CHAPTER ONE
Hot and humid air. Baking sun and steaming jungle. A vision of the lightning tree standing tall before me as heat waves push up from the ground, distorting my vision. In the distance, I can hear Peeta's cry: loud, tortured and terrifying.
My heart aches painfully and beats quickly at the same time and there is an emptiness in the pit of my stomach that I try to push down. No matter how hard I try, it always comes back up. I want to move to save him, but instead my mouth fills with saliva and a stinging sour taste as I fall to my knees on the burning sand. Horror overcomes me when I look down and see the skin on my hands and arms covered in raw sores and swollen blisters. The sight of it makes me retch, racking my chest violently and tying my stomach into painful knots until I feel it, the thing, coming up from the depths of my stomach and up my throat. It hits the sand below me, a gloopy string of black, disgusting gunk. I cough it up and it oozes out, this blackness within me...
I awake with a gasp. My heart's racing and sweat is pouring down my forehead and matting the clothes to my back. The mid-afternoon sun is blazing down, stinging my eyes and burning my skin. I sit up, peeling the sweat-soaked shirt up off my torso. My mouth is parched and I try to think how long it's been since I dozed off so carelessly, deep in these woods beyond the fence that surrounds District Twelve. But then I remember things have changed and I don't have to worry about the repercussions of being on Capitol-designated land anymore.
I'd gone into the woods this morning to hunt but found my feet leading me towards the lake—my father's lake. The place that holds so many memories for me and is now the only place that can draw me out of the dark emptiness. It's here where he taught me how to swim. It's here where I would play in its cool depths while he caught water fowl or fished or dug for roots. It was the source of our family's nourishment, this place.
A gentle breeze is blowing and ripples the surface of the water, breaking the reflection of the blue sky and green tree tops above. Before I let myself think any further, I get up, strip to my undergarments and wade into the lake. I dip my head under the surface, sighing inwardly at the immediately cooling effect. Wiggling my feet into the wet sand, I relish the tickling feeling between my toes. Once I'm further in, I begin to swim, counting each stroke and each lap I make. Fifty strokes to one lap. One hundred strokes, two laps. One fifty, three laps...
It's mind-numbing, mechanical. Before I know it, I'm breathless and I burst through the surface of the water, my lungs rasping for air. Swimming like this helps me. It stops my mind from thinking too much, from wallowing in regrets and past actions and memories. But at some point, I need to stop and breathe. I need to come back to reality.
Sopping wet, I trudge back to my pile of clothes baked paper dry in the heat. The sun hangs low in the sky, which tells me that it must be late afternoon by now. Refreshed and awake, I pull my clothes back on and take a deep breath of the warm air.
At my feet sits my faithful bow and quiver of arrows. I reach down and pick up my bow, running my hand along its length, feeling the curve of the soft wood. Many years ago, my father's hands and knife created this. I've caught nothing yet, but maybe the walk back will yield something.
I trek through the woods, back to the village. This is where Gale and I hunted together, only a few years ago. This is where I was happy. As I walk, I think, now - am I happy now? With everything that's changed? People have their freedom, but what do I have?
A lost friend, a dead sister, and a mother who finds it too painful to come back home. My loving father now a distant memory.
It's been six months since I've been back and I've been trying to think of ways to go on. It was alright before with Gale by my side and our families to feed. They depended on us and we had each other. Now there is nothing. I had been played with to the very end and then tossed aside like a forgotten toy, gathering dust in a dark corner of this place that is my home. I've withdrawn, doing nothing, saying nothing; I have nothing left to give.
As I walk, the ground beneath me becomes harder and turns into the familiar dirt road that leads in to town and my old neighbourhood, the Seam. In the distance, I can see the new buildings that make up the town square with the new Justice Building at the centre. Meanwhile, traders have set up shop right in the middle of the square, their carts and stalls laden with fresh vegetables and fruits, cured meats, grains and spices. None of the rodent-ridden rations from the Capitol - these are sourced directly from the districts. I think about heading into town - perhaps catching up with Thom, who's now working on filling in and closing off the mines. He's probably finished and having a drink at Ripper's, but I don't feel like keeping up with his chit-chat today. Instead, I take a right at the next path and head towards the Victor's Village, where my house, dark and empty, awaits me.
Before heading in, I sprinkle the primrose bushes with rainwater. In this heat, the soil has become dusty and dry and I soak the roots, watching the water seep into the ground, turning it a dark shade of mud black-brown. The flowers are now flourishing and have burst into full, colourful bloom. They're beautiful, but the smell nauseates me still. I can't stay around them for too long, so I head into the coolness of the house.
In the bathroom, I peel off my clothing and place it carefully in the clothes basket. I lean over the sink, looking back at the young woman in the mirror. Her hair has grown back unevenly, only just enough to cover the burn scars on her scalp. In fact, the burn scars are all over most her body, which has become used to the replacement skin. But you can tell where the new skin stops and her own skin starts. Raised scars, like lines on a map, pattern her arms, shoulders, most of her neck and legs. The new skin shines whiter than her own olive-toned skin. Like a patchwork quilt. I turn on the shower and get underneath, scrubbing myself clean for the second time today.
When I come back downstairs, I find Greasy Sae in the kitchen heating a pot of stew. I greet her and her granddaughter, Juniper, who's seated at the table drawing circles on pieces of parchment with intense concentration. I take the seat opposite her and continue to watch. She doesn't look up and remains stuck in her own world. Apparently, she's never been right in the head, but who is these days?
The aroma of the stew fills the kitchen. My mouth begins to water and I thank Greasy Sae as she sets before me a large bowl and a plate of cheese buns. She sits next to me with a small bowl of her own.
"I tried to hunt today," I confess to her.
"No luck, huh?"
"I fell asleep."
Greasy Sae sighs. "I've been looking forward to some rabbit. A nice spring vegetable soup with rabbit." She smacks her lips.
"Sounds good," I say as I scoop up the savoury, hot goodness. I break open a cheese bun, dunk a piece of bread in and pop it in my mouth. Delicious.
Suddenly my memory flashes back to the Victory Tour dinner ball. Tables laden with a seemingly endless variety of food and me wanting to sample every single dish. That euphoric feeling that overcame me when I realised that I hadn't succeeded in convincing Snow. I wouldn't have succeeded anyway, no matter how much I tried. Peeta having to finish my leftovers. The elixir that made you throw up so you could eat as many things as you wanted.
A sudden wave of nausea washes over me and I cough as I clutch my stomach, retching over the table. I push the feeling down, not wanting Greasy Sae's good stew to come back up. A sour, burning taste comes up in my mouth as Greasy Sae rubs my back, keeping a firm hand on my shoulder. "It's okay. If it comes out, it comes out, it's alright."
Tears sting my eyes as her granddaughter continues to draw never ending circles on the parchment.
"We can keep this for later. I'll put it back in the pot and you can heat it up when you feel like." She takes the bowl away and there's a slushing sound at the stove.
I pull my knees up on the chair and rest my forehead on them, trying to keep down the sourness and saliva that keeps filling my mouth. I push it out of my mind, the liquid in the small wine glass. The way Peeta's fingers had set the glass down on the table. So delicately, so carefully, as if it were a bomb about to explode.
Greasy Sae finishes washing and places a mug on the table. "Drink this."
I nod silently as she calls to Juniper to leave. The front door closes. The house is silent. I'm not sure how long I stay like this, curled up on the chair with my head resting on my knees, swallowing down the saliva that keeps filling my mouth. I find the strength to lift my head and pull the mug closer to me. It's mint leaves steeped in hot water, which has now become lukewarm.
As darkness begins to fall, I lower my feet to the floor. The smell of the stew still fills the kitchen and for some reason, it nauseates me. I jump up from the chair, throw open the windows and cover the pot with the lid. That's not enough though, so I wrap the entire pot tightly with dish cloths and place it inside the cold cupboard. Then I take the dishes that Greasy Sae has just cleaned and wash them again with more soapy hot water. After, I scrub my hands until they are red and stinging.
Only then do I feel much better.
.
By morning, the heat has broken and the sky is overcast and mild. After my shower and scrub, I shuffle about the house, opening the windows to let in the cool air.
The phone rings and I know who it is before I go to answer it. I've tried to rearrange the study so that it reminds me less of the time when Snow came to visit but to no avail. I can never stay in that room for too long so I keep it quick. "Hey."
"Morning Katniss. You okay?" Peeta's voice sounds through the line.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Come on over," I reply. The phone goes silent.
He always calls before coming over. No more night visits, no more sharing the same bed. That finished a long time ago. A part of me aches for him, for his strong, steady arms and warmth in the night. Instead, there is only loneliness and nightmares. Some nights are so rough I awake only to find myself on the floor, my arms and legs covered in bruises.
When he returned and I found him outside planting the primrose bushes, I thought he was finally back. We could go back to being how we were. But I was wrong. He remained distant and I sunk deeper into depression. I stopped taking Dr Aurelius's calls and he stopped calling altogether. And then I got worse. There was nothing else to do. Haymitch never left his house, unless it was to stock up on more alcohol. At least Hazelle was there, helping him. I didn't feel like dealing with the stares of the townspeople. There was Gale's siblings who I saw occasionally, but they only reminded me of him.
And the thing is, the more time that Peeta and I spent together, the more confused I became. I didn't know how to take him. Sometimes I would see flashes of his old self, but then his demeanour would suddenly change and he would become cold in an instant, as if a switch was flicked. I don't understand it. What did he go through during those few months he'd stayed back at the Capitol? Was he cured? Did he still have flashbacks? It's like he's here, but he's not. It's just not the same and my heart aches for the old Peeta, the one I'd lost in the second arena.
Haymitch once said that I could have done a lot worse, and he wasn't wrong there. Only I didn't realise it until the old Peeta was out of reach, hijacked with the tracker jacker venom to become enslaved by the torturous devices of the Capitol. I feel like I've lost something and will never be able to retrieve it again. We've gone through so much and have been scarred, both physically and mentally, beyond the repair of any fancy Capitol treatment. Maybe I'm simply too afraid to lead him back to me once and for all. And what I'm waiting for, I don't know.
A few moments after he's hung up, Peeta arrives with his hands full of parchment, pens and a large, thick heavy book, which he places on the coffee table in the living room. "I thought you would like this."
He opens the book and preserved between the very last few pages is an evening primrose in the shade of pink, dried flat, its odour faded. I sink into the couch, touched by the gesture. The boy with the bread. Then the pearl, and now the flower. Does he not know what he's doing to me?
He sits himself on the rug and begins to glue the rose on to a piece of parchment. "We can start adding other people to the book. Victims of the war—because really, it was all one big game, wasn't it?" He pushes the parchment with the flower glued on it and an ink pen toward me while he sets to work sketching. "Maybe we can add Prim."
Prim. My little duck. Memories of you... all the good things. I try to think carefully of what I want to say, how I want to word this, but his last sentence echoes in my head. Victims of war. War is just one big game where nobody wins.
I put the pen to parchment and begin to write carefully.
Primrose Everdeen.
You were fourteen years old. You were my little sister. We used to sing the Hanging Tree together. I used to tuck your shirt in for you before school but it never stayed. I always called it your ducktail and you would quack. You were my little duck.
You were always the braver one. Wiser, more rational than any of us. You were going to be a doctor.
I stop writing because what I want to write next has become too much for my addled brain. There is a huge, painful lump in my throat and I can't seem to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. Peeta looks up at me, his hand closing over mine. His touch is comforting.
My pen drops to the table and I realise that my hands are shaking badly. Finally, I seem to find my voice, though the words come out dull and strangled. "I volunteered to protect her, to save her life. But in the end, it wasn't any use, was it? She's gone all the same."
He remains silent, taking a moment to put the finishing touches on his drawing and I look down at his work. His sketch of Prim is beautiful. I'm amazed at how he can draw her in such detail and bring her to life on paper. Next to him, I feel like a talentless blob.
He pauses, the ink pen frozen just above the paper. His long lashes stay down for a while and I begin to wonder what he's thinking, whether he's having another moment. But then they flicker up and his clear blue eyes are piercing mine. I'm struck by the heaviness there, the sadness. There is something else in his eyes that I can't place at all, an urgency of some sort. His brow is furrowed and Peeta places his pen carefully down on the table without a sound.
"Please, don't ever think like that," he says. "You can't dwell on it. That's not what she would have wanted."
He doesn't let go of my hand.
"I'm not condoning what Coin chose to do with those bombs. It was a despicable move. All I'm saying is, Katniss," Peeta strokes the back of my hand gently with his thumb. "She would not have wanted you to go on like this."
No, of course not.
I lean back on the couch, crumpling against it. I am too exhausted, defeated and lost. There is an emptiness inside of me, a dark void I'll never be able to fill. I couldn't even begin to fill. And as the days have gone by, it's grown even larger.
The girl on fire? She's burned out.
Peeta hesitates, watching my reaction, and continues speaking. "When you killed Coin instead of Snow and tried to swallow the nightlock, I thought I'd lost you for good. I never even got to see you after you came out of your trial. And now..."
He trails off.
We've never spoken about that moment before now, when I'd tried to kill myself after killing Coin and he'd ripped the pill from the pocket of my shoulder. I was furious that he had taken away my final moment. I could tell he was angry at me too, but I didn't care. Coin would have killed me anyway. Only one can survive.
He goes silent and looks away. And now...what? What is it? Does he think I'm the crazy one now?
"What happened to you, Katniss?"
He says it so softly that I almost miss it. Did I just hear right? What is happening to me? Is this distance between us, his coldness, imagined? Is it me—am I the one who's changed? Perhaps, on some unconscious level, I'm afraid of what will happen if I let him in. Because everyone I love seems to go away.
Peeta continues to speak to me, but I don't hear. I don't look at him. I'm ashamed, guilty, uncaring and cold. After a while, he puts away the papers and the large book and leaves the room.
.
It's late afternoon when Peeta retires to his home across the green. He leaves me some dinner, a bit of salad leaves with goat's cheese on the kitchen bench and a few more of his cheese rolls. I eat it as quickly as I can, trying not to breathe in the scent of the food, chewing as much as possible before swallowing. Then I wash the plate and put it away, out of sight.
It's then that I notice an envelope hiding underneath the bread bag. I pull it out, but more envelopes spill across the counter. There must be dozens stacked underneath that bag. I push it aside and pick up the first one from the pile, turning it over in my hands. On the back of the envelope, printed in Peeta's careful handwriting, is today's date.
I frown, wondering what it could be as I tear open it open and pull out the parchment. It's the same paper that we use for the Tributes book. As I start to read, I realise that it's a letter from Peeta. These are all letters—there must be dozens of them. My heart begins to race as I read.
Katniss,
Every time I see you, it breaks my heart. Today was the first time we spoke of the rebellion since we've been back. The way you leant back on the couch and shut me off was unbearable. That's why I had to leave.
Dr Aurelius told me to write these letters to you. He said it would help me recover from what Snow did. But it's hard, Katniss, not being able to say these things when you are right here in front of me. I know you can hear me, but you don't listen. It's like there's a wall of silence you create around yourself that I can't penetrate, no matter how hard I try.
I found the pot of stew in the cupboard, hidden away. I wish I could understand you these days. Your skin, your hands have been cleaned raw, like you're trying to rid yourself of something. Of the past, perhaps?
I still remember the good things about you. Your beautiful voice and how the mockingjays would stop to listen. They would burst into song afterwards. The way you picked that dandelion after school. It was the day after I gave you the bread. We've talked often about that moment. Even the time we spent in the arena, the first one. I think the happiest moments of my life were spent in that cave. I can pull those memories back up now and I can tell which ones are real and which aren't. The thing is, the more that I can remember, the more painful it is to see you like this.
I'm trying really hard to do everything I can to bring you back to me. When I was ready to give up, you saved me. You told me that you and I, we protect each other, that's what we do.
At times I feel it's hopeless, but I'll always be here waiting for you.
Peeta
I stare at the letter, at each word so carefully chosen and written on the parchment. There are so many words in this world; some words are tossed about meaninglessly, some words form deliberate sentences that strike at the heart. And his words, be they spoken or written, get me every time.
As I sink to the kitchen floor, the realisation dawns on me. It was me who was pushing him away, creating this distance. The letter affirms that. And it's happened, the thing that I had subconsciously swore never, ever to do. To fall into that depression as my mother had done. It was easier with Prim there to support. Prim needed me. My mother needed me. Now that I'm no longer needed, what am I to do?
Slowly, one after the other, I read through all of them. Some aren't letters at all. In one envelope, I find a picture of a beautiful, green meadow. In another, a watercolour of a deep orange sunset that paints the landscape a soft ochre. A paragraph that could almost be a poem. In one of them, I think there is nothing at all, but when I tip the envelope upside down and shake it, a pressed dried dandelion falls to the floor. It's this that breaks me as I hold it up carefully in my cracked fingertips. The petals are a dusty yellow and the stem as fragile as the thinnest shred of parchment. It was once beautiful and bursting with life. Now it's just a flat shadow of its former self, its colours muted with age.
Hot tears well up in my eyes. When is he going to realise that I'm no good? Deep inside of me lies this black thing that I'll never be rid of, this thing that caused all this death and destruction. And yet I ache for him so much—a touch, a kiss, a gentle whisper.
I feel something furry nudge into my lap. Buttercup mews at me as sobs begin to rack my chest. "It's true... Prim..." Buttercup, stops mewing and looks at me eagerly at the sound of her name. "Prim wouldn't have wanted me to go on like this."
I need to live. I've been waiting for a reason to go on, and I suddenly realise that I shouldn't have to have a reason. To go on living is a gift in itself. Prim's life was cut off much too early. I'll need to live it for the both of us. I need this. I cry it out, right there on the kitchen floor, surrounded by these tokens from Peeta. I'm not sure how long I stay down there, but eventually, the tears stop.
I carefully replace each letter in its envelope, stacking them neatly in chronological order. I take them upstairs and open my wooden box, where I keep my mockingjay pendant, the spile and the parachute. I place those letters in the box and put them away for safe keeping.
It takes everything I have to pull myself together. With renewed purpose, I braid the remainder of my hair and glance at myself in the mirror. My face is all puffy from crying. No longer will I go on like this, pitying this person who looks back at me. A new chapter will start from today, from this very moment.
I take a deep breath, head downstairs and out the door. The sun is almost setting, signalling another end of a hot summer day. I run across the green, sprinting towards Peeta's house. I want to confront him. I want an answer. What are we now, if not lovers, if not friends?
I don't stop to knock. I burst through the front door, breathless. But something stops me as I step into the front hallway and a look around, confused.
Have I gotten the right house? I'm quite sure I have. I've only been here once before, and it's now completely changed. Gone are the bare, white walls. Instead, they're now painted a soft meadow-green with wild flowers dotted along the bottom of the left wall that leads to the door of the living room. To my right, a stream of water has been painted with cool grey rocks and sandy, muddy-brown banks. The detail of the painting and the colours dance before me as I realise what I've stepped into.
It's a mural of the first arena.