INTERVIEW WITH THE MOCKINGJAY – Chapter 44
"I guess you thought things were hopeless at that moment," I say.
Katniss shakes her head. I am so tightly focused on this interview, I can barely breathe.
"They weren't hopeless?" I gasp, not believing what I heard. "I would have thought you were expecting to be shot." Of course, that idea is somewhat ridiculous, I think. She survived two trips to the Hunger Games Arena.
"No," Katniss says. "Now I knew that I had to take my family, Peeta and his family, Gale and his family, and Haymitch, and flee into the wild."
"That's a little far-fetched," I say. "In the middle of winter? Where would you go? You did realize that if the whole lot of you vanished, the government would send every Peacekeeper in uniform after you."
"I didn't care," she says. "I just wasn't going to crumple on the ground, weeping. I stood up straighter and smiled bigger."
"I remember what happened next," Archer says. "Snow offered to throw the wedding in the Capitol, doing it before you were aged 30."
Katniss nods. She doesn't mention – it goes without saying – that the wedding would be a titanic affair, shown on national television, in an extremely ostentatious atmosphere, in the Capitol. Nor does she have to mention that she and Peeta will actually be married sometime next spring in a very relaxed environment, here in District 12.
Katniss describes the banquet that followed, taking place at Snow's mansion. Having never been there while it was still intact, I have some interest in both the building and the event. Musicians on clouds. Diners lying on stuffed sofas and stuffing themselves with food.
I only saw it as a burned-out ruin, with massive shell holes in what was left of the walls, and rebel soldiers scrawling graffiti on the sides that said things like "Alvin was here" or "fuck Snow."
"They had whole roasted cows and pigs and goats still turning on spits," Katniss says. She describes platters of fowl, fish, cheese, bread, vegetables, sweets, and wine.
"I told Peeta I wanted to taste everything in the room. He told me to pace myself," Katniss says. Despite her determination to do so, she couldn't.
"How did you get along with all those Capitol people? It was the first time you met them," I say.
"They were all over me," she says. "My mockingjay pin had spawned new fashion accessories."
"Oh, yeah," Archer says. "Belt buckles, embroidery on silk lapels, even 'tramp stamps.'"
"What's a 'tramp stamp'?" Katniss asks.
"A tattoo in an intimate place," I say quickly. "Women get them to impress potential or existing boyfriends." I decide not to tell Katniss about the woman in my unit who got a tattoo of a highway sign that read "Slippery When Wet" on the inside of her right thigh. I saw it when she was in her underwear while delousing her clothing. I never found out why – if she was trying to impress potential boyfriends or an existing one.
"Oh," Katniss says. "The biggest thing was how all those people kept eating food and getting massively drunk. I didn't see how they held it in. My stylist, Octavia, asked me why I'd stopped eating. I told her I couldn't take another bite. So she handed me a wineglass with a clear liquid, and she told me to go to the toilet so I could vomit out the food and eat more."
I stare at her. Then I stare at Archer. "Did you know about this behavior?" I ask him.
"I saw Capitol people doing that on tours," he says. "Some Avox would clean up the vomit."
"Peeta took me out on the floor, dancing, but all I could think about was how my people at home were wasting away from starvation," Katniss says. "Or if they were vomiting, it was from spoiled food, and my mother was trying to feed them. This place, these people…they just made me sick. I told Peeta, 'They bring us here to fight to the death for their entertainment. This is nothing by comparison.' I felt like I couldn't stand it anymore."
"How did he answer that?" I ask.
"He said, 'Maybe we were wrong about trying to subdue things in the districts.' Then he dropped the subject," Katniss answers.
"You couldn't talk about that subject in a setting like that," I say, quickly.
Katniss nods. "That's when I met Plutarch Heavensbee," she says. He was the new Head Gamemaker, and he turned out to be one of the most important figures in the rebellion.
"It wasn't the first time we met," Katniss says. "I sent him tripping backward into the punch bowl when I shot the arrow at the Gamemakers in training."
"Did he remember?" I ask.
"He told me he was still recovering. He said some weird stuff…that there weren't many takers for the job came first," Katniss says.
"After Seneca Crane was forcibly introduced to hemlock, I wouldn't doubt it," I say.
Katniss nods. "He told me he had to work on the new Arena that very evening at a strategy meeting. Then he did something that I only understood much later," she says.
"Which was," I continue.
"He flipped out this gold watch on a chain from his vest pocket, opened the lid, and said, 'It starts at midnight.' It seemed late for a strategy meeting, but then he ran his thumb across the watch's crystal face, and an image appeared – it was another mockingjay, just like the pin on my dress. Then it disappeared. He snapped the watch closed.
"I told him it was pretty. He told me it was 'one of a kind.' Then he told me that if anyone asked, he'd gone home to bed. Then he gave me best wishes," Katniss says.
"Of course, you had no idea that he was giving you that hint about how he was setting up the next Arena, so that you and Peeta could escape from that horror again."
"No idea," she says, shaking her head. "Furthest thing from my mind."
"What did you think of," I ask.
"That he was showing me some kind of expensive toy he'd bought," she says. "Then we went home at 1 a.m."
She mentions that she and Peeta had separate dreams while sleeping on the train – her about following a mockingjay that had Rue's voice through the woods, which was better than most of her nightmares. I know about postwar nightmares. I think that's one of the biggest reasons Meredith and I have been having so much sex. We sleep so well after we're done.
Victory Tours always ended with festivals in the home districts, and District 12 was no different – they held a Harvest Festival.
"This time it was at Mayor Undersee's home, instead of the Justice Building," Katniss says. Both are wreckage now, I think, but the Mayor's home must have been more pleasant than those Justice fortresses.
"Effie Trinket had to dress me for the party, and once she did, I went to the mayor's office to say hello to him," Katniss says. "I had an hour to kill. The office was empty, but the TV set was on, and a woman with graying hair, and a hoarse, authoritative voice was reporting. The words 'Update on District 8' were flashing. She was saying that a Level 3 alert had been called and additional forces were being sent to the district, where all textile production had ceased.
"They had a shot of a mob scene…the square packed with screaming people, with banners that had my face on them. Their faces were covered with rags and masks. They were throwing bricks, burning buildings, and Peacekeepers were shooting them.
"It had to be an uprising," Katniss finishes.
"It was the uprising," I answer. "District 8 exploded after you went through. My father said that a Level 3 alert was the highest response to a district unrest."
"Did he have to deal with them?" Katniss asks.
"Yes," I said. "He had to go. He gave me his side of the story."
"I'd like to hear it," Katniss says.
Katniss nods. A servant appears and pours us all refills on our tea. "They never saw me look in on that TV broadcast," she says.
"I bet it proved Snow's point," I say.
"I know," Katniss says.
"How did you know?" I ask Katniss. I'm familiar with the whole story. For once, Dad told me his version of events. "He got deployed to District 8. I guess you know about District 8 from going there on the Victory Tour."
Katniss smiles knowingly. "Tell me your version first," she says.
I start doing so. Dad was assigned to head a detachment of Peacekeepers who were sent there. Apparently the residents were so inspired by Katniss and Peeta winning the games and defying the government, and after the games, they created a resistance front in their factories. The mills were so loud, nobody could hear anything. However, that did not prevent workers from passing notes, whispering, and even lip-reading.
The uprising actually began the night Peeta offered marriage to Katniss. "The entire population of the District was in the square, watching the broadcast on big-screen TVs," I say. "At the precise moment Peeta dropped to one knee, the crowds stormed the Communications Center, the granary, and the power station, and the Justice Building.
"They killed most of the Peacekeepers in the District, so Dad and reinforcements were sent in by hovercraft. Thousands of Peacekeepers. First, the government bombed the District, then they landed the troops and the Peacekeepers attacked," I continue.
"The PICK UP HERE
She places down the tea. "How do you feel about going on a little trip outside the District," she asks.
"As long as it's not far," I answer.
"It's getting late," Katniss says. "I don't want to be out of the District fences by night. Especially with all those troops out there."
"They might shoot first and ask questions later," I say. "Tomorrow morning?"
"Bright and early," Katniss says.
Archer shuts off his machine and we prepare to go. "What are you going to do this evening?"
"Hunt some quail," Archer says, with a grin.
Katniss looks at him, puzzled.
"He means he's going to chase women," I say drily. Doubtless, she's thinking in terms of bows and arrows.
"That's about it," Archer says. "Find a babe who wants to party hearty. I tell you, the female construction workers may work hard, but they also play hard." He looks at me with a knowing grin. "And we all know what you're going to be doing this evening."
"The difference is that mine is permanent, yours is for one night," I say.
XXX
When I enter Meredith's house, I cannot restrain my urge, and I yell out, "Hi, honey, I'm home!" like a TV husband on a Capitol situation comedy.
Meredith emerges from her kitchen, wearing the girlish white dress she had on when we were at lunch. "Hi, fair man," she says. Then, with smoothness, she unbuttons the dress, and lets it drop to the floor.
Oddly enough, I have seen this kind of move on TV shows…when the lead female seduces her boyfriend. On the free shows, the move is shot from behind, and we see nothing below her waist, just the awed reaction on the guy's face. Then the show cuts to a commercial. On the pay-per-view channels, the shot is frontal, and we see the lady's bare breasts and excited expression. Then the couple join together in a passionate embrace and the scene dissolves to the two of them in bed, usually after they're finished making love.
I'm getting the full frontal view now. Meredith steps out of the dress, and there is nothing on underneath, not even slippers. She puts her arms around my shoulders and gives me a long, smoldering kiss. Then she says, "Tonight, fair man, it's going to be all about me."
"I don't get it," I say. She grabs the top of my head and shoves me down on my knees, so that I am facing the damp tangle of her pubic hair. "Oh, now I get it," I say.
"I warmed myself up a little," she says. "Your job is to finish me off."
"Right here? In the living room?" I ask.
"Why not?" she answers, placing her hands behind my head and gently pushing me and my tongue toward her.
Why not, indeed, I think, as I answer her by swirling my tongue against her clitoris. I'm liking the idea of the night being all about her.
XXX
Sometime later, her wearing a bathrobe, hair askew, I still dressed; we are eating chicken parmigiana for dinner. Meredith collapsed on her rug while I was tonguing her and I finished her off there, while she lay beneath me. The food was delivered much earlier – all Meredith had to do was heat it up.
"How was that?" I ask my future wife.
"Pretty much what I was thinking about all day," she says, with a grin.
"Only all day?" I respond.
"Okay, pretty much what I was thinking about for a very long time," she answers. "I actually got the idea when we were in the Army. I had this dream in training where you slipped into my room, fully clothed, climbed into my bed, pulled down my panties, and went down on me."
"I see," I say. Then I chuckle. "And how did it come out?"
"Well, I was very wet when I woke up," Meredith says, smiling.
"So what went better, the dream, or the reality?" I ask.
Meredith swallows her food. "Oh, the reality, of course," she says.
Then she looks at me and tosses her hair aside. "I'll make it all about you later," she says. "Fair is fair."
"I could go all night making it about you, dark lady," I say.
XXX
We are lying in bed, much later, naked now, holding each other. True to her word, Meredith made it "all about me" later, but I made sure she enjoyed it, too.
"I have an abundance of you inside me," she says. "An incredible abundance."
"You take a lot out of me, dark lady," I say.
"Well, nothing will happen with it until our wedding night," she says. "But it feels so good for now. Having your essence inside me makes up for how far apart we were for so long."
"Does it help you sleep better?" I ask.
Meredith leans on an elbow. "Now that you mention it, it does. I don't have nightmares after we make love. I used to have nightmares every night. Do you?"
I shake my head. "I've been completely out since we started making love regularly," I say. It's an amazing sleeping pill," I say.
Idly, I fondle Meredith's left nipple, which hardens under my touch. Maybe I'll make it "all about her" again.
The thought rises. "It's funny…when I interviewed Katniss today, she told me that on her way back from the Capitol after the 74th Hunger Games Victory Tour, she didn't have any nightmares. Usually, she said, she did. Still does."
"I wouldn't doubt it," Meredith says.
"Tomorrow she's taking us out of the District to show us something," I say. "I don't know what yet."
"I'll let the troops know," Meredith says. She pauses, her breath a little heavy. "It's hard to concentrate on this subject when you're doing that."
"Like doing this?" I ask, trying to sound innocent, as I twist Meredith's nipple, eliciting a pleasurable moan.
"Yes, fair man," Meredith says. "You do that very well." She lets out another moan. "It feels so good."
"I hope you remember to alert the guards," I say.
"I'll take care of you," she answer, sliding a hand toward my penis, and gentle caressing it. In seconds, I am aroused.
"I think I'll add to that abundance," I say.
XXX
Archer, Katniss, and I are walking by the edge of District 12's lake. Katniss is fully-armed with her bows and arrows, even though a squad of soldiers are nearby, weapons ready, equipped with binoculars, infra-red sensors, and communicuffs. Meredith has kept her promise, Bellamy has assigned some troops, and it is a perfect fall day – golden and red leaves bursting from trees, scattering to the ground.
"This was our house," Katniss says, showing off the remains of a concrete one-room building, about 12 feet square. Amazingly, it has a working fireplace.
"You didn't live here," I say. "I mean, not with Gale or anybody else. It was a hangout."
"I often met Gale here," she continues. "This is where I came that winter day after the Victory Party to meet him."
"And he was furious," I say.
"He wouldn't accept the gifts I had for him," Katniss says. "I gave him a bag of food, a flask, and gloves from Cinna. I knew how he felt. I did the same thing to my mother."
"He felt betrayed by your engagement to Peeta," I say.
"I tried to explain it to him, how Snow personally threatened to have him killed. He just asked who else was on the death list, and I said it was a good guess it included both our families," she says.
I nod, and sit down on a pile of rocks next to the house. Archer, alertly, has brought a folding chair. Katniss stands.
"So what happened," I ask.
"Gale said, 'Thanks for the heads-up.'" She shakes her head. "For some reason, I smiled. Then I told him my plan, which we all run away. I told him the whole story," she says.
"How did he take it?" I ask.
"He didn't interrupt," Katniss answers. "He just toasted the bread and cheese I'd bought. Then he asked me about my plan to run away. He told me I was nuts, but he agreed we should do it. 100 percent. He said he was going to take his mother for a long walk to make her see reason on it.
"But then it all started unraveling. First, I told him how many people we would have to take in the party, and wasn't thrilled by that. He told me that Snow would come right after all of us in full force.
"So I told him how Snow was too busy putting down an uprising in District 8 to spend much time choosing my wedding cakes. And that did it."
"Of course," I say. "He was more interested in the District 8 uprising than fleeing District 12."
"I'll never forget the flush on his cheeks, the brightness of his eyes, and how he grabbed my shoulders, asking me more questions about it…how I learned about it, what I saw, what was happening, what I knew."
That was it, I think. Right there, his values changed.
"You lost him at that moment," I say. "I'm sorry to tell you, but at that moment, he became more interested in resistance against the government than his relationship with you." I take both of her hands in mine. "I'm sorry. It must have felt terrible."
"The worst thing was not that. I only realized that later. The worst thing was how I had caused all this violence. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would ever have happened. Peeta would have come home and lived and everybody would be safe, too," Katniss says.
"You know that's not true…nobody was safe in Panem. Not even the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane. Under Snow, today's Cabinet Secretary was tomorrow's Avox. People were just toys to him," I say.
"Gale said something like that," Katniss answers. "How people in District 12 starved, worked like slaves, sent their kids to the reaping, and if District 8 was fighting back, maybe they could all fight back. Now we had to join the fight, right here in District 12. And he threw Cinna's gloves down on the ground, saying he didn't want them."
"And that was it," I say. "That was the end of you two as a romantic couple. He wanted to fight the war. You just wanted to protect your family."
"That was all I wanted. All I ever wanted," Katniss spreads her arms. "And then I got all this." She doesn't have to tell me what "all this" refers to. She is the unlikeliest warrior hero I've ever met, and I've served in what Gus Lewis called "a company of heroes." So I know how ordinary men and women have risen to heights of valor. Katniss did so, both willingly and unwillingly. The dichotomy is clear to me. I hope I can make it clear to our readers. Katniss had to struggle to become who she is, and she didn't want to be it in the first place. There's a lot of valor in her.
"I went back to the District to sound out Peeta on my plan, and found him leaving the Victor's Village. He agreed to come, but he wanted to meet with Haymitch to be sure we wouldn't be making it worse for everyone. So we walked to the Village Square, where we heard this whipping noise, and it was coming from behind a huge crowd. Peeta stepped up on this crate and looked into the square. Then he told me to go home," Katniss says.
"I didn't. I pushed my way through the crowd and people recognized me. They started telling me to get back, to keep him from getting killed."
I'm baffled. "Keep who from getting killed," I ask.
"Gale," Katniss says. "His wrists were bound to a wooden post. He was slumping unconscious on his knees, held up by the ropes on his wrists. His back was all bloody…" Katniss's voice trails off. "They caught him with the wild turkey he'd shot."
I've seen my share of Peacekeeper floggings. District 2 didn't have them very often, but when we did, everyone in the District had to come out, including Daddy, if he was in the District. Mommy would join him and stand there until she died. One of my lingering and permanent memories is of her holding my hand tightly as the victim was being whipped. They made the desired impression: leaving everyone else in the District terrified.
"The difference was that it wasn't our old Head Peacekeeper, Darius, doing the whipping, but a new man, Romulus Thread," Katniss continues.
The name makes me freeze. "I know Romulus Thread," I say. "he's one of my father's pals. They served together in many places, for many years."
"Did you know him personally?" Katniss asks.
That one's tough. I decide to go with the side of honesty. "He came to our home a few times for dinner, when he was stationed in District 2. My father would hold barbecues and do golf outings with other senior Peacekeepers, and he'd be there," I say. "He was a hard guy. A mass of muscle," I say.
"That's all?" Katniss asks.
I look down at the ground. A burst of autumn wind flicks at my jacket, chilling me. "He would get lit up at the parties, and start going off on most of the people of Panem, saying that they were lazy shits who deserved what they got when Peacekeepers stepped into them. He'd trash them over his beer. Then he'd look at me and tell my father that I'd make a great Peacekeeper. He kept that up, the older I got," I say.
"What did your father do about it?" Katniss asks. "Or your mother?"
"Thread didn't bring it up with my mother at all when she was alive. Only my father. And he didn't say anything. He'd just stand there and smile. No other reaction. He wasn't going to get into it with Thread. He knew the guy was talking out of his ass and his liquor. He left it alone.
"But it always left me a little scared. I once asked my father if Thread could draft me into the Peacekeepers, and he said that could never happen."
Katniss rolls her eyes. "A man of privilege," she says.
"I'm sorry," I say. "It was what it was."
"What would you have done if the Peacekeepers called you up?" Katniss asks.
"I told you – my father told me to join the resistance as soon as it started," I respond.
"But before that? What if they'd called you up?" Katniss continues.
That's a tough one. I can't answer it. I sit there, quietly. Finally, I say, "I don't know. It's not something I ever had to think about. It just…never came up." I pause. "I guess that was my privilege." I pause again. "I tried to make up for it during the war."
Now it's Katniss's turn to pause and think. "You lost some good friends, too," she says at last.
"We both hurt in different ways," I say. "We both have nightmares." I don't tell her that I don't have nightmares after I've made love to Meredith. Nor has Meredith.
Time to move on. "So what happened with the whipping?" Back to the ugly subject.
"I sprang forward to put myself between the whip and Gale," Katniss says, and took the full force on the left side of my face. It was terrible. I screamed at Darius to stop what he was doing. He looked like he was going to start beating me next. But he didn't."
"Because?" Archer says.
"Haymitch himself appeared and told everyone to stop. He picked me up and told Darius I had a wedding shoot next week, and now I would like terrible for it," Katniss says.
"Darius said – and I'll never forget it – that I interrupted the 'punishment of a confessed criminal.' Haymitch said he didn't care if I blew up the Justice Building, I had to be camera-ready in a week."
"Another hot one," I mutter. "How did that come out?"
"Darius said, 'That's not my problem,'" Katniss says.
"Yeah, that was Darius," I say. He'd get faced, knock over a tray table, and say, 'Not my problem.' Asshole. And then?"
"Well, it got huge…first Haymitch said he was going to call the Capitol. Then Peeta showed up and said Gale was my cousin and he was my fiancé. And Purnia said that for a first offense, the required number of lashes had been dispensed."
"Was that the rule?" I ask Katniss.
"Well, nobody knew for sure. Truthfully, if someone showed up with fresh wild turkey, everybody – even the Peacekeepers – would bid on the drumsticks," Katniss says. "But Darius probably didn't know that. He just told me to get Gale out of there and that if he broke the law again, there'd be a firing squad," Katniss says.
Gus Lewis once told me that centuries ago, when firing squads were assembled, one member had a blank bullet in his rifle. The rifles were given out at random. That was to assure some possibility for each man that he was not firing a fatal round.
Katniss describes what happened next…someone sold her a board, Gale was placed on it face-down, and everybody headed to her mother's place for herbal healing. Haymitch put snow on Katniss's cheek to numb the pain.
"I found out what happened," Katniss says. Gale had taken a wild turkey to the Head Peacekeeper's house, expecting to find Cray, who always paid well. Instead, the new man, Thread, was there. He promptly arrested Gale.
"It was odd – nobody knew what happened to Cray. He was buying white liquor that morning in the Hob, and now he was gone," Katniss adds.
"I know what happened," I say. "Tortured and shot. He was blamed for District 12 winning the Hunger Games, so they investigated him. They found out he was too chummy with residents."
Katniss tells me they took Gale to her mother for medical treatment. "She would ask me to come in and kill a spider, but become immune to fear when a sick or dying person was brought to see her," Katniss says. I scribble that down in my notebook. I want to use those words verbatim.
Apparently, Katniss's mother used dried herbs, tinctures, and store-bought bottles on Gale's wounds. I idly wonder if a Capitol biochemist has done any serious research on the local herbs.
"She began to clean the mutilated flesh," Katniss says. "I felt sick to my stomach. It took a long time to work on him. Even with the oral concoction, it wasn't enough. She told me he could stand the medicine. We started arguing and I started shouting obscenities at her. And my mother ordered me out."
"You guys had a terrible relationship," I say.
"Still do," Katniss says, bluntly.
There is a crackle of radio noise, as the troops communicate with each other. It drowns out the sounds of bird calls. We seem to be pretty safe, despite the tension of the past few days.
Katniss rises from her seat. "Nobody move," she says. She unslings her bow and arrow and takes dead aim at a target that none of us can see. She launches a single arrow and it hits a squirrel dead in the back on the side of a tree, pinning it.
Katniss walks over to the squirrel, and removes both it and the arrow from the tree. She wraps the squirrel in a small bag and puts it in her larger hunting one, cleans her arrow with a cloth, and places it back in her quiver.
"Force of habit or tonight's dinner?" I ask.
Katniss shrugs. "Both," she says, without emotion. "We were standing over Gale, when someone knocked at the door," she continues, also unemotional. "I was expecting Peacekeepers, but it was Madge Undersee, with a dozen vials of clear liquid. It turned out to be morphling from the Capitol. My mother shot it into Gale's arm."
"Morphling is a descendant of Morphine," I tell Katniss. That's an early drug used to heal pain, but it was highly addictive. Morphling is not addictive."
She nods. No other reaction.
"And then?" I ask.
"Everyone left, and I sat in the kitchen, holding Gale's hand. I felt badly about letting him get whipped. I stroked his face. I wish I'd taken the berries in the Arena and let Peeta win and come home," she says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because I felt selfish. I was defined by that fruit. If I had come home without Peeta, I would have been shunned. Despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, then I'm still self-centered, but forgivable. However, if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I was someone of worth," Katniss says.
I think about that. Then I say, "Living in this District is a lot like the arena. At some point, you had to turn around and face whoever or whatever wanted you dead."
Katniss absorbs that. "That's true." She smiles slightly. "Quote me on saying that."
I laugh. "Then what happened?"
"Oh, I kissed Gale, and he woke up. I said, 'I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to say right here and cause all kinds of trouble.' He said, 'Me, too.'" Katniss says.
"Then he passed out from the drugs," she says.
After that, Katniss continues, she fell asleep. Peeta woke her up, bringing bread for all. He told Katniss to go upstairs and sleep, but she had the usual vile dreams about the Games. To add to the misery, a full blizzard was raging outside. "I figured it would keep the Peacekeepers away," she says.
"Somebody had to stand guard over the snow-shovelers," I say. Katniss nods.
"I expected to die while fighting the Capitol, but I didn't want my loved ones to get killed. Then I thought of Prim. I had to protect her. Her father…our father…had died in those wretched mines," Katniss says, close to sobbing, despite the presence of the troops.
"Let's move around," I say. "Do some hunting."
"Let's do that," Katniss says, unslinging the bow.
"We're going hunting," I say to the sergeant.
He turns to the troops and says, "Stealth patrol. Try not to scare the enemy or the game."
We move away from the house and into the woods. Adhering to their orders, the soldiers avoid making noise that would scare animals.
Once again, Katniss spots something. She drops to one knee, bow at the ready. She fires an arrow through the branches and leaves, and I hear the sound of an animal crumbling to the floor. Katniss races to it, the troops following, and we find a deer, shot through the head.
As Katniss removes the arrow and wraps the deer around her shoulders, a soldier says, "Wow. I won't even have to waste a bullet on it."
"You saw it," Katniss says.
"Shall I cook it tonight?" I ask Katniss.
She shakes her head. "No, I'm taking this to the Hob now." Turning to the troops, she says, "We're done. I'm heading back."
The sergeant responds, "We'll escort you back." Everyone piles back toward the gate.
"So what happened with Gale's wounds?" I ask Katniss.
My mother put a 'snow coat' on him, to heal his skin. That helped," she answers.
"What did you do in summer?" I ask.
"Kept the flies off, she told me," Katniss says. "I apologized for screaming at her. She told me she understood how people are, when someone they love is in pain." Katniss shakes her head. The love triangle again. "I actually asked where Peeta was, and my mother suggested I call. So I did. He did. He lived three houses down. And Haymitch had gone to his home and got drunk again."
After two days, the blizzard ended, and the town was surrounded by 10-foot walls of snow. Someone once told me that the intensely cold winters we suffer now are the result of damage to the atmosphere in wars that were punctuated by the use of extremely powerful explosives that left layers of smoke. Those layers cut down on the sun breaking through to the ground. That in turn accelerated Snow's "war, terrible war" of his annual Hunger Games address.
Katniss and Peeta finally woke Haymich up from his sleep, and they walked into town together. "I told him my plan, to start an uprising. He said, 'my plan is to make sure everything is perfect for your wedding.'" Katniss shakes her head. "He said that an uprising would not work.
"It was very strange. The streets were deserted, which would not be so unusual at that time of day – people in the minds, kids in school – but I saw faces looking out of doorways and through cracks in shutters," Katniss continues.
Definitely odd, I think. "What made you realize an uprising wouldn't work?" I ask.
"It required breaking the law and thwarting authority," Katniss says.
"Yes, but you'd been doing that all along," I answer. We reach the gate, and everyone checks in with the new guard. Katniss leads us across town, not to her house, past grinding construction and military vehicles, miners and workers, past the government buildings. I see Meredith standing on a porch, deeply engrossed in a conversation with Sam Horn and Ron Davis. I wave. She waves back, and resumes the discussion. Business before pleasure.
We keep going through the town to the ruins. Katniss is leading us some place. "As we walked through town that day, I found Hazelle nursing her daughter Posy, who had the measles. She wanted to know about Gale, and I said he'd be back in the mines in a couple of weeks. That's when it got funny," Katniss says.
"Funny how?" Archer asks. "Funny, weird, or funny, hah-hah?"
"Funny, weird," Katniss says. "Hazelle told me the mines were closed until further notice. So was her laundry business. I told Peeta and Haymitch to head back home, but they insisted on staying with me. That's when we reached the Hob, and it was on fire. The Peacekeepers were burning it down, and wouldn't let anyone try to put the fire out.
"Instead, they brought up torture equipment to intimidate anyone who tried," she says.
The next two weeks were hell for District 12, Katniss says. The mines were shut. With the Hob burned down, food shortages began instantly. Kids signed up for tesserae, but did not receive grain. Stores were soon empty.
When the mines re-opened, wages were cut, hours extended, miners sent to dangerous areas, and food for Parcel Day exposed to rodents. The Peacekeepers, however, were busy men, beating and whipping everyone they could find for even trivial offenses. Katniss's mother was caring for hordes of sick, starving, and maimed people.
"The Capitol declared war on you," I say.
"I couldn't take it anymore," Katniss says. "So I collected my waterproof boots, snowsuit, thermal gloves, and sneaked to the fence."
"Weren't you worried about Thread and his Peacekeepers?"
Katniss snorts. "They weren't patrolling the fence in 10 inches of snow," she retorts. He figured the fence was all he needed. I crawled under it, covered my tracks, and back to that house."
We are now standing at the ruins of the original Hob. Katniss looks down at the bricks and wreckage. "So much destruction here," she says. "So much pain."
She looks at me. "Anyway, I reached that house. I didn't notice the smoke coming out of the chimney, or the footprints, or the pine needles. I heard the click of a weapon behind me. I turned around, and saw a Peacekeeper standing there," she says. "I aimed my arrow right at her eye, and the woman dropped her gun."
"That's beyond crazy," Archer says.
Katniss shakes her head. "She told me to 'stop,' and then handed me a flat circle of bread, which looked like a cracker. It was soggy round the edges, but it had an image stamped in the center of it…it was my mockingjay."
I absorb that for a few moments, and then ask the obvious question. "And what was she doing with that, of course."