I grip the phone, eyes shut tight. I am back in the mountains. Arms wrapped around her, the scent of honeysuckle in her hair. She’d been crying then, too. Not at anything I did, but because they’d hung a man that morning and made the rest of us watch. But there we were, high in the hills, with not one but two rainbows arching across the sky. Sometimes she cries because things are so beautiful and we keep messing them up. Because the world doesn’t have to be so terrifying. That’s on people, not the world.
“Haymitch?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m here. Where are you calling from?” “I’m on the Peacekeepers’ base. They arrested me.”
This jolts me back to the conservatory. It’s not honeysuckle I’m smelling, but the faint mix of roses and decaying meat drifting off the
nepenthes. My arms can’t protect her, only embrace the empty air. “Arrested you? When? What for?” Is this because I just joked about the
Peacekeepers buying white liquor? Are they taking out my waywardness on her?
“Last night. For playing music. I guess I went a little crazy when they gave you that one in training. I took my tune box over to the Justice Building. They hadn’t pulled the stage down yet, and I did a few songs.”
She doesn’t have to tell me which songs. “The Goose and the
Common.” “The Capitol Store.” “The Hanging Tree.” All the ones she’s forbidden to play in public. Clerk Carmine and Tam Amber must be going nuts right now. And I share their exasperation and fear. “Oh, Lenore
Dove . . . are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
“No. Just hauled me in. Less about what I played, more about how it drew people. Everybody’s real upset this year, so many kids. They needed a place to be together, to raise their voices. Sometimes the hurt’s too bad to bear alone.”
So it wasn’t just her, playing her heart out in front of the Justice Building. A crowd had gathered. Sung the forbidden songs. “Did they say the charges?”
“Disrupting the peace or something. And you know, ‘No Peace, No Anything.’”
My mind races. Disrupting the peace isn’t sedition. They can lay that on you for getting drunk and busting up a few bottles, which happens all the time in 12. It’s not like she’s part of some big conspiracy, so, hopefully, they won’t use methods to force her to talk. Just view her as an emotional sixteen-year-old whose boyfriend got reaped. Maybe take away her tune box for a while or keep her locked up until after the Hunger Games when
things have died down. I hope they don’t put her in the stocks on the square, which is what they threatened to do when she was twelve. But that was four years ago, and the Covey have some Peacekeepers among their fans, so that could work in her favor. A lot will depend on how rowdy the audience got and how the base commander views it. I sure didn’t do her any favors by bragging about selling him white liquor tonight. Now he may feel obliged to come down harder on her.
“Was there fighting? Did anything get broke?” I ask.
“Oh, who cares? They’re letting me out tomorrow morning, but
you’re going into the arena.” Relief surges through me. They’re letting her out. Just a slap on the wrist. “None of my stuff matters a whit,” she continues. “And I sure don’t want to spend our last moments talking about what’s broken. Except my heart . . . how about that?”
She’s mad and probably near tears again. “Oh, Lenore Dove . . . I’m so sorry I messed everything up.” And I did, too. The Peacekeepers
wouldn’t have targeted her just for trying to help Woodbine’s ma. At least, not as a rule.
“You? It’s entirely my fault you’re there! And I know I’m why you got that score. I as good as killed you, and that’s not something I can live with.”
And so she’s doing what she can to get herself killed? Now I’m mad. “That’s just a lie you’ve got to stop telling yourself! If I’d kept my head, you might’ve gotten a few bruises, but we’d both still be in Twelve.”
“No, darling, that’s not how it went down at all. I overstepped, just like my uncles always warn me about. I lost my temper and started hollering and now you’re — oh, Haymitch . . . I don’t want to be on this earth without you.”
“So now you’re trying to get them to hang you? You do, and I swear I’ll — I’ll —” I’ll what? I’ll be dead and gone is what, in no position to do anything. But I feel so helpless now, I’ve got to try whatever I can to
change her mind. I have no idea what happens when we die, but Lenore Dove believes nothing ever dies, and we just move from one world to the
next like the Covey did from town to town. “Like in one of your songs, my ghost will hunt down your ghost and never give it a moment’s rest.”
“Promise?” She sounds a little more hopeful. “Because if I could count on that, I think I could bear it. But what I can’t bear is . . . what if
we’re never together again?”
“We will be together always,” I say with conviction. “I don’t know how, and I don’t know where, I don’t know anything, but I feel that in my heart. You and me, we will find each other, as many times as it takes.”
“You think?”
“I do. But not if you do something stupid like getting yourself killed on purpose. I feel like that could throw the whole thing out of whack. You stay alive, play your songs, love your people, live the best life you can. And I’ll be there in the Meadow waiting for you. It’s a promise. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll try. That’s my promise back.”
Plutarch waves his hand to get my attention, taps his watch. Time has run out.
“Lenore Dove, I love you like all-fire. That’s for always.”
“I love you like all-fire, too. You and no one else. Just like my geese, I mate for life. And then some. Forever.”
I need to say, no, don’t spend your life grieving me, love whoever you want. Only I just can’t bear the thought of it at the moment. Her kissing
someone else. But I’m trying to be noble, to pull myself up to say those words, when the line goes dead without warning.
“Lenore Dove? Lenore Dove?”
She’s gone. Truly for good, this time. But she is safe. I set the swan head back in the cradle like I am laying down a sleeping child, slow and gentle-like. Good-bye, my love.
Only now do I wonder how this call has occurred. I’ve never even heard of a tribute getting to talk to someone back home from the Capitol. I meet Plutarch’s eyes. “You set that call up?”
He shrugs. “I have an old friend in Twelve.”
“Why would you do that for me?” I say, genuinely perplexed. “I bet it could get you in real trouble.”
“Yes, you’re right. If it gets discovered, my next meal will probably be a large platter of poisoned oysters. But I risked it because I need you to trust me, Haymitch. More importantly, I need you to trust the information I’m about to give you.”
I’m completely lost. “What information?” “About how to break the arena.”
This pulls me up short. Plutarch? Plutarch knows about the arena plot? He’s right. I don’t trust him, or the whole forsaken plan now. Were Beetee and I being recorded somehow during the blackout, even if the
cameras were out? It would be easy enough to bug the place. Were there microphones in the vegetable bouquet tonight? If that’s the case, Plutarch
could be working for the Capitol, trying to get more info out of me and kill
anyone involved. He set up the call with Lenore Dove so I would trust him, so I would confide in him.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
“Fine. That’s smart. Don’t trust me. Only hear what I have to say and, when you’re in the arena, see if it comes in handy.”
I lift my hands in bewilderment. “You sure you got the right guy?” “Okay, just listen. I don’t have any real security clearance, but my
cousin knows a Gamemakers’ apprentice, barely out of the University, who wants to quit the program and work in television. I spent a fortune the other night getting him drunk. The most useful piece of info I got was that the arena’s sun is in sync with our own.”
I look at him, baffled. “Isn’t it always?”
“Sometimes. Depends on the arena. You could have multiple suns or none at all. The reason this will be of importance to you is that since the sun rises in the east, you will be able to tell direction.”
Beetee said the tank was in the north. If it’s true, this is essential information, but I act blasé. “Guess I would’ve assumed that anyway.”
“Another thing: About a year or two ago, a committee of Gamemakers asked to tour our conservatory and gardens. The Heavensbees are known for their collection of rare flowering plants. I gave them the tour and then
stepped out of the room to order tea. I overheard them discussing opening the berms.”
“Berms?”
“It’s what our gardener calls those mounds of earth.” He points out through the window where hanging globes illuminate a little knoll covered in flowers. “She plants shrubs and flowers on them. And if the Gamemakers are planning to open them in the arena, then something’s either going in, coming out, or both.”
Mutts. He’s trying to tell me the mutt portals are going to be concealed by berms of flowers. But I just say, “You have completely lost me, sir.”
“Of course I have. One last thing. From the Capitol’sperspective, the Games are the best propaganda we have. You tributes, you’re our stars. You carry it out. But only if we control the narrative. Don’t let us.” Plutarch
grasps my shoulders and gives me a little shake. “No more implicit submission for you, Haymitch Abernathy. Blow that water tank sky high. The entire country needs you to.”
I can’t help but think of Pa’s directive to Sarshee Whitcomb. Seems like a lot to lay on my doorstep. Fix this mess for us, or else.
Effie hurries in the door. “Mr. Heavensbee? Oh, there you are.
Drusilla wants you to help with Louella’s photos. The snake’s stealing
focus.”
Plutarch chuckles. “Never work with children or animals, Miss Trinket. Come along, Haymitch.”
“And maybe it isn’t my place to say,” continues Effie, “but she’s being awfully hard on Maysilee.”
“Well, Maysilee’s sixteen years old with great cheekbones — two things Drusilla can never achieve.”
“I know, it’s sad. But I give her points for trying.” Effie’s hands go to her face. “I guess it’s time for me to start trying myself.”
“Oh, I think you’ve got a few years.”
“All my friends have begun maintenance. It’s just, I hate needles.” While Plutarch reassures Effie, I follow them back to the library,
trying to make sense of his position. If he’s working for the Capitol, I don’t think I’ve given him anything to use against us or copped to any involvement. But if he’s not Snow’s lackey, and he knows about the plot, and he’s trying to help us . . . what is he after?
His words from a few minutes ago echo back. “You should know that, despite appearances, a desire for freedom is not limited to the districts.” Was he suggesting that he, with all his wealth and privilege and power,
lacks freedom? Freedom to do what? Maybe to not have to live in terror of Snow poisoning his oysters, for one thing.
I think about Vitus’s shame over his rebel-sympathizing grandfather.
That seems to be the norm here, but who was his grandfather? A Capitol citizen who sided with the districts. And somebody here must have helped Beetee switch out the tokens. It’s possible that Plutarch could be on the level. I won’t really know until I’m in the arena and get a good look at those berms, if they even exist.
Back in the library, Lou Lou’s blowing out the candles and greedily inhaling the smoke curling off the burned wicks. The smell takes me home for a moment, dark winter nights, your last impression as you snuggle safe beneath the quilts. Does smoke conjure up the same memory for Lou Lou? Like the roll with the seeds did? Something deep and long ago, a home in District 11 where she was cherished and cared for? Wyatt talks her into sitting for the camera and then I pose for a couple of shots. They show us
the results, and the photos are miles better than the ones of us in the coal miner costumes, chained up in the back of the van. Again, like the reaping presentation, we have Plutarch to thank for that.
He decides he can just direct us all at once for the propos that will air throughout the Games, so he doesn’t have to repeat himself. “Let me catch you up on what Haymitch and I have been discussing.”
Yes, I think. Better catch me up.
“Let’s start with the basics. Public opinion is driven by emotion.
People have an emotional response to something, then they come up with an argument for why it logically makes sense,” says Plutarch.
“I don’t think that’s smart,” says Wyatt, looking uneasy. I’m sure his calculator brain’s appalled by the idea.
“Oh, I didn’t say it was smart — I just said it was true. Make the
audience feel for you, they’ll figure out intellectually why you’re the right tribute to support,” Plutarch explains.
“But they hate all of us,” Wyatt counters. “They’re watching us kill each other for entertainment.”
Plutarch waves this away. “They don’t see it that way. Supporting the Hunger Games is their patriotic duty.”
“Whatever. We’re all their enemies,” says Maysilee.
“Sure, but they have to root for someone. Why not you? You Newcomers have done a terrific job setting yourselves up as worthy
adversaries to the Careers tonight. In fact, I think the Capitol audience finds you much more engaging, oddly enough, because you’re not trying to appear to be like them.”
“You mean, because we don’t seem like Capitol suck-ups,” concludes Maysilee.
“Exactly. There’s been a lot of concern in the Capitol lately that district citizens are aspiring to break in here. It’s not entirely unfounded, particularly with people from One and Two who work closely with us.
Luxury and military, you know. There are Capitol-born folks assigned out there who’ve got mixed families they want to bring here now. But you’re
unapologetically district. And any way you can drive home that the Careers are buying into the Games and trying to be more Capitol than the Capitol itself will increase the social disapproval for them.”
Once in a blue moon a Seam girl falls for a Peacekeeper and ends up with a baby, resulting in plenty of social disapproval in 12 as well. But there’s never any talk of the kid going to the Capitol. Most are simply disowned by the father, who’s then shipped off to another district.
“Calling them the Careers still makes them sound like they’re better than us,” says Maysilee. “We need to give them a stupid nickname.”
“Name-calling! Excellent!” exclaims Plutarch. “Cheap but effective.”
Itchy Itchy Haymitchy. Yep. Cheap but effective.
“But the nickname should call them stupid without being stupid
itself,” Plutarch goes on. “We need some wordplay. Something clever or rhyming or catchy. But not crude — this is a family show.”
We toss around words. Suck-ups. Bootlickers. Turncoats. Pretenders.
Backstabbers. Wannabes. Nothing quite works.
“We need an image that comes from real life,” says Maysilee. “That’s why Neddie Newcomer stuck with us. We need something that’s a poor copy of something else. Like that artificial sweetener we have to use in our candy when real sugar’s too dear. But worse.”
“Powdered milk,” says Wyatt. “Fake leather,” chimes in Effie.
I think of the beer they sell in the Capitol store, thin, sour, and feeble.
The joke is a barrel of it wouldn’t get your mamaw tipsy. “Near Beer,” I pitch.
Everybody laughs. The name itself is the joke.
“Hey, Near Beer Career!” says Wyatt. “It even rhymes.”
“I think we might be onto something,” says Plutarch. “Haymitch, why don’t you kick it off? You’ve already got the bootlegger angle going. People loved it. It was one of the most memorable bits of the evening.”
We work up a little piece where Plutarch asks me about our opponents and I answer, “Well, back in Twelve, where we know our libations” — I brush off pretend dust from my cocktail glass vest and continue — “we just call them Near Beer Careers. You know, because they’re all foam and no beer.”
We play with it and change “no beer” to “no kicker” so as not to repeat the first “beer.” Then we make up some similar sayings for variation.
Maysilee does “All brag and no britches,” since she’s about fashion, and Wyatt comes up with a gambler’s “All bluff and no aces.” Lou Lou’s really not in a position to write her own, being curled up with the snake now, so we decide on the old standby “All bark and no bite.” Wyatt gets her to say it, just once, for the camera. The snake shows its teeth on “bite,” so it’s really all we need.
Plutarch seems genuinely happy, saying he’s going to be able to edit the clips together into some fine propos. He sighs when he mentions the
tools that were abolished and incapacitated in the past, ones deemed fated to destroy humanity because of their ability to replicate any scenario using any person. “And in mere seconds!” He snaps his fingers to emphasize their speed. “I guess it was the right thing to do, given our natures. We almost wiped ourselves out even without them, so you can imagine. But oh, the
possibilities!”
Yeah, it’s amazing we’re here at all. Given our natures.
Lou Lou’s snake comes up missing, and we’re about to hunt it down when Plutarch notices the clock on the mantel and waves us toward the door. “Never mind, never mind. We’ve got to get you to bed. Tomorrow’s the show.” As he escorts us past the Heavensbees, he starts talking about
getting everybody to jump on the bandwagon again, which he says is about people being eager to join a popular thing, but it makes me think about the
Covey riding around on their wagon, which was an actual bandwagon. When we reach the waiting van, Plutarch wishes us all well.
I still don’t know what to make of the man, but maybe he really did risk his life to give me a last, few priceless moments with Lenore Dove and maybe, in the arena, his information will prove true. Who knows if he might be able to aid us in some other way once the “show” begins? Yet again, it’s better to stay on his good side.
I offer him my hand. “Thanks for all your help, Plutarch.”
Gratified, he takes it. “Well, I’m despicable on many levels, but in this I’m on your side.”
I guess we’ll see.
Back at the apartment, Mags and Wiress have a big dinner awaiting us — pot roast with all the fixings — but there’s not much room in my stomach due to the butterflies. They compliment us on our performances and the wonderful work we’ve done with the Newcomers, although I feel like most of that credit goes to people other than me. At least I didn’t mess things up.
I’m feeling okay until bedtime, when Maysilee says to me, “Is it true?
That you’re going off on your own?”
Wellie apparently got the word out. “I got a one, Maysilee. They’re gunning for me. You and Wyatt have a much better chance without me.” I
don’t mention Lou Lou because I don’t think she stands a chance at all.
Wyatt nods, factoring odds, no doubt. “My head says you’re right but . . .”
“Trust your head. I’m a bad bet for you.” I wonder, if I wasn’t part of the flooding plot, would I be so selfless? Or would I cling to the safety of
the group? It doesn’t make me happy to break from them. “Look, who knows what will happen in there? We may end up crossing paths. But I can’t make you pay for choices I’ve made.”
“Okay,” says Maysilee. “So we’re back to where we were on the train.
You don’t want us for your allies.”
“I don’t want anybody,” I clarify.
It’s lonely going rogue. I wish I could tell them everything. About the plot. About speaking to Lenore Dove. About Snow’s warning and Plutarch’s rising sun. But all that would do is invite questions and ultimately cause trouble, so that’s where I leave it. I don’t want anybody. Lights off.
Lou Lou’s immediately dead to the world and the rest of us toss and turn a lot. I keep dreaming about Lenore Dove, then snapping awake. Her name song’s hitting way too close to home. In it, a guy loses the love of his life, Lenore, and he’s going crazy for missing her. Then this big old raven
shows up at his house and won’t leave and whenever he asks the bird
anything, it just says “Nevermore” — which, as you can imagine, just makes him crazier.
“Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore — Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Angels, Lenore Dove told me, are humans with wings, who live in a place called heaven. Some people believe, she said, it’s a possible destination after death. A good world for good people to go to. But Lenore Dove is the winged being on my mind at the moment. If there is anything after the life I’m about to lose, will I be with her again? Like the guy in her song, I’d sure like to know. But the Raven isn’t giving the answer either of us wants to hear.
