This is more "Practical Magic" type witches than "Harry Potter" witches.
A quick warning. I did not have a beta for this story so please continue with that in mind.
(HG and its characters don't belong to me. Just playing around with them.)
Just beyond the fire, I sit on the grass that crunches under the weight of my palm, still brown since the warmth of spring hasn't reached us yet. My little sister, Prim, and my mother are standing at opposite sides of the fire we've built in the meadow. They both have their arms spread out high and wide to the open, inky sky, chanting their welcome to the new season of growth for our district, the easternmost district in Panem.
My mother and my sister are witches, from a long line of witches that rose from the days before Panem—the days of war and natural disasters—when medicines were far beyond the reach of most. It was during those days that people turned to the apothecaries for help. But also rising from those ashes were the men and women that held the beliefs and knowledge of nature itself. Both of these peoples were the pillars of society, guiding and helping their neighbors through the worst of times. It didn't take long for the two groups, the healers and the spiritualists, to merge into what we now call witches.
And then Panem rose from the ashes of what was left. Witches were ignored at first because with them the few doctors in the fledgling country could remain near the central city while the outer districts could be left in the care of the witches, but that peace didn't last long. Indifference turned to disapproval and disapproval gave way to resentment until my family's practices and traditions were banned in Panem. I wish I could say that's where it stopped, but it didn't. The resentment festered until it became an outright hatred. Banning our craft was no longer enough, but soon the people of the Capitol called for the lives of those practicing.
My ancestors and people like them were burned alive in public squares throughout the districts. Even the slightest hint of compassion for witches or witchcraft could get you a death sentence. Those days were called the Dark Days and during that time, many hid their practice or stopped practicing altogether.
This is why we are in the meadow at the edge of our district. To help hide their ritual, all houses in the Seam have lit their fireplaces so that the peacekeepers in town won't notice the smoke from the outside fire. The people in the Seam do what they can to protect my mother and sister because they're the only known witches left in District 12. Without them, they'd have nothing left but doctors who are far too expensive to be of any use.
My mother and sister cross their arms over their chests and bow their heads, signaling that the ritual is at its end, and I start to stand to join them. It's cold even for this time of year so I quickly hand out the blankets for them to cover themselves.
"Think we'll have good weather this year, little duck?" I ask Prim as she wraps her blanket tightly around her body.
My sister smiles at me, closing the blanket around any exposed skin. "I think so. The air was calm."
I'm already thinking about my paths for hunting this summer because her word is good enough for me. Since she could talk, our parents said that Prim was a natural witch, predicting droughts and storms days in advance. With our mother's instruction, her predictions have only become more accurate.
Our mother is already ahead of us, walking towards our home and probably lost in thoughts of preparing for the next ritual. I think it's a good thing because she and I aren't exactly on the best terms, not since my father died four winters ago. Although I know that some things in nature can't be changed, I still can't help but blame her for my father's death in the mines. If only she'd given him a protection spell, a charm, anything that would have saved him that day.
It didn't help that since his death, she's thought of nothing but the craft. If it wasn't for Prim's interest in it, perhaps their relationship would have been much more like ours.
"Why won't you join us, Katniss?" Prim asks me as though she'd read my mind, with her round, merchant blue eyes fixed on me. She knows my answer. It's the one I give her every ritual.
"I don't have that kind of magick in me, little duck," I tell her. After years of this argument, we both know what magick I do have, but it has nothing to do with healing and everything to do with nature. I hunt for our food, and I'm damned good at it. I'm so good that my father once told me that my aim was eerily dead on, that it had to be some kind of witchcraft.
My sister gives me a look, the same look she gives me every time, telling me that my answer isn't good enough. I know she wants me in the rituals because she hopes that it will strengthen my relationship with our mother; I just don't have the heart to tell her that it would take far more than rituals to fix that.
The hearth fire has long since died out through the night, and I'm sure my house is not much warmer than outside, so I shrug on my father's jacket before I grab my forage bag from a hook on the wall. I'm out the door, and the morning sun's lit the sky to a gentle shade of blue that I can't help but stare. It's beautiful and for some reason just looking at it makes me feel good about the day. By the time I look down again, I'm already in the meadow and can't remember the walk from my house.
I plod through the brittle, brown grasses because this time of year I don't have to watch my step in the meadow. Most of the herbs haven't come back from their winter sleep. I do notice that the trees and perennials have buds forming on their limbs, but the seeds that we'd spread in the fall are about a month away from sprouting. In about a little over a month's time, my mother and sister will be here kneeling hip-deep in lush grass, picking the first herbs to dry for their medicinal stores.
At the other end of the meadow is the fence that surrounds my district. It's nothing but rusted metal with pockets of broken links that create gaps for anyone to be able to slip through or under when there's no electricity flowing through it. Most of the time, though, I don't have to worry about that, but I listen to make sure that this isn't one of those rare times nonetheless. There's no sound at all, so I shimmy under it as I've done countless times before and head for the woods.
The birds sing their morning songs for me from the tree canopy as I walk all the way to the one room house deep in the woods where I agreed to meet Gale. He's already sitting outside of it with his game bag on the ground beside him and the rope for his snares in his hands.
His ears are attuned to the sounds around him, so he hears me coming even though I'm sure I haven't made a sound. "Hey, Catnip," he greets me, ending the current braid of rope to check the tension strength.
"Hey," I answer back as I take a seat on the ground beside him.
"Ritual go alright?" he asks as though I would know, so I give him the only answer I can: "No peacekeepers arrested us."
He smiles at that and nods, then I remember what Prim told me. "Prim thinks it's going to be good weather."
At that, Gale's eyebrows raise and his smile widens. "That's what I wanted to hear!" but as soon as he finishes the words, the smile fades, and he takes a deep breath having long since stopped his rope weaving. "I'm going to miss this." He doesn't say more, but then again, he doesn't have to. I know exactly what he means. This is his last year of school and soon after he'll turn eighteen. That means he can work, but the only work available for a Seam man would be in the mines, which also means that he won't have a lot of time to go hunting.
"You'll still have Sundays," I tell him, but he shakes his head and doesn't say anything. Deep down, I know what he's thinking: that it will be the same as my father and his father, that he'll be able to hunt on Sundays, but he'll be bone-weary for it. Twelve hour shifts, six days a week can take their toll as it is, but to use his only day off for hunting would leave him no time to recover.
To lighten the mood, I bump my shoulder to his. "I can hunt for both of our families," I say weakly, trying to make this seem less dire than it is, but it's not my strong suit and the way his forced smile continues to fade only proves it. The two of us bring in just enough meat for our two families. Without him, neither one of us can see how I'll be able to bring back that much alone.
"I'll have to teach Rory and Vick to hunt," he says. It was something he intended to do much earlier, but time had a way of sneaking past us. "I'd like to start a family of my own one day, but I can't do that if leaving them means they'll starve. Two hunters in the family will take care of that."
I nod because I have nothing else to say. I dread the day he decides to marry and have children because I know that I'll lose my hunting partner to some woman that I can't yet put a face to. What woman would want her husband traipsing around the woods with another woman, even a girl, while she's at home with a baby on her hip?
But the picture in my head doesn't sit well with me. There's something about it that makes me feel uneasy, and I look up and my eyes are immediately leveled with his. What I see in his eyes unsettles me even more, but it isn't until he starts to lean in towards me to bring his face closer to mine that I understand what bothers me. I now see what he really meant, that the faceless woman is me, at least in his mind, and the "one day" would be two years from now when I can legally marry.
My stomach drops to the ground because I don't want him to have these feelings for me. What I see in his eyes is hope, and all I can feel is resentment that he's ruining our easy, uncomplicated relationship with these feelings.
"Come on," I say to him, turning my head away before his lips can come too close to mine. "We're losing good hunting time." I collect my bow and arrows and head towards the thickest part of the woods, eager to put a little distance between the two of us, and I try not to think how disappointed I've made him.
It's not long before we call it a day for hunting. It's earlier than we usually stop, but there's a tension between us that's scaring off game and making it hard to concentrate. I feel his eyes on my back as we leave the woods and head for our district, and I can't turn to face him for fear that he'll want to talk about his feelings.
It turns out that I have nothing to worry about. He says nothing to me from the time we decide to stop hunting until we're at the fence and divvying up out catch. It's not much and easy to split, just the opossum and squirrel, and all I get from him is a curt "Sure" before he takes the opossum and heads for his home. I don't like this tension between us, but then I think to myself that I would rather not think about what he really wants from me either.
By the time I get back home, my mother is talking to Prim in the kitchen while pulling down one of the bundles of herbs that was hanging near the fireplace. They're discussing which herbal mixture is best for some ailment, and I continue through the house and to the bedroom I share with my little sister, not interested in the slightest.
My thoughts are on Gale and his feelings for me and how I don't want any of them. Those feelings mean marriage; they mean children, and I can't have children. I come from a long line of witches, and even though I'm not one myself, who's to say my children won't be? I would be condemning another generation to hiding or possible death. I already spend most of my time trying to figure out ways of keeping Prim safe; I don't have enough time to think about someone else.
I'm lost in my thoughts, mindlessly slipping out of my hunting clothes and quickly replacing them with my clothes for school. When I leave my room, I see several sachets of herbal mixtures on the table and Prim's bundled in her winter coat and scarf waiting for me.
Our mother says her goodbyes to us but returns quickly to her herbs, chanting whatever it is she chants over them. I've heard that chant before, but I've never listened when she explained to Prim what it was used for, what it means. I only think about this for a second before I reach for my game bag with the one squirrel, stuff the sachets into it, and leave the house after Prim.
On the road into town, my little sister's distracted by her thoughts as we walk, so much so that it takes me calling her three times before she hears me. "What's on your mind, little duck?" I ask, but she shakes her head and says, "Nothing," before stuffing her hands into her coat pockets. It's not that cold outside for this time of year, but Prim's so small that it's no wonder she needs to bundle her layers. As she remains quiet, I think of what I can sell to buy her a better coat for next winter.
At the town square, Prim meets with one of her friends and heads towards school while, with some extra time on my side, I carry the squirrel to make one trade with the baker. He's a fairly easy trade because he loves squirrel meat, so I rush there using the most direct route I know.
The town is fully awake as I knew it would be. The merchants get up early to prepare their storefronts, sweeping and cleaning windows, or arranging their best wares to display and entice. The baker's wife is cleaning the front window, perhaps cleaning the smudges that were left from the faces of Seam children pressed against it.
To avoid her, I slip to the back. Since I don't hear her shrill voice screaming at me to go away, I'm pretty sure the trees at the side of the bakery are enough to hide me from her view.
Even so, I stop short when I reach the back of the bakery to find two of the Mellark boys fighting each other under the apple tree, near the pig pen. They're locked in some heated battle, and that along with their strong, wide builds reminds me of bears fighting. But they aren't bears; they're blond merchant boys with their flushed pale skin, shirtless and exposed.
I find myself rooting for one in particular, hoping to see him win no matter how hard I try not to care what they are doing, and I feel a chill run through me. He's struggling to keep his balance against his brother's best efforts, but suddenly he twists here and there and in the end his brother is the one on the ground underneath him. He's smiling, now, and his face lights up the entire gloomy yard. "I won that time," he says before lifting himself up and offering a hand to his brother.
"Lucky move," the other mutters and I can't help but watch how the winner wipes the sweat along his shoulders and chest with his shirt. His chest expands and contracts with his breaths causing the muscles underneath to ripple. I'm mesmerized by them; I can't turn away from them until I hear my name from behind me.
"Katniss?" the baker calls for me with some confusion from the back door of the bakery, and then his focus darts to his two sons. "It's almost time for school. Get inside and get ready," he says to them before shifting his attention back on me. "Did you want something?"
The heat rushes up my neck and cheeks and ears until I feel like I'm burning from within. I'm even starting to sweat a little. In my embarrassment, I chance a look back and see the Mellark boys looking at me. One seems amused while the other seems utterly confused by my presence.
The baker's waiting for me to answer, his patience clearly wearing thin with a typically busy morning to get back to, but the heat that's spreading throughout my body causes my mouth to go dry as well as my voice to get lost somewhere between my throat and my chest. Pathetically, all I can do is hold up my game bag to him and he takes it from me to peek inside.
"Ah, a squirrel," he says to me after finding the squirrel among the sachets, and I nod because that's all I can do. He holds up a finger to tell me to wait a minute before he disappears into the bakery.
"Hey," one of the Mellark boys says while walking by me and into his house. We don't know each other very well, just in passing, but he's being polite. I respond with something that's more of a grunt than a "hey" and notice the other Mellark boy standing behind me.
"Hi, Katniss," he says, and at first I wonder how he knows my name, but then I remember that his father said it only minutes ago. I know this Mellark. He's not a friend; I can't even call him an acquaintance, but I know him. He's the one who saved my life when I was eleven, and that's a debt I can never repay.
To add to my embarrassment, my body heat only grows with each thump of my pulse which I feel in my throat. Perhaps that's what's taken my voice. It doesn't help that I don't notice him speaking to me because I'm too busy trying to figure out where I've seen that particular shade of blue, the color of his eyes, and then it hits me. It was the color of the morning sky that I couldn't help but stare at this morning. I try to shake the thought of what my mother had told me when I was younger: "We each know more than we think we do. Coincidence can sometimes mean something."
I don't know how long he's been calling me, but I finally hear him. "Katniss? Are you okay?"
No. I'm not okay. Something is definitely wrong with me, so I run even when I hear Mr. Mellark call out, "You forgot your bread."
"I'll get it after school," I call out but don't dare look back, hoping that they think I'm rushing to get to school rather than running away from whatever this is going on with me.
I spend most of my time in school mentally chastising myself for treating Gale the way I did and my strange behavior with the Mellark boy this morning, and when school ends, I dread having to go to the bakery for my bread and sachets. For a moment, I consider not claiming it, but that would only make me look guilty. Guilty of what, I have no idea. It's bad enough that I not only left my game bag but also the sachets inside it. I couldn't even give Madge her dried strawberries and the herbs for her mother. There's no way around it; I have to go back.
So I tell Prim to go home without me, and I turn towards the bakery. Mr. Mellark eyes me in the storefront window and removes his apron before grabbing what I think is my bread and heading to the back of the bakery to meet me. The door opens, and he's holding my game bag bundled in his arms and hands it over to me. I can feel the bread inside it along with the bulges of the sachets. I wasn't too worried about the herbs, few people understand my mother's color coded system and which is used for what.
I smile and thank him before I notice his smile falter and his brows crease as though gripped by a sudden thought before he recovers and gives me another warm smile. We nod our heads to each other as a mutual thanks, but before I can turn away, I hear a scream from the town center. Prim's scream.
Reviews are how you pay a fanfic author. Feedback is worth it's weight in gold.