Seasons of Wither, Chapter 16
I am standing in the square, looking across the mass of emaciated children who wait impatiently with weary faces and fear in their eyes, each one hoping desperately for their name not to be the one drawn. Gale is behind me, his hands gripping my shoulders strongly for support. I don't quite catch the first name of the child which Effie Trinket draws as the male tribute, but the last name Hawthorne is clearly amplified over the speakers that surround the square. He walks slowly to the stage, a faceless 12-year-old boy with dark skin and black hair who seems much to small for his age. His thin legs begin to scale the steps shakily as I call out to him in distress, but there's nothing I can do. That either of us can do. We are completely at their mercy.
Despite the hopelessness of the situation, Gale pushes through the crowd, enraged. Confusion takes over the onlookers, because nothing like this has ever happened at a reaping before. All I can do is watch helplessly as the group of spectating parents around us begin to grow unnerved. Soon, the father of the female tribute is pushing his way through the Peacekeepers as well, and a riot ensues. People begin yelling and shoving one-another violently. Gale just manages to make it to the stage, reaching out for our child and pulling him into his arms as a Peacekeeper draws his weapon, not hesitating to pull the trigger of the gun that kills them both.
My body hits the floor with a loud thud, sending shock waves through my spine. Falling out of bed in the middle of the night is one thing, falling out of bed in the middle of the night while six and a half months pregnant is quite another.
I'm still half-asleep and screaming when Prim rushes to my side to soothe me.
"It was just a dream, Katniss," she tells me as she grips my arms to keep me from flailing. "It was another nightmare. That's all."
Mother lights the oil lamp on the nearby nightstand before helping me back up into my bed. Her expression is worried, but she says nothing as she goes to get a cool cloth and a glass of water for me. I drink thirstily from the glass as she blots the beads of sweat from my forehead.
"What was it about this time?" Prim asks me uncertainly. I can tell that she's been debating whether talking about it would upset me more than choosing not to recollect on my very vivid nightmare. Right now, I'm thinking the latter would be best, but I oblige her anyway.
"It will be okay, Katniss," she assures me when I'm done with my tearful recap. "It was just a dream. Gale knows better than to mess with a Peacekeeper anyways. And, well, you won't even have to deal with that for another 12 years. Besides, there's so many names in the reaping bowl every year that it makes the chances of your baby being chosen pretty slim."
I realize that my little sister is trying desperately to make me feel better, but I still know that this nightmare isn't just my worst fear, it's a very real possibility. It's something that I eventually will have to deal with.
"Prim, go back to sleep," our mother finally tells her. "I'm going to give Katniss a once-over to make sure she's okay."
Prim nods drowsily as she climbs back into my mother's bed, where she had taken to sleeping as of late. With my growing waistline and my frequent nightmares, it's impossible for anyone sharing a bed with me to get any rest during the night.
"I'm fine," I assure her as she lies me back on the mattress. "It was just a short fall."
She nods, prodding at my belly anyhow. Something tells me that this isn't so much a checkup as it is a opportunity for us to talk. Honestly, I've been a wreck as of late. My back is always sore, my shoes pinch my feet, I wake at least five times a night to urinate, and I'm just not as sharp or as graceful as I used to be. Hazelle keeps assuring me that it's all normal for a pregnant woman to experience, and I guess a mother of four would know. But I don't even feel like I'm the same person anymore, and I hate it.
"Baby's head down now," my mother says with a smile.
"What does that mean?" I ask her, a bit wary.
She shrugs. "Just that we don't have to worry about him or her being born breech. Not that I haven't delivered one feet first before, but it does tend to pose a challenge."
"Can you really feel all of the different parts in there?" I ask her skeptically. "I can't decipher the kicks from the punches."
She takes my hand into hers, pushing down on a large floating lump at the side of my abdomen. "Feel that?" she asks me, and I nod. "That's its bottom. When you feel movement up in your ribs, that's the baby kicking his feet."
"So, that must be the head that's always pushing down on my bladder?" I ask, humorously.
"You did that to me, too," my mother says with a grin. "Darn near made me pee my pants most of the time."
I smile back at my mother, still trying to come to terms with the fact that I'll be making her a grandmother in a few short months. While she's aged a lot over the past five years, she still seems too young. I know that she doesn't handle anxiety well, and I have to wonder how much more pressure I've put on her by getting pregnant at the tender age of 16.
"Used to have the craziest dreams, too," she goes on, folding the washcloth and giving my a sideways glance.
"About what?" I ask her.
"Problems during childbirth, my family going hungry, reapings," she answers. "I know they seem very real right now, Katniss, but they're caused by pregnancy hormones. Your mind seems to hone in on your biggest fears and replay them in your head."
"How do you get rid of them?"
"Have your baby," she says with a small laugh. "It'll take awhile for your body to get back to normal, but they'll go away eventually."
I nod as my mother pulls the covers back over me and tucks me in like she used to do when I was a child. I haven't felt like a kid in forever, and I guess in a way I'll never experience that feeling again. I'll be the parent, and I can't help but to hope that the relationship I have with my child won't be as strained as the one I have with my mother right now. It's gotten better over time, but there's still a lot of unresolved resentment that I think I'll always have for her. I'm trying to get over it, both for the sake of my child and myself, but it isn't easy when the reminders of starvation and death are always present, especially every night in my dreams.
But maybe my mother knows what she's talking about with these nightmares being caused by pregnancy. My stupid hormones seem to be the cause of everything right now.
I try to clear my head and fall back asleep, but my mind is racing tonight. Time may get rid of the pregnancy hormones, but it will do nothing to stop my child from reaped into the Hunger Games.
…
With Gale being in the mines on Saturdays, I find myself helping my mother and Prim doing mundane things like cleaning the house and restocking the medical supplies. Before, they would send me into town once a week to purchase new supplies, but after Gale and my little spat with the baker's wife a couple of weeks ago, I try to avoid the merchant class as much as possible. I still go to school five days a week, and I don't think I can take any more torture than that.
So today I help my mother remove all the bandages, medical books, and herbal concoctions from the hutch in our kitchen before giving it a good dusting while Prim walks to town to get the supplies that we're running low on. This is why the money from the game we've sold to Sae and Cray and other residents is so important. While we can trade squirrels for bread and fish for salt, it's hard to find someone who will want to trade for bandages and gauze. And though my mother has a steady stream of patients from the Seam, not all of them can pay with actual money. Most of the time they give us what they can, weather it be a sack of potatoes or a beans or whatever they've managed to grow in their garden or make themselves. And my mother never has the heart to turn away anyone who needs medical attention, even if the only thing that they have to offer is the last thing we need.
It's some time around noon when there's a desperate knock at the door. Nella, a pregnant young lady who only lives a few houses down, is on the other side, her hand braced her back as she pants out in pain. It doesn't take a healer to figure out that she's in the late stages of labor. Mother ushers her in and tells me to spread one of the clean white linen cloths over the table.
I'd seen Nella around a lot lately. I probably wouldn't have noticed her so much before, but being pregnant, those who are in the same condition as myself manage to catch my attention more easily now. If I remember correctly, she's only a year ahead of Gale and just married early last year. Her father had died down in the mines when she was still in school and her mother fell ill a couple of years ago. She and her younger brother were in danger of starving, so she married right away. It's not an unusual arrangement here in the district, especially when marrying means securing yourself a home.
"How close together are the contractions?" my mother asks her as she eases her back onto our kitchen table, a place where more than a few babies have been born now that I think of it.
"I-I don't know," she admits. "Close together. I couldn't stand the pain anymore."
"Your husband...?"
"In the mines," she says breathlessly. "I was hoping he'd make it back in time. If he takes off now, he'll only get a half-day's wage."
Mother drapes another sheet over Nella's legs as she lies back on a stack of pillows. My mother works between her thighs for a second before pulling the sheet back down over her knees.
"You're close," she says. "Probably won't be long before you can start pushing."
Nella nods as another contraction hits her, and she whimpers through it. I stand back uncomfortably, because I'm not sure that this is something that I want to witness right now. In my own little delusional world, I've convinced myself that childbirth is no big deal. I've watched animals given birth effortlessly in the wild. And while I've witnessed many ladies in the earlier stages of labor, I've never stuck around long enough to see anyone actually push out a baby. I watch as Nella crumples the sheet that lies over her in her fists and contemplate holding her hand through the pain the same way that fathers always to do in books. On the other hand, I'm on the verge of tearing out of that door right now and disappearing into the woods until this is all over with.
"Should I go find Prim?" I finally ask my mother, who's busy grabbing supplies—a pair of medical forceps for cutting the umbilical cord and a metal bowl that she uses for disposing of the afterbirth. My stomach rolls at the thought of it.
"No, I need you here," she says, still moving about frantically but professionally as she takes out a stack of clean linens. "Might need your help getting her into a more comfortable birthing position when she starts to push," she adds as she grabs her suture kit and threads a needle before lying it to the side.
"What's that for?" I ask her.
My mother looks up at me, her mouth in a tight, thin line. "There's usually some tearing involved in labor, Katniss."
It takes me about a second to realize that she's not talking about fabric.
"I should go see if her husband's home. Maybe he's back by now, it being Saturday and all-" I begin, stepping back before my mother comes forward to catch me by my shoulders, stopping me.
"Katniss, I need you here today," she tells me in the same disciplinary tone she often used with me when I was little. "I know that you don't think this is something you're ready for, but it might be good for you to experience it. Knowing what will happen will make labor a lot less scary for yourself." I'm still shaking my head as she gives me a reassuring smile. "There's nothing to be scared of, having a baby is completely natural. Women have been giving birth for hundreds of thousands of years." And then she adds in a hushed voice, "You need to pull it together, because you're going to make Nella a lot more anxious than she needs to be right now, and that won't be good for anyone."
About the time when I begin to wonder if I should start boiling water for whatever reason people do, my mother tells Nella that it's time for her to start pushing. I try to look away as I help my mother hold the young woman's knee up against her body as she bears down during a contraction, hoping that I can get through this with seeing as little blood as possible. This goes on for awhile, and after 45 minutes of pushing, Nella looks utterly exhausted. I don't miss the way that my mother's eyebrows draw together in concentration—the same look that always reaches her eyes when she realizes something may be beyond her ability to help.
"What's wrong?" I ask her before thinking, and the young lady at my side tenses visibly.
Mother bites her lip, still frowning. Nella's lying back, panting with exhaustion and too tired to speak.
"The baby seems to be stuck in the birth canal. Chances are her pelvis is too small for the child to fit through..." she trails off and shakes her head.
My eyes widen when I realize what my mother is telling me: The baby isn't going to come out. It's going to die in it's mother's womb, probably killing her along with it. I'd heard about real doctors who can remove the baby surgically, but my mother isn't capable of anything like that. You have to have special tools and machinery just to keep the patient alive.
"There's nothing you can do?" I ask her.
Her eyes flit to mine. "I have to break the baby's collarbone. It's not something I've ever had to do, but we don't have a choice. That baby won't be able to come out otherwise."
I grimace at the idea of it, and now Nella is sobbing uncontrollably at the idea of her baby being born with broken bones. I finally get over my fear of blood and potential death long enough to reach out and take the young woman's clammy, trembling hand into my own, squeezing it reassuringly.
"Please, I don't want you to hurt the baby," she pleads, and I can feel her fingernails digging into my skin as another contraction hits. Mother waits for it to pass before reassuring her.
"We have to, Nella, The baby could be in distress right now. We have to get her out before things get worse," she tells the young woman soothingly, brushing her long hair from her sweat-soaked face. "A collarbone will eventually heal, but there's nothing I can do for either of you if we don't do this."
Nella finally gives a consensual nod before my mother goes into action. All I can do is squeeze my eyes shut as it happens, trying to drown out the agonizing scream of the young mother-to-be at my side. A few more pushes and all is quiet until the wails of an infant fills the room. I open my eyes just long enough to take in the site before me, a smiling mother and her screaming—but very much alive—infant daughter. Without waiting to be excused, I finally allow Nella's hand to slip from my grasp before walking directly outside and collapsing down onto the porch of our home.
…
My mother doesn't bother to fetch me from the porch, and when I finally see Prim making her way towards our house with a bag of supplies, I make to leave.
"What's going on?" she asks me, noticing the distress in my features.
"Mother just delivered Nella Bonworth's baby. You might want to hurry to see if she needs your help in there," I say monotonously. I can tell that Prim wants to ask why I'm so shaken, but instead walks briskly up onto the porch and through the door to help our mother.
I wander through the Seam for awhile, contemplating whether I should risk going into the woods by myself. I could check the snare lines, gather some of walnuts, maybe even attempt to shoot something, though my belly easily gets in the way of drawing back my bow these days. I consider going to Gale's, but I know he isn't home now. So instead I wander for a couple of hours until my feet grow tired and my stomach begins to growl. The sun has begun to set as I finally make my way to the cluster of houses where the Hawthorne home sits.
The windows are lit as I scale the steps of the porch where Gale leans against the railing talking to Thom. They're both still covered in soot and they look exhausted. The scent of stew wafts from an open window, causing my stomach to growl.
"Hey," Gale offers me a smile when he sees me. When I don't return it, his brows draw together. "Everything okay?'
I nod dumbly. "I just-You haven't been over in a few days."
"I'm sorry," he apologizes. "Things have been hectic at work this week. We lost a couple of men last week-" he begins to say, and then winces, stopping himself. "We're short-staffed. I've been putting in extra hours. More money, you know?"
I nod, glancing towards Thom, who's gaze rests on my stomach. I guess it's the first time in awhile that I've seen him, and I got big fast.
"Are you okay?" Gale goes on. "I wanted to come see you tonight, but I figured we'd be heading to the lake first thing in the morning anyways."
"I'm fine," I answer, pausing. "I helped my mother deliver a baby today."
"Is that so?" Gale asks with an amused smile. We both know how I feel about helping my mother with her sick or injured patients. I guess it would have been entertaining to think about.
"Baby got stuck in the birth canal," I say quietly. "Had to break her collarbone to get her out."
Gale's smile fades quickly at my words, and Thom shifts uncomfortably where he stands. "I should go," Gale's co-worker finally says, obviously noting the uncomfortable turn in conversation. "It's been a long day."
Gale nods, placing his hand on the small of my back once Thom has disappeared into the shadows before veering me to take a seat on the bench that sits on his front porch.
"Was the baby alright?" he asks.
I nod. And then shrug. "She was alive, but I left as soon as I could. My mother said there wasn't much else she could do. I guess they just have to swaddle the baby extra tight until she heals."
"It's a good thing then," Gale assures me. "Your mother dealt with the situation well."
"I suppose..."
There's a long pause when neither of us says anything.
"You're not okay, are you?" he asks, noting how I've begun to gnaw on my fingernails.
I shrug, looking down at my lap. When I feel Gale move to brush the braid from my shoulder, I finally look up to meet his gaze. "I'm scared," I finally admit to him.
"Katniss," he whispers, tugging me towards him. "You'll be alright. Nothing bad is going to happen, okay? You have a family of healers living with you. Between your mother and Prim, delivering this baby should be a breeze."
"Posy almost died," I remind him in a whisper.
"My mother didn't have anyone to help her with Posy except for me, and some help a 14-year-old kid is anyways. Besides, she came out backwards with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck."
Yes, because my mother—the only affordable healer available for those living in the Seam—was too far gone at the time to even take care of herself, let alone anyone else. She couldn't even see that her own daughters were starving to death, or maybe she just didn't care. The thought makes my blood boil.
"Your mother probably knows what to do when those sort of things happen," he goes on to explain. "I mean, she just delivered a baby who most likely wouldn't have made it otherwise. And the mother probably would've died, too."
"It's not just that, though..." I pause uncertainly, finally pulling my fingertips away from my teeth. "The reapings. The mines. The dying animals. I have nightmares about them every night, Gale. There's so many things working against us right now. My mother tells me that these dreams I keep having are hormone-related, but I'm starting to believe that they're something more. What if something happens to you? Or to me? What if our child starves? Even when there was actual game to be killed, we still went hungry a lot of the time. Now we'll have another mouth to feed, another person to support. People die in the mines all the-"
"Katniss," Gale says, his hands holding my forearms securely to break me from my self-pitying. "Listen to me: Everything is going to be okay. We have the lake and I have my job. Our baby will never sign up for tesserae, so her chances of being chosen will be slim okay?"
"What about me? I still have two more reapings to endure."
His grip on me eases at my question, but I can still see the doubt in his eyes.
"You'll be, too."
There's no real certainty that I won't be picked, what with my 20-plus slips in the bowl. But I know that at least with Gale being past reaping age, this child will always have one parent to care for it. As long as he doesn't get himself blown up down in the mines, that is. One of us will just have to stay alive until this kid is grown. It's really his or her only chance.
I stay at Gale's house that night after Hazelle suggests to Rory and Vick that they camp out in the sitting room so that we can sleep together. Nothing happens of course, not with all of those kids and Gale's mother under the same roof. I allow Gale to wrap me into his arms arms which, while comforting, does little to ward away the nightmares that still mercilessly plague my sleep.
…
We set out early first thing the next morning, both of us eager to breathe in the clean air that surrounds the lake and kill some fresh game. Our journey there takes a lot out of me, and we have to move slow. I trip and stumble a lot through the woods, but Gale is always ready to catch me when I do. I know that my days out here are limited now, though he doesn't bring it up. It's finally gotten to the point where I'm no real help when it comes to hunting or gathering. It's hard to bend over now, and even more difficult to stand back upright. I think that the only reason that Gale still allows me to tag along is because it makes me feel happy and useful, even though the reality of the latter is in question.
After our excruciating three-and-a-half-hour hike there, I'm exhausted. But I can't wait to soak my aching feet into the clean, cool water of the lake and perhaps do a bit of fishing while I relax, letting Gale take down bigger game that come to the lake to drink and look for food with his bow.
We're only about a quarter mile from the lake when a strange scent hits me—something like a mixture of stagnant water and rotting garbage. It's hard to pinpoint, and it's very faint, but it's definitely there. After walking quietly together several yards more, Gale's arm comes out to bring me to a stop.
"Wha-"
"Shh," he shushes me, not moving. "Do you hear anything?"
I shake my head. "No. Nothing."
"Exactly."
I shake my head at him, not understanding, until I realize that every time we've been to the lake it has been filled with the sounds of wildlife. Gale remains silent for a second, and I don't miss the look that crosses his face—fear, shock, dread. He lugs his bow up onto his shoulder before tucking me behind his back and proceeding through the tall, withering grass that surrounds the lake before coming to a dead stop.
"Gale, wha-" I begin as I peak around his shoulder to see what has caused him to stop walking so suddenly, and all at once I forget how to breathe.
The water in the lake is an eerie shade of green, small sud-like bubbles collecting on its banks. The fish that once inhabited it—literally thousands—are all floating belly-up on the water, dead. Whatever plant life had surrounded the lake is now shriveled, having turned brown and dry. But what is even more shocking, perhaps, are the remains of the little house on the edge of the lake, which has been burnt to the ground. A small amount of smoke from what was once a raging fire still manages to billow up from the leveled structure, the remnants of our stashed hunting supplies having been incinerated along with it.