The Diary of Mr. Everdeen [Fan Fiction]

The Woods

Chapter One

The winter's coming. The feel of the chilling water from the lake tells me this while I am fishing. The woods is starting to get naked again, with pieces of it's cloth laid above the ground. The tan colored sheet that covered the earth is starting to decompose. In a matter of weeks, the red-brown-orange hue of the ground will be pure white. That means no hunting, which means no trades, which means no money, and apparently, no food.

The only thing my family will have is a grumbling stomach that appeals to be beating like an approaching storm. 

"Dad, is this edible?", asked Katniss, aged nine. "Well, yeah. It's like what we picked yesterday. It's katniss roots." She, again, fell delighted as always.

"You're named from that, how could you possibly forget?" I insist, with some disappointment because I want her to know what are the things that you may put in your mouth and what to put inside it in case you put something wrong. I sometimes think it's melodramatic, but I just want them to be ready. I want her to be ready.

"I just want to hear it from you. Wait, I remember, you told me you're going to train me how to hold a bow! You said you'll do so if I am ready, but when will I be ready? And on what will I need to be ready?", said Katniss in a high-strung teen voice. The interrogating tone of hers gives me a question difficult to answer. When would she be ready? I don't know. No one knows when they are ready. No one can say they are fully ready. No one. "I suppose when you can sing The Hanging Tree, then it wll signal you are." I can't think of an excuse. I don't think she can even remember me telling her that. And that gave me a shallow relief from the question. When she will be ready?

Chapter Two

Going home, I saw Rosemary clutching Prim to her lap, a if she is a human swing with a beating mechanism from her delicate feet. Katniss ran to her mother, hugging her from the back. That made my wife wife jump out of shock, that made me laugh. It's the luxury of having a family, especially the family you want. The echoes of Croiss' voice give a chilling sensation to my nape, and play on rewind in my brain. "You're luckier." Indeed, I really am.

After she shocked Rosemary, she received a kiss in the forehead in exchage. Then she ran to the kitchen, doing a run-jump movement in the tune of Hanging Tree. How did she know the song? From the streets? No. Only a few knows its lyrics, and not all who know the lyrics even manage to sing here in Twelve. Most of them think that singing is just a waste of time. Fore them, it's a job without a deserved salary. If that so, then no one should be working in the Mines. But no one seems to put theirself into trouble by complaining on the laws of Panem. Its a mandate to work for the welfare of a nation not even thinking about the welfare of its citizens.

If the government just want to take care of the country for the good, why would they waste millions for an annual game dedicated on wasting lives of its citizens to be watch by every person, even a mother who just laid an offspring. I remembered the story of woman from town who gave birth while the Games were running and televised. Peacekeepers head to her house and brought a television, just for her to be able to watch the brutality of life here in Panem. How lucky the child is a newborn, he won't understand a thing. But not long enough.

Katniss kept on asking me to teach her the song, and I asked her to wait for me to finish doing things a father should do. I should fix everything from the roof to the hole that the mouse had carved on the hole, to house it's own family. I need to do this before my shift to the mines.

While fixing the dripping faucet of our house, I didn't realize I was singing the Hanging Tree. It's a song for a dead man for her love et cetera. And it doesn't bother me if Katniss will memorize the lyrics. She won't understand a thing. The song is really easy to be memorized. With simple tones and simple lyrics, it will become a part of your body. You can hear it singing inside your head even if no one does.

The song is like a part of my family, though it really is. If I had only seen the man in the hanging tree before he left my Mother and invited her there. Luckily she didn't.

  "Are you, are you, coming to the tree, where they strung up a man they say murdered three?"

The voice is starting to make its way to my mind again, I thought. But the voice is from a young girl with a very soft voice. 

"Strange things did happen here no stranger would it be, if we let go ... ha-ha-hanging tree."

"That's amazing!", I told her while I raised her up, then she chuckles and whispered " I know Dad."

"But you were wrong for the last line. It's if we met up not let go. And it's supposed to be if we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."

"Meeting up is the first tep after letting go. They come in pair. At least I got the first stanza." The metaphorical words coming out of my daughter's mouth amazes me, and makes me curious in the same way. I looked at the circular window placed in the left of our kitchen, and I'm surprised. I've found three mockingjays sitting there, looking suspicious at my daughter. "Katniss, can you sing again?" And after that, the birds stopped chirping and more of them came. I'm proud of her. Really.

"Do you see those birds?", I asked her with a seemingly throaty voice. "Yeah, they're mockingbirds, our teacher taught us about that just last week." 

"They're not mockingbirds. Mockingbirds are blue, but these birds are brownish black. They're mockingjays." 

"Wow. I thought they were mockingbirds, cause they look like one."

"They are hybrids,  one part mockingbird one part jabberjay. You remember them, muttation thingy?"

"Yes. I remember them," and I see she is delighted when we are talking about things like these. " I want to be a hybrid too," she exclaimed. shoving the birds away, but they are whistling the tune of the song. "Really? What hybrid do you want to?" 

"A human bird. I want to fly. And flying makes you free." Again, I'm aghast. Where is she getting these words slipping out of her mouth? 

"I have a better idea. How about half Katniss, half Everdeen?" She laughed so hard that Rosemary rushed to the kitchen, only to fnd us trifling with each other. "I thought she's hurt." Then, she went back to pick Prim again,aged five, and sung another lullaby. Katniss really laughed so hard she woke her sister up. 

Another day passed. Several things happened. I fixed the broken faucet, swept the dried leaves kissing the ground, and accidentally thought Katniss a song about death. This day's worth its hours.