XII
…
The third stair from the bottom creaks when you step on it. That's how I knew she was up.
When I heard the creak I wasn't asleep. I was just lying in my bed, eyes closed, hoping that maybe I would fall to sleep… peacefully if the world would just allow me for once. Yet it had been hours since I had come into the room and fallen down on the bed and I was sure by now that sleep wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
And so when I heard the creak, my eyes snapped opened as if there was an intruder coming to attack.
It was as it creaked again as the wood was relieved of the pressure it was under that I fully tuned in.
It was her though, without a doubt in my mind. I knew by the way I could hear her feet glide across the wooden floor when she stepped. It's weird to say, but I knew the way she walked and how it sounded.
Haymitch probably out cold in the chair that sat in the corner of her room or else she wouldn't have dared moved from the bed, awaken from her fake slumber.
And so listening as she made her way down the last few stairs and across the hardwood flooring that was in the foyer, I heard her stop. She opened the closest in the hall and rummaged through. The slipping on her boots no doubt, I could hear the dirt from the soles of the shoes falling to the ground and grinding against the wood as she slipped her feet into the fine leather and laced them up.
Quickly I sat up off the bed, pulling the first shirt I saw over my head and slipping on my own boots. I slipped out of my room as she slipped out of the house.
She walked out of the Village and right down through town till she came to the Justice Building where she veered off downhill. I followed her; unsure where she was going until the sight of numerous splintered wood and faddily painted house came into view. It was then that she stopped before entering the community and it was then that she spoke up.
"Did you think I was going to run away? Do something risky?"
I shrug my shoulders coming up beside her, "Curious more or less."
She arched her eyebrows at me.
"Maybe a little," I smiled, "You're pretty unpredictable. Plus you did seemed pretty pissed at Mitch the other day."
She shrugged her shoulders, "He deserved it."
I laughed.
And then we continued to walk.
We walk down along the houses. Each building like the next… no higher than a floor even though some seem to be smaller in size, faddily painted white boards that are dusted and stained with coal dirt, splintered wood and broken or cracked or foggy windows, shingles missing from the rooftops and old brick chimneys looking as if they were going to collapse any moment, and tin pales out under the outside water faucets collecting ever droplet.
The ground the homes stood on is rocky and dark with graveled dirt and coal. There is no grassy or lively trees insight, only weeds and fallen leaves. People's cloths hang from lines strung from the front porch or out the back, dripping wet yet drying in the breeze. Some homes have trampy looking cats or dogs lurking around their perimeter as if they were watching out for intruders or awaiting a bone to be thrown their way.
It was poverty, poverty at its finest.
And as we continued our walk through the house that I wasn't quite sure of if we had passed or not, Katniss asked:
"Why do you call Haymitch Mitch?"
"Just a nickname," I shrug.
"You never gave me a nickname," she states.
"Do you want one?"
She seems to think about this for a long moment before responding. "No."
I nod my head asking curiously, "You ever had one?"
She nods her head, but doesn't speak a word.
I don't push and we continue on our walk.
It's when she comes to a halt outside one of the house that looks the same as the others, only the difference or aspect in my opinion that makes it stand out from the others is the small potted flower in the window.
"My father called me Birdie," she states, not stopping there though.
"Gale calls me Catnip. Sae calls me girl. Some kids at school call me Everdeen. Some of the merchants call me Seam Slut. Haymitch calls me sweetheart. Effie calls me dear. Cinna calls me the Girl on Fire. The Capitol calls me that too, Girl on Fire, but then there's Mockingjay as well, for my pin, the token I brought into the arena with me…
I ah - I guess what I'm trying to say is - is it's nice to be just called Katniss."
"No one ever called you Kat?"
"Nope," she says popping the "p," "And no one ever will if they know what's good for them."
I smirk, challenging her. "Even if you're feisty like one?"
"Even if I'm feisty as one," she confirms, a small quirk fighting at the corners of her lips.
And then like that we fall silent again. She stares up at the home and I stare with her. Then without reason she turns around and heads back the way we came. And I - I follow her without protest, without a word or action that goes against her drive.
…
We take that walk several times over the next week. It's now a scheduled thing that we plan really, it just happens. It's always in the late evening or early morning when the rest of the district is sound asleep that we go.
She would slip down the stairs from her room when Haymitch was out and when I hear the creak of the third step from the bottom. I followed her lead and make my way from my room down to the foyer. From there we would make our way out the door. We would go out of the Village, down through town toward the Justice Hall before veering down the hill into what I learned was called the Seam.
Katniss would ask a single question at the beginning of every walk and that would be the topic of the evening, morning. They were never questions involving the Games, it seemed a subject she rather distances herself from and I respected that. It was more… "why do you add sugar to your tea and not your coffee" or "why do you have such quite nature instead of boastfulness, it's not much like your district."
We would end at the house with the potted flower and that was where our conversations always seemed to conclude. Then we'd stand there for a long period of time before returning back the way we came.
…
It's the fifth time that we take the walk that she does something out of routine. Instead of how after we stare at the house for several long moments that we retreat the way we came, instead she stepped forward toward the house, slowly and calmly making her way across the rocky and dark with graveled dirt and coal ground up the steps of the house.
"Katniss," I say as she reaches the top step, just feet from the door, "what are you doing?"
But as if she had tuned me out of her head she makes no motion that indicates that she heard me, but continues forward.
Like the stairs, she takes each step to the door slowly and calmly. I watch her move with hesitation and unease. It causes me myself to grow with anxiety as she moves with such uncertain grace.
When she's just inches from the door she stops.
Frozen.
Petrified.
Paralyzed.
Then she snaps out of it and her hand reaches forward. She grasps the doorknob and flings the door open before I can even realize what's happening. She's then gone, disappearing into the house before I can make out a work.
Confused and at unease I take a quick breath, having a short though before sprinting into the house.
The house was dark and the floorboards creaked even when you didn't step on them. The house was odd in a way, as if it had been vacant for months. And the moonlight seemed to prove my thoughts right, a thin layer of dust covering the table and a few cobwebs collecting in the corners of the room and furniture.
Who lived here?
Now slowly intruding into the room, I look around for Katniss who was nowhere in sight. And the room itself was not really a sight…
There was a circular wooden table with four chairs seated around it. In front of the fire place was a small rug and a wooden rocking chair. A metal kettle sat on the brim of embers where a fire would have been burning at this time in the fire place. Then over in the kitchen was a large sink tub beside a small counter that had a cabinet above it, filled with few glasses and plates and pots and pans.
A short hall led out of the room, three other doors lining it, bedrooms and a bathroom I assumed.
There was a slam of a door, the door I had come through into the house by that caused to me turn around. There was nothing there though when I turned, just the emptiness of the early morning like how it was always.
Back around my heart stuttered when I saw Katniss near the hall.
She was okay.
She stood there still, like before moments building up to her entering the house. She was frozen, petrified, and paralyzed. She stood there like a statue, clutching a worn, leather jacket and a brown, leather bounded book close to her chest. She held them as if they were her life, her clutches white with intensity.
"Katniss?" I asked cautiously, taking a step to her.
She didn't respond though, but continued to stand still like a statue unresponsive.
"Ka-" I begin again yet don't let out the rest of her name as I watch a single tear glide down her cheek.
What?
And then as I took another step toward her, the floorboards creaked and something scampered out from under the sink.
A cat.
It was a cat. It was a cat of average size, neither obese nor starving. It had black eyes and a muddy yellow coat that was nearly a dark orange.
It seemed so familiar yet deep in the back of my mind I knew I had never seen the animal before.
Looking back to Katniss now as the cat made no more movement, I found her slumped down on the floorboards. The jacket and book were still held to her chest, but with less force. Her knees were bent in for comfort along with her shoulders. Strands of stray hairs fell and stuck to her face as quietly tears escaped the corners of her eyes.
Gently I went over, taking her in my arms and picking her up.
She didn't disagree.
When I had picked her up off the ground, beyond the cat the flowered pot in the window caught my eye. It was a soft blend and yellow. It did not stand tall from the soil. Its steam looked to be slightly limp and his leaves not as dark as they should have.
And then it hit me.
The flower was a primrose.
Primrose, Prim had a cat, Katniss had mentioned it before.
Buttercup I think it was named.
Katniss hated the thing.
She said it never went far from Prim.
The flower and the house -
This was the Everdeen home.
This was where Katniss grew up.
Taking in a breath I give her a soft squeeze before exiting the house and retreating the way we came.
…
She didn't talk or move or do much for the next couple of days after that. It was as if she was still that statue. Though after dinner one night – late - when going to check on her she wasn't in her room, she wasn't in the house. And as much as Haymitch assured me she was fine I still worried.
It was hours later when she came back; it was early the next morning when we heard the front door open and close. Haymitch and I were seated in the kitchen waiting for her.
She came in without a word.
In her hands she carried the potted primrose plant and in the other was a brown bag from which a hissing noise came.
"Sweetheart," Haymitch greeted to which he received no response.
Instead she went right other to the window above the sink where she placed the plant. Then over to us she came and placed the bag on the table.
She left after that, up to her room.
And it took a few moments, but after a bit the cat from before popped out, Buttercup.
"Next you know she'll be bringing a bear home and a tree for the living room," Haymitch grumbles, taking the cat under his arm and he himself retreating.
And I - I sat there and let the smile I had been holding back break across my lips.
She was getting there, to normal. She wasn't happy necessarily about it, but she was getting there. She was recovering, steadily, but slowly and that was okay.