Chapter Twelve - The Turn of the Shrew
Katniss edged away from the precipice at the mouth of the Cornucopia, clearly anxious that the mutts would find a way to climb up. They had the remaining tributes surrounded. One false move, one loss of footing would result in a gory, painful death.
Suddenly, she had a flash of divine inspiration. She loaded up her bow, aimed carefully at a spot of ground a few metres away from the grass fields and...exactly as planned, the mutts stopped their siege of the Cornucopia and ran over to investigate the arrow. Katniss leaped to the ground and ran to the trees, climbing the first one she reached.
Once she reached, she looked down to see if she had been followed. Sure enough, Clove was only a few branches away from her, knife clutched between her teeth. Before Katniss had the time to notch up another arrow, Clove was perched next to her, keeping a tight hold of the weapon which she had relocated to her hand as soon as it was free. Katniss crouched, ready to pounce and push the girl to her death, but something stopped her. There was a curious expression on Clove's face: vulnerability, shock, something that looked almost like sorrow.
"Oh. No, surely not...it can't be. Can it?"
Katniss scrunched up her nose in confusion. "What's the problem, 2?"
"This may seem like an odd question, but...how do you spell your last name?"
"E-v-e-r-d-e-e-n. Why?"
"Oh, right...Everdean, spelled d-e-a-n, is quite a common surname in your district, isn't it?"
"I guess. Yeah, it's pretty common."
"But d-e-e-n is really rare."
She nodded slowly. She was reasonably sure that her family were the only Everdeens in 12...but where was the District 2 girl going with this?
"Katniss, before you kill me, there's something you should know. You remember, in the Training Centre, when you said I didn't look like a Career? You were right. You see, before I was born, my mother worked as peacekeeper in District 12. She spent most of her time there, coming back every other weekend to see Cato, then running off again. There was a period of time, however, where she stopped coming altogether. Eventually, she quit her job and came home with an unexpected surprise for Cato and my father: me. She said that I'd been conceived the last time she visited. I was a very sickly baby; Mother didn't think I would last long, but she brought me back so that 12 wouldn't have to go to the trouble of burying me. She left me in the garden, so that my death wouldn't curse the house...District 2 is exceedingly superstitious, you understand. Had Cato not picked me up and taken me back inside, I would have died that day. Sometimes, when I look at my parents, I think they wish I had. I was about seven years old when I realised: my 'parents' weren't really related to me at all. It occurred to me after a group of peacekeepers attempted to murder me, thinking I was a runaway from your district. Suddenly, it seemed obvious that I had been born into a District 12 family and adopted by the Hrocbys. After a little bit of research, I found and old news article in the Justice Centre's database - I had to break in there to get it, but I didn't think anything I took would be missed. It was only a very short piece, obviously not deemed particularly important by whatever Capitol paper had published it. The headline read: 'DISTRICT 12 INFANT REPORTED MISSING DAYS AFTER HER BIRTH'. It said that a little new-born baby had disappeared from her cot while her parents were at work. I don't know what possessed my 'mother' to take me; perhaps I'll never know. You want to know my real name? Clover Everd-e-e-n."
A long-forgotten hazy memory occurred to Katniss. She couldn't have been any older than a year at the time. She remembered her mother showing her a tiny wriggling little creature, telling her that it was called Clover. She shook her head, in the present once more, eyes wide. "N-no! You can't be!"
"Oh, but I am." she half-whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. "You're the first person I've ever told; not even Cato knows." She choked out a humourless laugh, looking up at the sky. "It's ironic, really. So long, I've looked for my real family. Now I've found it, just as I'm about to die."
Katniss thought for a moment, taking in this revelation and trying to plan her next move. "No," she whispered, "It can't end like this; there's always, always, a way out, you just have to find it before it's too late! That's what my - our - dad always used to say. So…there are five of us left. You four aren't going to hurt each other. I'm not going to hurt my sister or any of my sister's allies. In short: we're not going to fight. There won't be a victor. Seneca Crane can't let us win - you can't have a rebellious victor - but, at the same time, he can't not have one; either way, Snow will have a rebellion on his hands!"
Clove laughed (for real this time) and grinned excitably. "Katniss, you're brilliant!"
"I like to think I have my moments."
Suddenly, the tree shook violently, threatening to dislodge them from their perch. The muttations were scrambling and clawing at the base of the trunk, desperate to reach them. Scylla's mutt looked directly at Clove, seemingly staring deep into her soul. The real, human Scylla used to look at everyone like that too. But that was in the past, she reminded herself, all that mattered now was ensuring the survival of her friends and siblings. No matter what, Cato was her brother and always would be. She didn't care who his parents were; to her, he would forever be the boy who loved her and cared for her unconditionally. If he wasn't family, nobody was.
A/N: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Believe me, I am just as surprised by this chapter as you are. I had no idea this was going to happen until I was typing it. This chapter is named thus because Katniss reminds me of Katherine Minola from The Taming of the Shrew and in this part of the story her motivation 'turns' from a single-minded quest to get home into a desire to stop the Games once and for all.
