I want to thank Lou and Chele for their help with this chapter. Your insight and suggestions have been invaluable to me!
Smell
Peeta and I grow back together
Putrid. Festering. Stench. Those are the first words that come to his mind as he steps off the train. If it were two years ago, the smells would have made him retch. But with all that's happened to him, they are now just smells. He files them away in his brain, planning to dwell on them later. And on what they might mean to him.
One of the former miners greets him as he walks off the platform. "Peeta," he says bluntly as he nods at him. "Good to see you back."
"Thanks," Peeta returns, just as bluntly. He can't remember the man's name, but he has a definite look about him. Seam. "Reclaiming the district?" Peeta asks the man.
"Yeah. Trying to anyway, with what the government has spared for us," he says looking around the wasteland that was the District square. "Sorry about your family."
"Did you see…" he wants to finish, but realizes he already knows the answer.
"No Peeta, I didn't," he shakes his head sadly. "I'm sorry, but was all such a mess." After a short pause, he adds, "They're all in the meadow now, if you wanted to pay your respects."
Peeta thinks about this and decides, like dwelling on the stench, today isn't that day. "Maybe another time."
He's feeling a mixture of things. Regret. Envy. Relief. Regret that he didn't spend more time with his family, that the last year of their lives was spent watching their youngest son die in a variety of ways. He's envious of their death. They don't have to figure out their way in this new world. And he feels relief. They never had to see his torture. They never had to live with him, broken and alone. They don't have to see what's become of their world.
"Sure thing," Thom (that's his name!) finishes. "Good to see you back." And the former miner goes about clearing the debris with the others. District 12 may have been destroyed, but it is their home. And pride runs deep in these hills.
Peeta goes on his way, back to a house that was never a home. His brothers attempted to move in with him, but between the distance to the bakery, and Peeta's insomnia, it was just too hard, so he lived alone in that great big house. He goes back to a girl who was never truly his. At least, that's what he thinks. He's not really sure these days. All he knows is that he can't let her go. No matter how hard he, or anyone else, tries.
Putrid. Festering. Stench. That's what she smells when they disembark from the hovercraft. She tries to care, tries to feel something about this, but she finds she can't. She can only walk into her house and sit. Sit with the stench. Sit with the ghosts. Sit with the memories of all that used to be. She's not sure if that smell of death is surrounding her or inside of her. She just knows that it consumes her night and day. It fills her nose and occupies her dreams. Death has become her constant companion day and night.
"I'll see you around," her mentor says.
"I doubt it," she replies bluntly. And she knows it's true. Knows that as soon as he walks out that door he's going to be surrounded by ghosts, just like she is. And the power those ghosts hold is stronger than the will to move on.
She smells the food cooking, but it's a distant smell. Sae might as well be in another house cooking for someone else for all of the good it's doing anyone. She forces Katniss to eat a bit, to get up and move around. But it all smells the same. Like death. Putrid. Festering. Stench.
Dirt. It's the first time he smells anything fresh since he got back a few hours ago. As a boy, he always loved the smell of the dirt as his parents tilled the garden each spring. It's earthy, pungent. It smells like life to him. He carefully digs the flowers out of the ground and places them in the wheelbarrow. He doesn't know if Katniss will like these or not, he just knows he needs to do something to show her he cares, that he's sorry, that Prim shouldn't have died. So he digs up the flowers, breathing in the scent of the dirt that smells like life, and sends a silent thought to Katniss that he's there when she's ready.
Dirt. It's what she smells. Shovels full and shovels full of dirt being dumped on her, burying her alive. "Stop!" She yells as she wakes up. But the smell of dirt is still there. What's going on? She wonders. She pulls the door open and stomps outside, ready to take on whatever ghost is outside waiting for her.
It's then that she sees him. She's pulled up short, this ghost is definitely still alive, still human. And when he turns around, and she sees his blue eyes, no longer clouded, she is at a loss.
"You're back."
"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday. By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone."
"What are you doing?"
"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her. I thought we could plant them along the side of the house."
And she's not sure if it's the smell of the dirt outside, or the pull of the ghosts inside, but she turns and runs back into the house.
With the smell of dirt still on his hands, and the smell of the flowers still in his nose, he heads inside. She doesn't look well. She looks so haunted. He's sure that from now on, the smell of dirt will always remind him of this moment.
He goes upstairs to open his closet, to see if anything survived the year. He's surprised to see everything just as it was. He pulls out a short sleeve shirt and a pair of pants, puts them on the bed, and heads into the bathroom. He turns on the shower, steps in, and washes the stench of the District, the smell of the dirt off of his skin.
It's time to get busy living this new life. But in order to move forward in the new life, he needs to be reminded of parts of his old. He looks through the pantry. Dr. Aurelius was right when he told him, before he left the Capitol, that Sae had made sure everything was stocked for him. He smiled as he saw the array of flours, spices, baking supplies. In order to live in the now, he needed to pull on the strengths of the past. It was time to fill the house up with the smell of home. And that meant baking bread.
Once she's back in her home, the smell of dirt is gone. It's replaced by something far sweeter, far sicker. The scent grows stronger with each step she takes, drawing her closer and closer to its source. In her room, on the dresser, standing tall and proud next to it's dead peers. A rose. A single white rose. At first she wants to run away, close the door and never open it again. But then she realizes something. She is in control. She has the power to snuff out this menace. And she does. She carries the vase to the kitchen and throws it into the fire. The girl is on fire once again.
Upstairs, she turns on the shower. She decides on lavender for the soap. Her mother always told her it was a good scent to relax. Her mother… There's a letter downstairs that hasn't been opened…
She strips out of her clothes, the ones she's been wearing since she returned from the Capitol, days, weeks, months. More like peels them off, really. As she gingerly steps under the water, she lets the warmth surround her. Her scars instantly react to the feel of the water. She feels them tighten up, and then loosen around her bones. The smell of the lavender in the soap reminds her of her mother, and she allows herself to believe her mother's arms are there, and they surround her, comfort her. She uses the lavender to calm her senses and to erase the cloying smell of roses that seems to have climbed up into her nose and staked a claim.
She climbs out of the shower, and gingerly dries herself off with a clean, soft towel. She finds some creams in the cupboard and carefully applies them to the scars. She revels in their soothing scent, camomile she thinks. Maybe some comfrey? After dressing in whatever she finds fastest in the closet, she grabs her old, stench filled clothes and carries them to the kitchen. Sae merely points to the fire as she goes on frying the eggs in bacon grease. The clothes go up in flames, just like her fear of Snow. Fire beats roses again she thinks.
He sits in his kitchen. It's all state of the art, ready to go. "Nothing too good for Peeta Mellark, Victor of the 74th Games!" Effie told him when he moved in that lifetime ago. Everything was clean and orderly, nothing out of place. Except him. Out of place in a district destroyed beyond recognition. Out of place in this house that was never a home. Home. That's something. What makes a house a home? SInce this is what is left for him, he might as well make the best of it.
He walks over to the counter and pulls out the bowls, the mixer, the measuring cups. He finds the yeast, the flour, the salt. Soon, without even thinking about it, the smell of dough rising fills the air.
If he closes his eyes he might be transported back. Back to the kitchen of his youth, where he and his brothers would wrestle, where his father would warn, and his mother would yell. He wonders what it would be like if they survived. Then he realizes it's probably for the best if he doesn't go to that place in his mind. Can't change the past, don't know the future, can only live in the now. And right now, there are loaves of bread to put in the oven.
She sits on their rock. She supposes it's just 'her' rock now, since he won't be coming back. But for a moment, if she closes her eyes tight enough, she'll believe he's here. She can almost smell the wood smoke, the leather of his coat. That's not the him of today, and it certainly isn't the her of today, but the him and her of two years ago. Before all of this mess. She knows she can't go back, and she wonders if she wants to. She's not sure, so she focuses on the now. Eyes closed, what does she notice? The damp, dank smell of the forest. The smell of town, the ashes and stench, it's gone, lost among the trees. Replaced by the sweet smell of the earth and leaves and pine. She wishes she could get lost too. She wonders, if she sits here long enough, will she join this smell? Will she become, like the forest floor, another twig to rot? Parts of her want to, but there are other parts. Parts that will her to go on, maybe for just one more day. And, for just this moment, that is enough.
His first loaves come out smelling fine, but looking a little worse for the wear. Too much kneading? Not enough rising? He's not sure, so he tries again. And again. And again. Until his whole house smells like the bakery. Until he can't escape their memories, even if he tried. So he mixes and he kneads and it rises, and he bakes. This happens all night, until, finally, he gets it right. And he closes his eyes and imagines his father's proud grin, and his mother saying, "Good job. Now clean up," and his brothers laughing at him.
And now it's good. He's made his peace with them and their memories. He's made peace with this house, and with his past.
Sae stopped by yesterday after she left Katniss, said he was invited to breakfast the next morning. "Don't expect much. Just some bacon and eggs. The girl's perked up a bit since you got back though, but I still wouldn't expect much from her, either."
He'll take this loaf, the one he's finally perfected, over at breakfast. Maybe they can begin again.
She sits on the couch. After her soiree into the woods she's too tired to go any farther. She tries to care that Thom had to see her like that, but she finds she doesn't. She just sits there, waiting. She hears the hiss, and her head snaps around. There he is, Buttercup, his nose sniffing the air, as if he's trying to locate the girl. Not the one sitting here though.
"It was a wasted trip. She's not here… She's not here, you can hiss all you like but you won't find Prim...Get out! Go away! There's nothing left for you here! She's not coming back! She's never coming back here again!"
And she falls to the floor, crying and rocking.
"She's dead you stupid cat! She's dead!"
On and on this goes, until it just can't any longer.
When she wakes up the next morning, she can smell the change in the room. She's in her own room now, and Buttercup sits there, at the head of her bed, keeping watch over her. He snuggles up to her, rubbing his scent all over her, marking her as his now. They both have to accept the unacceptable.
She takes him into the bathroom and washes him off, cleaning him as best as she can. He didn't smell before, but his matted fur and the briars tell her that his trip has not been an easy one. So she washes him off, pulls out the briars from the fur and a thorn from his foot.
By this time, she can smell the food frying in the kitchen. She thinks it might be the first time she's smelled breakfast since she returned. She wonders if this means that she's starting to wake up? As she makes her way down the stairs, another smell hits her. Bread. And she knows, at that moment, he is here with her. Her heart seems to skip a beat, but that is all of the energy she can muster up right now. "I called my mother this morning," is all she can say.
He walks into the room that held his paints and easels. His "talent" they called it. More like his self-therapy, he thinks wryly. But here is where he kept it, and here is where he finds it. He's amazed, once again, that everything is still in its place. A little dusty, perhaps, but nothing's been moved. He wonders if his family stopped by after the final reaping. He wonders if they ever would have come here and picked up his things. If he didn't make it, that is. No point in wondering about all of that now. He's just glad he knows where everything still is. His memories about what is real and not real may be shady, but his memories about things? Those he has. And here is what he's looking for. His paints.
She said she wanted to start a book, like her family's plant book. He remembers the book, but he doesn't remember working on it with her. When she showed him, though, he noticed his artwork. He noticed the brushstrokes, the lines he drew. And he almost cried right in that moment. Because here was a piece to his past that he wasn't sure he'd ever get back.
He smells the paint. The oil still has that scent that he loved the first time he smelled it. He said it made him feel like a real painter. It's not strong, but he knows the turpentine will be. He grabs the box and heads over to her house. It's a beautiful late spring day, perfect for painting on the porch.
She sits on the porch with him .The heat of the day has subsided and the gentle evening begins to cool off. The "smoke" covers her mountains. Even though she knows it's a mist, and not real smoke, she likes to imagine it's the smoke of millions of years worth of fires. She imagines that smell from her own fire blankets her mountains. It's comforting to her, to know that millions of people have lived, loved, and died in these hills. She doesn't feel so alone, knowing that at some other time, others have lost loved ones and lived to move on. Like she's trying to do. Like every day she tries to.
She smells the paint almost as soon as he squirts it onto his palette. They've been at this long enough, this book or memories, that she can recognize the smell before she sees it.
She turns to watch him mixing the colors, he sees her and offers her a small smile, then goes about his work. "What are you making?" she quietly asks. It's always quiet now, she is still afraid of disturbing the dead.
"Finnick's eye color. Have I got it right?" he asks her.
"Maybe a little more green?"
And he adds more until they are both satisfied.
He paints and he bakes. He paints to exorcise the demons Snow put in him, and he bakes to remember. In each loaf, each cookie, he remembers his family. As time goes on her begins to remember other recipes too- the goat cheese and apple tart his family used to sell. The cheese buns he used to make… for her! For Katniss! He remembers how she used to devour them when he made them, during that in-between time. Through trial and error, he tries and he bakes, and he tries some more until he gets it right.
He can smell them baking in the oven as he cleans up his mess. But soon that savory smell is overtaken by one more sour, more pungent, and somewhat tinny.
"Mutt! She killed your family! Look at her! Covered in blood and smelling like a wild dog!" he hears the voices in his head shout.
"No! Not real!" he shouts back, and he hangs on to the counter until the vision passes.
The next thing he smells is the cheese buns burning in the oven.
As time goes by, the smell from town mellows and dissipates. The meadow, which now contains the remains of the old District 12, has been covered over with fresh dirt. Ground is tilled, they begin work on a factory, to replace the outmoded coal mines that were destroyed. It's a new day in District 12.
Katniss still makes her way into the woods each day. The routine is good for her. She's stronger than she was, almost as strong as she used to be. The smells of 12 don't hurt her any longer, but she still prefers the smell of the forest. She sits on her rock and smells the berries ripening, the flowering bushes with their sweet fragrance calm her nerves.
She smells it before anything else. That pungent smell that wild dogs carry with them. Without even looking, she loads her bow, turns, and shoots. The dog lies dead in one shot, blood seeping from its single wound.
She lets out a "whoop!" without even thinking. She's killed squirrels and trapped rabbits, but this is the largest animal yet. She knows the fur will make a nice lining for a hat and some gloves this winter, and surely Sae could do something with the meat? She field dresses the animal and heads straight to Peeta's with the kill.
As she approaches the back door, she smells the cheese buns baking and smiles. He's remembered something! She thinks. And it's about me…
Forgetting she's covered in blood, and the stench of the animal, she opens the door to his kitchen. She's stopped short by what she sees. He smile at her quickly, but then look changes to bewilderment. He closes his eyes as he grabs on to the counter muttering, "Not real…"
She slowly backs out of the kitchen and makes her way over to Haymitch's. As she leaves she can smell the cheese buns burning in the oven.
"Damn Haymitch! Don't you ever bathe?" She asks holding her nose as she walks into his house.
"Well hello to you too, sweetheart," he says looking up from his chair. "And may I remind you that perhaps a look in the mirror is in order."
"Shut up Haymitch. Listen, could you go check up on Peeta for me?"
"Why me? Trouble in paradise? What did you do to him?"
"Please Haymitch?"
"Yeah, fine. But why?"
"I mean… I want...I'm just…"
"I'll check on him. But it sounds like you need to talk to him."
He's cleaning up the mess after burning the cheese buns. No amount of open windows and cross breeze will get rid of the stench, though he wonders if it's just him. The embarrassment he feels at having Katniss set him off weighs heavily on him.
He knows it wasn't her that caused his episode. It was a "perfect storm" of sensory overload. Or that's what Dr. Aurelius would call it. The memories associated with the smell of the cheese buns mixed with the smell of her is what sent him over the edge. Good news is that he can add that to his list of triggers, as imperfect as that is…
"Damn Haymitch! Do you ever bathe?" he says, then turns around to see his former mentor standing in the doorway.
"Well well well, that's a fine how do you do!" he replies. "Funny thing is that's just what Katniss said."
"She was over to your place?" he knows now that Haymitch knows what happened.
"Yup. Asked me to come check up on you."
"Well, I'm fine. Thank you." he says tersely, then goes back to scrubbing the pans.
"She cares, you know. She's scared for you. Not of you, for you."
"Yeah, well… I just…"
"Funny thing again. That's exactly what she told me. When you're done cleaning up, call her." And he leaves, taking his sour stench with him.
He sits next to her in front of the fire. The homy smells of the house surround them, the clean of the kitchen after a good meal, the smell of the fire in the hearth. The wind is howling outside, the smell of winter all around them. But inside, they're warm, and safe. Her scent fills his head with longing. Wanting to stay with her for always. He remembers those nights on the train, when that was the only good sleep they ever had.
She went to his house for supper and stayed as late as she could, something she's been doing a lot of, especially since that night she trashed her room. Going home alone is becoming harder and harder. The crisp winter breeze of the daytime becomes the howling wind of the night that stirs up the ghosts in her mind.
The smells of the house surround her. The clean of the kitchen after a good meal, the smoke of the fire in the hearth. Soon her nostrils fill with other smells. Smells of him- the scents of cinnamon and dill that make her wonder if they have somehow seeped into the essence of him.
"Can I stay tonight?" She asks suddenly, looking into the fire instead of at him. "I can't go home. Please?"
"Of course Katniss," he says nervously. "Always."
Together they sit on the couch, side by side. They've moved ever closer as the months have passed. Buttercup is playing with a ball of yarn on the floor, and it appears the ball of yarn is winning.
One minute she's laughing at Buttercup, the next her head is full of the smells of cinnamon and dill. She leans in to kiss him for the first time.
One minute he's laughing at Buttercup, the next his head is full of the smell of pine and earth. He leans in to kiss her for the first time.