The Hunger Games - I'm Still Burning

Chapter 18

 "Here it's safe, here it's warm. Here the daisies guard you from every harm. Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true. Here is the place where I love you."

I found it. Her pacifier. The only way I can get her to stop crying. It didn't take too long to figure out that singing was the answer. Peeta seems to think that that was what she had been waiting for all this time. That she was crying simply because I hadn't sung to her since she'd been born.

The lines to that all too familiar lullaby are what calm her now, as I push her stroller through the meadow. The autumn air is cool against my cheeks, the wind lapping at my hair. She is wrapped up tightly, snuggled safely in her nest of blankets. I watch as the trees ahead rain down their golden leaves, laying out a warm, rich carpet before us.

I decided it was time for her to see the woods. To see Prim. She is a month old after all and she still has no name. I'm hoping the woods will provide a bit of inspiration. Peeta doesn't know. He would insist on coming with me if he did and it's his first day back at the bakery since having her. Besides, I don't know how much more I can take of him clucking around me like I'm still pregnant. It's been four weeks of him asking if I'm okay, asking if he can do anything for me. I can feel my independence slipping away and I don't know that I like it.

My nightmares are back too. Every night President Snow finds a new way to take my baby away from me and destroy her. When Peeta isn't attending to our screaming child, he's attending to a screaming me. It's taking its toll on both of us. We don't go a day without arguing anymore. They're petty little arguments over silly little things. What type of milk is best for her. What time she should be put to bed. Things that aren't even that important. We argue, I cry, we make up. It's a vicious little cycle.

I think a time out is what we both need. A small breather. There's no better place than the woods to do that.

I follow the invisible trail that I know inside out, observing the memories that each significant spot brings to mind. I see my father, teaching me about the berries that are safe to eat and the ones I should avoid. I see Gale, teaching me how to set my own rabbit snare. I see Prim, wrapped around my leg and crying, traumatised by the sight of the dead rabbits hanging from my trap the next day. I see it all as though they were really right in front of me. I see it all as though I had gone back in time. I wish that I could.

An ashen squirrel runs across the path ahead of me and I instinctively reach up to grab an arrow from my back. When my hand comes away empty, I laugh. It's funny how easy it is to forget myself sometimes, to retreat back to old ways.

"Your granddad brought me here when I was your age," I tell her. "Grandma was furious when she found out, she didn't let granddad take me out on his own for weeks after that." She stares up at me, as though she were hanging on to every word.

"I don't think daddy would be too pleased we're doing this alone either. Maybe we should keep this as our little secret for now." She gurgles her agreement.

It's surprisingly easy to talk to someone who can't talk back.

The journey is more difficult than I expected. The stroller catches on fallen branches, leaves clog up the wheels. By the time I reach the lake half the day is gone and I'm exhausted. I don't know how but she is sound asleep. I breathe in that familiar musty smell, absorbing the surroundings. Here, I have the sense of calm. This is my pacifier.

Picking her up, I trudge towards Prim and leave the stroller by the lake side. She stirs and lets out an angry wail in my arms.

"Shh, don't cry," I whisper, stroking her tiny clenched fist. The physical contact hushes her as her hand automatically opens and wraps itself around my finger.

"See everything's okay," I tell her. "I brought you here to meet someone very special."

We sit down in front of Prim's picture that doesn't look any worse for wear than when we first put her here 8 years ago. It's silly but every time I come to see her, I always expect her to have changed, to have aged like the rest of us. She never does. It's always the same 12-year-old girl staring back at me. And I'll always be the same ever changing girl staring back at her. The unfairness of it all springs tears in my eyes.

"I'm sorry, Prim," I sniff.

Sensing my discomfort, the baby lets out another cry. I rock her slowly, unable to find any words to put this right.

I run through the list of baby names me and Peeta have been tirelessly fighting over to distract myself. Poppy, Rose, Daisy, Ivy, Jasmine, Acacia. None of them seem to fit. I look around me for some sort of muse. If mine and Prim's names were found in these woods, then hers could be too. I spot a nearby fern and try to picture my little girl's face with that name. Too serious. I gaze up at the large willow tree beside us, watching as a Mockingjay flutters between the drooping branches.

"Willow," I suddenly say, testing how the name tastes in my mouth. "Willow, Willow, Willow."

It's pretty, graceful even. The more I say it, the more I can see it. Peeta, Katniss and Willow.

"How does that sound, Baby girl?" I ask her. "Willow?"

She gurgles in what I assume is consent. I laugh and look up, expecting to see Prim's reaction to the new found name. Nothing. Seeing her face like that sends the all too familiar pangs of grief to my heart. It seeps through the gap that she left behind. Seeps into the woods around us, creating a dark hue swallowing us up. Only then do I realise I shouldn't have come here. I'm rubbing it in her face. Rubbing all this life into her lifeless eyes.

Monster.

Murderer.

Why does that voice sound so much like Prim's?

"We have to go." I don't know who I'm talking to. It could be Prim. It could be Willow. I babble out repeated apologies even though no one is listening. I talk myself into standing up, walking back to the stroller, putting Willow into the stroller. Am I talking or shouting? Willow is crying but it's good. All that noise is blocking out the voices.

I stumble away from the lake as fast the woods will let me. I shouldn't have come. Not alone. Not without Peeta. I feel beads of sweat crop up on my forehead. This was wrong. I was selfish. I am selfish.

I push on harder, wishing I could close my eyes and transport us back into the comfort of our house. The closer I get to home, the lower the sun dips in the sky. When I reach the meadow, it is dark. But someone's waiting. He's so angry, I can tell by the way he's storming towards me. The torch light in his hand exposes the glowering teal of his eyes, the firm set of his jaw.

"What the hell did you think you were doing, Katniss?" he shouts.

He snatches the stroller from my grasp, marching it away from me. I follow limply along behind, not trusting myself to speak. I want to call out to him, tell him I'm sorry but the words I need fail me. What scares me most is that this isn't even flashback Peeta. This is Peeta mad for real. And it's my fault. It's always my fault.