Madge Undersee
She knitted a new memory into the patchy tapestry of her brain the next morning. Gold-threaded pink blush of a sunrise. Rays laced through Katniss's curtains and landed squarely on the brown skin of her naked back. Shifting gently in time with her breathing as she slumbered. Her mind whirred with literary descriptions of this sight. The reminiscence of their lovemaking the night prior. Sentences spilled over into chapters before she quickly realised there weren't sufficient words to describe the depth of newfound affection they'd discovered in each other. No language that could encompass that feeling in her heart when Katniss stirred awake, gray eyes looking up into hers with tenderness.
"You're awake," Katniss murmured.
And Madge couldn't help but touch her. Brush fingers over the disheveled fringe she'd fisted her hand through last night as she came undone again. Trying to burn the warmth of Katniss's skin into her fingertips lest she forget this one more time.
Katniss caught hold of her fingers, breathing into them, "What're you looking at?"
"You-"
The words caught in her throat in a strangled sob. Because you was going away. And there'd be a shadow of warmth left behind she had to feed on until Katniss returned again. Already her chest ached at the thought of missing Katniss. A beautiful memory she'd resurrected from the dead only to watch it drift away yet again. Silly. She heard Katniss's voice, what're you crying for?
I'm right here.
Katniss kissed her before she could answer. Tasting of the sweetness that came with finding love again. Katniss pushed her way from beneath the covers and sauntered to the wardrobe. Hips held snug beneath black lace panties. The sunrise falling upon the taut lines of her naked back. At once, Madge understood why Crescentia meant to leave in the cover of night. Or why all her ill-fated hookups always ended in the darkness. Because it was too easy falling in love with someone seeing them in the light of the morning. Without the swirl of alcohol in her brain or fickle makeup or clothes. She watched Katniss get dressed, almost reluctant to emerge from their love nest. Afraid of facing the separation that awaited them.
Her joints felt frozen. Mired in the catharsis of being found again. She gradually eased herself off the bed and into her dress from last night. Emerging from Katniss's bedroom to the sizzle of bacon and cooking eggs. Scent of toast and roasted plum tomatoes. No Avoxes. No magical shuttle cabinets that opened with steaming hot food. Just Katniss standing over a pan. Laying out cutlery. This simple act of eating breakfast that became institutionalized like a ritual to her. Like the girls she'd been imprisoned with. Waiting until Madge picked up her fork before digging in. For a fleeting second, Madge felt her heart tighten at the thought that this was her life now. The bliss of waking next to Katniss after a night of dancing and lovemaking and having nothing else to do. Piano and books and singing.
It'd nearly driven her to tears again when Katniss hugged her farewell on the training centre steps.
"I'll see you again, won't I?" Madge thumbed through the pleats of Katniss's dress, "there are ten episodes of Panem Forever after all."
"Yes, but," Katniss answered, squeezing her tight, "I-I don't know if I could wait that long."
"Katniss-"
"Write to me, call me, whatever you want," Katniss pleaded, "I don't want you to be a memory."
A statecar pulled up by the curb.
"Even if you were. I'd have no regrets," Madge breathed into her ear, "because you'd be a good memory."
She swore the driver dropped her off at the wrong address.
Confronted by a vacant plot of land right where her store should be.
The neighbour's house had already been demolished. Roof rafters and stray wooden beams leaning on a scrap of a brick wall. The only indication this was 172 Veranda Street was the piano, still left in its original position. Surrounded by nothing but air. A hollow void which had housed books and crying children and the dreams of a new life she'd just started to see the faintest light of. Ripened and hanging on a tree branch.
Now, eaten by the wolves.
Madge covered her mouth and shuddered a step back. All the work she'd put in. Erased by bulldozers in the dead of the night. Leaving nothing behind but a pile of rubble and that lone piano mocking her. Books and manuscripts and the refrigerator where she stored milk and cookies. Gone. Evaporated into thin air while she'd been cluelessly sleeping in Katniss's arms. Slowly she felt like falling. Descending back into an abyss where she had nothing tying herself to this world. Nothing to keep her from waking in a pile of ruin with a vacant brain yet again. Her mind began to fray from the million panicked thoughts tearing at the seams. All my clothes. The book. Food. Cassia.
Oh god no, Cassia.
Madge stepped closer. The panic flashed to anger. Did Plutarch screw me over?
On cue, a rumbling noise down the street caught her attention. Instead of a statecar, with Agatha's hag face sneering from within, rolled a truck. Madge assumed it was the construction crew coming to destroy what's left of her life and promptly stepped onto the street to block its way. She'd expected gruff workmen to hop out with sledgehammers - but in their place was a crop of wavy red hair and a floral dress.
"Come on!" Cassia cried out, motioning to the truck's cabin, "Get in!"
"What're you doing?" Madge screamed, "the store's busted!"
"Explanations later! We're going now-" Cassia left the passenger door open.
Madge's face broke with a heady flash of rage and fear. Her heart pounded close to exploding and it took her a few tries to clamber into the truck's musty cabin. Oaken was at the wheel, a big beaming toothy grin which matched Cassia's. The truck smelled of paint and sawdust.
"What the heck is so funny?" Madge snapped. As with all their interactions, the more serious Madge was - the more Cassia couldn't help giggling at her. "We're freaking homeless now-"
"You didn't come home last night," Cassia sneered, "I assume you stayed over at Katniss's-"
"That is the least of your concern," Madge shot back, "what the heck happened to our store?"
Cassia tried for a split-second to keep a straight face, before she threw back her head in laughter again. Kicking her feet in a sloppy, seated dance. In the midst of her giggling, a thumb pointed toward the back. Separated by a canvas drape. Madge got on her knees against the truck's bumpy movements and drew it back.
A gasp tore through her lungs. All her books, stacked on shelves. Lining the truck's cabins. Cassia's and her clothes packed into chests. Even the armchairs and coffee tables turned upside down and stacked on top of each other. Oaken made a sharp turn and sent books clattering off the shelves.
"What is this?" Madge clung onto the seat. Nails digging into the cushion and a litany of swear words she had to cram back into her throat.
"They came in the evening while you were away. The housing department must've known you were at the concert, what a bunch of pricks," Cassia started digging amidst the strewn remnants of toolboxes and duffel bags on the cabin floor, "literally gave us an hour before they'd start tearing down our house."
"Are you serious?"
"Yea - I called up Oaken and paid a bunch of his friends to move everything into this truck. We did the top floors first. They were still going at the walls when we packed the books."
"And you spent the whole night packing?" Madge turned up her hands, "Without sleep?"
"Here and there, though it's hard to take a nap when the bulldozers were running. Oaken's crew did most of the work," Cassia pointed at him, "I would've asked you to come back and help but it's not like I had Katniss Everdeen's phone number, y'know?"
"Oh my god, Cass-"
"You have a mobile bookstore now!" Cassia chuckled, tugging at her arm, "Or we could just - I don't know - leave."
"Leave," Madge stared at her, mouth ajar, "seriously? After everything we've done?"
"Generous of you to say we - this whole thing was your doing."
"It's all gone now," Madge seethed in exasperation, clutching her head. Her broken expression relented when she saw a cheque flopping between Cassia's fingers.
"All gone and reduced to this," Cassia handed the money over, "Agatha showed up halfway through the night. The hag pretty much hurled this at my face."
Madge looked at the figure scrawled in black ink. Queue of zeroes behind that she stopped counting halfway. This was way more than she quoted. Way more than Plutarch quoted. None of it made sense.
"And this," Cassia handed an envelope, "Plutarch sends his apologies for not attending to this matter, one of his couriers dropped off a letter. He called, y'know? Right before they cut the phone lines."
"Amazing," Madge shook her head, unfolding the letter for them to read together.
Dear Madge,
Consider this a favour I'm doing for the Mockingjay - for bringing her back from this dark place no one should ever endure. My lawyers have managed to squeeze every last cent out of the Crenshaws. It was the best they could do owing to how much of an eleventh-hour deal they wanted to make it.
With this amount of money, you can literally have your pick of any property in the Capitol. You could open a chain of bookstores. Buy a publishing house, even. Cafes and bars with your name on it.
But I knew your father, and I know you - from the short interactions we've had. I've always pegged your family as one who knew right from wrong and followed their hearts down their chosen paths. The same blood runs in you, Madge. And I know you'll use this money to follow your heart.
-Plutarch Heavensbee
She looked up from the letter, only to get a huge hug and a kiss on her cheeks from Cassia. The girl still smelled of pine and had the light of life in her eyes despite the dark circles. Like getting evicted from their house was the best thing to happen to her. She frowned, a tear splotching on the letterhead. Ministry of Communications.
"My family is dead-" Madge breathed. She tried to reach beyond the tear-stained letter. Grasping at the straws of Plutarch's words. Your family. Effie's trivial introductions flung like chaff into the wind. Your father was a good man. What had all of that meant, when she was all alone in the world? What good were those words when she couldn't even keep her family's legacy rooted into the ground?
Now sitting in the back of a truck pulling into a parking lot. Oaken lit a cigarette and waited.
"I'm all alone in this world, Cass," Madge looked at her, "you still have a family back in 7. I want you to take part of this money and go back-"
"You're not alone," Cassia shook her head, "Or rather, you have something within you more powerful than the sense of loneliness. A girl who pulls people in around herself. The ability to create a community of survivors, all broken but still finding a way to put themselves together. Jagged pieces of a whole."
"Please, for once," Madge met her eyes, "tell me what I should do-"
Cassia reached over and touched the tremoring pulse beneath Madge's chest.
"I think you should follow exactly what Plutarch said in his letter. And follow your heart."
Her eyes fluttered shut. Once again lapsing into a dark void where there weren't any memories. No faces or voices. Only the tug of gravity pulling at a mote of dust suspended in the sunbeam. A girl floating upside down in a lake. Drifting upon the currents. Beneath the gentle, wordless whisper of reminiscence guiding her along - laughter. Madge saw a golden-haired girl. Hair crowned with the sunbeam. Air pulsing through her heaving lungs as she ran and ran. The girl in the white cotton dress who read and played the piano and lived in a two storey house. Daughter to District 12. Who never knew just how much she was capable of.
Beneath all that she searched for - oblivious to the fact that she was exactly what others were looking for too.
Madge opened her eyes and slid her fingers into Cassia's
"Maybe you can ask your friend," Madge whispered, "if he can help get us freight train tickets out of the Capitol."
"Madge - I'll follow you wherever you go," Cassia answered, tugging her close for a hug, "you just have to tell us where."
She smiled against the girl's red hair. Scent of pine once again confirming the pull of her heartstrings.
"I don't remember very clearly. But I think District 12 should be lovely, this time of the year."