peetas story

Chapter 1

"Are you, are you, coming to the tree

Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free?

Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be

If we met at midnight in the hanging tree."

I jolt awake in the darkness, the sound of my own breaths loud in my ears as the nightmares fade away, leaving nothing but the song in my head – a song I haven't heard for a very long time. The man in my dreams who was singing it – as wolfish monsters stopped their pursuit of me to turn towards him … the man in my dreams has, in real life, been dead for years.

As I wait for my heart to slow down, I stare across the room, where the curtain flaps idly over the half-open window. In brief glimpses, I see the dark gray sky of early morning. It's probably about five-thirty. Too early to rise, but too late to go back to sleep.

I slip downstairs on feet as quiet as I can make them (though three steps creak like billy-oh no matter what you do). At the foot of the stairs, I cautiously open the door to the bakery. The coast is clear: the door opens on my mother's office, still empty. The kitchen, which adjoins the office, is equally deserted, though I can tell by the scent of the oven, the presence of bowls on the counter, and the open flour sack, that my father has been up for hours. I hear his voice – not in the direction of the front of the shop, but just outside the back window. I go to the door and peer through the crack – just enough to see the back of his head and the identity of the young man he's talking to.

Reaping Day is a public holiday, so my father is under no obligation to work - but it would be foolish of him not to. This morning, buying food is the last thing on anyone's mind. But after the Reaping, everything will reverse, for most of us, and there will be a spike in demand for bread, cake and pie as the dread of the Reaping turns into the celebration of its passing. It is one of my family's best days for business – really one of the few days it's easy for us to meet our quotas, even though we don't even open for customers until the afternoon.

He comes back inside while I'm still hesitating over whether or not to slip away. He gives a start when he sees me, almost dropping the skinned squirrel I anticipated he would be bringing in when I saw him talking to Gale Hawthorne. Gale got fresh bread for it, if I know Dad– not an equitable trade, by any normal measures. But my father likes squirrel – and he's a pushover on Reaping Day, anyway.

"Peeta! What are you doing up?" he asks me.

"Couldn't sleep," I say. Then – spontaneously, and with an anxious sense that I'm too old to be making this confession - I add: "Nightmares."

The look of pain on his face is so intense, I have to avert my eyes. "Yes," he says, in a low voice. Then, in a tone of somewhat forced normalcy: "Do your friends have anything planned for today?"

I look at him, trying not to be disappointed by the evasion. Reaping Day lends itself naturally to either escapism or introspection, or some combination of both. In that instant, I am aware that I am of a level with him, now, in height. I'm told I favor him, too. His dusty-blond hair is darker than mine, but otherwise I guess I do see a bit of him in the mirror, when I squint – square chin, wide-set eyes, wide shoulders, stocky build (he's more fleshy than muscular, these days, but he had a wrestler's build, once).

"Yeah," I say. "Not much. Just hanging out this morning. I'll be back for lunch. Is Will coming?"

"Of course," he replies. "Of course." He looks shocked that I'd even ask. However sour the relationship between Will and Mom, it would not prevent him from breaking bread on Reaping Day with me and Rian for what could be – possibly – the last time.