdrew her knife and quickly cut the cord between mother and child, rubbing his tummy with soothing herbal ointment to keep him from realizing the horror that came with being born. Then she tied up the remaining cord into a button on his belly and wrapped him loosely in the damp cloth. Miss Violet was still breathing, but it was raspy. Vetta Cordwip moved fast: she called Moxie in and handed her the newborn baby – which was ready to cry but didn't seem overly convinced he ought to – then called for Mr. Tyler to come on over and be beside his wife. She took the firstborn son in her own arms and handed him to Bess, who could almost carry him on her own. But as the small girl teetered, looking for her balance, Vetta thought better of herself and took the child back in her own safe arms. Seen too much death around here. Don't need to let this'un go now.
"Go on outta here, gals," Vetta chirped at the two sisters, who promptly ducked out of the hovel without a word. The grasslands spread out before them, and it was all you could see for miles around, unless you counted that ugly electric fence marking the edge of District 10 and the beginning of the wild, and nobody much did count it. Before that ugly mean fence, though, the grassy plains suddenly quit being flat and dropped, just a little at first, but then steadily until the land practically fell away into a canyon of many colors. It was rusty red and light green – more on account of the dead grass in that corner of District 10 – but at the foot of the rolling cliff wall – couldn't have been more than fifteen feet vertical to drop, but it was rough ground to drop onto – was the basin of the only river that flowed through the Compound. On the other side, where the land picked itself back up and climbed up to the top of the canyon walls, was the fence: beyond it, the wild people seemed to camp just beyond reach. Sometimes folks in the Compound would look out across the grassy sea and catch the flickering of their wild fires, or maybe hear a rattle and a drum. Moxie, with the baby, Bess, Arvensis – they called her "Sissy" – and little Elka looked out that way now as they left the hovel on Miss Vetta Cordwip's orders.
Lightning silently lit up behind the canyon walls. The wind roughed up the girls as it came in stronger than before, and the dusty circle that was the Compound's common ground came alive as the dust danced in whipping circles, finally resting when the wind paused. On the old Fifty Yards Tree – because it was fifty yards from the Compound – a dead limb shrieked its last and when the wind howled through again, it took the limb clear off the body and sent it crashing at the fifty-three yard line from the girls' Compound. Moxie looked behind her as the growling thunder rolled in from the West, and she tugged Sissy closer to her as the wind howled in from the East. On the common ground side of the hovel, the mule and her young'un were kept tied up. If it started to rain, Moxie knew the mule and her young'un would make room for them. The rain was poison; it could kill you dead. Bess was clinging to Sissy and Moxie now as the thunder rolled again, this time breaking what seemed like several hundred yards away. The lightning lit up the sky in response, briefly showing the purple, black and a hint of pea green above them. And Miss Vetta Cordwip was there, rustling little Elka's tawny head. They all seemed to be holding their breath now, just like the storm that was preparing to break. The intensity of it was in the air: electrifying and stiflingly hot. It weighted down on the girls and even the cattle and livestock in the common ground lowed and complained. Another very strong gust of wind almost took little Elka off her feet, but Moxie watched as Miss Vetta Cordwip clutched her youngest sister hard. She scowled.
"Boy's goinna need a name," Moxie growled. "Watchoo reckon on?"
"You call 'm Lenox, you hear?" Miss Vetta growled back. "Means, 'the night'."
"Lenox," the girls repeated. Then the wind bore down on them all at once and chased them into the common ground. Thunder broke less than a hundred yards away and the lightning that answered it showed a sky about ready to tear open and fall down upon them. Without a word, Miss Vetta led them to the mule shack and shoved the clod over to give them room, just in time before the sky did open and pour down rain on them. It hissed as it hit the parched earth. Moxie found herself leaning against Miss Vetta's generous bosom – she was by no means a buxom woman, though generous of chest – and she could feel the midwife's heart banging against her body as if it was a prisoner trying to break free. The first downpour was only a minute before it let up, but no one moved, knowing the next onslaught could come at any time and at any strength. The thunder continued to argue with the lightning, and the wind laughed as it whipped through the abandoned Compound common ground, occasionally dipping into the mule shed to thrash the girls and Miss Vetta. Baby Lenox slept through it all, and when the wind quit beating on them and moved onward, Miss Vetta let off a huge sigh and looked down at Moxie.
"How old are you now, girlie?" She asked.
"Seven," Moxie returned.
"Seven." Miss Vetta repeated. "You know you got four more years yet, right?" Moxie nodded. In four years she would be eligible for the Reaping in District 10. The next onslaught of rain lasted more than fifteen minutes, and it pounded the earth and all that was built on it so hard that little pockets of earth opened up and made tiny riverways for the rain to cascade down. Once it was on the ground and mixing with the dirt, it wasn't as acidic but all the same the girls made concessions for it to move where it wished. Little Elka had a brief moment of scariness in which she almost found herself outside of the protection of the roof, but Miss Vetta pulled her back from the edge just in time before she fell over it. In this sort of downpour, they knew their skin could get burned really bad from the rain, but if it was less torrential than this, stepping out for a few seconds would sting a bit and leave bruises for sure but it wouldn't kill anyone. Not for just a few minutes in it. As the rain continued to assault the world around them, Miss Vetta leaned in close and good to Moxie and growled, "You listen'a me, ya hear," there was an urgency in her voice that made Moxie listen attentively. "You don't you sign up for any extra grain, ya hear? You don't you put yourself in the bowl at any greater risk to go to the Games, ya hear? You come you by Miss Velvetta Cordwip's in Town when you run outta food and I'll give you what you need, ya hear?"
"What about Momma?" Moxie called back, straining over the rain. To her credit, Miss Velvetta Cordwip, a midwife of District 10, didn't mince her words, even for a girl of seven. "Your Momma's dead, Moxie love. You gotta be a big girlie now, ya hear?"