This chapter earns it's M rating. There is a death of a small child, so it could be hard to take for some. Reader discretion is advised (big time).
All of District Twelve gathers in the square for another broadcast burning. This time it's in the early afternoon and there are no confused expressions from having been woken late in the night. Everyone knows what we're about to watch; it's right there in the troubled eyes of those around us as they try not to look in the direction of me and my family.
Something about this event is different, though. They've had time to release all of the children from school, time enough for me and Prim to find our mother in the crowd, and we're still waiting for it to begin. Usually it doesn't take this long, but when the screen comes to life, the reason for the delay is clear as day.
Tied to posts are seven people ranging in ages, spanning three generations where the youngest is a girl who can't be more than five. Prim must see her too because I hear her whisper to herself, "They can't," but I have no doubt that they can and they will. Witches are burned no matter their age. It's Panem law.
"Barbara Fuller, Emilia Fuller, Agnes Mason, and Johanna Mason, you have been tried and found guilty of witchcraft," the man that must be their mayor says as he walks down the line of people tied to posts, eying each one by their name. There is no hesitation or remorse in his voice or in his eyes, and it's clear that he has no sympathy for witches. "Theodore Mason, Lucas Mason, and Aaron Fuller, you have been tried and found guilty of conspiracy with known witches."
To be charged with this crime could mean anything: assisting a witch in a spell, accepting a spell from a witch, or even just having anything positive to say about a known witch. By the look of them and their names, though, I feel the chilling reality that these are relatives of the accused witches, that it's an entire family being burned today.
I can't help but to stand a little bit closer to my sister as though that will protect her more, and I scan the crowd of faces to take note of those that seem appalled by what they're witnessing, potential allies of my family, and those that seem either disinterested or even approving of an entire family, a little girl killed.
The first pair of eyes that I see are Gale's. He and his family are near us and his eyes are on me with a look on his face that's as struck with fear as I feel. There are others from the Seam: Thom, Sae and her granddaughter are the ones that stick out in the crowd of dark hair and gray eyes to me. Thom has a hard set in his jaw, and Sae stares at the screen without a hint of emotion on her face. When her granddaughter starts to cry, she pulls her in for a tight hug, but there's still no trace of what she's feeling. I guess after having witnessed so many burnings over so many years as she has, eventually there's a numbness that can come with that time.
I don't want to ever be numb to it. Families like mine are burning, and it's happening more and more. My own could be next, and I would like to think that people would care if or when it happens.
My eyes continue through the crowd until the dark hair and gray eyes change to blond and blue eyed clusters of heads. Delly and her Mellark boyfriend are standing together; she's in his arms and her face is buried in his chest to hide the event from her view. There's only so much she can do—she must know this—because you can't hide from the sounds of someone dying this way. You can't even drown them out with fingers in your ears and humming; I've tried that before when I was younger than Prim. And this isn't just one or two people; it's the death of six adults and one very little girl.
The other Mellarks are there as well, and I see a pair of eyes in that particular shade of blue that draws me in more than just a casual glance. Peeta's staring at me but then looks away quickly. I can't blame him. If I'd claimed my ribbon and people were allowed to believe we were meant to be together, then his chances of being tied to a post along with me and my family would be almost guaranteed just by association.
I take a deep breath and continue through the crowd around me to see just outside of the tightly clustered bodies of our district, Otho. He's standing beside a man I assume is the new head peacekeeper from the symbols decorating his uniform. I've heard that his name is Thread.
Otho gives me a look that is almost friendly which doesn't comfort me but rather sends a chill down my spine. He then tilts his head to the side and back so that his lips are lined with Thread's ear and whispers something. Otho then juts his jaw in my family's direction and the unfamiliar man's eyes follow to find us, to find Prim. It's not hard to spot her and my mother among those from the Seam.
Thread's attention frightens me more than Otho's ever could. I thought we were in danger before with Cray, but now I know just how much my mother had done to keep us safe by providing Cray with her services. How my worries then were nothing compared to what they are now. I try to regain any shred of composure I have left as I pull Prim into my arms and position my body between her and the Thread's focus. I turn my full attention to the screen, ignoring the feeling of their eyes still on us.
On the screen there's a peacekeeper standing to the side of the posts with an almost bored look on his face as he taps something in his hand. I don't think we're meant to hear it, but one of the women tries to comfort the little girl next to her. "It's going to be okay, Emmie. It's going to be okay," It works enough that little Emmie's cries die down to whimpers, but not for long. It's seconds later that the flames ignite and spread down the row of posts. The seven scream and cry and beg for something or someone to help that we all of know will never come.
The young girl's voice is the loudest and Prim rushes to bury her face in my chest. All I can do is hold her as tightly as I can and close my eyes, trying not to think of the three posts waiting for us in the future. I try not to think of Prim crying like that little girl, like that girl from District Eleven. Emmie and Rue, I remind myself of their names because Panem kills little girls, no matter their age, and the least I can do is remember their names.
One of the seven, with the last bit of life left in her, suddenly screams out from the flames, "Mockingjay!"
It's a defiant battle cry. Johanna Mason's last breath is a battle cry for the rebellion.
After two weeks, the seven still haunt me. It's why I'm now crouched behind a wide trunk of a tree while Gale hides behind a thicket of bushes across from me. It's why our eyes are trained on a buck that's out in the clearing nearby. We need this buck. I need this buck with the trades it will bring, and with Rooba's help, a stash of coins to save for the winter.
After watching that entire family burn to death, I'm terrified that our family will be next. I wake at night with nightmares of watching my family burn. I'm always there tied to a post with them, feeling the heat of the flames and the sounds of their wails, but in my nightmares I don't have the mercy of dying. No. I live long enough to listen to my sweet baby sister scream for me to help her as the heat becomes unbearable, but it's the choking sounds of her last breaths that force me awake, sweating and crying.
I have to convince mother and sister to leave their craft alone, at least for a time, for my sanity. Besides, fewer and fewer people are willing to trade or buy their services since the burnings have become more frequent. Two weeks ago it was the seven family members in District Seven, and last week an old woman from District Four. They're finding witches in all of the districts, killing them, and anyone tied to them, without a second thought.
My hope is that if I can give my sister and mother proof that we can survive the next winter, perhaps they'll be willing to stop for one year. That will at least buy me one year to think of something else.
Gale takes aim and glances my way to see if I'm ready. I close my eyes and pull the bowstring taut as I breathe slowly. Each breath centers me in what I have to do. We both release at the same time, I can hear the arrows fly, the buck grunt and hit the ground, and when I open my eyes, the buck is laying there with one arrow through it's left flank and another just under its ear.
We both rush to retrieve it and begin to tie it to an pole we fashioned from a sturdy sapling. I'm so preoccupied with my own excitement, visions of how I can talk my mother and sister into being reasonable with good trades and some coin in my pocket, I don't think much of it when Gale's hand brushes against mine. I thought it was an accidental touch until I look up to find his eyes shining bright and focused on mine with the same hope I'd seen before when he tried to kiss me.
He's my friend, I remind myself. He can't help the way he feels. But I can't help that I don't feel the same either, so he should understand when I pull my hand away and put some distance between us to check the leg bindings from the other side of the deer.
Gale says nothing to me as we lug the heavy buck through the woods, or when we carefully slip it through the gape in the fence nearest town. It's dusk now, so it's easier for us to carry it without feeling exposed, that we might be easily caught by a peacekeeper. The truth of it is that the penalties for poaching aren't nearly as bad as witchcraft. What's a few lashes compared to burning to death?
We cut through the back yards until we reach Rooba's, and without a word Gale rounds the building to knock on her shop's door. She's closed, now, but she'll open her door for us.
By the time Gale comes back, Rooba's already at her back door and very interested in what's under the blanket. When she lifts it, there's a bright smile that spreads across her face and we're sent home with enough coin to sustain both of our families for a month and the promise of a haunch to split between us when she's done with the butchering.
I'm elated and eager to get home with my plan already half way in motion, but then I remember that I'm not walking back to the Seam alone. Gale is walking behind me with his head low and his hands in his pockets.
I stand in front of him, stopping him in his tracks and give him a long, stern look. "I thought when you didn't claim your ribbon, there was a chance you were going to give us a try," he says to me with a voice that's dripping with his disappointment.
Any other time, I would have lost my patience with him, but I can't ignore the hurt in his eyes. This time I don't have to remind myself that he's my friend because I remember it. I don't feel the same as he does, but I don't want him to hurt either. He's like family; he's like a brother to me. So I take his hands in mine and dip my head so that it's within his sight to coax him to look at me.
After some effort, he does, and my reward for him is the biggest, warmest smile I can give. "This has nothing to do with that ribbon," I tell him. "You and me, we're not like that."
"We could've been," he mutters to the side but I have to raise a skeptical eyebrow at that.
"Could we have? We're so much alike. Wouldn't that be like loving yourself too much?"
I wait for a reaction and am pleasantly surprised that he starts to laugh. He swings our joined hands with a smile I haven't seen on him for quite some time and then leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. I smile back.
We walk home talking about everything from what we plan to do with our haunch of venison to the ever increasing number of burnings in Panem lately, that by the time I'm home, I wish we weren't so that I could talk to my friend just a little bit more. He kisses me on the cheek and whispers to take care because he knows my plan.
Inside, Prim and my mother are at the table discussing something, and I'm a little curious because they look very guilty with their sudden silence and their eyes that can't seem to look in my direction. Even so, I brushed my curiosity away because I have more important business to take care of.
"I want to make a deal with you two," I say because I have no desire to waste time when I could get right to the point. "I want you both to stop using magick. At least for a year. I can provide for us, see!" I say as I hold out my share of the money Rooba gave us.
Neither my mother nor Prim look surprised by my request. In fact, they glance at each other before they finally look directly at me and my mother takes in a deep breath.
"Katniss, you know that's not possible, and it's not about the money."
"It's a part of our family. We can't let it go that easily," Prim adds in.
I've lost the battle before it even began, but then there's a dangerous twinkle in my little sister's eyes that makes my stomach knot uncomfortably, especially when she says, "But…"
My mother eyes her with some curiosity, while I can only steel myself to prepare for what she has to say next. And it's good that I do because what she says is like a punch in the gut.
"We can't perform individual toastings anymore, so we decided to do one big toasting ceremony in the meadow disguised as a picnic. We will stop all magick for one year, if that's what you want, but you will have to participate in the toasting ceremony and the ritual after."
They know how I feel about magick. I understand that its a part of our family, but it hasn't been a part of my life since my father died. I want to yell and argue and tell them that it's wrong to even ask me to do such a thing when they know all of this, but I have to remember that I just asked them to give up something that is wholly our family. In essence, I just did that to them. So I hold back all of the emotions roiling inside me to keep my face as neutral as I can under the circumstances, nod my head with a mumbled "Agreed," and turn around to walk right back out of the door I not long ago came in from.
I trod through the grasses that surround the meadow and notice how they've grown as high as my hip in the last few weeks. Just beyond them where the clearing begins, I have to watch my footing with the herbs that have grown from the seeds my mother and sister scattered last fall. Most people don't take so much care when walking around here because they don't know that the simple, broad leafed plant will grow bushy and will be used ease a cough, or that the scraggly fern-like plant will help with fevers. Also, I think of my mother and sister on the ground, working very hard to harvest what's here.
In the center of the clearing the swing from the spring ceremony still hangs from the old oak and won't be taken down until the night of the last toasting ceremonies which, it seems, will be one big, collective ceremony. I usually resent seeing it this time of year, particularly this year as the constant reminder that my ribbon was handed out.
For some reason, tonight it doesn't bother me as much. Tonight, I reach for it, sitting on it to curl my fingers tightly around the ropes and take some comfort in the gentle glide forwards and backwards.
I'm lost. So lost that I grasp at anything to make me feel just a little less scared and angry and frustrated and helpless than I am right now. I even start to sing to myself because it reminds me of my father. Funny that, because he's also the reason why I stopped singing years ago.
Deep in the meadow, under the willow
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow
Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
And when you awake, the sun will rise.
My hands continue to hold on to the ropes, and I rest my head on one as I feel it calming me. I close my eyes and let the words spill out in a way that feels unfamiliar from lack of use and yet familiar at the same time.
Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you—
"Katniss?"
My head snaps up and I look in the direction of the voice but I already know who it is; I've heard that voice in my head so many times, in my dreams before the nightmares began.
"Peeta? What are you doing here?" I ask a little bit more gruffly than I would have preferred, but there's something odd about him being so far in the Seam for no reason. If there were a ceremony it would be different, but there's not and here he is with the gentle orange glow of sunset warming the color of his skin.
He doesn't say anything to me as he takes a few more steps closer, and I see his eyes shining with what can only be tears forming, but I'm not sure why. The next step he takes, he reaches into his pocket to pull out a ribbon. My ribbon.
My hands grasp the ropes tighter, and I feel a shiver from my toes work their way up my body. Although my mind urges me to leave the meadow and slip underneath the fence, to go running into the woods even at this time of day, my feet are rooted in the ground right along with the oak beside me. I don't want to talk about the ribbon, but it seems my body won't cooperate. I've already apologized for putting him in the awkward predicament, and it's not even my fault. Still, I find my voice enough to give it one more try. "I did say I'm sorry for the ribbon."
"Why?" he asks while still walking towards me with my green ribbon held tightly in his fist and a new look of determination in his eyes. The simple question barely registers in my head, because I'm too awestruck by how glorious and frightening he looks all at once. His blond hair absorbs the color of the last rays of an orange sun dipping below the tree line. I also see the start of an orange glow radiating from around him very much like the evening of Fos and Fran's toasting. I can't help but think of the glorious sun god from one of the bedtime stories my mother used to tell me when I was very little. I always imagined he would look like…
"Peeta…" His name tumbles out of my mouth but nothing follows. What more is there for me to say, and even if there were, the words would have vanished from my thoughts the moment he stops to kneel in front of me so that his eyes are level with mine.
"I have to do this before I lose what little courage I have," he says to me quickly, and then his lips are on mine. They're soft and warm and strong. They are comforting in that I can no longer think of my family's imminent peril, because my mind and body are completely focused on the feel of them against my own.
I feel them withdrawing from me, but I don't want them to go away, I don't want Peeta Mellark to stop kissing me, so I slip my hands over his shoulders, grabbing hold of him firmly so that he can't leave me. My actions cause a soft moan from him before I feel the tip of his tongue tentatively search for mine which I gladly offer without hesitation.
My arms are around his neck, his arms are around my waist and I feel his very warm body pressed to mine, but it's not enough. My eyes are closed, but I feel his kisses along the crook of my neck and I hear him say to me in breathless rasps, "I wanted you to claim your ribbon, Katniss. I wanted you to claim me."
The words don't make sense to me. He might as well have been speaking gibberish because the only sense I can process is how it feels like every point of contact between his body and mine ignites in a fire that could consume us if we want it to.
"Katniss?"
The small voice comes from somewhere deep in the high grasses just before the clearing. Prim's voice. We both pull apart, and I open my eyes to look around to see him still kneeling in the same position, but I'm no longer on the swing. Somehow, without realizing it, I've managed to sit myself on his lap and wrap my legs around his waist. By the beet red look on his face which can be seen even in the dimming light, I can tell that my position surprises him too.
He's looking at me, waiting for my reaction after the kiss, and with just the little bit of time granted me, my mind can think of things other than Peeta Mellark's lips and tongue, and body again. What he'd said earlier starts to sink in. He wished I'd claimed the ribbon, that I'd claimed him? A part of me is excited by the very idea even though I know it will only be trouble for him, but then I remember the spell.
I want the same as what mommy and daddy have.
He is from town and I'm from the Seam.
I want him to be strong, and I want him to be kind.
There is no doubt Peeta Mellark is both.
And I want him to have hands of life and love.
This makes me come to my senses, and I almost laugh at myself at the thought that Peeta could be the one from my spell years ago. I didn't know what "hands of love and life" even meant then and not exactly sure what it means now, but for some reason I think of the dandelion picture he drew and gave to me. It was so real, so full…of life. My thoughts are stuck in some kind of loop, and he must notice because he reaches out to cup my cheek in his hand. It's so warm against my skin and the heat spreads from there outward until I feel it all over. It's a feeling of a warm blanket wrapped around me. At his touch, I feel happy and…loved…of love.
The warmth leeches out of me as I realize the spell made him want me, and that very thought made it easier to tear myself from his hand and his body by lifting myself from his lap.
"You don't know what you really want," I tell him as I stand, as he looks up at me helplessly with confused and hurt eyes. "The ribbon doesn't matter. We choose our own destiny," I say, repeating the words Gale had said to me. "You're better off that way," I tell him before I turn and run to the grasses to catch Prim. With any luck, she's no where close enough to have seen me with Peeta in the clearing.
I find her at the edge of the grasses, very close to reaching the clearing. At first she's startled by my sudden appearance, but then she quickly recovers to say, "I'm sorry, Katniss. We can forget the agreement if it bothers you that much."
"No, Little Duck," I say to her as I lead her home, "I'll do whatever it takes to keep you safe." I hope she doesn't noticed my quick glance back; I can't help myself.
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