Poison. That’s what’s running in this stream. I press my hand against my stomach, registering that what I took for cold-water pangs are too sharp and burning. I immediately stick my finger down my throat and manage to gag up some acid before I remember that’s not always the best way to deal with poison. It can hurt you as much coming up as it does going down. An antidote’s best, like the one President Snow carried in his pocket. But I have no antidote.
I dig through my pack for something that might soak up the toxic fluid. Something spongey like bread, but there’s nothing of the kind. Would that even be the right thing to do? The pain intensifies, so I swallow some clean water from the bottle, hoping to dilute the poison, to no avail. My breath comes in gasps and perspiration beads my face. This is it, then. How
I die. Not ending the Hunger Games, just curled up in the dirt, poisoned like a rat. I dump out all my supplies and reach for a potato, the most benign thing I have, and have just taken a bite of its hard, crisp flesh when my eyes land on the charcoal tablets.
It’s a fall day a few years back and we’ve overdone it on the hot pepper soup. Mamaw’s chomping on her tablets, saying, “Good for
whatever ails your belly. Fire, wind, or poison.” I thought the Game-makers meant them as a joke, but maybe they are the antidote?
Without hesitating, I spit out the potato, tear into the packet, and stuff a handful of tablets in my mouth. I grind them to powder with my teeth, wash them down, and gauge the condition of my stomach. No change. I send another half dozen down my gullet. This time, I think I can begin to feel some relief. Without warning, I spew everything since yesterday’s lunch into the stream. I kneel on all fours, panting, dripping sweat and saliva. I’m still queasy, but the pain has ebbed. For good measure, I put a tablet on my tongue and let it dissolve. My back finds a tree trunk and I
collapse against it, waiting for my heartbeat to slow.
I might not die. I can’t die. Not just yet. Not before I blow that tank sky-high. As I step back from death’s door, I try to get back on track. My supplies lie in a jumble at my feet. My stupid, redundant supplies that I could find anywhere —
Suddenly, I sit upright as I remember Mags’s advice: “Look for clues to your arena. The Gamemakers sometimes hide little hints about the nature of the arena in their design.”
If the contents of my backpack are clues, what are they revealing?
Why would all of my food and drink be easy pickings in the arena,
unless . . . I take in the rabbit carcass across the stream . . . unless they aren’t. Unless every mouthful is precious, because their counterparts are poisonous.
The minute I conceive of this possibility, I know it’s true. That the luscious apples on the boughs over my head are as deadly as the crystal water. And if that is true, what other food and drink in here will kill you?
Everything, probably. It isn’t safe to sample anything that didn’t come from the Cornucopia.
As I brush off my supplies and carefully repack them, I think about
the two cannon shots that fired after the bloodbath. Did one Career and one Newcomer die, thereby alerting the rest of their alliance to the poisonous
nature of the arena? Reminds me of the canaries we take down to the coal mines in 12. They are the first to die when there’s deadly gas around, warning the miners of imminent danger. Maybe both were Careers, because I bet Ampert and Wellie would’ve figured out pretty quick that the food in
the packs is a clue. Probably, if we hadn’t formed such tight alliances, far
more tributes would be dying now. Were the Gamemakers counting on that, and have we thrown them?
Every bite of clean food is priceless. I consider the rabbit again, fur color or no. While I’ve no appetite now, I know I’ll be famished later, but its bloody beard puts me off. The last thing I need is to be ingesting more
poison. What I need is to be moving north. Unfortunately, when I rise to my feet, a wave of nausea hits me and I clutch my spear to stay upright. How long will the toxins take to leave my system?
I take deep gulps of the finely crafted air, which no longer charms me.
It’s not deadly, but it’s not fresh either. Something unwholesome hides under the perfume. I remember the dazed looks on the tributes’ faces as we awaited the gong. Did the air drug us? And is it contributing to how weak and sick I feel now? Or is the water to blame for that? I guess I can’t stop breathing, though, so I wobble off into the north.
It’s no good. After a few hundred yards, I slide to the forest floor,
throw up my latest charcoal tablet, and scrunch back into a ball. The chills begin, racking my body and causing my teeth to chatter so hard I’m in danger of breaking them. All I want is to be home in my bed in 12, with Ma there to take care of me. To spoon me sips of chicken back broth and pile every quilt on my shaking body and put a goose feather pillow under my head. The thought of Ma watching, unable to get her hands on me, makes
me try to look less pathetic. I force myself to sit up and dry my dripping face on my handkerchief.
I’m nothing but a sitting duck. I need to hide, but since there are no real paths in the woods, I can’t get off of one. Over there looks no safer than right here. If a Career followed me across the meadow, I’m not just a sitting duck, I’m a dead one. Muddled, I reach for Wiress’s song:
Find food and where to sleep, Fire and friends can keep.
Heading north takes a distant second to finding a safe place to recover. Fire and friends will have to keep. I hoist myself back onto my boots and consider climbing a tree, but I’m so woozy I’m sure to tumble
out. What I really need to do is lie down somewhere hidden. I totter around for a bit, veering a little to the east, and come upon a large blueberry patch laden with fruit the size of cherries. Obviously, I can’t eat them, but the
dense bushes, free of thorns, offer a refuge. I lay on my belly and burrow deep into the thicket, dragging my pack behind me. At what I judge to be the center, I arrange my hammock on the ground and collapse onto it,
pulling the meshy skin around me for warmth. I can’t see out, so I’m hoping no one else can see in. Doesn’t matter, I’m going nowhere.
For several hours, I alternate between violent chills and drenching fever sweats. Pain spikes my muscles, and my head feels like it’s trapped in one of Tam Amber’s vises. I vaguely wonder if some of my fellow tributes are experiencing the same misery. No cannons have fired since the two I attributed to the poisoning. Possibly others now lie helpless like me, waiting for the rest of the poison to work its way out. Whatever has happened, the
Gamemakers don’t appear to be unleashing mutts or driving us together. After twenty opening-day deaths, we’re rewarded with a lull in bloodshed. Our performance has been satisfactory.
Nightfall brings the anthem blasting through the arena. I rally enough to pull myself to the edge of the berry patch and look up to see the flag of Panem projected on the sky. It’s time for the memorial photos of the dead tributes, a rare hint into our standing in the Games. Twenty today. I splay my fingers on the dirt, pressing down one for each death. After I’ve run through them twice, it’ll be over and I’ll know how the Newcomers have fared.
When the first fallen tribute appears, I register the outfit, snot green, and know it’s a District 1 girl. Carat, I think her name was. Then we jump to Urchin, the boy from District 4 who knocked me from the chariot with his trident. I’m relieved to see District 3 has been spared, particularly Ampert. A boy and a girl in District 5 orange bring the Career death count
to four. One of my doves, Miles, the kid who couldn’t breathe in the shower, appears next, and my heart sinks. The Careers are all through by District 5. That means that the other sixteen deaths today are all Newcomers. I watch as they unspool. A second dove, Velo from 6. Both
boys from 7. All four kids from 8. All four from 9. Both girls from 10. Tile, the boy from 11. The pinkie on my left hand remains lifted. One tribute left. Is it another kid from 11 or one of my own?
Wyatt. Wyatt Callow whose luck just ran out. I can’t believe how hard it hits me, how much it hurts. A few days ago, I didn’t even want him for an ally. But he wasn’t a bad guy, really. He just came from a rotten family.
District 12’s sympathy will be in short supply.
How’s the betting going, Mr. Callow? You make some money on your boy today?
Most people wouldn’t say this to him, but they wouldn’t stop another from doing so, as repellent as his behavior has been.
I wonder how Wyatt died and immediately feel certain he was protecting Lou Lou, the way no one had ever protected him. Including me. I ran off and left all the Newcomers to fend for one another. I know I had to if I was going to carry out Beetee’s plan, but it sure doesn’t feel good.
A fury rises up in me at the thought of Wyatt’s sacrifice and how the Capitol has pitted us tributes against one another in this poisonous beauty of
an arena. The Games must end. Here. Now. Every death reinforces the
importance of the arena plot succeeding. Focus, I tell myself, and struggle through the brain fog. I remember that all four of the kids from 9 are dead. Did Ampert manage to scavenge a sunflower before the hovercraft collected their bodies? If he didn’t, what could we possibly do? We’re useless without those explosives. Maybe even with them, but certainly without them.
The sky goes dark. Show’s over. I crawl back to my hammock, wrap my arms around my backpack, and shiver myself to sleep.
When I wake late in the morning, I find myself staring into a pair of limpid green eyes. One of the gray bunnies has taken cover in the brambles and has hunkered down a few feet from me. Maybe it’s just a normal rabbit that got thrown into this creepy place and feels as frightened as I do. It could be accustomed to human keepers and found me because it’s hungry and has figured out all the plants and grass and everything are as poisonous as the water. I could use a smart companion. I take out an apple, bite off a small piece, and gingerly set it in front of my new friend. After a bit, it
scoots forward, wiggles its nose, and begins to nibble. I realize this is a way to double-check if the apples in my pack are toxic, which makes me feel kind of lousy since I sort of owe the rabbits. The one that woke me up at my plate, the one that sacrificed its life at the stream to warn me. Wait, am I saying it knew the water was poisonous and chose to protect me? That this
bunny here would do the same? Okay, okay, I know I’m over-crediting the bunnies. But still. I don’t want one of my last acts to be taking out an ally, especially a dove-colored one.
Fortunately, it doesn’t die and I plow into my apple, which tastes amazing and helps me assess my situation. So, twenty died yesterday. Four Careers. Sixteen Newcomers. Those aren’t good numbers. Even though I’m no Wyatt, I can figure out we used to have twice as many Newcomers as Careers, and now we’re almost even. We may be smarter, but they’re mowing us down with brute force. I’m afraid Ampert’s theory isn’t holding up too well in practice. Although maybe now that the bloodbath’s over, the Newcomers’ brain power and unity will give them an advantage.
“Find Haymitch.”
“Aa!” My head bashes into a tangle of berry branches at the whispered voice.
“Find Haymitch.”
A pair of little hands wrap around my boots and Lou Lou’s face, splattered in dry blood and dirt, materializes over them.
“Found him,” she says.
The rabbit bolts, and I have to resist the impulse to follow. Lou Lou?
She is not part of the plan. How did she find me? Is she being tracked?
Suddenly, my bushes don’t seem safe at all. “Hey there, Lou Lou,” I say, trying to sound calm. “You alone? Are the others with you?”
“Mountain.”
Just us, then? Everybody else went to the right after I ran to the left?
Lou Lou tugs on my boots for me to follow her, then back-crawls out of the bushes. Not knowing what I will find, I emerge, knife and spear at the ready, but our surroundings seem quiet and deserted. Maybe both packs did go to the mountain.
A quick appraisal of the immediate area solves the mystery of her finding me. I broke off several branches digging my way into the thicket and, most embarrassingly, my handkerchief snagged on one and hangs there like a welcome sign. The illusion that I’d successfully camouflaged myself is silly. I’m just lucky no Careers came along. Even Lou Lou’s appearance presents a problem for a rascal bent on winning. But I said in my interview that the Newcomers were “one hundred percent safe with me.” And she’s supposedly from my district. I guess I can look after her, at least until Ampert shows up and I have to blow up the tank. Then that will be my sole priority.
Lou Lou stares up into an apple tree and quietly sings to herself:
Mockingjay up on the branch Nesting in this apple tree
Picking time so fly away Fly away
Fly away
Picking time so fly away Fly away with me.
She reaches up for an apple and I grab her hand. “No, no, not those. Those are the bad apples. I’ve got a good one here.” I pull a nice shiny red one from my pack and settle her on the ground with it. She carries no pack or supplies of her own. As usual, she attacks her food ravenously. It’s going to be a full-time job keeping her away from the deadly fruit. It’s a wonder
she made it this far. I guess the meadow was safe, and perhaps she didn’t notice the fruit in the dark. Judging by the dirt on her clothes, she spent
some time sleeping on the ground.
I peel a couple of hard-boiled eggs for us. I consider asking her about Wyatt, but there’s a real likelihood she witnessed his death, perhaps even wears his blood, and I don’t want to set her off. “Who told you to find me, Lou Lou?”
She taps her bad ear. “Find Haymitch.”
That pulls me up short. The Gamemakers? Why would they send her to find me? It can’t be for any good reason.
“Murderers,” Lou Lou adds, picking at the dried blood on her cheek.
She finishes her egg and, without asking, finishes mine, too. She starts rooting around in my pack and comes out with a potato. I gently pry it from her hand. “For later. For supper.” But I let her drink her fill of the water, afraid she could dive for a stream at any time. She’s already drugged and brainwashed — I don’t need her sick as well. No question, her arrival has thrown a wrench in my plans. I don’t know if I can manage to do my part with her tagging along, but I can’t just dump her alone in the woods for the Careers to slaughter. Like Wyatt said, she’s ours now. For better or worse, she’s part of the flood mission.
I wet her handkerchief and wipe her face clean. “Come on,” I tell her. “Let’s find your snake.”
This suggestion perks her up and she bounces to her feet. Using the sun to get my bearings, I lead her north. I’ve got two jobs to accomplish
before I meet up with Ampert, which could be at any moment. First, I need to find a sparking rock and confirm that I can make fire with my flint striker. Then I have to locate a mutt portal, probably under a berm, that will serve as an entrance to the tunnels.
As we walk along, I keep an eye peeled for likely rocks. Flint would be best, but Lenore Dove said any kind of sparking rock would do. The floor of the forest proves devoid of rocks, but I feel like I’ve seen some . . . the pattern of colorful stones . . . glistening in the sunlight . . . the stream!
That’s it. When I was retching into it, I remember the shiny rocks winking up at me. But the water — it will be poisonous. Could I risk dipping my hand in to snag one?
When Lou Lou shows too much interest in a raspberry bush, I distract her with another apple and slip off to a nearby stream. With the tip of my spear, I dislodge several rocks from the bed and slide them onto the bank. I wipe them with leaves, pour on a bit of clean water, pat them off, and scoop them up. I get back to Lou Lou just in time to stop her from raiding the bush. I go ahead and give her chunks of the raw potato I bit into yesterday, and eat a few pieces myself to calm my rocky stomach. Doesn’t take long for us to finish it off.
The rocks dry quickly in the midday sun, and I give them to Lou Lou to hold, emphasizing the importance of the job, but really to keep her occupied. After untying the flint striker from my neck, I cup it in my hands, letting the sunbeams play off the bird and snake heads. I allow myself a moment with Lenore Dove, imagining her in the Meadow among her flock of geese or watching me on the ancient television Tam Amber manages to keep functional. Not on the square, where anyone can gather to see huge
projections of the Games, but privately in the Covey’s funny, crooked house. Forbidden by her uncles to leave. Distraught, but unbruised, unbeaten, unbroken, and safe at home.
I consider faking a moment of discovery that I’ve brought a flint striker into the arena, but since I’ve already collected the rocks, that seems stagey. Instead, I decide to double down on the rascal angle and admit I’ve pulled a fast one on the Gamemakers. A rascal, not a rebel. Just a trickster who’s trying to win the Games.
“See this, Lou Lou?” I say. “This is our ticket to a hot meal. Let’s start with that pink rock.”
Lou Lou plucks out the rosy stone from our stash and sets it in my open hand. I grip the flint striker in the other, and take a crack at it, bringing the steel edge of the striker across the surface of the stone. Nothing. After
three more attempts, I know it’s a dud. “Green,” I instruct Lou Lou. But it’s as sparkless as the first. As we work our way through the pile, my heart
begins to sink. What if there isn’t a sparking rock in the whole arena? When I’d mentioned it to Beetee, he’d said there “possibly” was. But he’d never
come back and said there weren’t any, leading me to assume I’d find one. If not, the whole gig is up, and I’m left to wait for Snow to kill me.
She sets the final rock, a long, muddy-gray crystal in front of me.
Quartz, maybe? I take a vicious swipe at it, drawing the rock back for good measure. A spray of sparks flies, letting me know we’ve found a live one.
Lou Lou claps and I let out a huff of relief. “Baked potatoes tonight,” I promise her with a grin.
Since we’re not immediately attacked by mutts, I figure the
Gamemakers have decided to let my rascally behavior ride. It adds a little
harmless spice to the Games. Bet my sponsors are sending some dollars my way, too. Since Mags and Wiress know I’ve got Lou Lou to feed now, I
hope it’s enough for something to complement our potatoes.
Lou Lou gives a tremendous yawn and, just like that, she curls up like a kitten and falls asleep. It’s so fast, I wonder if the Gamemakers are drugging her again, but maybe she just hasn’t gotten much rest in here. I try to rouse her, giving her shoulder a little shake, but she only frowns and
mutters something. What now? I can’t carry her, not in this condition, and I can’t abandon her. Now’s as good a time as any to bake those potatoes, I guess. . . .
First, I’ll need to build a fire. I wander around, never straying far from Lou Lou, collecting the driest pine needles, kindling, and small branches I can find. This is a strategy Hattie taught me: Steer clear of green or wet wood to minimize your smoke. No use in pointing out you’re breaking the
law, even if everybody knows it full well.
Along the way, I have a chance to examine some of the berms. The
mounds appear uniform, about eight feet in diameter, two feet at the crown, and perfectly circular. However, each features its own flower, identified by a small brass plaque at the base, much like the labeling in Plutarch’s
mansion. Since this is the Gamemakers’ garden, probably isn’t wise to trust it, but I read the plaques anyway, hoping for clues. Crocus, tiger lily, pansy. I try not to think what lies beneath some of them, waiting to attack me.
One catches my attention: GAS PLANT. The Covey’s yard has a
wondrous hodgepodge of flowering plants, dug up from the woods over the years and bedded down in front of their house with no apparent rhyme or reason. From late March to November, you can count on at least one flower or bush being in bloom, and Lenore Dove generally wears a few blossoms in her hair when she performs. Never from the gas plant, though. “Too
dangerous,” she told me, and then demonstrated why, touching a lit match to a stalk of pale purple flowers. A whoosh of flame followed, and then disappeared just as quick, leaving the flowers unharmed. “Imagine if that happened on my head!” she said with a laugh.
Using shreds of cardboard from my egg carton, I get a small flame going pretty quick. I coax it along by feeding it pine needles and twigs until I’ve got a proper fire. Almost no smoke, so I keep it alive with infusions of dry wood. About an hour passes before I have enough ashes to bake the potatoes. I lay three in the coals and settle down to wait.
A distant boom alerts me to the fact that another tribute has died.
Twenty-one gone now, twenty-seven left. Career? Newcomer? I’ve no way of knowing until tonight.
When the potatoes get soft, I wake Lou Lou, and we make quick work of them and a couple more eggs. I feel loads better, like the rest of the poison has been absorbed, and she’s bright-eyed after her nap. I consider dousing the fire but decide my water’s too costly, so I leave it to smolder, a thing Hattie would never allow. Fire is catching, she’d say, but if this one
burns down the arena, I say good riddance.
I’m more optimistic after my success with the flint striker. Now on to find my berm. They’re so numerous that I can’t imagine every single one of them conceals a mutt portal that connects to a Sub-A tunnel. Beetee said, “Do your best to locate a mutt portal by tracking returning mutts after an
attack.” Since I haven’t identified any mutts yet, I keep working my way north to find likely candidates.
Lou Lou thinks we’re looking for her snake, which holds her attention and keeps her trotting ahead of me at a reasonable pace. As we move north,
I almost forget about her, preoccupied with checking our surroundings for dangers and reviewing my bomb-setting techniques from 12. Fire to fuse, fuse to blasting cap, blasting cap to explosive —
Her squeal of delight snaps me back to the arena. She darts for a nearby berm covered with scarlet flowers. I don’t know why this one, since she’s viewed the others with indifference. I chase after her, but she reaches the hillock first, plowing into the greenery, crushing handfuls of the leaves
and burying her face in the red blossoms. I spot the nameplate and relax a bit. I know this plant, recognize the faint minty scent. I’ve even helped Burdock gather some for Asterid to make into medicines at the apothecary shop. Bee balm. A healing plant. It grows wild in our mountains and Lou Lou clearly recognizes it as well.
The seeded bread, the candle smoke, and now these flowers — all of them must transport Lou Lou back home somehow. Mamaw said that
smells stick in your memory the strongest, more than sounds or sights. Didn’t the bean and ham hock soup take me back to 12?
Lou Lou’s breathing so deep she’s starting to gasp and, good
memories or no, I decide it’s time to pull her out of there. I drop my stuff on the ground and I’ve just wrapped my arms around her middle when the coughing begins. After I haul her off the berm, she sits back on her heels and makes a choking sound. A yellow pollen coats her from head to toe and, thinking she’s allergic to the bee balm, I dampen her handkerchief and begin to wipe her down.
“Just breathe, Lou Lou,” I say soothingly. “They’re only flowers.” But nothing’s only anything in this arena, and when the blood begins running from her eyes, her nose, her mouth, the last reminding me of our dear president, I know I’m wrong.
“Lou Lou?” I cry. “Lou Lou, hold on!”
She collapses against me, and I cradle her in my arms as the
convulsions begin. There is nothing I can do but watch, helpless again. Just as I was to save Louella. For a moment, the two merge, Lou Lou and Louella. She’s just one pigtailed kid I’ve known her whole life, and I would do anything to spare her this.
Her skin begins to turn blue. “Enough,” I beg the Gamemakers. They could end this with a touch of a button. Knock her out as they did at the
interview, this time sending a lethal dose of sedative through her pump. Spare her this torturous death. But her agony continues, filling me with fury. “Enough!” I scream. “She is not your plaything!”
My fingers find the pump hidden under her shirt and lock around it.
With one powerful yank, I free her.
