Seasons of Wither, Chapter 10
I stand in shock in the doorway of the room that Gale shares with his two younger brothers. I can't seem to move, I can't seem to breathe. All I can do is stand helplessly staring as the father of my child thrashes wildly in his bed, his eyes rolling back into his head as his mother speaks soothing words of comfort to him.
Prim and my mother look to be in shock, too. Because we hadn't expected to find this when Rory led us back towards his home, trying desperately to catch his breath as he urged us to move faster. I didn't doubt that Gale was ill, but I didn't expect him to be suffering through a seizure from drinking a bit of untreated stream water.
Luckily, my mother and sister are professionals, and it only takes them a half-second to snap out of their trance and get to work.
"Get him on his side," my mother instructs Hazelle. "Try to hold him still until the seizure ends so that he doesn't accidentally hurt himself."
I can tell that Hazelle has been crying, not that I blame her. Watching Gale in this state was putting me on the verge of tears, too. But soon his movements begin to die down and he is unconscious, lying limp in his bed. Prim moves quickly to fetch a bowl of cool water and a clean clothe and begins wiping the sweat from his brow.
"Has he had seizures before?" my mother asks Hazelle, who quickly shakes her head. "Let's see if he comes to. It'd help if he could answer some questions."
"Gale?" Hazelle asks her oldest son as she softly nudges his shoulder, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "Gale? Gale, are you awake?"
His eyes open slightly as he grimaces through the pain, and Hazelle leans down to plant a kiss on his cheek. His skin is so pale, he looks exhausted, and I have to wonder how a parasite would do this to anyone.
My mother reaches up and touches his forehead to check for fever and frowns. "Gale, have you eaten anything strange lately? Unknown plants or game? Or hit your head by any chance?"
"No," he manages to answer in a strained voice. I can tell that his eyes are attempting to fix on me, but he looks disoriented.
"He drank water from the stream this morning," I promptly pipe up. "It wasn't treated."
My mother quickly shakes her head. "No, a parasite wouldn't do this to him. It has to be something else." She pauses carefully before asking the next question. "Gale, have you taken any strange medications? Any type of drugs?"
Hazelle scowls at the question, clearly offended. "He'd never."
"We need to know for sure," my mother states, her voice clear of any judgmental tone. As a healer, she's learned to get the basic facts without dwelling on a person's moral values.
Gale shakes his head, and I can tell that he desperately wants to sleep. My mother pulls his pillow back under his head before suggesting that he do just that. "The seizure has taken a lot out of him, and it might happen again. We'll monitor him and figure out what to do from there."
The next hour is excruciating. The two youngest Hawthorne kids have already gone to bed in the other bedroom, and we sit quietly observing Gale as he sleeps. And while Gale is sleeping, he's also whimpering and groaning from the pain even in his slumber. The way that his arms cross over his stomach as his knees draw up towards his chest is a good indication of stomach cramps. But these aren't the stomach cramps of an ingested parasite that would eventually run it's course. This is something else, something much, much worse.
"Arsenic is a common poisoning in water," my mother states as Hazelle offers her a mug of tea. "But you'd find that in well water, not stream water. No one else is sick, so it didn't come from the well. Katniss, are you sure he didn't eat any strange berries or something of the sort while you two were out there this morning?"
"No. He'd know better," I say. "We knows what's safe to eat, and if we don't, we refer to the book. We've been foraging too long for him to do something ignorant like that."
My mom frowns thoughtfully into her mug. "The seizures, his symptoms, they all tell me that he's been poisoned. It doesn't make sense though. Where would the poison come from? Unless it's being dumped into the stream outside the district." The last sentence the exits her mouth is supposed to be sarcasm. Because why would anyone bother with doing that when no one is supposed to be leaving the fence that surrounds the district in the first place?
But then my mind instantly goes back to the animals. The way that they are strangely dying off and how we thought the Capitol might have something to do with it all. Had Darius or Cray or maybe even the Mayor finally spilled the beans? My first instinct tells me no, because they love the game and other delicacies we bring in just as much as the everyone else. The only sort of turkey or rabbit or even strawberries they can get would have to be brought by train from District 11 and wouldn't be remotely fresh by the time it arrives. Nothing compares to what we can provide them with: The freshest game and fruit possible. If they suddenly had a problem with Gale and I, they would be better off doing us in before their only source of these items.
I hadn't told my mother about any of this. She doesn't take bad news well, and if times get tough again, I'm afraid she may detach herself like she did before. But as I watch Gale struggle in his sleep, I know that I don't have a choice. I go into full detail of what we've seen over the past few months—the dead deer, the dying lynx, the shortage of game over all. My mother listens carefully, completely emotionless as I speak. I fear that she may already be with withdrawing herself until she chokes down another sip of tea before finally speaking again.
Her eyes fall back into her mug, and she grimaces. "If it's something from the Capitol, chances are it's nothing that we're familiar with here. At least for arsenic, I know that I can use garlic. This isn't arsenic poisoning though, and I can't make assumptions about how to treat this. With poison, you have to be certain or you can end up making matters much worse."
My stomach sinks at her words. So in other words, all I can do is sit back and hope that Gale doesn't die the same way all of the animals are doing. But I remind myself that he's larger, a good 50 pounds heavier than a lynx or small deer. Maybe his body would metabolize the poison before it did him in. He hadn't drank very much water before I came along after all. But then my thoughts go back to how the lynx lie paralyzed on the ground before I finally put it out of its misery. If the poison doesn't kill Gale, there's a good chance it will cripple him. And in the Seam, if you're incapable of going to work, you might as well be dead. No one takes any sort of pity on you, and you're likely to die a slow, agonizing death from starvation. You and the people who rely on your meager salary.
Mother sends Prim and Rory back to our house to fetch her medical books as I sit at Gale's bedside, wiping his face with a cool clothe as I speak soothingly to him. He's still unconscious, but I begin telling him about things that would make him happy if he weren't asleep. About the baby, how big my stomach is getting, how I managed to keep down my lunch today. I also tell him that I think that we're going to have a boy, and how he'll easily reach six feet tall by his thirteenth birthday.
I look up occasionally to where Hazelle and my mother sit over the kitchen table slowly sipping another cup of tea to help take them through the night. And then I realize that if Gale doesn't pull through this, he'll never be able to meet his son or daughter. It's one thing that continues to bother him about the fact that Posy was born only a couple of weeks after his own father died. Tears begin to form in my eyes when I think about how I may have to do this without him, without the only person I've ever been able to truly call my friend. I hate the fact that I have seen him through five reapings and still might have to watch him die in agony at the Capitol's hand.
The front door of the house slams, and I know that Prim and Rory are back with the books. Prim and my mother start going through them right away as Gale begins to stir in his bed. I reach to smooth his dark messy hair from his eyes as I smile down at him. It seems that he's finally coming to, which is a relief. Maybe the worst is over.
But soon his movements begin to become more jerkier and his entire body begins to shake. I shout for my mother as he begins to flail. Gale's eyes roll back in his head as they did before, and his arm flies out to catch the oil lamp which sits on the nearby table, flinging it to the wooden floor beneath and smashing it to pieces. My mother rushes into the room and turns him onto his side, doing her best to hold his arms down in the process.
"Katniss, grab his legs. If he keeps thrashing, he's going to injure himself." I do as my mother says, wrapping my arms around his long, powerful legs as he thrashes wildly and uncontrollably. I'm strong from all of the years spent hunting in the woods, but Gale is a good 70 pounds heavier than me and much stronger than I am. I hold his legs down to the bed tightly, but somehow he still manages to kick free of my grip on him. His calf meets my gut roughly, hard enough to send me spiraling backwards, knocking the wind out of my lungs in the process. The pain is evident as I quickly sit up, my arms wrapping protectively around my abdomen, though it's too late to do any good now. Hazelle gasps and my mother turns to me in shock.
"Hazelle, grab his legs. Prim, go lie your sister down and make sure she didn't break any ribs," my mother orders in an instant. I'm still gasping for breath when my sister takes me by the elbow, instructs me to calm down, and helps me to catch my breath once again. The pain in my abdomen is intense, but all I can think about the delicate life growing inside of me. Prim lies me down on the other bed in the room that Rory and Vick share, and I find that I'm trembling.
"It's going to be okay, Katniss," she soothes in such a way that I almost forget who the elder sibling is. I'm starting to cry again as Prim grasps at the bottom hem of my shirt. I'm just vaguely registering what she's doing when I move to stop her, but she has already tugged it up to expose my stomach, her eyes falling on the swell of my lower abdomen.
I've been trying to hide this all from her, but Prim is no stranger to the naked form. Never in my life have I had the privilege of over-indulging in anything, giving me a perfectly taught stomach throughout my entire childhood. Prim recognizes this as her eyes widen at the roundness of my hardened belly. She knows.
She doesn't say much as she probes around my rib cage, occasionally asking if I feel any pain in a particular area. After a quick examination, Prim concludes that none of my ribs have been broken. But right now, my ribs are the least of my worries.
Prim tugs my shirt back down before pulling a blanket up over my chest. I'm relieved to see Gale has stopped convulsing in the bed on the other side of the room, and Hazelle is wiping the sweat from his forehead once again as my mother takes his pulse by holding his wrist and staring at the wall clock. I know without being treated that it's likely to happen again, and perhaps repeatedly throughout the night until his heart eventually stops.
"Katniss." Prim is whispering to me in a delicate voice. "Does Mother know?"
"I think everyone knows now," I inform her.
"Gale," she says at her realization, glancing towards the disheveled boy lying lifelessly in the other bed. "It's Gale's?"
"Yes." Who else would it be? But I guess suddenly finding out your sister is pregnant when she didn't appear to even have a boyfriend does come as a bit of a surprise. I suppose that I can't blame her for asking.
"Lie still. I'll have Mother examine you when she can."
The next thing I know, my mother is probing at my abdomen with her fingertips and frowning as I cry out in pain at her actions. Her lips are pursed tightly together, and I can only imagine what she's checking for. The fear that what had just happened might have killed the baby is so overwhelming right now that I choke back a sob. It's like I'm losing everything in a single night.
"Did it hurt the baby?" I finally ask my mother when she has finished examining me. Her eyes glance at me briefly before returning to her work. She seems satisfied that I've finally acknowledged that she knows.
"I don't think so. The amniotic fluid provides a lot of cushioning that probably absorbed most of the impact," she assures me. "Just to be safe, why don't you lie still for awhile. I may even put you on bed rest for a couple of days. But tell me right away if you begin to cramp or bleed."
"What about Gale?"
Mother sighs loudly. "I'm not sure yet. I'd like to treat him, I just don't know how."
"But you have to do something. We can't just sit back and watch him die! What if we make him throw up?" I ask her. "Empty all the poison from his stomach. Maybe it'll work."
"I thought of that," my mother answers me. "But depending on the poison, it could do even more damage traveling back up through the esophagus. We'll just have to monitor his condition for awhile and decide whether anything rash needs to be done."
But his condition doesn't improve over the next couple of hours. Quite the contrary. It's when Gale starts struggling to breathe that we decide that we need to do something—anything—even if it means possibly making things worse in the process. Because neither Hazelle or I can handle the thought of him dying, and judging by my mother's expression, the last thing she wants right now is me losing the father of my child.
Prim is thumbing through book after book trying to find some sort of cure that might work. The first thought is to use garlic, which has properties that can draw out arsenic poisoning. Though we're almost certain that this isn't arsenic poisoning, it's one treatment that couldn't possibly make things any worse. So Prim goes about grinding the garlic into a thick paste with the end of a wooden spoon before my mother spoons it into Gale's mouth. An hour passes with no improvement whatsoever. Gale begins to seize again, and his body is becoming weaker from the fatigue of trying to ride out the electrical storm taking place in his brain. They are getting stronger as time goes on.
Gale's third seizure having finally come to an end, Hazelle is in full panic now and she's beginning to check out. My mother urges her to lie down for awhile, because it's almost dawn now and she's not dealing with Gale's worsening condition well at all. But Hazelle refuses to leave his side. It's sometime in the very early morning when Prim comes up with an idea.
"The leaves," she says, looking up from our homemade book of medicinal herbs. "The ones we use for tracker jacket stings. What if we grind them up and feed them to him? Maybe it would draw out the poison the same way it does from the stings."
"We're not sure if they're even edible," Mother points out. "They're meant to be a topical remedy. Gale's digestive system might not react well."
I'm still lying on my back in bed, trying to limit my movements as my abdomen begins to painfully bruise beneath my baggy shirt. "Do we have a choice?" I ask her. "If Prim thinks that it might work, it's worth a try. Is it even possible to do more damage to him than he's already endured?"
"Katniss, they're meant for tracker jacket stings," my mother informs me. "It's an entirely different type of poison. Who knows if they would even work? We could just make his condition worse-"
"We have to try something!" I demand. "So far all we've done is stuff garlic cloves down his throat and watch him suffer! He doesn't have to die. This is something that can work!" I'm feeling irate now, moving to sit up in bed but the motion sends a shooting pain through my torso. My mother crosses the room in an instant and places her hands on my shoulders to stop my movements, easing me back down against the pillow beneath my head.
"Okay, Katniss," she softly agrees as she tucks me back in. "We'll give it a try."
She retreats back to our home, leaving a hysterical Hazelle and a slightly overwhelmed Prim to tend to both myself and Gale while she's gone.
Prim sits on the edge of my bed, looking down wordlessly as I attempt to hold back the tears that threaten to fall for the third time tonight. The fear of loosing Gale is all too real, I realize as I stare at his pale, trembling body from across the room. Even at 6'3" and nearly 180 pounds, he seems so young and vulnerable right now, his life being in the hands of a group of people who have no clue what is wrong or what to do with him. I know that I won't be able to go on if something happens to him. If he dies, I will never recover from the loss. He's meant too much to me for too long. He's helped to save my family from starvation, was the shoulder I learned to lean on when I was certain I'd never trust again, and one of the very few people I can honestly say that I truly care for. It's at the moment that I begin to understand what my mother must have gone through after my father's death. Being so alone in the world with two children to care for and no one left to care for her.
My mother returns with the leaves, a mortar and pestle, and a small jar of Lady's milk. She wastes no time in grinding the leaves and diluting it with a bit of goat milk. "Let's start out slow," she tells us, spooning small amounts of the mixture into Gale's mouth once Hazelle has managed to wake him again. He seems confused and exhausted, but Mother finally manages to get him to take the medicine. He falls back into a deep slumber as Hazelle softly runs her fingertips through his hair, and I begin to wish that I was the one soothing him back to sleep. But my body hurts too much to move right now and Prim forbids it.
Now the morning sun is shining brightly, and finally our mother urges Prim to get some rest. She climbs into bed next to me, and I drape my arm over her small frame as I usually do when she's scared. Though I am the one frightened right now, and the action is more for my own benefit. Only time will tell if the medicine has worked or not, but I can't seem to keep my eyes open any longer, and it's not long before both Prim and I are drifting off to sleep.