Chapter 4: Training and Interviews
The media swarms us when we get off the train.
We are rushed to our stylists. Cinna gives me a smile as he sets to work on Cassiope. Peeta and I, meanwhile, try to meet some of the other Victors while we wait. The mentoring ones, anyway. We meet our immediate predecessor, Wade Rankine. He's a Career from District 2 who was initially Reaped for this, but then replaced by a volunteer. Brutus Gunn.
When the Chariot Parades are about to begin, Cassiope and Haymitch are guided into theirs. Cinna presents them both with what look like crowns. Cassiope's is simple, like the kind the new Victor would wear, but Haymitch's looks more like a headdress, with the words Quarter Quell Victor emblazoned on the front.
"I don't want to wear that!" Haymitch balks. "I'll look silly!"
"They had another one commissioned for Indigo Weaver, even though he's dead," Cinna explains gently. "It hangs in the President's mansion."
"That makes me feel loads better," Haymitch says sarcastically.
"Good," Cinna replies shortly. And he stuffs it on my mentor's head.
Peeta and I have to sit in the stands as the chariots go by. After President Snow makes his speech, we meet up with Cassiope and Haymitch. Many of the Victors, both competing and mentoring, are mingling and talking as if they are old friends. And they are.
An old man suddenly comes up to Cassiope. "Cass!" He actually kisses her on the lips, which she returns gently.
"Hello, Woof," she smiles. Woof Casino of 8 looks to be about the same age as Cassiope, which would make sense, since he won the year after her.
"Hey! What are you doing with my husband?" a woman demands, but it's in jest, as she embraces my mentor. They do air kisses, like girlfriends would do.
"Hi, Savera," Cassiope smiles. "Glad you're not in this."
"Cecelia can handle herself," Savera shrugs. I remember watching her Reaping - one of the few Victors who was married, so she had three little kids she needed to say goodbye to. That's the tragic part of this Quell. With folks like Brutus, Woof, Cassiope and Haymitch as the exceptions, most of the Victors participating either won in the '60s or younger.
Then, suddenly, the man from 11 who lost a hand in the Games he won thirty years ago, Chaff, greets me with a kiss. I pull away, repulsed, as he and Haymitch guffaw.
As we take the elevator to Floor 12, I feel the need to ask Cassiope. "What was going on back there? Between you and Woof?"
She smiles softly. "We were in a brief relationship when I was about your age. We were... young. But it was Savera whom he always truly loved. They married soon after Indigo Weaver won the First Quell. And there was someone who I truly loved back home."
Another story. "Who?" I ask.
She gives me a funny look. "You really wanna know?" I nod, my brow furrowing in confusion. "I had a huge crush on a Lark Everdeen."
I gasp. "My grandfather?" She nods.
"I wanted to marry him."
I find it hard to believe that, in another universe, Cassiope could have been my grandmother. Or the grandmother of a girl similar to me, because if Grandad hadn't married my Grandma, I wouldn't exist. "Why didn't you? What happened?"
"I was a shy girl," Cassiope begins. "I could never pluck up the courage to talk to him. And then... the arena happened. And everything changed. I had to follow the Code. Though in those days, it was never strictly enforced. You remember how Mags Flanagan-Cohen married?" I nod, remembering the 80-year-old woman from 4 who bravely volunteered for a beautiful redhead that is probably not much older than me and Peeta. "She won just five years before I did. And she married because the Code at that time was not something taken seriously. But I was never tempted to break it, the way Haymitch almost did with Rosemary."
"Meanwhile, Woof won, and we became friends when he passed through Twelve on his Victory Tour. The next year, Snow wanted to begin prostituting me out to sponsors. Woof got wind of it, and seduced me. He took my virginity, and I let him. To save me. You should always, if you can, have your first time be with someone you deeply care for. And I did care for Woof. Still do."
I think about how Peeta and I took each other's virginity the night before the Reaping. There's no point in denying it anymore: I do care for him.
"But that wasn't meant to be. Later, the winter after Haymitch won, your grandmother died. Your grandfather came to me in the night, all distraught. He kissed me and groped me and I let him take me to bed. But I woke up the next morning and realized it was a mistake. So I threw him out."
I must look disgusted, for Cassiope pauses in her story. "I shouldn't be telling you this."
"No, go on!" I beg.
"OK, but you have to understand, these were dark and confusing times. I had a new Victor for the very first time who I needed to protect. And Haymitch's win was very controversial. We had just returned from a very stressful Victory Tour, where people would literally Boo his name. Others called him illegitimate. A trickster. In District 1, as you might imagine, there was practically a riot. They felt they'd been robbed. Because District 12 tributes just weren't supposed to win. And a Quell, no less! How much of this was manufactured by the Capitol, we may never know. But, Rosemary Fairchild and the Abernathys had just been killed; the sham investigation into it and monkey trials were just starting up. Haymitch was starting to drink and it was taking its toll. A relationship with your grandfather would never have worked. Besides, I don't believe he truly loved me back; he was just lonely."
I gulp. "Would someone have tried to... assassinate Haymitch?"
"For the first couple of years, it was in my mind," Cassiope answers, most seriously. "For instance, as we were watching the firing squad kill those Peacekeepers for murdering the Abernathys and Rosemary, there was a group of Fairchilds a few people down from where Haymitch was standing in the front row. And they were all glaring at him. Here they were, watching vigilante justice being done to the people who murdered one of their family, and they were glaring at Haymitch. When Rosemary's death was first learned, the whole relationship between her and Haymitch came out. The baby, all of it. Someone from the Fairchild clan could have easily knifed him there, if they'd really wanted to. So when it was over, I lunged for Haymitch and grabbed him and we ran out of there, back to the Village. But everyone eventually left him alone for one reason, and one reason only: we needed him. To mentor the male tribute. I needed him, because until then, I had mentored both tributes on my own."
"Anyway, fast forward three years, and your mother marries your dad. Merchant and Seam weddings had not happened in years. It caused quite a stir. Your mother's family was deeply upset, and so was most of the Merchant class. It is said that your mom was so beautiful, that even some of the Fairchilds were jealous. So, the Merchants come to me and Haymitch."
"Why?" I ask.
"Most Victors are considered to be in a separate economic class from the others in a district, if there are other economic classes, and sometimes there aren't. That being said, the Merchants wanted Haymitch and I to extend our influence and break up your parents' marriage. I refused, because I didn't really know the Everdeen boy, and a part of me still loved Lark too much to go after his son, even though he himself wanted me to. Lark wanted me to, begged me to. That was sort of the last straw for me after that. And Haymitch didn't want to get involved. He was still grieving, and your mother had actually been a classmate of his in school. She was one of the few people, other than Rosemary Fairchild, who was actually nice to him, and he didn't want to betray that by breaking up your mother's marriage."
The elevator dings and we get off in silence. "Thanks, Cassiope, for telling me all that. It was very revealing."
She smiles. "You're welcome. And you need to know who you are."
I go to bed that night in Peeta's arms, the stories I have heard swirling in my head.
Training goes by in a blur. For the next three days, Peeta and I begin learning how to work the phones with Effie's guidance. The sponsors are itching to see Haymitch put up a fight to defend his legendary title, and many are fascinated by Cassiope. Both have been national celebrities for years.
And the buzz goes into the stratosphere when the Scores are broadcast. For both of my mentors make Hunger Games history: perfect scores of 12. I am terrified, because that means Haymitch and Cassiope are now #1 and #2 on the Careers' Most Wanted List. They'll be thirsting for blood, especially District 1 for Haymitch, to settle an old score going back a quarter-century. But I'm not worried about the brother and sister pair from 1. The sister, Cashmere, is a blonde bimbo, and Peeta reports to me that after meeting Gloss, the brother, when picking up after training one day, he can conclude that the man is "as retarded as a rock." Actually, the correct phrase is 'dumb as a rock' but I don't feel the need to redirect my fiancé. And anyway, these two only won consecutively when Peeta and I were small children. It's actually Haymitch's peer from District 2, Brutus, who I'm worried about. I remember his episode, because it was the last one my allies and I watched. He won before Haymitch but after Chaff. Which was it... 47? 48? I don't remember. But I do remember how Brutus savagely beat the girl from 12 to death when there were only three tributes left. Her bronze medal, for placing in those Games, hangs in the Justice Building back home, right alongside the gold ones for Cassiope, Haymitch, Peeta and myself.
At the interviews, everyone falls in love with Cassiope, whom Caesar calls 'The Little Hunter', and the host marvels at how she killed three of the four Careers in her Games. Haymitch follows to huge roars, with a smattering of boos from fans of the Ritchson-Schlund twins, as he is the last Victor of a Quell, one worth two arenas. It's a significant win, probably the most significant District 12 has ever had, even more than Peeta's and my unprecedented co-Victory last year. When Caesar asks him about his chances, Haymitch only says, "I stand by what I said in our last interview: I figure my odds will be roughly the same." Then he smirks arrogantly, to huge applause.
From where I am seated in the front rows, I can look up to see Snow in the President's box. One of his predecessors, back when Panem was the United States of America, was actually murdered in that box, centuries ago now. I think this studio is formerly known as the Ford's Theatre...
I am sure he is mad that he couldn't gerrymander the Reaping for District 12. To ensure Peeta and I went back in. But perhaps the Reaping was rigged not by Snow, but by Effie. Did she make sure to select Peeta's and my names, in the hopes that Cassiope and Haymitch, and only Cassiope and Haymitch, would - could - volunteer for us? I don't know.
The nightmares are merciless that night.