AUTHOR'S NOTE
I wrote this as part of A candle for the Caribbean antology. It has been edited since, just a little. Hope you like it.
WARNINGS
Natural Disaster, Canonical Character death
DISCLAIMER
I do not own THG characters nor Collateral Beauty.
PROLOGUE
I have always been a very down to earth person. I don't really believe on the supernatural or anything that cannot be explained by the laws of our reality. But as I watch my children play in the meadow - the girl in her checkered dress and pigtails, the boy in his little shorts and shirt trying to catch up with his sister as they play -, I have to ask myself if the encounter with them was more of the supernatural variety than it was an unpleasant meeting with the most annoying people I have ever known; and that is saying something, as I myself might be on the top of the list.
It is irrefutable, though, that I have everything I never wanted and I am the happiest I have ever been.
After this pleasant evening, when it is time to go home, I wake my sleeping husband and herd my hyperactive children back to us. As we all take the road, I have the sudden urge to look back, and there they are, just as I remember them – and they are looking a bit too smug for my taste. I am about to say something to them when my husband turns and asks if we have forgot something back where we held our picnic. He is looking past me with no recognition in his eyes that there might be somebody else there, so they are clearly not showing themselves; I just send an almost imperceptible nod to them and join my family.
"No Peeta, I thought I saw a Mockingjay at the edge of the tree line, but it turned out to be a plain mockingbird. Lets go I am starving!" He just laughs at my mentioning the mythical creature we use as the main character of our children bed stories.
There will be time for snarky and loving remarks for when I see them again, in death probably.
