A fragile collection of muscles and bones, a few quarts of blood, wrapped up in a paper-thin package of skin. That’s all I am. As I pass through the doors of this marble fortress, I have never felt more breakable.
My eyes travel up the walls to the lofty ceiling over the entryway. No poodles or oranges here. Just more marble and huge urns filled with
bunches of flowers the size of bushes.
A servant in a starched apron runs a feather duster over a naked statue. She catches my eye, her lips parting in pity. Her tongue’s missing. She’s an Avox, one of the mutilated prisoners forced to wordlessly serve the Capitol for life. Will they take my tongue? The thought turns my mouth bone-dry.
Dying at the end of Panache’s sword now seems like a mercy. “This way,” says Plutarch.
The carpet has the soft spring of a bed of moss, and it absorbs my footsteps as if I’m already gone and beyond making a sound. One of the ghosts that inhabit Lenore Dove’s songs. She once told me about being
arrested by the Peacekeepers back home, how frightened she was at first. Then she remembered she’d read that sometimes the only thing you can control is your attitude to a situation. “Like I could decide whether I was scared or not, no matter what happened. I mean, I was still scared, but it helped having that to chew on.”
I try to chew on it, but there’s too much adrenaline pumping through my veins. Help me, Lenore Dove, I think. But she can’t. No one can.
Plutarch leads me down a long, arched hallway lined with lifesized paintings of haughty people in fine, old-fashioned clothes. Each holds an
object — a scale, a harp, a ruby-studded cup — that seems meant to define them.
Plutarch gestures indifferently. “Meet the Heavensbees,” he says.
Wait . . . the Heavensbees? Is this his family? And could this actually be his house?
There’s no shortage of Heavensbees; they watch over us through several halls, flaunting their signature possessions — a leafy branch, a glossy white bird, a sword, is that a turkey leg? Dripping in wealth, every last one of them. We pass doorways, some tightly sealed, some flung open
to reveal roomfuls of elegant furniture and twinkling crystal lights. Other than an occasional Avox slinking in the shadows, it’s deserted.
I think about how many people spent their lives building this place, how many died before its completion, so that the Heavensbees could have
somewhere to hang their pictures. Their smug, satisfied, ridiculous pictures. Well, the joke’s on the Heavensbees. Now they’re dead, too.
Finally, we turn into a room where an old man with a white beard holding out an open book smiles down from his portrait above the fireplace.
“Trajan Heavensbee,” says Plutarch. “I’m his great-, great- — I can never remember how many greats. Anyway, he was one of my grandfathers. The only one who’s been of any use really. This was his library. It’s a good place to talk.”
Talking isn’t torturing, so I calm down a little. The walls come into focus. They’re not lined with instruments of pain but towering shelves of books. Thousands and thousands of volumes, floor to ceiling. In the corner, a golden staircase spirals up a column of white marble and leads to a balcony that runs around the room. A gold eagle perches on the railing at
the top of the stairs.
This room is Lenore Dove’s dream come true. A world of words to wrap herself up in. Each book’s as precious as a person, she says, as it
preserves someone’s thoughts and feelings long after they’re gone. The
Covey have a collection of them, ancient things with cracked leather bindings and paper delicate as moth’s wings. The family treasure.
Although most of us learn our letters in school, there aren’t a lot of
books in 12. Sometimes one appears at the Hob, and if I’ve got anything to trade with, I snatch it up to save for Lenore Dove’s birthday, regardless of the subject, since they’re so hard to come by. There was a paperback guide
to raising poultry once, and even though it mostly talked about chickens and she’s a goose girl, she loved it. Another time, I found a collection of maps from long before the Dark Days, pretty useless now. But I really struck gold last year with a small volume of poems by the long dead. Some of those
made it into songs.
I remember the joy on Lenore Dove’s face when I gave her the poetry, the kisses that followed, and feel stronger. They can’t destroy what really matters.
“Do you read, Haymitch?” Plutarch asks. “I can read.”
“No, I meant, do you like to read?” “Depends on what.”
“I’m the same,” says Plutarch. “Reading in general isn’t a popular pastime in the Capitol. It’s a shame. Everything you need to know about
people is right here in this room.” He turns a knob shaped like a goat’s head
on what I took to be a desk built into the bookshelves. The top splits in two and a tray full of sparkling bottles rises in its place. Plutarch pours himself a glass of amber liquid. “Can I offer you something?”
“I don’t drink.” Professional curiosity wins out, though — I’m a bootlegger, after all — and I cross to examine the booze. What we call white liquor’s as clear as water, but his bar boasts every color of the
rainbow. I don’t know if these have been dyed or aged or mixed with other things, like herbs. It’s all white liquor, only dressed up. The bottles have
little silver nameplates on chains. Vodka. Rye. Cognac.
Then I spy a name I recognize, even though I’ve never seen the stuff.
I lift the bottle and let the light dance off its rosy depths.
“It’s called nepenthe,” says Plutarch. “You probably haven’t heard of
it.”
You’d be wrong there, Plutarch. Not only have I heard of it, I know it
from the poem that gave my love her name. I’m tired of being patronized, so I decide to put him in his place. “You mean, like ‘Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe . . .’ ?”
Plutarch’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He completes the line. “‘. . . and forget this lost Lenore!’ ”
Now I’m surprised, and a little unsettled. I guess, with all these books, her poem could be here. But for him not only to have read it, but
memorized it, unnerves me. I don’t like her name in his mouth.
“Of course, it’s unclear in the poem if nepenthe’s the liquor or the drug added to the liquor,” he continues.
I remember having this same discussion with Lenore Dove. She said quaff means to drink, usually something with alcohol. And the guy telling the story in the song is trying to stop thinking about how he lost his true love.
say.
“I think the important part is it makes you forget terrible things,” I
“Exactly. I’m sure this is just a poor imitation. Grain alcohol colored
with berries. In the old days, it actually contained morphling, but the stuff was so addictive it was banned. May I ask how you know that poem,
Haymitch?”
“Everybody knows it in Twelve.” That’s a big lie, but I want him to think we all learned it in a book, like he did.
“Really? Huh. Well, I’ve got something you’ll want to see. It’s in the conservatory.”
Sure, the conservatory. Whatever that is. He leads me out a side door, down a narrow hallway, and into a room whose domed ceiling frames a
piece of the evening sky. Glass curves around to form the walls as well, revealing a garden of bright flowers and trees outside. Seems like overkill,
since the room’s already filled with plants that glisten in the humid air.
Birds fly freely among the overhead beams, chirping their heads off. Little tables and chairs covered in curlicues surround a fountain that splashes water into a pool. One table holds a telephone shaped like a sleeping swan, its head and curved neck forming the receiver. Something buzzes near my ear and I swat it away.
It’s like they’ve tried to bring the whole outdoors indoors. Why? Is opening a door and walking through it too much trouble? Fools and their money are soon parted, Ma would say.
“Come, look at this.” Plutarch waves me over to a plant that hangs from a beam in a basket near the swan phone. From the long, shiny green leaves dangle pinkish pods, each equipped with what looks like a little lid.
A small pool of liquid has collected at the bottom of each pod. As I inhale
the faintly sweet, faintly rotten smell, Plutarch points to one. “They put out a nectar. Insects adore it. But the surface is slippery, and they fall into the pod and can’t get out. They drown and are consumed by the plant.”
“I think I’m missing something.”
He taps an engraved nameplate on the side of the pot. Somebody in
this place must have a full-time job labeling things. It reads NEPENTHES. I have to think this over.
“Well,” I conclude, “that’s one way of drowning your sorrows.”
Plutarch chuckles. “You’re the first person who’s ever gotten the joke.”
There he goes again. Trying to make me feel human. “Why am I here, Plutarch?” I ask.
Before he can answer, someone else interjects, “For me.”
I don’t recognize the voice at first because its smoothness has deteriorated into a raspy growl. I turn and see President Snow leaning against the doorway, wiping his brow with a hand-kerchief. Once again, I’m rattled by being in his presence. The power of his position. The record of
his cruelty. Evil in the flesh. Was my crime really so great that it requires a personal meeting? Especially when, on closer observation, he’s clearly unwell. Perspiring and breathless and white as a sheet. His regal bearing abandoned as he hunches over his gut. For once, despite his cosmetic treatments, he looks his fifty-eight years.
“Oh, Mr. President,” says Plutarch. “Are you feeling all right? It’s the heat. Let’s find you a seat.” He hurries over and repositions a chair by the fountain. “I meant for you to use the library. It’s cooler in there. Would you prefer that?”
The president seems too preoccupied to respond. He takes uneven
steps toward the fountain and his whole body seizes up for a second. Blood
trickles from the corner of his mouth onto his white shirtfront as he drops into the chair.
“Can I get you anything? Maybe an icepack?” asks Plutarch. “There’s a powder room just over —” Snow leans forward and vomits a foul mess into the fountain. “Oh, okay.”
Glad I don’t have to clean that up.
Sweat streams down Snow’s waxy face. But there’s no embarrassment or apology. No effort to disguise this moment of weakness. It’s almost like he wants us to see it. I’ll probably be dead soon. Is it for Plutarch’s benefit?
The president slumps back in the chair, panting. “Too hot.”
“Right, let’s get you back in the library.” Plutarch hoists the president to his feet and gets his shoulder under an armpit. “Haymitch.” I’m not being asked, I’m being ordered. I secure Snow’s other side, holding my breath to avoid inhaling the noxious smell of puke and flowery perfume that rises from him. Bodily contact with him in this state makes me a little braver.
He’s just a man, as mortal as the rest of us. For all I know, he’s on his way out right now.
Plutarch and I haul the president back into the library, where we deposit him on an embroidered couch.
“You need a doctor, Mr. President,” Plutarch advises.
“No doctor,” croaks Snow, grasping Plutarch’s arm. “Milk.”
“Milk? Haymitch, check the bar. We keep some for milk punch. The refrigerator’s on the right.”
I take my time, playing the confused district piglet who doesn’t know left from right and, even when he’s worked that out, can’t figure out how to spring the paneled door that conceals the fridge. When I finally open it, I spot the milk in a pint-sized white china pitcher. A golden staircase wraps around the cylinder, and an eagle perches on the lid. A replica of the steps in the corner of the library.
I glance around the refrigerator door as Snow goes into a coughing fit while Plutarch hovers over him.
This is probably the best chance I will ever have to fight back against Snow directly. Here’s to you, Louella. I tip open the eagle lid, down the milk, and wipe the moustache from my lip. Then I close the door, holding out the pitcher helplessly. “It’s empty.”
Plutarch’s eyes widen in disbelief; he knows full well what I’ve done.
I wait for him to rat me out. Instead, he murmurs in exasperation, “Those servants!” and disappears out the door, shouting for more milk to be brought. Like I said, unpredictable as lightning.
I’m left alone with a retching Snow. It’s scary watching him possibly die. It’s even scarier that I can resist helping him. Before the reaping, I bet I
would have been right in there. Louella’s death changed me. Maybe I’ll end up being victor material after all.
Snow gags, empties a crystal bowl of waxed pears onto the table, and vomits a new wave, more blackish than bloody, into it. I wonder what old Trajan Heavensbee thinks of that. Keep smiling, Trajan — he’s the president, after all. Snow’s breathing calms. Ridding his body of that last batch seems to have improved his condition. He takes in the room, the portrait, me. Swabs his mouth out with the handkerchief and stuffs it in his pocket.
“Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease,” he muses. “What disease?”
“Incompetence. You can’t ignore it, or it spreads.”
Plutarch comes back carrying a second pitcher of milk. “There was some in the billiard room.”
Snow chugs the milk and holds out the empty pitcher. “Another. And some bread.”
Plutarch looks at the reeking bowl. “Are you sure, Mr. President?
Sometimes with stomach illnesses, it’s best to —”
“Not an illness. Food poisoning. A batch of bad oysters. But I’ve fared far better than Incitatus Loomy.”
“The parade master?” asks Plutarch, a funny look crossing his face.
“Was he?” Snow hands him the bowl. “Bring what I’ve asked.” When Plutarch goes, Snow peruses the wall of books before him.
“Look at them all. Survivors. During the Dark Days, people burned books to stay alive. We certainly did. But not the Heavensbees. They remained stinking rich, even when the best families were reduced to squalor.” He
removes a small bottle from his pocket, uncorks it, and swallows the contents, shuddering as it settles. “Classmate of mine, Hilarius, was one of them. Useless whiner.” He blots his puffy lips on his cuff. “At least Plutarch comes in handy occasionally, don’t you think?”
Plutarch handy to me? What does Snow know?
“I think he believes you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” I respond.
Snow snorts. “Ah, the homey aphorisms of District Twelve are alive and well.”
I don’t know what an aphorism is — some sort of saying? Lenore Dove would know. But I can tell my way of talking is being sneered at, even if I don’t know exactly what he means.
“I’d be surprised if anything much has changed there,” he continues. “Nothing but coal dust and miners soaked in rotgut liquor from the Hob.
Everybody just waiting to be subsumed by that ghastly wilderness.”
His insult disturbs me less than his familiarity with District 12. Miners soaked in rotgut liquor from the Hob — that’s us, all right. The worst of us, anyway.
“Come sit down, where I can see you.”
Again, not an invitation, an order. I set the milk pitcher next to the nepenthe on the bar and circle around to sit on a sofa across from the
president. The embroidered pillow at his elbow features the same image of the golden staircase as the pitcher. Matchy-matchy, as Maysilee would say.
Snow’s eyes zoom in on the flint striker, as they did last night. “That’s a striking necklace.”
Striking . . . flint striker . . . perhaps he’s recognized its true purpose and will have it banned from the arena.
He holds out his hand. “May I have a look?”
I could brush Maysilee off, but not the president. I untie the knot in the leather shoelace, give the flint striker a good squeeze in case this is good-bye, and pass it over.
Snow rubs his thumbs over the bird and snake heads. “There’s a pretty pair.” He flips it. “And an inscription.”
An inscription? I must’ve missed it in the whirlwind of reaping day.
Without asking for permission, he pulls a pair of specs from his breast
pocket and tilts the striker to catch the light. “Ah, very sweet. From L.D. Who might that be?”
Lying to conceal her won’t help. Even though they didn’t air it to the country, I bet they showed Snow what happened during the reaping. Me trying to save a girl from the Peacekeepers. Her reaction to my reaping.
Twelve’s a small district. If he has a mind to, he will track down my girlfriend.
“Lenore,” I say.
“But Lenore what? No, no, don’t tell me. Let me guess. D . . . D . . . That’s a tough one. None of the usual suspects, but they so rarely are. I can think of plenty prefaced by deep or dark. Deep blue. Dark green. But that’s not how they work. Perhaps something in nature? Like amber or ivory.
Daffodil . . . dandelion . . . diamond? No, that’s no color at all, really. All right, I’m stumped. Lenore what?”
The milk has soured in my stomach at his musings and what they reveal. He knows Lenore Dove is Covey; only they name their children this way. First name from a ballad, second a color. Amber and Ivory are actual family names. How has he unearthed this obscure fact about a pocket of
musicians in the throwaway district of 12? Capitol informers? “Dove,” I tell him.
“Dove!” He smacks his forehead. “Dove. I have always heard ‘dove color,’ though. It’s a bit of a cheat. But who could resist when you get both the color and the bird? And we know how they feel about their birds.”
He returns the striker. On the back, in minuscule script, are the words I’d missed. For H. I love you like all-fire. L.D.
“Do you know much about doves, Haymitch?” “They’re peaceful.”
“If they are, they’re outliers. All the birds I’ve encountered are
vicious.” A dribble of bloody spittle leaks from Snow’s mouth. “Bet I know a thing or two about your dove.”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s delightful to look at, swishes around in bright colors, and sings like a mockingjay. You love her. And oh, how she seems to love you. Except sometimes you wonder, because her plans don’t include you at all.”
Not exactly, but too close. I think of the misty look she gets when she talks about the open road, the life of the Covey, and a kind of freedom that has nothing to do with me. Worse, I think of Clay Chance and the fire under the reaping stage and how there’s a part of her she refuses to share with me. She’d say it was to keep me safe, but maybe she just doesn’t trust me with her secrets.
“She loves me,” I insist.
“No doubt she says so. But believe me, romantically speaking, you’re dodging a bullet with these Games.”
“So I should be thanking you?”
Snow laughs. “You should. Although perhaps not for that.” “For what? You’re sending me to my death in the Games.” “Yes, your behavior has guaranteed that.”
There it is, in case I had a shred of hope left. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Allies or no, I am a dead man walking.
“On the good side,” he continues, “with you out of the picture, Lenore Dove and your family should be free to enjoy long and happy lives.”
Even though their safety is my greatest concern, his reminder that their future will not include me is, as Maysilee would say, “a special kind of vicious.”
Snow dabs at the spittle with his shirt cuff. “But there are many different ways to die in the arena. You might get stabbed, or strangled, or
die of thirst. Death by mutt tends to be the most memorable. We have some beauties this year. Programmable to serve individual tributes. And far scarier than the weasels.”
He watched it, then. Our tribute session in the kitchen where we revealed our final wishes. “I have no say in that.”
“No, but I do. And I will orchestrate your death based on your behavior from here on out. You decide what you want Lenore Dove and your mother and that dear little brother of yours to see. You can die clean and fair, or we can open the Games with the slowest, most agonizing death ever to befall a tribute. And yes, you should be thanking me for giving you the option.”
I meet those pale blue eyes. “I guess you’ve got me.”
“Don’t feel too badly. You’re in good company. You know, my family has its own little aphorism.”
“What’s that?”
“Snow lands on top.” Without shifting his focus from me, he calls out, “Hide-and-seek is over! You can join us now!”
Who is he summoning? My torturers, brought in to reinforce his threat?
“So, no more unauthorized chariot rides, I think. No mocking me on or off camera,” he continues. “And I have a belated birthday gift for you. I want it treated with the gratitude it deserves.” He inclines his head in the direction of the conservatory.
Standing in the doorway is Louella McCoy.
