Chapter 3: Hired Hand

I wake up one spring morning, several weeks after Steffan proposed to me, hearing the birds singing. Going out of our family's quarters in the loft - most Merchant families live above their storefronts - I pause in my restocking of prescriptions to glance out the window at my mother's gardens. She mostly grows herbs that can be put into our medicines and other healing products, with a little plot off to one side to grow some vegetables for our family meals. At this time of year, the plants are beginning to ripen, lying peacefully in the sun, undisturbed.

So it shocks me when I shift my eyes just a little downward to see a slightly unkempt young man rifling through our garden. I run to my father.

"Daddy! A dirty Seam miner is stealing our herbs and vegetables! Get your gun!"

But my father gives me a funny look, either not knowing what I'm talking about or he is completely unconcerned. I soon realize it's the latter. "Oh, honey, that's just Estes."

I wrinkle my nose in a frown. "Estes?"

"Estes Everdeen. He's the son of a Seam miner. Works down in the stafts too, part time, and he said he would like some extra work. I hired him as our gardener."

"Mother can do the gardening," I try to explain away.

"With all the house calls you and she have been getting lately? Lillian, it will be nice to have the extra hand."


So I acquiesce to letting a Seam miner hang around in our presence. Though wary at first, Estes doesn't bother me, only coming into the Apothecary to stock the shelves with the plants he's picked. The rest of the time, he is out in the garden, busy at work. Sometimes, while stocking shelves or on a break, I will watch him from the windows. One day, I hear a melodic sound come wafting in the open window. Glancing out, I realize it is Estes. Singing.

"Are you, are you coming to the tree, who strung up a man they say that murdered three. Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be if we met at midnight in the hanging tree..."

It is like I am struck between the eyes. Never have I heard a voice sing as sweetly as that. Then again, I had heard rumors in school about some Seam boy being the star of the school choir. I wonder if Estes Everdeen fits that description? How could someone from such a coarse background bring such gentle sweetness and beauty to this backwater of a district?


Estes has been working for our family for several months when he comes to pick from the garden nursing an injured hand one weekend. I wonder if he got it caught in something while working in the mines during the week. Being a miner is dangerous, even deadly, work and I would not wish it on anyone. My heart goes out to him, and even though my neighbors have always said to never speak to a Seamer if you can avoid it, I soon head into the garden armed with an ice pack and some gauze.

"Did you get a burn?" I ask him.

He raises his eyes to me, and I marvel at how deep and gray they are. "Machine backed up. Plume of fire. You can never be too careful... I just got signed."

"Let me help you wrap it," I encourage him, and kneeling beside him in the soil, I press the ice pack to his hand and wrap it in the gauze to hold it in place. It is the exact same treatment that I gave Steffan Mellark for burning his hand on the oven, yet this care feels different somehow. And it's not just the fact that Estes and I are not kissing... this thought oddly makes me blush. Shaking my head to clear it, I finish the wrapping and sit back to examine my handiwork.

"You should leave that on for about a week. See if you can do simpler jobs that would require only one hand in the mines."

"Thank you," Estes smiles. I like his smile. "I owe you."

"Oh, no, really, it's fine... my mother and I take patients for free now and again, usually in dire circumstances, but this... is informal."

Estes just shakes his head. "I still owe you."

"What do you mean?" I frown. "Have you any money?" I quickly realize how my comment could be misconstrued, and desperately try to apologize. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to..."

"It's all right," Estes dismisses. "It's just that, where I come from in the Seam, people take a debt very seriously. We're always looking for a fair trade however we can find it. You healed my hand. There must be something I can do for you."

I sit back and think about this impromptu lesson Estes has taught me. I have never known much about the Seam, other than the conceptions taught to me by my parents. I always thought Seamers were hard-scrabble and uncivilized. That they would take something like a debt so seriously gives me a strange sort of comfort.

And now I realize: there is something Estes can do for me...

"Will you sing?"

Estes raises an eyebrow at me and smirks. I flush. "I... I like to hear you sing. From the window."

So Estes grants my request: "I'll know... when my love comes along... I'll know... when I see..."