This chapter is actually winding up the exposition for the story. I thought it might be worth mentioning that I have been drawing on classical mythology, Inferno and fairy lore for certain religious/ magical elements, and the tree in particular is influenced by all of the above.
Gale cursed, Peeta gave a cold, hard stare, and even Johanna looked perplexed at his nonchalance. "`Liquidated,'" she mused. "Such a nice name for genocide."
"Do you think I am an animal, or a soulless machine?" Thread shouted. A single tear ran down his cheek. "Even if I was, do you think I would have put my name on a plan to obliterate 10,000 able laborers? I abhor waste above all else. I was emphatic in my reports to President Snow that the citizens of Twelve were skilled and adaptable, capable of endeavors far more profitable to Panem and themselves than inefficient and hazardous mineral extraction. What I proposed was a gradual relocation and reallocation of a gross surplus of civilian labor in District Twelve to duties as guest workers in the Capitol. This would have facilitated the Capitol's ultimate objective of restoring automation of the mines and annexing the remaining territory of the District as a military garrison."
"Then where did the bombing come in?" Gale said.
"That was an emergency contingency," Thread said. "I outlined in detail that limited tactical bombing could expedite a compulsory evacuation, with an overall reduction in loss of life. I compiled a list of locations of special economic, strategic or symbolic significance where those opposed to evacuation might attempt to take shelter or effect active resistance. I was very emphatic that this was to be conducted with conventional explosives only, and absolutely no incendiary ordinance. Once these locations were eliminated, the evacuees would predictably flee to other locations where Peacekeepers could wait to intercept them or round them up. We were waiting, when the fire bombs dropped. 300 of my own men died in those fires."
"Sounds like Snow didn't really care for your plan," Peeta said, "or you."
"Perhaps," Thread said, "or perhaps the flyboys ignored their instructions because they liked a flash to go with their bang. What do you think Snow would have preferred- thousands of charred corpses, or thousands of live Citizens to use as he saw fit?"
Peeta did not answer. Nothing needed to be said: He had been taken captive himself, and knew very well what the Capitol could do with hostages. After a moment, he stood up. "Well, if we've been briefed, we might as well go out and survey the main point of interest."
The municipal motorcart was like a cross between a scooter and a bulldozer, with a single front wheel and tracks in the open-topped hull. Romulus Thread drove, Haymitch and Victoria were seated behind him, and the rest rode in a bench seat at the rear, with Johanna poised between Gale and Peeta. None ventured to speak as the municipal motorcart drove through the ruins of Twelve's northeastern urban zone where half the Capitol's bombs had fallen, except Thread.
"Now this, this is inexcusable waste in terms of ordinance alone," he said. He pointed to buildings that were not so much levelled as melted. . "The whole concept of tactical bombing is to apply limited force precisely where it will have the greatest effect on your enemy. Not much point in all that planning and precision if you are simply going to burn the scenery to a cinder! And what did they think they were accomplishing by hitting a designated target with a firebomb when it was already in another bomb's primary blast radius?"
"Shut up," Johanna said cheerfully, "or I'll eat your face."
"Be my guest," Thread said. "I could use a new one." But he was quiet thereafter.
They came to a halt at a thick stand of trees that obscured a swath of the fence. "This is the thickest part of the forest," he said. "It's like this all the way to the mountains, except for one clearing. We figured it must be a really old part of the forest."
"You figured wrong," Johanna said. "People who don't know anything about forests expect the trees to crowd together over time. What they don't understand is that plants are as competitive as any animal. Put a bunch of trees close together, and it's like the Hunger Games in slow motion: They stretch out their roots and branches until it looks like they're trying to strangle each other, and they are. They take sunlight, water and nutrients from each other, they poison each other, they even grow right over each other. The young and weak trees go right away, and the big and strong take each other out one at a time. In a real old growth forest, you get huge trees dozens of yards apart, and hardly anything in between. They showed us pictures of them in school. This, on the other hand, is secondary growth, no more than a few centuries old. I'm surprised it didn't burn."
"The plan called for sparing the forest," Thread said. "Even the flyboys managed to follow their orders. We predicted that once bombs started falling on the Joint, refugees who did not try to flee by the roads would run for the forests, expecting to be able to hide among the trees and use the branches to get over the fence. They would have quickly discovered what we already knew, that the forest was choked with impassable undergrowth and the trees too small for good climbing. Then they would either turn back, to be met by a deployment of peacekeepers, become stuck, or leave trails that could easily be followed. Like this one..."
A path three yards wide had been crushed through the forest, as if an enormous slug had plowed inexorably through the undergrowth. "We pulled thirty bodies out of here, mostly trampled," Peeta said. "There had to be more. Near as we can tell, they hit my parents' bakery and the mayor's mansion ahead of the main bombardment. It would have given everyone else time for a running start. I'm told that there's evidence a second wave came through."
Gail was already following the trail. "I'd say three hundred to five hundred people," he said. "Some of them had tools for clearing the brush. They cleared the fence." Two large trees had been felled, crushing a section of the fence. The trail kept going. He went on, and the others followed.
"Did you ever hunt in these woods?" Victoria asked.
Gail laughed. "Not if the ninth hell thawed out," he said. "I don't know about old growth and whatnot, but I know terrible hunting when I see it. Terrible line of sight, no more shooting range than you could get with a sharp stick, and nothing worth shooting at anyway. A wild turkey could get hung up in this. Besides which, too close to town." He looked back at Thread.
"Still, I came here once," Gale said. "I had heard stories about it around the Seam; down there they called it the Wishing Tree, and they really said it could make wishes come true. I was too old, then, to expect it to work, but I was young enough that I was willing to try it anyway. I jumped the east fence and spent a whole day going north. When I reached the tree, I did what they said: I jabbed myself with one of my arrowheads, wiped the blood on a rag, and left it at the foot of the tree. Then I went back to the mountains, and set up to rest for the night and go back home the next day. Then, in the night... It was probably a dream. But I saw light, pure white but soft, coming from under the branches. And I thought, somehow... I heard singing. That part couldn't have been real, of course. There's no way I could have heard anything from that far away, and of course, if I actually had, it would have to be loud enough to deafen everyone in town."
"Huh," said Johanna. "Hm. So... what did you wish for?" Gale was silent. "Did you get it?"
"Actually, I did," Gale said sternly. "I never really believed it was because of the tree. But what happened cost me a lot, and it cost a lot of other people a lot more."
He halted in his tracks. They had reached the clearing. It was ten yards wide, with a single tree in the center. Even after nearly 3 years, the earth bore the marks of scores if not hundreds of feet. But there was no trace of any track going out.