Seasons of Wither, Chapter 9
The next day the morning light pours in through the small window in our bedroom. I realize quite quickly that not only am I alone, but judging by the brightness outside, the sun has been up for awhile. It's Saturday, the day that Gale and I usually wake at the crack of dawn and trek into the woods to start a day of hunting and foraging. I was supposed to be up with the sun this morning, but obviously I had overslept.
Mother and Prim stand in the kitchen doing their usual weekend cleaning. Prim sweeps away a layer of dust that covers the floor as Mother cleans the cobwebs from the corners.
"You're up," my mother says, giving me a quick glance before returning to her housework. "You missed breakfast by the way."
A look at the wall clock alerts me that it is already 9:30. Somehow, I've allowed myself four extra hours of sleep, which means four less hours for hunting.
"Why didn't anyone wake me?" I ask them, a bit angry.
"I tried," says Prim with a shrug. "You told me to leave you alone."
I run my hand across my forehead in anguish, pushing the stray pieces of hair that have fallen from my braid back out of my face.
"Gale came over," Mother says. "He told us not to rouse you, so we decided to let you be."
I sigh.
"He said that he would wait for you. He wanted to see you into the woods himself."
I nod, retreating back to the bedroom and dressing myself in the clothes I had worn the previous day. Gale now insists that I don't exit the fence on my own anymore. Instead, we usually either meet at one of our homes or outside the usual opening in the fence. I don't like being made to feel weak, but he's much too persistent to argue with.
I slip into my hunting boots, opting against the jacket today. It's much too warm for it now, but I always make sure to wear long sleeves to prevent being cut up by stickers or getting poison oak and such out in the woods. After grabbing my game bag and bidding Prim and my mother good-bye, I set off towards the Hawthorne home.
Gale is sitting on the porch when I arrive, sharpening his knife against a stone.
"Why didn't you wake me?" I demand before he has a chance to say anything.
He smiles, shaking his head as he offers me a small laugh. "Figured you needed your rest after last night. Now don't tell me you went straight home and fell asleep after all that puking." No, of course I hadn't. I was too busy warding of an intense headache to lull myself to sleep. Not that it was any excuse to start our day late.
"Doesn't matter," I answer. "We should've gotten a head start! We wasted hours, Gale."
He rolls his eyes a bit at me as he stands.
"Have you even checked the snares yet?" I ask him.
"I was waiting for you. I knew if you came here while I wasn't around, you'd just head out yourself."
"And so what of it?" I demand. "I'm not breakable, you know. I've been going out into the woods by myself since I was 12 years old. You know that-"
My words are cut off as Gale approaches me, placing his hands on my shoulders. "I know it, Catnip. You're downright deadly," he assures me, but he has a playful smile that only succeeds at elevating my bitterness towards him.
"Saved your neck enough times," I remind him, which is true. I've fended off a couple of wild dogs during our years together, not that he has never returned the favor.
"Are you feeling better this morning?" he finally asks me, and I huff at his sudden change in our topic of conversation.
"Yes," I grumble.
"You eat anything yet?"
I don't answer him right away, and he instantly recognizes that I must have skipped breakfast. "Come inside," he tells me. "My mother's still warming grain on the stove."
"We have to get going," I begin.
"We have time," he assures me. "I've seen you eat lately, you can finish off a bowl in less than two minutes."
I scowl, but it quickly fades because his comment is all too true. Gale takes my arm and begins to tug me into his home. "Gale, I-I can't..." I tell him, pulling back as his eyes meet mine. He understands.
"Kids already ate, Catnip. I promise, no one will starve if you eat a bowl."
Hazelle is standing over the stove as we enter the kitchen, and the kids are running throughout the house screaming everywhere. Soon Vick comes skidding through the hallway in his socks and knocks over a table of framed photos, causing them to smash onto the floor. Hazelle finally snaps, urging them all outside in an instant. She sighs as she leans over to pick up the broken pieces of glass, and I quickly retrieve a broom and dustpan to help her.
"Oh, Katniss," she says when she realizes I am at her side, offering me a warm smile. "Feeling better this morning?"
I sweep up the tiny shards of glass as I nod. "Much better, thank you."
"That's the funny thing about it, I suppose. It can come any time of day."
I pause at her words, taking them in slowly. We discard the broken glass into the wastebasket and Hazelle puts her hands on her hips as she studies me. I can't seem to distinguish the strange expression that crosses her face as her eyes meet mine. She begins wringing her hands together peculiarly, and that's when I realize that she's suppressing a ginormous smile. Before I know it, Gale's mother is crushing me into a tight hug. "I think that it's wonderful," she tells me into my ear, not easing her hold on me. "They always said you two would end up together, and now you're starting a family."
Gale enters the room just in time to catch my glower. I open my mouth to say something to him when Hazelle finally pushes me away at arm's length. "I have everything you need," she assures me, pulling me towards the back of the house into the bedroom she shares with Posy and pushing back the old fabric curtain that covers the closet. Crate upon wooden crate of baby things—stained, worn sleepers; fuzzy, pilling blankets; tiny mismatched socks and hats. Some of them looked like things that even Gale had worn as an infant, though I suppose if I had as many children as Hazelle, I'd never throw anything out either. "I knew I was saving these for a reason."
I force a smile as I stare back at her. I turn around to see Gale's expression and he grins nervously as he rubs the back of his neck, offering me an innocent shrug.
…
I shove Gale roughly in the back as we walk through the meadow towards the fence. "I thought we had an agreement!" I demand, but he merely laughs at my outburst. He is definitely not rubbing me the right way today.
"Settle down, Catnip."
"I told you I wanted to wait two more weeks. Instead you waited, what? Two hours!"
He finally turns to meet my angry gaze, still chuckling a bit at my expense. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry for telling my mother that I've got a baby on the way? You ran out the backdoor puking in the middle of dinner last night and she was worried, so I told her the truth."
"She's going to tell my mother, Gale!"
"Your mother already knows," Gale points out. "I honestly don't see what the big deal is. Besides, I agreed to nothing."
"You could have had a little more consideration for what I wanted!" I exclaim. "I'm not ready to deal with it all right now. I just wanted a few more weeks where I can just be me!"
"You are you," Gale replies dryly, and I can tell by his tone that he's feeling a bit angry right now. "Putting it off is just going to make things worse. In two weeks, you'll want another two, and before you know it, you won't be telling them at all! Everyone was suspicious already, Katniss. You won't even acknowledge that your own mother knows that you're pregnant. She's a healer, and the one person who can help you the most through all of this-"
"I don't trust her," I cut him off. "I don't even want her to know. She's obviously waiting for me to say something so she can be a part of this, and I think that it's best that she stays out of it for as long as humanly possible."
He stops dead in his tracks, finally spinning around to face me. "Well then you're going to have to learn to trust her," Gale retorts. "Because I don't know how to deliver babies and my mother almost died having Posy by herself."
I fold my arms over my chest as I narrow my eyes at him.
"She's not a bad woman-"
"How can you even say that, Gale? She left Prim and I to fend for ourselves, to starve to death! We'd all be dead if it weren't for me. She didn't even care. I don't even think she feels any remorse for what she'd put us through. If it weren't for the time my father had spent teaching me to hunt when I was younger, I'd probably be lining up on old Cray's back doorstep every night like all of those other starving girls."
"Well, she's here now, and whether you like it or not, she's going to have a part in this," Gale angrily retorts. "You need her, Katniss. You have to admit that."
I sigh loudly, hating the argument that has taken place between us. "Let's just leave it alone," I finally grumble. "We're almost to the fence, and I don't want to be scaring off any game," I call back as I stomp past him towards the fence with a huff.
…
Somehow, word spreads fast after that week, and before I know it, the entire school is smirking at me and exchanging whispers behind my back. I'm not even quite sure how they know, but they do. I guess it's a good thing for them that I don't care what they think of me, otherwise I'd be pinning them against the hallway walls by their throats.
While most of my classmates secretly tease at the idea of my being pregnant, there are a few from the Seam that only offer me looks of pity. They all know what life will be like for me now; it's happened to others before with dire consequences. No one speaks directly to me about it, though I do overhear a conversation that takes place in the girl's room as I try to heave as quietly as possible. It's at that moment where I am braced over the toilet, choking back bile when I hear a couple of what must be merchant girls come in discussing it loudly.
"He never really has been all that careful," one, who's voice sounds excruciatingly familiar to the alderman's daughter, comments. "My cousin was with him once. He took her behind the sweet shop and that was that."
I frown as I peer through the gap in the stall door.
"I don't know. He really does have his pick. I'm not sure why he'd choose some trollop from the Seam when he could have just about anyone."
"Guess he's stuck with her now."
"I wonder if his mother will make him marry her?"
"I don't know. She's not much better with all of those fatherless children she has around."
They both take their time fixing the ribbons in their hair and applying more rouge in the mirror before leaving. I felt ill earlier, but now I feel downright enfeeble.
At lunchtime I throw my meager meal down on the table across from Madge with a loud thud. She's chewing her food carefully as she looks up at me. I expect her to say something about the piece of gossip being spread around at school, as it is an interesting one. Instead, she says nothing at all, but the look that she gives me tells me that she's heard every word of it. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. Madge has never seemed to care about things that don't concern her.
She's one of the very few.
I find out quickly this week that the girls who used to just put up with me now despise me. I am a threat to them and the relationship they all thought that they would eventually have with Gale. And who knows? Maybe they would have all had their turn with him if it weren't for me. After all, he is so young, so handsome, and for the longest time was considered to be so very eligible. But apparently I have become the ball and chain that has imprisoned him into a life of monogamy, the one thing that stands in the way of him whisking them off their feet and carrying them into the Seam bridle-style.
Maybe in a way I've saved one of those merchant girls from a life of adversity. However, the day they thank me for it is likely to never come.
...
I find that Gale is waiting outside the school to see me home as he typically does. Of course, snickers surround us as I approach him, and I seethe in anger from the day I'd just been through. I pull Gale further along until we are finally out of earshot of the eavesdroppers. "Who else did you tell?" I demand in a loud whisper.
He offers me a fake look of confusion.
"Who did you tell?" I ask him again. "Because it's certainly no coincidence that everybody seems to know now!"
His mouth closes tightly before reopening. "Thom-" he begins, and I throw my hands into the air as I begin to walk away.
"Katniss, wait," Gale shouts, the usual patience in his voice now void.
"You told Thom," I say back. "Because Thom out of all people needs to know that you knocked me up. Well, that's just fine." But part of me doesn't even care that he's told Thom. Part of me is still angry at the conversation I'd overheard earlier.
"Listen," Gale tells me in a serious tone as he grabs my wrist tightly to keep me from walking away. "Thom's father is a foreman in the mines. He's doing me a favor. Doing us a favor. I explained to him our situation," he goes on as and I insistently shake my head at him. "Katniss, he can get me into one of the higher-paying jobs. More money, less worrying. Understand?"
"The higher-paying jobs in the mines are more dangerous!" I exclaim. "You'll bring home a few more coins each week for what? Risking your life every day? Ensuring your early death? It was stupid, Gale."
Gale's brows draw together at my outburst. "Do you really think that with the way things are going right now that we'll get by with just hunting anymore?" he demands. "If I don't work, we starve. You, me, the kids, the baby... We can't rely on hunting anymore, Katniss. You know that, because you've seen what's going on out there."
I don't give him much of a chance to say any more to me before I turn around and briskly walk away. Gale lets me walk myself home for once, and that's just fine with me.
…
The next morning I have little choice but to speak to Gale again. After all, we are relying on our hunting partnership to bring home dinner every night, and I don't want to deepen the rift that has taken place between us over the past week, not with the baby and everything. Because I can't afford to lose him right now—as a hunting partner or as a friend.
It doesn't stop my bitter feelings towards him, however.
I find Gale not too far away, downhill from the fence. He's cupping water from the brook in his hand and drinking it thirstily. I shake my head as I pull out my canteen and climb down the bank to hand it to him. "Don't drink that. It hasn't been treated. You'll get sick from the parasites."
He stands up, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve as he looks at me in surprise. "You're not still mad at me?" he asks.
"Just saving you from the intense cramping and diarrhea you're sure to experience tonight," I assure him. "Not that you don't deserve it." The second part seems to roll off of my tongue before I can hold it in.
"I've drank the water here before. Nothing bad's ever come of it."
I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised to find Rory on our doorstep later that evening, face red and struggling to catch his breath from running all the way from his home to ours to eagerly request my mother's expert advice back at home. What does surprise me, however, is finding Gale slick with sweat as Hazelle tries desperately to calm his convulsions.