Mocking Jay

"You're back," I say.
"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," Peeta says. "By the way, he said to tell you
he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone."
He looks well. Thin and covered with burn scars like me, but his eyes have lost that clouded, tortured look.
He's frowning slightly, though, as he takes me in. I make a halfhearted effort to push my hair out of my eyes and
realize it's matted into clumps. I feel defensive. "What are you doing?"
"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," he says. "I thought we could plant them along
the side of the house."
I look at the bushes, the clods of dirt hanging from their roots, and catch my breath as the word rose
registers. I'm about to yell vicious things at Peeta when the full name comes to me. Not plain rose but evening
primrose. The flower my sister was named for. I give Peeta a nod of assent and hurry back into the house,
locking the door behind me. But the evil thing is inside, not out. Trembling with weakness and anxiety, I run up the
stairs. My foot catches on the last step and I crash onto the floor. I force myself to rise and enter my room. The
smell's very faint but still laces the air. It's there. The white rose among the dried flowers in the vase. Shriveled
and fragile, but holding on to that unnatural perfection cultivated in Snow's greenhouse. I grab the vase, stumble
down to the kitchen, and throw its contents into the embers. As the flowers flare up, a burst of blue flame
envelops the rose and devours it. Fire beats roses again. I smash the vase on the floor for good measure.
Back upstairs, I throw open the bedroom windows to clear out the rest of Snow's stench. But it still lingers,
on my clothes and in my pores. I strip, and flakes of skin the size of playing cards cling to the garments. Avoiding
the mirror, I step into the shower and scrub the roses from my hair, my body, my mouth. Bright pink and tingling, I
find something clean to wear. It takes half an hour to comb out my hair. Greasy Sae unlocks the front door. While
she makes breakfast, I feed the clothes I had shed to the fire. At her suggestion, I pare off my nails with a knife.
Over the eggs, I ask her, "Where did Gale go?"
"District Two. Got some fancy job there. I see him now and again on the television," she says.
I dig around inside myself, trying to register anger, hatred, longing. I find only relief.
"I'm going hunting today," I say.
"Well, I wouldn't mind some fresh game at that," she answers.
I arm myself with a bow and arrows and head out, intending to exit 12 through the Meadow. Near the
square are teams of masked and gloved people with horse-drawn carts. Sifting through what lay under the snow
this winter. Gathering remains. A cart's parked in front of the mayor's house. I recognize Thom, Gale's old
crewmate, pausing a moment to wipe the sweat from his face with a rag. I remember seeing him in 13, but he
must have come back. His greeting gives me the courage to ask, "Did they find anyone in there?"
"Whole family. And the two people who worked for them," Thom tells me.
Madge. Quiet and kind and brave. The girl who gave me the pin that gave me a name. I swallow hard.
Wonder if she'll be joining the cast of my nightmares tonight. Shoveling the ashes into my mouth. "I thought
maybe, since he was the mayor..."
"I don't think being the mayor of Twelve put the odds in his favor," says Thom.
I nod and keep moving, careful not to look in the back of the cart. All through the town and the Seam, it's the
same. The reaping of the dead. As I near the ruins of my old house, the road becomes thick with carts. The
Meadow's gone, or at least dramatically altered. A deep pit has been dug, and they're lining it with bones, a
mass grave for my people. I skirt around the hole and enter the woods at my usual place. It doesn't matter,
though. The fence isn't charged anymore and has been propped up with long branches to keep out the
predators. But old habits die hard. I think about going to the lake, but I'm so weak that I barely make it to my
meeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without his body beside me.
Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without
a sound as he so often did. I have to remind myself that Gale's in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pair
of lips.
It is the old Katniss's favorite kind of day. Early spring. The woods awakening after the long winter. But the
spurt of energy that began with the primroses fades away. By the time I make it back to the fence, I'm so sick and
dizzy, Thom has to give me a ride home in the dead people's cart. Help me to the sofa in the living room, where I
watch the dust motes spin in the thin shafts of afternoon light.
My head snaps around at the hiss, but it takes awhile to believe he's real. How could he have gotten here? I
take in the claw marks from some wild animal, the back paw he holds slightly above the ground, the prominent
bones in his face. He's come on foot, then, all the way from 13. Maybe they kicked him out or maybe he just