Chapter Three

Down in the valley

The valley so low

Hang your head over

Hear the wind blow

Over the singing, I barely hear the sound of the doorbell. It's probably Haymitch, coming to complain about the noise. I leave the cacophony behind a little gratefully - it's amazing how discordant they are, and how grating a family can be when you are used to solitude.

I never did have a housewarming, but I offered the house for Solstice dinner - for once, at least, we all wouldn't be crowded. Dad and Mom, Ryan and Will, Grandma Mellark, Uncle Dana and the four kids: Ally, Isoc, Pauly and Rush. I spent days dreading this gathering - manically painting and baking - and I'm just happy that it's almost over and I can relax again. At least, everyone is on good behavior. Dinner is over, the kids are singing songs; shortly, Dana will start to fret - we don't serve liquor - and he'll insist on going. Once he leaves, everyone else will, too. Almost over.

I'm surprised to see Prim at the door, smiling, but stamping her feet a little against the cold. "Hey, Peeta," she says.

"Hi! Hey - um - come in?"

I close the door on the latest winter storm as she steps inside the front room. I see she's got a parcel. It's a familiar shape.

"Rabbit?"

"Yes."

"Late in the year."

"You have guests," she says, as the singing rises in the other room. She can't quite disguise the surprise in her voice, so I guess my hermit-like existence has not gone unnoticed in the Everdeen household.

"Just family. And I have something for you. Come with me into the kitchen - sorry for the mess, by the way."

She follows me into the kitchen, which is indeed a mess of bowls, pans and utensils. I put the rabbit in the ice chest, then find a cloth in which to wrap some of the remaining cookies of the day - they are in floral shapes, brightly colored in orange, pink and yellow. Something spring-like to brighten the gloom of the shortest day of the year.

"Thanks!" she says.

"Come say hello to everyone," I say, with more politeness than enthusiasm. Not that they don't all know her, of course. And she knows my family - she always used to stop by the bakery, back before the Games, and look at the displays. And - furtively - my father would sometimes give her a couple of cookies when she left. He always liked her. Well, she looks like her mom.

The room quiets as she enters behind me, and nervous hellos are exchanged. Then I walk her back to the front door.

"Is this - one of your paintings?" she asks, stopping by an easel that was set up in the front room.

I turn to her hastily, a little alarmed - it is the arena that comes out of my paint brushes. Some paintings are benign - a boulder next to a creek, the dripping wall of a cave - but many include monsters and, more than a few, her sister.

"Oh, yes," I say, squinting at it. That's right - I wanted to see how the blue showed up in the morning light, and my front room windows look east. It's a wolf mutt, golden-furred, snarling out of the canvas.

If she's alarmed by the subject matter, Prim makes no sign. "Looks like you're about ready for the Tour," she says, congenially.

I shrug. I've been trying not to think about the Tour - an impossibility, with Effie Trinket calling twice a week for updates. The winner - in this case winners - of the most recent Hunger Games are obligated to participate in a Victory Tour midway in the year between the Games. As part of this Tour - an exhausting two-week visit of the other eleven districts, culminating in a party in the Capitol and a festival in the home district - the Victor has to show off his or her talent development progress. So, some of the paintings will be coming with me.

So, too, will Katniss, of course, and Haymitch. So, there will be an uncomfortable reminder of the Games, built right in. Not to mention, the current awkwardness between me and Katniss - an awkwardness that will be a surprise for the audiences of Panem, who last saw us snuggled up against each other in our final interview with Caesar Flickerman. And on top of that, going back there - to the Capitol - I'm not sure my head can handle it.

"It's amazing," she continues. "So lifelike."

"Thanks. And - thanks for stopping by. Please thank Katniss for - for the rabbit."

"No problem. You take care, Peeta."

As she leaves, I find myself staring blankly out into the darkness, out over the green of the Village, oblivious to the cold. Then, something breaks my concentration. I grab my jacket and head outside into the snow. Yeah … that's what I thought. I follow footprints in the snow across the green, to the row of empty houses on the other side. The house on the east corner - what did Aster say about it before? Something about neither front nor back door, but a window that is unlocked on one side ….

"Peeta Mellark!"

I'm greeted with cries of surprise by the group of people with whom I used to be about as close as anyone in the world. In the glow of their flashlights, I see not just Aster but Delly, Lily, Sammy and Quill. There are a few others - friends of Aster's, probably - who I know only in passing.

They are sitting in a circle in the living room. Two big jars - most likely of moonshine, which Aster has always seemed to have in ready supply - are passed around the circle. Aster scoots over and makes a space for me.

"Some of you all need to be a bit more covert," I tell them. "Your footprints are all over the snow."

"Damn it, people," says Aster. "Get with it or get uninvited."

I laugh - she's slurred her words, already a little drunk. I squeeze myself into the circle and I find the warmth of the bodies pressed together - pressed against me - a pleasant sensation. I peer curiously around - they all look so much the same as they did before - Aster, the rich girl, with sleek golden hair and a curvy frame. Delly - my oldest friend, the cheerful little girl who grew up next door to me, round and jolly, with her hair in ringlets. Sammy - ash blonde, lean and wiry. Lily - plain but vaguely pleasant, Delly's best friend.

And their lives are all so much the same. They talk about school - the brutality of the latest exams. Sammy answers my questions about the wrestling team - he's the team captain this year, a position I was hoping for for myself. Yet, I find no resentment in myself for them and their incomprehensibly mundane lives. Nor pity. Nor envy.

When the moonshine comes around, I go ahead and take a small sip. It burns the skin inside my mouth right off - at least, that's what it feels like - and I cough hoarsely. Aster thumps my back, which makes me cough even harder, and everyone laughs. Somehow - Victor or no - I've reverted back to my place with these people, and with no effort: the naive kid who is always the last to try anything new.

The second swallow goes down easier, and burns a pleasant warm trail down my chest on the way down. Quill starts telling dirty jokes - he's a natural performer. I think I might laugh - for fun - for the first time in months. And I'm not forgetting anything - everything is still there: the arena, the Tour, the nightmares, the loneliness - but the booze is replacing all sadness with a light and giddy feeling - a relaxation of my muscles, of my spirit, of my soul. It's good to feel the girl's leg pressed against mine - even as she flirts and kisses with some kid on the other side of her. It feels like my body and all my nerves are alive for a change.

It's good to talk to Sammy. No one asks me for an explanation as to what I have been doing these last couple of months - why I have been holding myself apart. They don't care - they live, day to day, with or without me. Untroubled by the future, as we always were before. No point to thinking about next year's Reaping, because the Reaping is as regular as the seasons. Midsummer comes and the Reaping comes and goes. Odds are long that they'll be picked, so - why worry about it? They'll be out of it in two years. In the meanwhile, there is fun to be had.

I won't be out of it, of course. I'll be a mentor, now, in the Games, taking over for Haymitch as the mentor of the District 12 boys. From now until someone else actually wins, I guess. Which could be forever. Or could be one of these guys - there's no knowing. …

I take a third drink, a much longer swallow. I make a face across the circle at Delly - like we used to, back when we were five - and she returns the look with a laugh. There's a little bit of desperation now - the booze not quite holding off my bloody imaginings. If I could be reaped, so could she, Sammy, Aster … any of them, really. How would I do it? How would I prepare them to meet their deaths?

Aster turns away from her boyfriend to whisper something to me - I can't hear what she says, but she puts her fingers on my left thigh and drums them while she talks. I swallow - this feels forward, aggressive - but it could also be accidental, and it certainly is a little drunken. And yet - part of me resents the necessity to grasp her hand and move it off of me.

"So faithful," she murmurs, "as always."

Yeah, well. Not that I can say anything - it's ridiculous. Everyone knows Katniss still goes into the woods with Gale, and they've all long suspected it's not entirely innocent. It's not faithfulness, really. It's me being damaged and confused and still just sober enough to remember it.

Once that hurdle is over, the group continues as I guess they always do in these get-togethers. Aster and her boyfriend disappear for awhile, Delly and Sammy lock lips and make disgusting slurping noises. Lily and I and a couple of other people play dice and just keep on drinking until, one by one, we've passed out.

Shit.

I'm the first awake the next morning. My head pounds as I sit abruptly up, the gray light, dim as it is, hurting my eyes. Shit. I completely forgot that I left my entire family in my house. Everyone probably wondering where the fuck I went to.

I look around me, at the center of a pile of teenagers huddled together in puffy jackets. I wonder what they told their parents last night - if any of them were expected home. The hue and cry could be coming at any moment. And I -.

I clutch my head as something gives a terrific squeeze and I start to retch. I run for the window, slide it open and start puking into the snow.

Once my stomach has stopped its spastic heaving, I slither out of the window and push snow over the steaming pile of puke. My hands start trembling as memories flash - the fainting fit by the creek, getting sick next to the dead girl. I find myself racing - as fast as I can in the snow with my uncertain feet - to Haymitch's house.

Haymitch is peeved to be woken up early in the morning, but once he sees my green face, his amusement at my predicament brightens his eyes a little. He gives me some foul-tasting drink - it takes like yeast and liquid liver - as well as some coffee, saying, "One more puke and you should feel a lot better."

He's right - at least my stomach feels better - but the headache and the slick, sweaty nasty feeling of my skin is every bit the same. Nothing for that, he warns me, but to sleep it off. "You'll get over that part after a while. Takes some practice."

I shake my head. "Never again. Never." I look at him - I'm hunched pathetically in a blanket on his sofa and I know for once he looks a lot more put together than I do. "You were right - there was a numbness over everything, for a little while. But it's not worth it. There has to be a better way."

He hmmphs. "Well, let me know if you find it."

"Did - did anyone come looking for me last night?"

"Yes. Your father stopped by, asking if I saw you. They seemed to think you went over to the Everdeens. Then I guess they stopped by the Everdeens to ask, because Katniss came by later, also asking if I saw you."

I feel my face go hot.

"Don't worry," Haymitch continues. "I told her you go for long walks at night. I didn't tell anyone where you actually were."

"How did you know?"

"I figured you must know those kids who think they are so good at sneaking into empty houses. There's no subtlety to you Townies. Comes from a life living without the proper fear of things."

"Yeah," I say, vaguely apologetic. Then - "Is that why you wouldn't tell me about all that stuff at the end of the Games - the Capitol being mad about the berries and Katniss needing to ratchet up on the romance stuff? Because - you thought I would give it away?"

He squints at me. "Peeta," he says, slowly. "How do I put this? There are ears everywhere. It doesn't get better if you're a Victor. It gets worse. Opportunities for conversations are limited. You should remember this, when you hang out with your friends. It won't do them any good to be friends with a Victor if people decide to - crack down."

I sink gloomily into his sofa. So - is he saying that his house is bugged? And maybe mine? And that if I hang out with my friends - my family - that they will come under the scrutiny of the Capitol, as well? Is this why he is so completely alone? Our problems, I realize, are much larger than my personal inability to cope.

"Haymitch," I say, "I gotta find a way out of my head."

The look he gives me is unreadable. If it's pity - I don't recognize it. It's a crunchy, uncomfortable expression. "I don't think I have your answers, boy."