Should anyone remember this story, welcome back. I apologize for the year between chapters, and will do what I can to prevent a recurrence.
Fore-arming aside the briar, boots thudding densely against the dirt, Katniss tromped out of the thickest corner of the forest. Her eyes strained to seek out who she knew was across the lane, hopelessly curious as they were, but Katniss kept them steadfast on the bridge further down, keeping what they truly wanted to see just out of focus.
PLOSHHHH!
In their surprise, completely unbidden, Katniss' eyes snapped around and broke her determination. There, a road away, Johanna stood watching the water settle around whatever just took a swim. It wasn't the creek she was watching; it was the pond at its side that the creek whorled in and out of like the loop in a fingerprint.
Katniss was almost amazed to find Johanna in the same area. Earlier, when Katniss had trekked into the woods, Johanna was there, trying, and failing, to skip rocks over the water. She had watched the other girl pile stones onto her cape-coat-her makeshift basket-and heard more than saw little rock after little rock plunk into the murk, get swallowed up in the algae and umbra, until she couldn't be bothered to see if Johanna would ever succeed, and left.
Now Johanna squatted down, her cape-coat brushing the mud, and toiled to get her arms around an undersized boulder. Katniss' brows shot up as she watched the other girl stand with the rock. Johanna plodded forward half a step, and hurled.
PLOSHHHH!
Frankly, Katniss didn't know what to think.
"Hey, Catnip." Katniss flinched away from the voice at her ear.
"Gale," she laughed, turning to him. "You scared me."
Her oldest friend, Gale Hawthorne stood tall enough to see over the tailgate of his mom's pickup truck. He was made up primarily of orange juice, his big, flimsy ego, and the tears of jealous high school athletes. Rumored to be glued to his head was a smudgy white baseball cap that used to belong to his mama before he decided it was his single favorite thing they owned. He was also the reason Katniss both loved and hated PE class. (And here's how she figured: Pros, they shared a class. Cons, they were each too stubborn and competitive with each other.)
He smirked and started past Katniss, asking, "You picking up Prim?"
"Yeah. You?" she asked as she strode to keep pace.
"Rory."
Katniss said, "It's been a while since you picked him up from the bus stop."
He nodded, looking off down the road as they walked. "I didn't want to, but he's got a field trip coming up and mom wants me to get the permission slip before he eats the parent volunteer section at the bottom or something. He doesn't want her going with him."
Katniss hummed in response as her eyes trailed over to Johanna who had ambled into the trees and come back out dragging a long, straight, and sturdy branch behind her. She slipped a pocket knife out from under her coat and began to hack away at the few stray twigs and wooden thumbs until the branch was fit to be a short flag pole. Johanna stepped back a few feet and practiced running forward, wielding the branch like a lance, but it was angled just slightly down.
Katniss walked backward as she watched this all play out. She hoped Johanna wasn't planning to do what it looked like, because Katniss wasn't sure how to save someone who impaled themselves trying to pole-vault across a pond.
And she wouldn't put it past the other girl to try it. In the few months they'd been neighbors, Katniss had seen Johanna around enough to recognize the absolute boredom the girl was mired in. She's been seen wandering the properties at all hours, or at the pond, or in the woods, but Katniss had long-since deemed Johanna benevolent, at least where the land was concerned. She still wasn't convinced that Johanna didn't lose her arrows on purpose.
Just then, raking in all attention, sharp laughter and delighted squeals pealed around the bend beyond the bridge as Rory and Prim raced down the lane. They crowed insults that were left to eddy behind in the dust they kicked up.
"Whoo! Run, Rory!" Gale shouted.
Unwilling to let Prim feel unsupported, Katniss fought to cheer above Gale, who met her calls with a raised voice.
"C'mon, Prim! Go!"
"Ror, speed it up!"
"Shut up, Gale! Leave him in the dust!"
"You can do it, Ror!"
"PRIM!"
Katniss' scream mingled with her sister's as Prim's toe caught between bridge beams. She tumbled over the bridge side before their echoes could die away. There came a loud splash.
Katniss' breath came short and quick, but not as quick as her feet. She scrambled down the slope beside the bridge, only kept upright by her death grip on the tree roots that wove in and out of the dirt. She reached the muddy shore in time for Prim to stumble, drenched, into her arms. Katniss stroked her hair, squeaking out her sister's name like a mantra.
When Katniss could see beyond her sister, when the sharp rush of adrenalin began to ebb, she met a pair of stone grey eyes. She hadn't noticed Johanna before then, but now she saw everything—Johanna's dripping clothes and hair, her clumped together eyelashes and bangs. Her clenched fists.
Katniss swallowed her instinctive defensiveness and held the other girl's eyes. She nodded to Johanna—the closest to a 'thank you' she could muster.
Johanna nodded back, and held out a soaked mass for Katniss. It took a long look for her to absorb what she was looking at, but once it clicked, a faint pang of dread struck her. It was her sister's backpack, and she hoped there wasn't anything too important or expensive in there. Hopefully no library books.
Katniss nudged her sister toward the slope and shouldered the backpack, heedless of her own clothes. She'd already gotten wet from holding Prim, so it didn't bother her much.
Gale had Prim under his arm, and Rory hovered anxiously nearby, when Katniss reached the road again.
As they headed back toward their homes, Gale asked, "Do you need anything?"
"No, we'll be fine."
"If you change your mind, you know where to find me," he offered.
"Thanks."
Then they went their separate ways.
Prim's shoes squawked with each step, until they reached the grass of their front lawn, whereupon she stepped out of her flats and peeled off her socks—her favorites; the ones with the lace ruffle. Prim stared at them for a long minute, debating, Katniss assumed, whether or not to just abandon them in the grass. Her shoulders slumped after a minute, and she balled up her socks to bring indoors.
"Careful you don't step on prickle plants," Katniss warned, as Prim tiptoed across the lawn. She just nodded, her sodden pigtail braids flopping against her chest.
Inside, they found their mother asleep on the sofa, and even with the creak of the door, and Katniss' intentional, bitter slam, she never woke.
Katniss sighed, then turned to her sister. "I'll get you a towel." Prim mumbled her thanks, and stayed put to drip on the mat.
Down the hall for the towel and back, Katniss couldn't quell the writhing in her gut. It began when her mom wouldn't wake, and the silence of the house compounded it. She wanted to rip down the curtains and let the sun pour in; to slam another door or two for good measure; anything to make her mom rise and do her job.
When Prim was reasonably dry, she trailed after Katniss, who went about preparing a bath. Katniss put a second towel aside on the toilet lid, then from under the sink she pulled a fresh bar of goat milk soap—a gift from Gale's mom, made of Lady's own milk.
"Go get out of those clothes," she said to Prim, as she swept the shower curtain aside. She sat on the rim of the tub and filled it a third of the way with water, just as she and her sister liked it.
Minutes passed, and Prim had yet to return. Heedless of their mother hearing, she called out to her sister. However, no response came back.
"Prim?" She tried again, this time as she headed for their bedroom. She found it void of life, though Prim's clothes were a soak-darkened heap in the middle of the floor.
From there, she scoured the back of the house, methodically checking each room. It was as she made her way to the front, that she heard the hushed voices. She sped up.
Prim kept talking when Katniss stepped up to the coffee table, and their mom listened with more presence than they had seen in a long, long while, but that was fine, thought Katniss; let Prim talk all day if it brings mom out, or if it makes her feel better.
Mrs. Everdeen had an arm around her youngest daughter, while the other hand rubbed comfortingly up and down the towel over Prim. They spoke quietly; not as though telling a secret, but as though something had happened that was too serious to be declared any louder. Which, Katniss supposed, felt true enough. Sure, in retrospect, it was just a surprise dip in a shallow creek they had known all their lives, but if even the thought of something happening to Prim sent Katniss into anxiety, it was fair to expect that a dangerous occurrence such as this would trigger panic. She realized she needed to stop thinking so hard about such things, at least for the time being, and then suddenly wondered if she should have said thank you out loud to Johanna.
After Prim's recount came to a close, Katniss said, "The bath's ready for you."
Prim slipped slowly from her mom's grasp. Mrs. Everdeen stood with her, casting her gaze over her daughters. He seemed hesitant to speak, but when she noticed Katniss' eyes on her, she began. "I'll make you girls something warm to drink, and start the woodstove." She pulled Prim closer, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "Go wash up, baby."
The three went their separate ways, with Katniss busying herself with the salvaging of Prim's soaked belongings.
Prim was in the tub with the curtain shut when Katniss joined her in the bathroom. Katniss pulled over a stray laundry basket, upended it, and sat. She nudged the shower curtain aside enough to see her sister's face.
"You don't have to stay with me," Prim said over the hiss of the shower spray pelting the bathwater. It was how they always liked to relax in the tub, something they "invented" when they were younger; it was like having their own secret pond and waterfall. "I'm fine. I can be alone."
Katniss chose not to point out the tremor in Prim's voice, instead admitting, "I'd really just like to be with you for a while."
Prim looked over at her. "Are you scared, Katniss?"
"I'm just kinda shaken up."
Prim nodded, eyes staring off into the water. After a few minutes of thought, the side of her mouth ticked up.
"What?" Katniss asked.
Prim's smile widened. "I just think it's funny; Johanna made you drop your arrows in the creek, but she saved me from it."
Shifting to sit back on her hands, Katniss pondered that. "I suppose you're more important that my arrows, huh?"
Prim giggled, flicking water at her sister. "Of course I am!"
"Of course you are," she agreed, the note of sarcasm gone.
While Prim set about washing her hair, Katniss' thoughts latched on to Johanna. She had saved Katniss' most important person—possibly to make up for the arrows, or even just because she was there at the right time—but either way, she saved Katniss' most important person.
And it was that which changed Katniss' mind. Whether or not losing her arrows was intentional, Johanna Mason, maybe, wasn't that bad.