~*~ Chapter Four: Motions ~*~
During the next four months, as Autumn makes its slow descent toward the end of the year, I live at the Hawthorne's house. I do not once return to Victor's Village and not once do I miss the unending quiet and grey tracks of spectral dust I left behind in my aimless meandering along the halls.
The Hawthorne family makes it their mission to keep me fed and occupied so much that I have no time to think about anything but tilling garden soil, dicing vegetables, washing the District's laundry, and when there is a free couple of hours, teaching Rory how to hunt. Most nights I end up diving for the pillow and not resurfacing until the morning when Hazelle or Vick rustles me and the sheets awake again.
Hazelle (or Vick, whom she steadily employs in her absence) keeps a watchful eye on me during the day to make sure I do not go off alone to get sad. Hazelle is perceptive enough to pick up on the cues of darkness creeping in from the sides of my eyes, and she fixes me with something to do with my hands. Pressing crisp creases into dress pants, steaming white blouses, sweeping, dusting, raking leaves, and putting together different color schemes of bouquets for her and Posy's blossoming flower business on the side. I don't have the eye for color patterns, and every so often I will see dabs of paint dripping from his paintbrush or swatches of bright cloth cloud my vision, but I learn to read the cues and find something else to do.
There's always something else to do in a District rebuilding itself from the rubble of war.
I assume Hazelle's seen her fair share of sadness from living with the hard knocks for all of her life. I don't know if she feels indebted to me in some way for my role in the war, or if she owes it to Gale and my mother to look after me, but even despite my initial protests, she has not once left me alone long enough to wallow.
In all honesty, I think it is just the Seam in her: we stop at nothing to take care of our own.
Every other week Dr. Aurielus patches through to the house phone to check up on me, and each time I duck out to find something to do besides talk about feelings and memories and other painful things I have been avoiding since my exile. He knows the game, as do Haymitch, Hazelle, and everyone else; yet they also know I am best at it when it comes to survival.
Talking to him about a life he will never understand is not an option. On no dimensional plane will he understand me and my life, and likewise. And so, our conversations are not forced into existence. Everyone figures that as long as I look like I'm making progress and am not hurting myself or anyone else, things are fine enough.
If Gale calls, I never hear about it. As far as I am concerned, he and the phone are not anything that exist in my reality.
The more exhausted I am at night, the less likely I am to have nightmares; however, when they hit, they come hard. No matter how far I run, I cannot escape their shadowy death clutch on my soul, and after I have screamed myself awake, I find there is no solace. Some nights Posy gets up from her bed on the other side of the room and pats my head like she would a tiny kitten (she has the patience of a Saint), and some nights it's Hazelle, with a strange-smelling tea. She says she learned about the tea from my mother, and after I drink it, my arms and legs and brain get too heavy to stay awake. Instead, I drift off into a dreamless remainder of the night.
On the rare occasion, Rory will stalk into our room, light on his foot and quick as a fox, sensing with hunter's intuition about a storm and will gently shake me awake before the screams come. Most of the time we don't speak; I'll nod my thanks and he understands and disappears as lickety-split as a shadow chased by the sun. On those days that we do head out into the woods, we spend an extra hour or two as a token of my thanks.
One night, I wake up with a gasp, barely escaping flame and singed blonde hair, to his fingers slightly outstretched to press to my shoulder, and I reach up to grip them. His hands are shaking, his face pale and drawn. I feel the echo of tear tracks on the skin of my cheeks, and in the moonlight, I finally notice that he's been hurting also.
"I see her too, Katniss. Every single night," he says, pulling away from me and disappearing as always like a ghost in the dust.
Rory turns out to be a formidable hunting partner, the lure of the woods shifting his feet and settling in his heart just as it had done to Gale. I would even say he's more suited for the woods than his brother; Rory has less passion about the ways of the human world, and more for the crunch of leaves underfoot and the dappled sun across the forest floor. It's a steady strum within him, like it was with my father. He's lighter, and quicker up a tree than my old companion, and better suited to long range weaponry, but lacking the ability to track an animal to death like Gale could. Neither of us have the fingers skilled enough to set foolproof traps, so more than half of Gale's old traps turn up empty. No one in Twelve ever again will rig traps as intricate and clean as those.
Rory's memory is sharp and his attention to detail finely-tuned so much so that last week as I picked a few mushroom caps dusting the trunk of a conifer and brushed one off to pop it in my mouth, he darted over and smacked it out of my hand.
"Those ain't for eatin', Katniss, just lookin'," he grunted and set after a pack of quail we had been following for the better part of an afternoon. I clenched a tight palm to my chest, not because I had yet again been faced with my own mortality, but because it pained me to realize I had forgotten the difference between Chanterelles and Jack-o-Lantern mushrooms—the only edible orange ones like that were found on the coast in Four.
What else in my distraction am I forgetting?
Tonight, I finish all the chores early and Hazelle sends me upstairs to take a shower while she and Sae finish making the final touches to dinner. I put up a bit of a protest because I didn't want to be the only one not helping, but you can't win with that woman. She's heard it and fought it from four other headstrong children. Shower it is.
It is Sae's birthday (whose insistence to help always wins out over Hazelle's protests, even on her day), and according to an old book back in pre-Panem times called the Farmer's Almanac, a week before the start of Winter. In celebration of those who had kept the Seam afloat throughout the years in terms of food, Hazelle invited a very small gathering for dinner.
Of course Rory and I bagged the big game in preparation for the event: a pair of fat turkeys earlier in the week, and the serendipitous takedown of a fourteen-point buck that we stalked for two and a half weeks. Normally it would have taken me far longer to snag a stag that large, but the animals seem to think that in my absence they own the woods. It won't be long before Rory and I reestablish our dominance, yet we're thankful for the easy pickings.
It took the two of us plus Thom to drag it from the woods, and two more of his cohorts to finally heft it on to a table in the backyard. This animal would feed us and several other families for weeks; and that wasn't counting all the game wrapped in thick butcher paper in Rooba's storefront windows and in neat stacks in the Hawthorne's fancy Capitol-furnished ice box.
As I round the stairs, I peer out the window at Thom, Rory, Hazelle's cousin Marde, and another man named Brenton standing around a fire pit grill laying slabs of venison slathered in a cumin-garlic-coriander dry rub and laughing over a beer. Marde slings an arm over Rory and slicks him with a noogie while Thom prods him in the belly with a stick and gestures to the fire, no doubt in congratulations on such a fine haul.
I was internally thankful that we turned up the heat in the weeks prior, pulling in the largest hunts at every opportunity we could, because I can taste the crisp tang of Winter on the evening breeze. No manner of brim-packed Capitol train can quell the gnawing anxiety that visits me with the promise of dead, soul-sucking starvation for my family each year around this time.
From up the way I see the thick silhouette of Haymitch and Effie's shock of blonde bobbing up and down the path pulling a couple of boxes on a train transport cart.
I stand in mine and Posy's room, transfixed, and consider the day of the festival (not the anxiety-inducing parts). I watch as the dust dances around in the waning sun that peeks in from the window. A light breeze finds its way in through the partially-opened window and shifts the white curtains.
I am prodded gently by the nostalgia of a cool night at the tail end of Fall, curtains drifting in a slow pull to the floor and a blonde curl coiling around my index finger as I lay my cheek across warm pale skin and watch a customary blush bloom up his neck at my touch. I touch my lips and the faint taste of dill, cinnamon, and boy play at them. I brace myself at the foot of the bed, clinging to the wooden post as I wait for the rush of anxiety that surprisingly doesn't come. A sigh rushes out of my lungs and I take a quick shower to wash the aching relief from my bones.
My will to live has found a calming guidance and strength in routine and purpose, so it seems. And slowly I start to feel strength enough to push small mental limits.
Pulling on a loose heather-grey long sleeve, some ankle-cropped slacks, and simple black ballet flats, I run a brush through my hair and take a deep breath before skillfully weaving the French braid my mother made into the back of my head on Reaping day. Seeing it curling around the crown of my head thankfully induces nothing, and I push two earrings into my earlobes.
I am not completely better by any means, but I am slowly mending through this sense of family I have experienced with the Hawthornes. Two dots of lavender oil along the tender skin of my wrists, and I head downstairs.
I can tell by a loud guffawing outside that Haymitch and Effie have arrived, and slither in behind Vick folding a pile of napkins to quietly make a cup of tea.
"Katniss!" Posy chirps from my elbow, and I nearly flip my teacup.
"You and hot drinks, Poseybear," I say and ruffle her hair. She beams up at me. I reach for the dish of sugar, but my mind decides otherwise. I wonder what it tastes like without.
"Your hair is so pretty, Ka'nisss," she croons. "Willya do mine that way?" I nod and she rushes off down the hall to grab her brush and hair things. She's so much like Prim sometimes with her youthful girlishness that my heart squeezes.
"Do we have enough time before dinner, Hazelle?" I say, grabbing a pile of plates and rounding the dining room to set them at the start of the buffet dresser.
"Plates'll be ready in twenty, go tell tha boys once yer done, wouldja Katniss?" Hazelle calls over the sound of Thom's wife working at the loud mixing of dessert, and she swings around me with a dishtowel thrown over her shoulder and two mitts clutching a pan of something mouth-watering.
Posy returns, all wiggles and bright eyes, and I grip her little hand in my own to pull her out the back door and onto the porch. Hazelle did well with this house; the porch is as long as the house and nearly as wide as the living room, so there is plenty of space to hang out and watch the sunsets over the steam of hot chocolate with lots of people, or make an assembly line for folding and packaging the week's laundry orders. We sit on the last wooden step and I set to work on Posy's hair.
"Sweetheart, why doncha come sit over here with us?" Haymitch yells. He is followed by a chorus of agreement from the men. I sigh, and string up bits of Posy's half-braided hair and gently lead her to one of the many Adirondack chairs and long makeshift log benches that circle the fire.
"Food'll be ready in twenty," I say and push a couple of bobbies into her thick curly hair.
"Well don't you look like a normal human being now," Haymitch leers and raises his drink. The bourbon makes a thick stain swirl around the glass and disappears into his maw. The men, which now includes Brillum the butcher's eldest son (and only survivor) and Reaver, one of the goat-man's kin, resume their conversation about the new production of stills in District Three and the rise in quality of liquor throughout Panem.
Effie claps her hands together and trots over to me in her thick mulberry-colored pea coat. She's far too overdressed for the chill-the rest of us are in light long sleeves and cotton pants; Rory and Thom have their britches folded up to the knees, and it looks silly hanging high over their boots. Capitolites are not used to the weather here in Twelve, and you can always tell because they're in parkas by mid-September.
"The last time I saw you, I thought I'd seen a ghost," she nearly whispers.
"You did," I say. I'm finished with Posy's second braid, and run some bobbies through to curl it at the nape of her neck. She pats her head and fingers the braid a few times as an inspection, and satisfied, leaps from the chair.
"How are you doing, dear?" She says gently, and smiles as she places a gloved hand soft as her manner has turned since the games on my shoulder.
"I'm better," I say lamely. She knows I was never good at talking about myself, and even less so now.
"We make her eat real good, Ms. Effie!" Posy pipes up. "Mama said she'll have no more girls in District Twelve dyin' from bein' starved, and especially not when it's starvin' by choice! It's my job to make sure we both eat pretty much our whole entire plate!" Her chest puffs up with her pride.
"Well that's wonderful, Posy," Effie says. "You know what? I'll make you Honorary Meal Police for the Mockingjay (this part she whispers) in the official registry at the Capitol when I go back on Monday, first thing!"
"You'd do that, Ms. Effie?"
"Of course, sweetie. I'm a very important lady, you know, and important ladies like you and I need to stick together."
"OH YAY I'M GONNA GO TELL MAMAAAAAAAAAA, I'LL BE IMPORTANT JUST LIKE GALE," Posy shrieks and runs off into the house.
I give Effie a shell-shocked look. "Since when were you so good with children?" I ask incredulously. I didn't mean to come off as rude, but even still, she was far used to it by now.
"Since I haven't had to cart them off to their death," she says. She smiles and sits down in a chair, sweeping her arm for me to do the same. "This may come as a surprise, Katniss, but I've always loved children, especially since I could never have any of my own-I'm barren, you see-but for a while, at least at the beginning, I was bitter about it, and my anger took the edge off of the horror of what the Games actually were. Many of us knew the Games and the Capitol were inherently wrong, but you saw what happened to those who tried to fight back before you came along. I'd make a terrible Avox—I'd still try to talk to everyone, and make those gosh-awful noises." She closes her eyes and drinks in a bit of the warmth from the fire.
Seeing Effie so sober and candid stuns me, and I have nothing to say in response.
"We were cowards, all of us, and selfish too—it was so easy to look the other way and choose our way of life over the security and safety of your children." Her hand trembles as she grips the edge of her coat, and in an urge I can't explain, I reach out my hand to her. I cannot entirely forgive her for what she and her like has done to us for so long, but I feel a lot of the contempt for Capitolites start to ebb. We were all pieces of Snow and his regime's terrible games. If we all remained angry at each other after his death, he'd still be winning.
"I'm sorry about your loss," I say in reference to her infertility. She bursts out a quick laugh to keep herself from crying, and looks at me, wide-eyed. "Oh Katniss. There is never a reason in all of this world for you to apologize to me," she says, dabbing her gloved pinky at the corner of her eye. "The odds just were never in my favor."
She dips a dainty hand into one of her large pockets and pulls out two tan boxes with a bit of twine around them. "These are for you," she says, handing them to me. "I found them and wanted to give them to you during your trial, and several times after, but things just were never right. I would recommend opening the smaller box at a time you're feeling 100% better," she warns, and I slide it behind where I am sitting.
I pull the twine off the larger box gingerly and pull apart the tissue paper. A small electronic box with a screen sits in the middle and a wire with two small pods is wrapped around it. I pick it up and peer at it.
"It's an old device, probably from when we were teens," Effie laughs. "Back when they made those things to survive the apocalypse. Cinna still kept his, and instructed me to give it to you after the Quell. It stores music, which you listen to through these." She plucks it out of my hand, unwrapping the cord, and waves her palm over the screen. A light leaps out of it and translucent blue boxes, squares with pictures in them, and words hover in the air.
"May I?" I nod, not sure of what she's asking, and she extends a little white pod toward my head. Before I realize it, she's gently stuffed it inside my good ear. It feels strange, and I stick a finger in my other ear to itch the sensation away. She flicks a finger in the air over the hologram, looking through albums, I realize, and settles on a song.
My ear is suddenly filled with twittering laughter, the peal of an electric guitar and heavy percussion.
"Oh goodness, Duran Duran! Such a classic—since way before the war! He never was into the current music fads, always preferred the oldies. I absolutely love Cinna's taste in music—I'd say it even surpasses his taste in fashion!" She titters. "Anyway, it's pretty easy to navigate, and Cinna told me there are a couple of secret playlists with songs he handpicked for you, but you'll have to do a bit of searching on the hard drive. After you play around with it a bit, you'll find its userface is simple."
"Thank you, Effie," I say. I mean it. The urge for waterworks prick in the corner of my eyes, and I blink back the tears. Anything of Cinna's I will forever treasure. It is so very like him to be perceptive enough to give me the gift of music.
"You can still upload any song that's in the central database, if you want. I will admit, a lot of the new music is shit. Hook it into any television's mainframe and it'll prompt you. But he has enough music on there to last your entire lifetime and then some."
Hazelle's voice booms from the kitchen window. "Time to eat! Come on in!"
Haymitch ruffles the top of my head as he passes by with the boys, and I glower at him. We all file into the kitchen, talking amongst ourselves and giving Sae birthday wishes and our thanks for helping with the meal. Sae's granddaughter and Posy run around in the living room.
Everything is as it should be, a house filled with friends and family.
So naturally when I open the front door after the doorbell rings, Peeta Mellark holding a basket brimming with baked goods, his face bright with a hopeful smile and his plus one at his arm stand mere feet in front of me.