Author's Note:
Thanks again for reading and reviewing – your kind support is what keeps me writing! More apologies for more delays… but this time it wasn't all my fault! Nasty weather knocked out the internet for four or five days. We had electricity, miraculously enough (because nobody else did), but nothing else. I tried to remind myself that I survived just fine for a very long time without the internet…. BUT OMG NEVER AGAIN PLEASE!
Sunday morning I find Katniss waiting for me in the woods again. This time, it's easier. Not easy. But easier. Closer to what it used to be. For starters, she doesn't burst into tears when I arrive. So I go about my business like last Sunday didn't happen. She seems to be comfortable with this arrangement also, so I decide to be grateful that we have some common ground between us again. I don't want to dwell on the past anymore. I let all of that go last time.
Well, except for holding a grudge. I decide that holding a grudge doesn't specifically count as dwelling on the past, which is a stretch I admit, but it's not going away anytime soon and that's the best rationalization I can come up with. She abandoned her family, which is something that I can't forgive. But, because she is like family to me, I'll work around it during the time we spend hunting.
Rory seems to have forgotten that he failed miserably with his snares, and is ready to continue practicing. I suppose I ought to be pleased by his stick-with-it attitude. It could be worse, I guess. So I keep helping him, which he appreciates, and remind him that I'm still not taking him to the woods anytime soon, which he does not. While we butt heads, I wonder if I annoyed my father this much when I was his age. In truth, the answer doesn't take much thought: probably more.
During the week, I work at learning how to function in the dark, cramped mine tunnels without relying on the mental distractions that have become such a habit. It's hard at first, because I don't like paying such close attention – or any attention, for that matter – to the foul maze that has me trapped so far beneath the earth. The steady mantra of Rory, Vick, Posy never completely stops, but it fades into the background; thoughts of Madge shift from keeping the darkness at bay to inspiring me to focus on it. I can't be distracted if I'm going to listen for whispers of revolt.
She'd probably be irate if she knew that, after she had made such a point to tell me that she worries about me. But it makes me smile because I know she'd be pleased, too. She admires the fight in me. She'd tell me to be careful, and to keep going in the same breath. I'm not quite ready to tell her about it yet; no sense in making her fret more until it's really worth it.
In the evenings, my family takes note of the fact that my mood has improved significantly (maybe not from bad to good, but at least from bad to neutral). All except for Posy, that is, who has finally started school and now has too many new, exciting things to tell me to notice that anything else is different. Vick takes it in stride and seems to view it as an opportunity to get away with more than he usually does. Rory is suspiciously puzzled, probably because I'm still pretty consistently crabby with him on Sundays. I'm fairly certain that my mother figures that it has something to do with how I spend my Saturdays, but she still doesn't ask. I suspect that she thinks I spend the time with Katniss now that she is home. As long as she doesn't ask, I'm not going to correct her. I know Mom wouldn't explicitly disapprove of Madge, but I'd likely get a lecture about wasting my time or getting myself into trouble or both. I already know that I'm flirting with trouble, but let's be honest – I have a pretty comfortable relationship with trouble, and I'm pretty good at not actually getting into it. And when I am with Madge, when I see the way she looks at me, I know I'm not wasting my time.
Saturday, I fall apart when Madge answers the back door, just as I have – little by little, more and more - for weeks now. It's not a bad kind of falling apart. It's more like walls coming down. Like rain. I have found an ease with her that I had never thought possible, and it is unexpectedly liberating. She listens carefully, knows when to speak and when to stay silent, pushes back when I push her, gives as good as she gets; I have found that it is more than just the curves of her figure that fit me. It's one thing to be so captivated by the fire in her, and another thing entirely to discover that it works.
….
With every week that passes, the waiting gets harder. I still read every newspaper, every magazine, every scrap of printed paper that find its way to my house. I take to watching the news on television despite the fact that I cannot stand the sight of the Capitol reporters showcased there. Nothing. I catch the occasional update on the Star-Crossed lovers from Twelve, Katniss' progress as a fashion designer (her piano skills proved hopeless so Cinna bailed her out, she told me) and Peeta as a gifted painter – but information of any real substance related to the Hunger Games is simply nonexistent. I wonder if perhaps they have decided not to discipline Seneca Crane after all. Where would that leave us? Any plans we had hinged on his ouster at the least – and ideally, his execution. Dismantling the Hunger Games, the one thing that the Capitol uses to keep its districts cowering in fear, is the key to a rebellion, and we need an insider at the helm of next year's Quarter Quell for it to be possible.
The only thing that reassures me is the knowledge of the events in District Eight. There is no way that Snow would let him go unpunished after something like that had happened, I am certain.
Though reassuring, that knowledge is a source of worry as well. News of that kind would never be publicized, so I ask my father continuously if he has received word that similar occurrences are being reported elsewhere. He tells me that there have been rumors of dissent in a few other districts but nothing that could be documented, and definitely nothing that had actually happened. I tell myself that the less likely it is that it has happened somewhere else, the less likely that it's happening here. The fact that it is much too soon to take action against the Capitol is not my only concern, but it is the one that I present to my father as an excuse to keep bothering him about it.
The afternoons that Katniss spends with me are a welcome diversion. I enjoy the company because it is something that I don't get very often, and it gives me something to do besides worry about the rebellion and Gale. Thoughts of her father's death still gnaw at the back of my mind, but with time I learn not to let them interrupt our friendship quite as much. I have yet to find the courage to ask for answers on the matter.
Sometimes I wonder if she realizes the impact she has had on the world around her. She doesn't know about the happenings in districts outside of Twelve, of course, or the hushed turmoil surrounding the Head Gamemaker. But does she know that her actions have given so many people hope? She is always careful to no talk about the Hunger Games directly, but sometimes she lets a hateful remark about the Capitol slip and I think that she might perhaps have inkling. In the end, I suppose that she doesn't; Katniss is still too consumed with working at a normal life (or something like it) to be able to see such far reaching effects. She holds herself together pretty well, but there is something about her that says a lot of her energy is still devoted to coping with past horrors.
I all but count the minutes until every Saturday, and true to his word Gale keeps coming back. It has become more than just missing him; it's hoping to see him alive and unharmed again. I still struggle with whether I should tell him at least some of what I know, and I still always decide that silence is the thing least likely to put him even more in harm's way. Sometimes it's like beating my head against the wall, and sometimes it's like picking a lock, but slowly he becomes more open to me and it is something that I don't want to lose. The ties that bind us go beyond breathless, stolen kisses – the intangibles between us are the things that make me mean something to him, and him to me. I am learning that the most terrifying thing about falling is love is not the fall. It's beginning to believe that he is falling, too. Because it is all about who you love, and how they are taken from you.
…..
As the weeks go by, hunting with Katniss remains just this side of awkward. I find myself sitting the woods on a work night once or twice just so I can do it alone, because I so badly miss being able to enjoy it. I even debate asking Madge to come with me sometime. She would like it, I'm sure; more than once she had indicated that she was curious. I would like having her here, and the surprising thing about that is that it doesn't come as much of a shock as I thought it would. I could still enjoy the forest without being alone. I'm still not willing to risk getting her into trouble, but I find myself wondering if there's a way around it - being outside the fence is a crime, true, but it's not a death sentence like hunting technically is. I wouldn't hunt while Madge was with me, wouldn't but a bow in her hands. Most of the things that worry me so much about bringing my brother along wouldn't necessarily apply to her.
Rory continues to pester me about learning to shoot, and gets worse once he actually catches a rabbit in the meadow. To shut him up, I offer yet another compromise: I won't take him now in the fall because rutting season is too dangerous, and not during the winter because the cold can be a threat as well, but come springtime maybe we'll see. In the meantime, I hope the snare-setting exercises will work to my advantage. The rabbit he caught was already dead when he found it; with any luck, when the day comes that he finds one still alive and he has to dispatch it himself, he won't have the stomach for it.
The mines are quiet for a while, but slowly, quietly, others begin wondering how possible it might be to start working for changes. If two Tributes forced the Capitol's hand into altering the rules for the Hunger Games, what could a whole mine full of workers accomplish? Little is said at first, the whispers come few and far between, no plans are suggested. Thrilled as I am to hear even idle talk, I choose to remain silent and just listen. Taking action too soon would be counterproductive. With time, more people join in, and the hushed words come more frequently. No one seems ready to organize anything yet, but ideas begin to float around here and there – a strike, a protest…. Nothing concrete, just rumors and hearsay, but enough that I know that the spark is beginning to catch. I know it will be a while (probably a long while) before anything actually happens, but I make sure that when others around me speak of it I let them know that I agree.
I still spend all my Saturdays with Madge, and even a Sunday evening from time to time when I can. The cooling weather gives me a convenient reason to keep her close to me, but the times it gets cold enough that we go indoors she makes it clear that excuses are unnecessary. I'm still not quite comfortable in her home but it does get a little easier; Madge seems completely oblivious to the fact that I'm completely out of place, and it helps to see that she truly does not look at me that way. When I kiss her, it stops mattering, because I forget where I am altogether. Each time I do it she becomes a little more sure of herself, willing to take a turn at taking the lead. Sometimes I challenge her for it and sometimes I give in; always none of it is ever quite enough. I never tire of the feel of her pressed close against me, or the sound she makes as I tighten my arms around her, or the way her eyes smolder when she dares me wordlessly to kiss her again. Every night I see her it gets harder to leave.
Finally I decide that as accepting as Madge has been of me, it isn't entirely fair to keep her at arm's length. If she has become so tangled up in the things that are my music, I ought to let her see them. I walk a fine line very well, and I could get away with it with her. At the end of the day, if I'm honest (and I might as well be, since it seems to have become such a habit when Madge is involved) it's less about being fair, and more about finding one more way to stay close to her.
….
One day after school, when Katniss tells me a story about her time in the woods, I say that I wish I could see it firsthand. I've long been curious about what the world is like beyond the fence, and even more so after hearing Gale speak of it so often. I had hinted about my interest but he never acknowledged it, much less invited me, and then after hearing about his concerns about his brother I sensed that he would refuse if I asked directly. But when Katniss realizes that I am genuinely interested she lights up at the idea.
I follow her to the place where she slips under the fence, and hope that she doesn't notice the blush that warms my face when I see that it is not far from where Gale had taken me to watch the stars. I don't have long to dwell on that, because a new source of embarrassment becomes immediately apparent; Katniss slithers through the low spot in the ground and under the chain-link with lithe ease, but I am neither as slight nor as practiced as she. At some point I am bound to get stuck, and though it would be a little humiliating I could live with that – it's the thought that feeling trapped would make me panic that bothers me.
"You have plenty of room," Katniss says reassuringly, but when she sees me eye the shallow hole with doubt, she loops her fingers through the fence to pull the space a little wider. I scrabble under without too much trouble but there's no question that I make it look a lot harder than she did.
Once I'm back on my feet I can appreciate the sudden sense of freedom that comes with standing a few feet away from where I was before. From knowing that there are no cameras here like there are in the square, or microphones like the ones hidden in the walls of my father's office. No Peacekeepers. No television screens. No Reaping.
"Come on," she says, waving me on to follow her to a narrow path in the treeline. She leads me along the little trail, and of all the things here that could amaze me it is the trees that surprise me the most. I feel a little silly because it's not like I've never seen a tree before – but I've never found myself in the middle of so many of them. It's almost like being inside a cage, but without the sense of imprisonment, and suddenly I feel very, very small. The leaves have turned vibrant shades of yellow and orange and red, layered over and over against each other, deeper and denser than anyplace inside the district. A light breeze sighs through the canopy as birds whistle overhead. Fallen debris crackles as a squirrel bounds through the undergrowth. The air smells clear and clean, like cut grass and fresh water. Everything is full of color and sound and life.
Katniss stops to give me a moment to look, smiles at the way my jaw falls slack. "A little different from what fall looks like inside the fence, huh? This is probably the best time of year to see it for the first time." There is a note of pride in her voice, as if she is pleased that I am so impressed.
I can see why she – and Gale – likes this place so much. I tell her so.
Her smile broadens at this and she nods, starting down the path again. "This way," she says. "I'll show you where we go for the trap lines. There's all kinds of stuff to see."
The trail widens a bit as it winds through the trees, though I still have to pay close attention to where I put my feet because it remains uneven. For Katniss it's second nature, though; her practiced steps never stumble, and only slow down when she notices that I start to lag behind. This is her second home, it is clear, familiar enough that she could navigate with her eyes closed. We pause again at a broad, flat rock overlooking a shallow vale and to my virgin eyes the view is no less than breathtaking.
Katniss starts pointing in various directions. "This way goes along the snare run, down the hill. There's a creek down there, at the bottom. Once you get down there, if you head back up a little ways on the other side there's a small pond where you can fish. If you go far enough that direction, there's a lake, but it's a hike to get there. And over here," she says as she heads toward a fallen tree to our right, "this is where I keep my bow."
As I move closer I see that the tree is hollow. She squats down and peers inside, and then (to my horror) reaches one arm in up to her shoulder. I'm not certain that there is anything that could inspire me to shove my arm into a dark, rotting log. Bare-handed, no less. Katniss withdraws her limb unharmed, however, pulling free a narrow leather quiver of arrows and a long, curved bow. They are starkly plain compared to the the silver weapons that she had in the Arena, but somehow their handmade quality and well-loved sheen only makes them seem more elegant and precious. She takes a moment to examine it closely, one hand gliding along its familiar arc, before she looks up at me and smiles. "Wanna try?"
Footnote:
Rutting season can indeed be quite dangerous. In addition to the spike in deer-related traffic accidents during the fall (mating season), injuries directly to humans caused by deer are not terribly uncommon. One common explanation for this is that the posture of a bipedal animal such as a human can be perceived as aggressive or challenging to a hormone-addled buck.