The nightmare always starts with me feeding her that gumdrop. We’re in the Meadow, holding fast to each other, her face shining with tears of joy. And I don’t check the bag. I never check the bag. Why can’t I remember to check the bag? I just lift that bloodred gumdrop to her lips, and there’s no stopping what follows. My realization, her terror, the bloody foam, my pleading with her to stay, her making me promise. Then the uncles are there. Clerk Carmine ripping her from my arms, trying to restart her heart while he calls her name. Tam Amber standing stiffly over them, his head shaking as he mumbles, “Not again. Oh, not again.”
That’s when the music kicks in, her name poem, her song, careening around my brain like a runaway train.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door — “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore — For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.
The raven. The unforgiving songbird. Repeatedly reminding me of President Snow’s crystal-clear message to me on my homecoming. That I will never get to love anyone ever again. Nevermore. Because he will make sure they end up dying a horrible death.
And so, I drive away anyone and everyone who could ever have been considered dear to me. Old neighbors. Hattie. Customers. Schoolmates.
Blair and Burdock hang on the hardest. Blair finally acknowledges the truth of my position, gives me one final hug and leaves sobbing. Even then, Burdock insists on showing up, sometimes along with Asterid, who bears
bottles of sleep syrup. Defiant. Deaf to my pleas. I resort to throwing rocks, hard, at them. It takes one hitting Asterid on the forehead, blood pouring down her perfect face, to finally get them to leave me alone. Hurting her that way feels worse than anything I did in the arena.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door —
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; — This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you” — here I opened wide the door; —
Darkness there and nothing more.
The world goes silent. I see no one. I have never really been alone before, always with my family. Or my friends. Or my love.
A Peacekeeper slides an envelope of money, my victor winnings, under my door every week, and leaves a food parcel on the porch. On the envelope, meat and bread and milk and various supplies have been meticulously deducted. Who has arranged this service? The president? Is he still insisting on keeping me alive?
I would welcome death, if it wasn’t for my promise to Lenore Dove that I would somehow keep the sun from rising on the reaping. The impossibility of it adds to my despair. I drain the bottles of sleep syrup to escape reality, only to feed her gumdrops in my dreams.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore —
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; — ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
I go looking for her one night, searching for freshly overturned earth and a new headstone in the graveyard on the hill. The others are there — Ma, Sid, my fellow tributes — but not Lenore Dove.
The Covey’s crooked house stands dark and silent in the moonlight. I roam around the yard like a stray dog, curl up under her window, yearning for her ghost to find me. It must be three in the morning when the fiddle begins, soft and low, playing her song.
Does Clerk Carmine somehow know I’m there? Is this his attempt to drive me stark raving mad? I pound on the door, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Where is she? Where is she?”
The fiddle falls silent. But it’s too late. The earworm has awoken.
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door —
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door —
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no
craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore — Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
The sleep syrup runs out and in desperation I begin to visit old Bascom Pie, loading a sack with bottles of rotgut, clinking all the way home. Some nights I find the oblivion I seek, others I wander through the dark. One morning, as I awake half-naked on the green outside my house, covered in mosquito bites, I realize where she must be. That her uncles would not have laid her to rest in the District 12 graveyard but taken her somewhere she loved. That they all loved. The woods.
I am a man on a mission. For weeks, I wander through the trees, circle the lake, examine the soil under the apple trees, looking for any sign of her. Entreating the mockingjays for a clue to her whereabouts. Calling her name into the wind. The leaves turn scarlet and gold, crunching beneath my feet. “Lenore Dove! Lenore Dove!” I cry, but she doesn’t reveal herself.
Burdock comes, though, appearing out of the mist. His leather jacket fastened against the frost, his bow in hand, a brace of wild turkey at his hip. He has not forgiven me, will never, but is not beyond pity. Perhaps because he knows what it is to love. “If you want her, come on” is all he says. And I do want her, just as long ago I wanted the apples he promised, and so I
follow him far, far into the woods. Beyond the lake, beyond my ken, to a hidden grove no normal human eye could detect. And here he leaves me.
A small, secret graveyard with beautifully carved headstones. Covey.
Each marked only with a snippet of their name poems.
Among them, on a creamy white stone:
“Lady,” he said, — “Maude Clare,” he said, — “Maude Clare”: — and hid his face.
On a mossy slab of slate:
— Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living child;
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild.
And on a gray rock, speckled with pink and purple:
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
Merely this and nothing more.
I lie on her grave and remain there as night falls, dawn breaks, and
blackness descends again. I tell her everything and beg her to return to me, to wait for me, to forgive me for all the ways in which I have failed.
When dawn breaks on the second day, she has not come. I bury the flint striker, snake and bird, in front of her headstone. I ask her to free me from my final promise. I ask her to let me come to her now. I ask her for a sign. Then I somehow make my way home and fall asleep . . . where I feed her another gumdrop.
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly. Though its answer little meaning — little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door — Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered — not a feather then he fluttered —
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before — On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
I hit the bottle even harder. Drinking, disappearing into the night, regaining consciousness in the forgotten places of District 12. One morning, at the crack of dawn, I snap awake, shivering, in a back alley in town. I’m staring at a message sprayed in bright orange paint. NO CAPITOL, NO
HANGING TREE! It’s a rebel play on the Capitol’s propaganda. NO CAPITOL, NO REAPING! Tucked away in this alley, a rallying cry beyond the Peacekeepers’ radar.
A memory tugs at me . . . Maysilee in the arena . . . after she killed the Gamemaker . . . spider silk and her mamaw’s song . . .
“Well, your gal’s full of surprises. Guess she got the jump on us after
all.”
Full of surprises. Full of secrets, even from me. But Maysilee had put
it together. Orange paint on her fingernails. This is Lenore Dove’s work. Her sign. Her message to me now. Her reminder that I must prevent another sunrise on the reaping.
And it says, “You promised me.”
With that, she condemns me to life.
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore — Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore —
Of ‘Never — nevermore.’”
But the Raven still beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore —
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
Now that Lenore Dove has said her piece, other ghosts, filled with hate and rage, visit me in the night. Panache seems to have little to do but
hunt me down and Silka thinks I owe her a crown. The terror bleeds into my waking hours. I start sleeping with a knife in my hand.
It’s Effie Trinket who finds me thus, the morning of the Victory Tour. I come to, startled, to discover she’s taken possession of my knife. “I’m so sorry about your family’s accident, Haymitch. And then your girl’s
appendicitis right after? Tragic. But this just won’t do. We have a responsibility to carry on.”
My family’s accident? Lenore Dove’s appendicitis? She’s right. I do have a responsibility to carry on. But how can I?
I let Effie pour coffee down me. Send me to the tub until Proserpina and Vitus can stomach me. Button me into a paisley suit that Great-Uncle Silius never had occasion to wear, and somehow make me presentable as I board the train to District 11.
“Word got out. Magno was fired for negligence and Drusilla broke her hip falling down an escalator,” Plutarch tells me in confidence. “It seems
Maysilee was right about those heels. Anyway, I pitched Effie last-minute and they jumped on the idea. Especially since she brought the depraved uncle’s wardrobe with her.”
“How are you here, Plutarch?” I ask. It’s a question that could be answered on many levels. He chooses the most superficial.
“I’m here to record your Victory Tour. It’s in my contract. Hey, you look like you could do with a sandwich. Tibby!”
A different train than I rode before. Fancier. Lots of steel and chrome.
Dove-colored velvet upholstery, lest I forget. Trying to forget is my full- time job now.
Effie does her best to keep me sober, but the train’s loaded with booze.
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er, But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee — by these angels he hath
sent thee
Respite — respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore; Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
In District 11, I stand on the steps of their Justice Building facing the grief-stricken families of Hull, Tile, Chicory, and the other girl, Blossom. I search the wider sea of faces for Lou Lou’s kin and come up empty.
The party begins. I drink my way through the festivities, which run far into the night. When the Justice Building finally sleeps, Plutarch spirits me up multiple stairways and into the attic.
“Respite and nepenthe,” I mutter into my bottle.
Plutarch yanks it from my hand. “Listen, Haymitch, we don’t have long. This attic is the only spot in the entire Justice Building that isn’t
bugged.”
Well, he might be right about that. The place looks like it hasn’t been disturbed in a hundred years. There’s a coat of dust so thick you could comfortably sleep on it. Why you’d sneak off to this place for privacy instead of stepping outside the Justice Building, I don’t know and I don’t care. There’s nothing left they can do to me. Unlike Plutarch.
“How is it you’re looking so well, Plutarch? Wiress and Mags were tortured, right? And I’m guessing Beetee’s dead.”
“Beetee’s too valuable to kill.”
“I thought he’d have killed himself.”
“He can’t. His wife’s pregnant. Besides, he wouldn’t let Ampert down that way.”
“Oh, I see. He’s going to overthrow the Capitol, is he?” “Maybe one day. But we can’t any of us do it alone. You
demonstrated a lot of nerve and intelligence in that arena. We need your
help.”
“Me?” I say in disbelief. “I am living proof that the Capitol always wins. I tried to keep that sun from rising on another reaping day, I tried to
change things, and now everybody’s dead. You don’t want me.” And I don’t want him. I don’t want help from anybody in the Capitol ever again. I could never trust them.
“We do want you. You shook up the Capitol, both figuratively and literally, with that earthquake. You were capable of imagining a different future. And maybe it won’t be realized today, maybe not in our lifetime. Maybe it will take generations. We’re all part of a continuum. Does that make it pointless?”
“I just don’t know. But I do know, you need someone different from
me.”
“No, Haymitch, we need someone exactly like you.” “Just luckier?” I say.
“Luckier, or with better timing. Having an army at their back
wouldn’t hurt.”
“Sure, that would’ve helped. Where’re you going to get an army, Plutarch?”
“If we can’t find one, we’ll have to build one. But obviously, finding one’s easier.”
“And then we can all kill one another, like back in the good old Dark Days?”
“Well, you know better than anyone what we’re up against with Snow.
If you think of another way to stop that sunrise, you let me know.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil! — Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted —
On this home by Horror haunted — tell me truly, I implore —
Is there — is there balm in Gilead? — tell me — tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore — 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.”
I avoid speaking to Plutarch for the rest of the Victory Tour. Through all the districts, where I stand on stages looking down at the families of the dead tributes. Through all the parties that culminate in the Capitol, where
I’m returned to my comfy cage. Through all the strained festivities in District 12.
My team heads to the train. Plutarch and his crew do a style piece on my new house and tape a parting shot of me in the yard. As I stand there, staring at my prison, unwilling to cross the threshold and resume my sentence, he joins me.
“All right there, Haymitch?”
“I have nothing to live for.” I say this without even a note of self-pity.
I am simply stating a fact.
“Then you have nothing to lose. That puts you in a position of power.” I would like to kill him at that moment, but what would be the point?
Instead, I say, “You think you’re a good person, don’t you, Plutarch? You think you’re a good guy because you told me about the sun and the berms. When what you really did is help create the Capitol’s propaganda and broadcast it to the country. Forty-nine kids died for it, but you gave it the old Heavensbee spin and, in that propo, you’re some kind of hero.”
Plutarch takes a moment to answer. “I’m nobody’s idea of a hero, Haymitch. But at least I’m still in the game.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting —
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! — quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore!
And so I remain, forever trapped in my chamber.
I am so desperate to forget. To escape the grief, the aching loneliness, the loss of those I love. There are no mementos of them; all are burned or buried. I work on forgetting their voices, their faces, their laughs. Even in my head, my language becomes dull and flat, stripped of the color and
music of yesterday.
The only human contact I allow myself arrives by way of Capitol News, which I play on my television set 24/7. That way, if Lenore Dove’s
ghost ever comes to me, I can tell her I’m working on a strategy to keep that sun from rising.
I make no plans, have no hopes, keep no company, speak to no human being except old Bascom Pie when my nepenthe runs low. But I can’t say I have no future, because I know that every year for my birthday, I will get a new pair of tributes, one girl and one boy, to mentor to their deaths. Another sunrise on the reaping.
And when I remember that, I hear Sid’s voice, waking me the morning that raven first tapped on my chamber door.
“Happy birthday, Haymitch!”
When Lenore Dove comes to me now, she’s not angry or dying, so I think she’s forgiven me. She’s grown older with me, her face etched with
fine lines, her hair touched with gray. Like she’s been living her life beside me as the years passed, instead of lying in her grave. Still so rare and radiant. I fulfilled my promise about the reaping, or at least lent a hand, but she says I can’t come to her yet. I have to look after my family.
I first saw the girl at the Hob when she was just a baby. Burdock was so proud of her, he toted her around everywhere. After he died in that mine explosion, she started coming alone, trading the odd squirrel or rabbit.
Tough and smart, her hair in two braids then, reminding me for all the world of Louella McCoy, my sweetheart of old. And after she volunteered for the Games, that nickname couldn’t help but slip out. I didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love. That’s what Lenore Dove says, anyway.
I didn’t want to have anything to do with their memorial book after
the war. What use? What point? To relive all the loss. But when Burdock’s page came up, I had to mention him showing me the grave. And I felt compelled to tell them about Maysilee Donner, former owner of the mockingjay pin. And how Sid loved the stars. Before I knew it, they all
came tumbling out: family, tributes, friends, comrades in arms, everybody, even my love. I finally told our story.
A few days after that, Katniss showed up with an old basket filled with goose eggs. “Not to eat, to hatch. I raided a few different nests, so they can breed all right.” Never mind that we had roast goose for dinner. She’s not an easy person; she’s like me, Peeta always says. But she was smarter than me, or luckier. She’s the one who finally kept that sun from rising.
Peeta fashioned some kind of incubator, and when the eggs hatched, mine was the first face those goslings saw. Sometimes they just graze on the green, but on fine days, we’ve been known to wander on over to the
Meadow. Lenore Dove likes it best there, and I’m content where she’s content. Like the geese, we really did mate for life.
I’m not sure I’ll be here in the old therebefore much longer. My liver’s wrecked and I only dry out when the train’s late. I drink differently these days, though, less to forget, more out of habit. When my time comes, it comes, but I’ve no idea when that will be.
I know one thing, though: The Capitol can never take Lenore Dove from me again. They never really did in the first place. Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping, and she is the most precious thing I’ve ever known.
When I tell her that, she always says, “I love you like all-fire.” And I reply, “I love you like all-fire, too.”
