Mocking Jay

he asks me if I'd like to perform on a new singing program he's launching in a few weeks. Something upbeat
would be good. He'll send the crew to my house.
We land briefly in District 3 to drop off Plutarch. He's meeting with Beetee to update the technology on the
broadcast system. His parting words to me are "Don't be a stranger."
When we're back among the clouds, I look at Haymitch. "So why are you going back to Twelve?"
"They can't seem to find a place for me in the Capitol either," he says.
At first, I don't question this. But doubts begin to creep in. Haymitch hasn't assassinated anyone. He could
go anywhere. If he's coming back to 12, it's because he's been ordered to. "You have to look after me, don't you?
As my mentor?" He shrugs. Then I realize what it means. "My mother's not coming back."
"No," he says. He pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and hands it to me. I examine the delicate,
perfectly formed writing. "She's helping to start up a hospital in District Four. She wants you to call as soon as we
get in." My finger traces the graceful swoop of the letters. "You know why she can't come back." Yes, I know why.
Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. But apparently not for me.
"Do you want to know who else won't be there?"
"No," I say. "I want to be surprised."
Like a good mentor, Haymitch makes me eat a sandwich and then pretends he believes I'm asleep for the
rest of the trip. He busies himself going through every compartment on the hovercraft, finding the liquor, and
stowing it in his bag. It's night when we land on the green of the Victor's Village. Half of the houses have lights in
the windows, including Haymitch's and mine. Not Peeta's. Someone has built a fire in my kitchen. I sit in the
rocker before it, clutching my mother's letter.
"Well, see you tomorrow," says Haymitch.
As the clinking of his bag of liquor bottles fades away, I whisper, "I doubt it."
I am unable to move from the chair. The rest of the house looms cold and empty and dark. I pull an old
shawl over my body and watch the flames. I guess I sleep, because the next thing I know, it's morning and Greasy
Sae's banging around at the stove. She makes me eggs and toast and sits there until I've eaten it all. We don't
talk much. Her little granddaughter, the one who lives in her own world, takes a bright blue ball of yarn from my
mother's knitting basket. Greasy Sae tells her to put it back, but I say she can have it. No one in this house can
knit anymore. After breakfast, Greasy Sae does the dishes and leaves, but she comes back up at dinnertime to
make me eat again. I don't know if she's just being neighborly or if she's on the government's payroll, but she
shows up twice every day. She cooks, I consume. I try to figure out my next move. There's no obstacle now to
taking my life. But I seem to be waiting for something.
Sometimes the phone rings and rings and rings, but I don't pick it up. Haymitch never visits. Maybe he
changed his mind and left, although I suspect he's just drunk. No one comes but Greasy Sae and her
granddaughter. After months of solitary confinement, they seem like a crowd.
"Spring's in the air today. You ought to get out," she says. "Go hunting."
I haven't left the house. I haven't even left the kitchen except to go to the small bathroom a few steps off of it.
I'm in the same clothes I left the Capitol in. What I do is sit by the fire. Stare at the unopened letters piling up on
the mantel. "I don't have a bow."
"Check down the hall," she says.
After she leaves, I consider a trip down the hall. Rule it out. But after several hours, I go anyway, walking in
silent sock feet, so as not to awaken the ghosts. In the study, where I had my tea with President Snow, I find a box
with my father's hunting jacket, our plant book, my parents' wedding photo, the spile Haymitch sent in, and the
locket Peeta gave me in the clock arena. The two bows and a sheath of arrows Gale rescued on the night of the
firebombing lie on the desk. I put on the hunting jacket and leave the rest of the stuff untouched. I fall asleep on
the sofa in the formal living room. A terrible nightmare follows, where I'm lying at the bottom of a deep grave, and
every dead person I know by name comes by and throws a shovel full of ashes on me. It's quite a long dream,
considering the list of people, and the deeper I'm buried, the harder it is to breathe. I try to call out, begging them
to stop, but the ashes fill my mouth and nose and I can't make any sound. Still the shovel scrapes on and on and
on....
I wake with a start. Pale morning light comes around the edges of the shutters. The scraping of the shovel
continues. Still half in the nightmare, I run down the hall, out the front door, and around the side of the house,
because now I'm pretty sure I can scream at the dead. When I see him, I pull up short. His face is flushed from
digging up the ground under the windows. In a wheelbarrow are five scraggly bushes.