Everyone is pleased with my first "proper" propo. Well, everyone but Fulvia, who is still a bit put out that her careful plans were all scrapped. Plutarch, though, doesn't seem to care about that. He's more focused on results, and the results speak for themselves. "If We Burn, They Burn With Us" runs on a near-constant loop on every channel Beetee and Wiress can hack into. Two days later it's joined by a propo showcasing more of the footage from Eight, including interviews with some of the survivors, with the title "This is Who They Are, This is What They Do." After that Cressida and her team fly out to cover the ongoing fighting in Eleven and Four. That is presented by Finnick in much the same way Peeta and I did with the footage from Eight, and titled "Fire is Catching."
It turns out I'm just a slogan machine once I get going. At least they all sound better than "we end our hunger for justice."
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I'm glad to be helping the war effort, even if my contribution feels trivial compared to the people doing the actual fighting. And I'm glad that our success will give us more influence over the production of propos in the future. But performing in front of the camera still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. We're acting for an audience again, just like in the Games, just like on the Tour.
"I don't think it's like that at all," Peeta argues when I finally give voice to my reservations, alone in our compartment cuddled up together on the couch. "The cameras are still there, but we can control them now. And more than that, we don't have to pretend anymore. The problem with lying for the cameras wasn't the cameras, it was the lying. At least I thought so."
Personally I think it was both, but that isn't even my issue right now. "Aren't we still pretending?" I ask. "That wasn't the real me, yelling revolutionary slogans at the camera."
"It was part of you," Peeta argues. "Maybe it's not how you act normally, but it still all came from you. No one else told you what to say or how to act."
That much is true. Peeta went out of his way to avoid giving me suggestions before filming. Honestly, watching the footage back after Plutarch yelled cut, I think I saw for the first time what others have been seeing. I saw the girl who Snow fears and Plutarch wants to use. I saw someone who could inspire people to rise up. And she wore my face. Spoke with my voice. And I know the words came from me, not Haymitch or Fulvia or Plutarch or Peeta.
"They want to use us to influence people, just like Snow did," Peeta says. "Only this time it's for a cause we actually support. We just have to find a way to do that without–"
"Without turning us into something we're not?" I ask, remembering Peeta's own words from the night before our Games.
"Exactly," Peeta says. "If we can be completely honest, speak with our own voices in our own words… is it really so bad if there's a camera there?"
I suppose not. It's at least better than having to read one of Fulvia's scripts. "What do you think they're going to want to do next?"
Peeta thinks about this for a moment. "They'll want to do an interview at some point. A sit-down like the baby announcement, where they can choose the questions and direct the conversation." He hesitates for just a moment, then tentatively asks, "Are you okay with that?"
"Are you?" I throw back at him, because I don't know what my answer is.
"I think so," he says. "If we can say what we want, if we can tell people the truth, then yeah, I think I'm okay with it."
I'm still not sure I am, but I think I may have to be. No costumes, no crazy makeup, no fake backgrounds, no parroting lines fed to us – we've already won so many battles about how we do these propos. I'm not sure how many more fights it's wise to start. And the fact is that eventually we'll have to film something.
…..
Eventually is a surprisingly long time in coming. The propo team sticks to smaller, more incidental shoots for a while. The group of victors are filmed at dinner one night to showcase how well we've all integrated into District 13. Peeta joins soldier training for a day so they can film him participating. "I think I've already shown that I'm willing to fight for the people I love. Now we have the chance to fight for everybody in Panem," is the quote that has Plutarch and Fulvia swooning.
It's weeks later, a full month after we first arrived in Thirteen, that the subject of our next major shoot comes up while we're all in another Command meeting. Peeta and I have pushed two of the chairs together so we can hold hands. This earns us a teasing grin from Finnick and an eye roll from Johanna. On my other side, Gale very carefully doesn't react at all.
I sought Gale out at dinner the day we saw the Eight footage. Gale has spent his whole life crafting snares and traps, and he saw the danger of the hospital right away. "Gathering them together like that only made them a bigger target."
"What's the alternative? Leaving them to die in the street?" Even knowing what happened to that hospital, neither of us could come up with a better idea. Then Gale started musing aloud about ways we could incorporate the idea into our own trap, and I was ready to move on.
Instead I finally told him of Darius and Lavinia. Gale is like me, he recognizes the burden of a debt that can never be repaid. In fact he owes one to Darius too.
I also told Gale, "Ever since we got home from the Games, I've never been with Peeta because anyone was forcing me to. I've been telling you that for a year now. I'm not sure how many more times I can repeat it." He seems to be doing his best to accept that. In a way it's the first time he's actually tried, since he mostly avoided the Village except when he was teaching us snares just before the Quell.
Commander Taylor reports strong progress by the rebels. They now control Three and Eleven. Four and what's left of Eight are expected to fall soon as well. The main fighting is now happening in Seven and Five. "Hopeful. Very hopeful indeed," Plutarch says. I don't attribute our progress to the first round of propos like he does, but if we helped then I'm glad.
When Boggs asks about plans for the next set of propos, Plutarch looks a lot less sure of himself. "We have what we think is a good idea," he says. "We're just not sure of the security situation."
"We can't send her anywhere where there's been recent Capitol activity," Boggs says. "I won't authorize taking that chance."
"We want to take her to Twelve," Plutarch says. "We'll show the damage done and do some unscripted interviews. Hopefully something will set Katniss off again like the Eight footage did."
Great, now instead of a malfunctioning puppet or a raging river, I'm like an unreliable bomb that may or may not go off when triggered. Still, the idea of seeing Twelve… I turn and look to Peeta. His face is tense, his eyes clouded, but when his gaze finds mine he squeezes my hand.
"Are the coal fires even out yet?" asks a soldier whose name I don't know.
"Almost all of them!" Plutarch says. He just can't stop himself from shading the truth. "Some of the fires deep in the mine will take Capitol equipment to extinguish, but the surface should be fine."
Boggs looks skeptical, so I cut in. "I want to go." All attention turns to me and I falter for a moment. "If- If it's safe enough. We'd like to see it." Beside me Peeta nods his agreement.
Boggs considers this for a long moment, then turns to Taylor in silent request. "We haven't detected any Capitol activity in the area since the morning after the bombing," Taylor reports.
"What if the Capitol detects that they're there and decides to come back?" asks Commander Simmons. This sets off a discussion of patrol strategies and detection ranges that I mostly let pass over me. The gist seems to be that if the Capitol attacks us in Twelve we should have at least ten minutes' warning, and that should be enough time to board our own hovercraft and leave.
"That's a lot of 'should's," is Haymitch's observation.
The discussion seems to be going in circles when Boggs chimes in. "Let's send a team to Eight as a decoy. They know we've been there before, they won't think anything of us returning. If we're already in Eight they may let their guard down about looking for us elsewhere, and a patrol in that area can give us additional warning of any Capitol craft approaching Twelve." This seems to gain general agreement from the officers. "And we're sending some soldiers along to watch your backs, just in case anything happens on the ground."
"Make Soldier Hawthorne part of that squad," Plutarch asks. "We can interview him about the evacuation while we're there." Boggs glances in Gale's direction before agreeing.
Plutarch and Fulvia begin talking about what they hope to capture in Twelve tomorrow, and I should probably be paying attention since I'm the one they'll be filming, but when Fulvia begins gushing about Gale's camera-ready face I tune them out. Instead I lean over and say quietly to Gale, "So, 'Soldier Hawthorne,' huh?"
Gale hesitates for a moment before answering, as if he's not quite sure if I'm insulting him. "Well, one of us actually shows up to training."
I'm exempt from the physical training, on account of my pregnancy. Peeta is not, or at least he's not supposed to be. But for our first couple of weeks here, Peeta generally ignored his schedule anytime it differed from mine. After that, even though we never spoke to anyone about it, they stopped giving us conflicting schedules. I imagine we didn't earn ourselves any good will in this district, using our status with the rebellion to blatantly ignore Thirteen's strict rules. But after everything that went on around the Quell, Peeta and I have reverted to our post-Games mindset of not wanting to be separated. I don't know that there's anything nefarious in sending Peeta to marksmanship training while I'm in a nuclear history class, but I feel better when we stick together.
Gale, of course, has always wanted to fight back against the Capitol. The only thing that ever held him back was the utter impossibility of the idea. I'm not surprised that he's thrown himself into military training, nor that he has excelled at it. Gale is tall, strong, eager, and a good shot. Thirteen couldn't ask for a better soldier.
The meeting breaks up not too long after that. Peeta and I walk with Haymitch on our way back to the residential block. "So are you coming with us on this trip?" Peeta asks him.
"No," Haymitch says, without adding any sarcastic comment. "No, I couldn't face it without a bottle."
…..
The next day, I almost with I had a bottle myself.
A pall seems to fall over Gale, Peeta, and I as soon as we board the hovercraft. Peeta and I both had a rough night knowing what was waiting for us today, and across from us Gale doesn't look much better. It had taken more makeup than usual to achieve our "natural" look.
At the other end of the compartment, the film crew remains unaffected. Plutarch, Cressida, Messalla, and two burly camera operators are huddled together making plans. We'll see if I'm capable of executing any of them.
Also with us are our bodyguards. Soldier Jackson, who is in command. Soldier Avery, an intimidatingly large man but with a kind face. Soldier Nolan, who I remember from the rescue. And Soldier Leeg, a young woman who the others call Leeg 2 for some reason. And, of course, Soldier Hawthorne. But only in an emergency, because Plutarch doesn't want him carrying a rifle in the propo.
Peeta and I are holding hands but not talking. He seems to have been studying the same spot on the floor since we left Thirteen. In an effort to draw him out, I ask him the names of the cameramen, assuming he would have introduced himself at some point. And I'm right, Peeta dutifully informs me that the slightly burlier one is Castor, the other is his brother Pollux, and that Pollux is an Avox.
I look again at the huddle of Capitol propagandists, and I notice for the first time that one of them never speaks. He nods or shakes his head, he points out things on the papers they're reading, and occasionally he makes a complicated hand gesture to his brother. I wonder what his crime was, how his brother found him and how they escaped. It would probably be rude to ask.
Getting Peeta to talk hasn't changed his demeanor at all, so I go to my tried and true method and pull him into a brief kiss. "You know we don't have to do this," I say. "If you don't want to, or you don't feel up to it, or whatever. Just say the word."
"No, I want to do this," he says. His voice is quiet but steady. "I don't know how I'm going to react, but… I need to do this."
"Okay," I say. "Just promise you'll tell me if you need help, or if it gets to be too much." He nods against me, and I kiss him again.
The hovercraft deposits us in the Meadow, though it's not really a meadow anymore. In the distance, black smoke billows from the fires that still burn deep in the mines. I thought I would be the one supporting Peeta today - I know how hard this is going to be for him regardless of his determination to see it through - but one look around us and I know I'll need his support just as much.
Simple human decency would allow us the chance to grieve our district privately. Instead a dozen people now stand in what used to be District 12. The Capitol has never allowed for human decency, and in order to fight them, neither does Thirteen.
In my distraction I almost trip over a rock. I'm about to kick it out of my way in frustration, but I stop myself just short when I see that it's not a rock at all. It's someone's skull. Bleached white in the sun, sitting in a bed of ash, empty sockets staring up into the sky. The flesh long since burned away, or possibly eaten by scavengers. Was this someone I knew? Have I looked into these eyes before? Odds are no, but the odds have rarely ever been in my favor. There's no way to tell, anyway.
We move away from the road to avoid the remains of those who tried and failed to flee that way. The summer heat is beating down on all of us, but it has to be worst for Castor and Pollux. The mobile camera rigs they carry encase their entire upper bodies like insect shells.
Cressida wants to see my old house from before the Games, so we begin walking in the direction of the Seam. "Let's start with introducing yourselves to the audience." she says.
Ever since Peeta opened the Eight footage by simply introducing himself, it's become the go-to rhetorical flourish of all of our propos. Plutarch says it shows humility and helps counter the arrogance or superiority that some people associate with victors. Fulvia says it makes viewers feel welcomed, it invites the audience in and makes them want to join wherever the host takes them. Peeta had just shrugged and said, "I didn't know what else to do."
On this day, however, I think the introductions are going to fall on me. Seeing this destruction has made Gale far too angry to be an effective presenter right now, and Peeta hasn't said a word since we left the hovercraft. "How about if I just introduce everybody?" I ask.
"That's fine," Cressida says. I take a deep breath. I don't want to be so bad at this that Peeta has to do it instead. Today will be tough enough for him already.
"Well, um, hello everybody," I start out. "I'm Katniss Mellark. This is my husband Peeta. We're visiting District 12 today, or what's left of it. We're here with my friend Gale Hawthorne. On the night of the bombing last month, Gale organized an evacuation that saved 800 lives." I can tell Gale is uncomfortable with the praise, but I'm only stating what he actually did.
"Friend?" Cressida asks. "Isn't he your cousin?"
I don't know if she's asking for real, or for the cameras. I guess the answer is the same either way. "No. Gale is my closest friend, but we're not actually related. That was just a lie the Capitol told. When I was in the Hunger Games and they came to Twelve to interview my family and friends, the interviewers decided that I couldn't have a romance with Peeta if Gale was my friend. So they said he was my cousin."
Huh. It feels surprisingly good to just explain all of that. To set the record straight and tell people the truth. Maybe Peeta was on to something.
When we get to my old house, there's almost nothing left of it. The only recognizable landmark is a pile of charred bricks that used to be the chimney, but using that as a reference point I can figure out where the rest of the house used to be. The kitchen table where Mom and Prim tried to save the lives of disfigured miners. The bed I used to share with Prim. Cressida wants me to do something in the wreckage – "Whatever you feel like," she says – but all I really feel like doing here is holding onto Peeta and crying. I'm sure Plutarch would be thrilled to get that footage, but I don't feel like giving it to him. After a few minutes of me standing around awkwardly, we move on.
The scene is much the same at Gale's house, but he doesn't get off so easily as I did. Once we're there Cressida questions him about his family, about life in the Seam, about his job in the mines. She makes him walk us through a reenactment of the evacuation. Gale explains how he herded people towards the Meadow, since it was one of the few places in the district not full of old wooden buildings choked with decades of coal dust, thus one of the few places not on fire. Power had been cut to Twelve just before the bombing, so knocking down the fence was easy enough for a large group of people. Moving out into the woods away from the conflagration was the next logical step. Peeta and I lag behind as the procession follows Gale out through the Meadow and into our woods. Many of the trees near where the fence used to be have been reduced to charred stumps, and even out here we still pass the occasional decomposing body.
Eventually we arrive at the stream where I found Gale and his group the following morning. It occurs to me that Gale had actually followed Haymitch's old Hunger Games advice: run away and find water.
We linger by the stream after Gale finishes his tale. Cressida asks Gale and I about our hunting. What drove us out into the woods, how we met, some favorite moments. A lot of the awkwardness of the last few weeks seems to melt away as we relate mishaps with bees and wild dogs and skunks. Even Peeta opens up a bit, telling of our early trips out here together after the Games. The crew seems to enjoy tales of his ineptitude at shooting. But it's when he mentions me teaching him how to swim that he gets a stronger reaction.
"Really? You can swim? Both of you?" Plutarch is shocked by this. I don't see why it would matter so much to him.
Peeta nods at him. "Yeah. Katniss learned from her father, and she taught me last fall."
"Oh, my…" It takes a moment for Plutarch to elaborate. "Once we started hearing rumors of the victors being reaped into the Quarter Quell, we made some adjustments to the arena to try to set the odds in our favor. There was a large body of water surrounding the Cornucopia, and we moved the tribute platforms out into the water in order to give Finnick an advantage. We assumed he and the other Four tribute would be the only experienced swimmers. Finnick would be the first one at the Cornucopia and would have his choice of the weapons there. He would barter the bow and arrows to become your ally, cement the alliance by helping you and Peeta get from your platforms to dry land, and then influence you toward our escape plan. I have to admit, when Peeta didn't volunteer to join you in the arena it put a bit of a kink in our plans."
Yeah, I bet it did. It's all so very typically Capitol, making faulty assumptions and then using them to build a plan so convoluted and fragile that it would collapse in a stiff breeze. "And what about Finnick lying dead in the sand with an arrow sticking out of his neck because nobody told me he was supposed to be my ally? What would that have done to your plans?"
Plutarch looks positively green at imagining the scene. "Well," he says shakily, "I guess it's just as well that we went with a different idea."
Yeah, it is. I'm starting to think that Haymitch was actually the smartest rebel conspirator. If only he wasn't such a secretive bastard.
On that note we break for lunch. Cheese sandwiches are passed around and we eat them in the shade of the trees. I drag Peeta over to sit on the far edge of the group near Pollux so we won't have to talk anymore. But nobody else feels like talking either, leaving us to eat in relative silence. I close my eyes, enjoying the sounds of the woods around me. It's not just the last few weeks spent in that sterile bunker that have me feeling this way, I haven't been out here in the woods since before the Victory Tour. After the morning we've had, I need the calm that this place has always brought me.
At one point Peeta nudges my elbow to get my attention, and points to a particular branch across the stream. Perched on the branch is a small black bird with white patches on its wings. A mockingjay.
By unspoken agreement, neither of us speaks aloud for fear of scaring the bird away. I give him my most unimpressed stare, because it's not like mockingjays are rare in these woods. Peeta wriggles his eyebrows at me, like the juxtaposition of the bird and the name the rebels have given me is supremely funny to him. When he doesn't get the response he wants from me, he turns and nudges Pollux instead.
It takes Pollux a moment before his face lights up in understanding. He gestures to my pin and back to the bird in question, and Peeta grins and nods to him in confirmation. Then Peeta tries to whistle a short tune at the bird. It's terrible. I think the bird actually cocks its head in confusion. I have to hold myself back from a fit of laughter that would scare it away. One time last fall I had told Peeta that he couldn't carry a tune to save his life. In response he had hefted me up over his shoulder and declared that he would just carry me, I could both carry a tune and save his life.
The memory puts me in a good enough mood that I decide to indulge him. I hold up one finger to stop any further attempts from him, and whistle a birdcall. After just a moment, the mockingjay whistles the call right back at me. Then, to my surprise, Pollux whistles a few notes of his own. The bird answers him immediately. Pollux's face breaks into an expression of delight as he and the mockingjay exchange tunes back and forth. I guess it's the first conversation he's had in a while.
Mockingjays are attracted to music, and soon there are half a dozen of them perched in the branches around us. Pollux picks up a twig and scratches the word SING? in the dirt. Usually I'd decline, but the joy on his face makes me reluctant to say no to him.
Without consciously thinking about it, Rue's four-note tune comes out of my mouth. The mockingjays pick up the simple phrase and bounce it back and forth between them, creating a beautiful harmony. Just like they did in the arena.
I wrench myself to my feet as memories of the Games begin to overwhelm me. Peeta is right there next to me, his arm around my shoulders and his lips against my ear reminding me that I'm safe now, that these are my woods and not the arena, that none of us is in danger here. But the mockingjays are still singing and the memories won't stop. I need them to change their tune.
"Want to hear them do a real song?" I burst out. I stand away from Peeta's embrace so I can breathe more deeply. He recognizes what I'm doing and releases me, but retakes my hand and holds it tightly. It anchors me.
I don't know if it's the memories of the arena or just the mood of this entire day, but for whatever reason I start singing "The Hanging Tree." It's an old song, hauntingly beautiful, about a condemned man pleading for his love to join him in death. I used to think he had to be the creepiest guy imaginable to do that. But then I found myself in the arena with a handful of berries, asking my love to join me in death. So maybe I shouldn't judge him so harshly without knowing the whole story.
My mother expressly forbid the song when I was a kid, back before my father died and she stopped parenting us. At the time I didn't even understand the lyrics, all I knew was that the tune was simple and easy to harmonize to. But I haven't sung it out loud for ten years.
Until today. Today, for whatever reason, I sing all four verses. For the mockingjays that my father used to sing to. For this collection of Capitolites and Thirteeners I have with me. For Pollux, who will never sing again. For Darius and Lavinia, who I wish had received the freedom of death, like the lover in the song. For Paulus, and Cinna, who did. For District Twelve, condemned for the crime of having birthed me.
For just a moment after I finish, it feels like the entire forest is still and silent. Then the mockingjays take up my tune. Passing verses back and forth, harmonizing with each other, the exchange growing more intricate as more birds in nearby trees pick up the tune and join in the symphony. It's really quite beautiful.
I look over and see that Pollux has tears running down his cheeks. Did my maudlin song remind him of some terrible incident from his life? Next to me Peeta is in much the same state. As the mockingjays continue to trade The Hanging Tree back and forth, Peeta quietly croaks out, "Dad was right, all the birds stop to listen to that Everdeen voice." I pull him into a hug and hold him tightly, and I feel him rest his head atop mine. We stay like that until I hear Cressida quietly say, "Cut."
What? They weren't…? No, they were. I look up to see Castor has been taping us. While he and Cressida confer about something, Plutarch crosses over to where I'm still holding Peeta. "Where do you come up with this stuff? No one would believe it if we made it up!" He throws his arms around both of us in his exuberance. "You're golden!"
"I wasn't doing that for the cameras," I say testily.
"Lucky they were on, then," he says. I can't tell if he's oblivious or he just doesn't care. "Come on, everybody, back to town!"
Peeta is silent as we trudge back to the district, giving me plenty of time to think. Part of me still feels like it's a violation, having all these people watch and record us. On the other hand, we're not doing anything different than we would be without them here, so their presence could be dismissed as incidental. On the other hand, by all rights these moments should be private, not recorded and saved and shared with all of Panem. On the other hand, after the last year all of Panem probably has a pretty twisted view of Peeta and me, and is it so bad to show them the truth?
I don't reach any resolution to this conflict by the time we're once again crossing the Meadow. This time instead of heading to the Seam, we turn the other direction. I can feel Peeta tensing up next to me. I tighten my grip on his hand, trying to convey my support and reassurance, but knowing that it can't possibly be enough right now.
Cressida must sense Peeta's darkening mood, because she directs all of her questions at me. "Where are we headed now, Katniss?"
I cast a nervous glance over at Peeta, but I narrate for the camera. "This was the part of the district we called the town," I explain. "This was where the wealthier residents lived and where the merchants had their shops. Of course 'wealthy' is a relative term. For most of town it just meant that they missed a lot fewer meals than we did in the Seam."
"And do we have any particular destination in the town today?" Cressida asks, knowing the answer.
"Mellark Bakery." Peeta says, speaking for the first time since we left the stream behind. "Where my family died."
Thankfully Cressida remains silent for the rest of the walk. When we come to a point on the path where we would normally be able to see the square, I feel Peeta go stiff beside me. I turn towards him, and reach up and turn his head towards me. "Hey. I'm right here with you. Everything's going to be all right. Okay?"
Peeta takes several deep breaths, and his face relaxes a bit. He nods to me. I reach up and give him a soft kiss. "You ready?" He nods again. I give his hand a squeeze, and we continue on towards the bakery.
The scene in town is both better and worse than what we saw in the Seam. The town took the brunt of the early bombing; the destruction here is even more devastating. But at the same time, the more intense bombing left behind fewer recognizable remnants to serve as reminders of what was lost. There are no decomposing bodies here, only a few bare skeletons, their flesh burned away by the inferno.
The town square is a wasteland. When we finally get there, the only distinguishing characteristic of the bakery is the melted lump of metal that used to be the ovens. Surrounding it is nothing but debris. Any semblance of a building has been wiped from existence.
We just stare silently for a long time. Not even Plutarch speaks. Finally I lean up to whisper in Peeta's ear, a question just for us and not for the cameras. "Do you need a minute? Do you want me to take the camera team somewhere else for a while?" He gives the smallest shake of his head and tightens his grip on my hand. "Okay. I'll stay here with you." I give him a quick kiss on the cheek and squeeze his hand back.
Eventually Cressida decides that she has enough silent contemplation footage, and begins peppering us with questions, trying to spark a response from Peeta. I deflect as many as I can, and even Gale helps. But no matter how much we talk about trading game to Peeta's father or taking Prim to see the beautifully iced cakes, Cressida still wants some comments from Peeta himself. She keeps asking him questions that Gale and I can't answer, even though it's clear Peeta isn't talking.
Finally I've had enough. "Okay! Listen, if you want another story I'll tell you another story!" I begin wandering towards the back of the bakery. I want to draw everyone's attention away from the main site of the destruction, especially Peeta's. I drag him with me by our joined hands, and he doesn't resist. I take a few more steps into what used to be the alley behind the bakery, wracking my brain trying to come up with something to mollify Cressida, when exactly where I am hits me so hard it's almost like a physical blow. I look back towards the remains of the ovens, try to imagine how the walls surrounded it and where the back door would have been … Yes, this is it. This is the spot.
"This is the spot," I say, not really knowing where to begin. I gesture back to the ruins of the bakery. "The bakery was over there, right there was a pen for the Mellarks' pig, and right here was an old apple tree."
At the mention of the apple tree Peeta's head whips around to face me. He's just realized what I'm about to say. I give him a questioning look. Is this okay? Is it all right to tell them this? He gives me an almost imperceptible nod of his head. It's fine. Go ahead.
I take just a moment to mentally prepare myself. This story is too important to let it be ruined by my terrible storytelling. I think of Peeta, and his ability to paint pictures with words as easily as he does with brushes. So I take a deep breath and begin to set the scene. "When I first met Peeta, I was eleven years old, and I was almost dead."
That gets everyone's attention. Nobody even looks at Peeta now. Now they're all focused on me.
"My father had died the previous winter, blown to bits in a mine explosion. My mother was crippled by her grief, she would just stare out into space all day. That left my seven-year-old sister Prim and me to fend for ourselves. We exhausted my father's death benefit and my mother wasn't working, so we had no money. And no money meant no food. I wasn't even old enough to sign up for tesserae yet. Over the next couple of months I sold everything we had that was worth anything, but eventually I ran out of things to sell. So we were starving. Literally. One day it was pouring rain, and I spent the day trying to sell some of Prim's old baby clothes, but they were so worn they were practically rags. At one point I dropped them in the mud and didn't even bother trying to pick them up, because I thought if I tried to bend over to get them I wouldn't have the strength to stand upright again. We hadn't had any food for days, and I had run out of ways to get any more."
Everyone is silently watching me now. Gale has a curious look on his face that I don't take the time to analyze. Have I ever told this story to Gale? I don't think so; I never would have spoken of it before the Games, and after that Peeta was the last thing Gale ever wanted to talk about. Even Peeta seems interested. He should know this story better than anyone, but I don't think we've ever discussed my side of it in this much detail before. I realize I'm about to share thoughts and details with a camera crew that I've never shared with my husband or my best friend, but somehow the thought doesn't bother me as much as I feel like it should. It's Peeta's idea of being honest on camera, being my true self on camera. In this moment it feels strangely liberating. Plus this is ultimately a story about Peeta, not about me.
"I was behind the merchant shops when I though that maybe there was something in their trash I could steal? A spare bone from the butcher's, some rotted vegetables from the grocer's, anything really. But I found them all freshly emptied. When I was behind the bakery, Mrs. Mellark caught me. I guess I wasn't the first one to go digging through the bakery's trash bins, and she took out her frustrations about it on me. Yelling at me to stay away, threatening to call the Peacekeepers and report me for stealing. I stumbled away as best I could, but I only made it to here, to this apple tree. I fell down against the tree, and I didn't have the strength to get back up anymore. I sat here and accepted that I was going to starve. I sat here and waited to die."
Peeta steps over and caresses my cheek, places a kiss on my head. I finally let go of his hand so I can wrap my arm around his waist. He returns the gesture, and we stand together, side by side, leaning on one another, at the site of the old apple tree.
"As I was sitting here, I heard a commotion inside the bakery. There was some banging, and a lot of yelling. And then this blond-haired boy came out the back door, carrying two loaves of bread with scorch marks on them. He had a nasty welt on his cheek and his eye was already starting to swell up from where his mother had hit him. Mrs. Mellark was yelling after him now, berating him and ordering him to feed the burnt bread to the pig. He started tearing off blackened bits of bread and tossing them to the pig, until his mother went back inside to help another customer. As soon as she was gone, he threw the two loaves of bread to me and ran back inside."
I smile, remembering. "It took me a minute to realize exactly what just happened. As soon as I did I felt a jolt of adrenaline; that's the only way I can explain how I found the energy to grab the bread and get back to my house. I still remember how the heat from the loaves burned my skin when I shoved them under my shirt to protect them from the rain. The bread was fine, really, just a little scorched in some spots. The three of us ate an entire loaf for dinner that night. It was good, hearty bread, full of nuts and raisins. It was the first real meal my family had eaten in what felt like forever."
I turn to look at Peeta and find him looking back at me. "It wasn't until the next morning that it occurred to me that maybe the boy had burned that bread on purpose. That he had knowingly set himself up to take that beating just so he could give me the bread." Peeta doesn't say anything, but he gives me a small smile.
"I saw the boy in school the next day. He had a black eye, and his face was bruised and swollen." Without even thinking of it, I reach up and lightly touch the side of Peeta's face, where his mother had hit him all those years ago. He covers my hand with his own, holding both against his cheek. "I wanted to thank him, but I didn't know how. What do you say to a complete stranger who saved your whole family? How do you thank an eleven-year-old boy who took a beating just to help you?" Peeta and I just stare at each other, lost in the moment.
When I realize I haven't spoken for a while I turn back towards the camera. "We were staring at each other across the schoolyard, both of us too nervous to go and speak to the other. When I looked away from him and down at my feet, I saw a dandelion. The first dandelion of the spring. The first sign that the winter was over, and the world was about to be reborn. It reminded me of my father, because we used to collect dandelions in the Meadow near our house. We'd get a basket full of them and take them home and make a salad. And that's exactly what Prim and I did that day, we went to the Meadow and picked every dandelion we could find and had ourselves a huge dandelion salad along with some more of the bread.
"But more than that, seeing that dandelion reminded me of all the other plants my father taught me to gather. And the bow he taught me to shoot. I knew how to survive. I knew how to keep my family alive. My father taught me how, but in my grief and despair I had forgotten for a while. It took that boy to remind me. It took that boy to keep me alive long enough to remember."
I can feel Peeta hugging me tighter to him. I return the gesture, but I don't dare look at him, because I think I may cry if I do. Instead I just continue my story. "And for the next four years, I did exactly that. I hunted in the woods. I gathered plants and berries. I traded at the illegal black market. I found all of my father's old trading partners in town and began trading with them myself. I met Gale in the woods, I taught him how to use a bow and he taught me how to set snares and we became close friends. I survived. I kept my family alive. I even helped Gale keep his family alive. And none of it would have happened if that boy hadn't burned two loaves of bread for me."
From the looks on the faces of the crew, I think I'm doing well so far. Nobody has moved since I started speaking. I'm trying to think of a way to wrap everything up when I remember that this is supposed to be a propo, and it would be a much more effective one if I connected back to what everybody already knows about me. "You've seen us fight for our lives in the Hunger Games, but we all know that just living in the districts can be a fight for our lives every day, every single day. On that day, when I had no more fight left in me, there was someone else who did. Here at his family's bakery, where he lived from the day he was born until the day he was reaped, more than four years before we would ever actually speak to one another, that was the first time Peeta put himself in harm's way for me. Right on this very spot, with no sponsors to impress and no cameras to capture his heroics, this is where Peeta Mellark saved my life for the first time."
I can feel my eyes welling up now, but I square my shoulders and look straight into the camera. "You all know what's been happening these last few weeks. People all over Panem are fighting back against the tyranny of President Snow. We've liberated entire districts from the control of the Capitol. There will never be another Hunger Games, not one more child will die in the arena. And whatever role I played in giving people hope or inspiration to do those things, it only happened because one day in the rain, right on this spot, an eleven-year-old boy saw an eleven-year-old girl who was about to die, and he decided to help her in the only way he could, no matter the cost. So if anyone ever tries to tell you that one person can't make a difference in this world; that one act of kindness, one act of mercy, one act of bravery, one act of love can't change this world for the better; you tell them that they're a damned fool, and you tell them about the boy with the bread."
I continue to stare straight into the camera for a long moment before I dip my head and reach up to wipe the tears from my eyes. "That's it. I don't have anything more to say right now."
"Cut," Cressida says quietly.
…..
I still kind of feel like this chapter is a bit over-indulgent. But it's fanfiction, so I'm indulging. IIRC Katniss's story about the bread is one of the first things I ever wrote for this story, well over ten years ago now. Now I finally get to put it out into the world.
Next chapter: We finish our tour, and Katniss remembers a dream.
Preview quote from Chapter 31:
"Don't try to make me feel better about this."