The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)

by Suzanne Collins

“I almost forgot. I promised to sing this for one of you,” she said. And there it was again, ever so casually, her hand on her pocket. She began the song she’d been working on when he’d come up behind her in the Meadow. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three? Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. The hanging tree. Her old meeting spot with Billy Taupe. That’s where she wanted him to meet her. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out for his love to flee? Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. He would have preferred not to meet up at her old lover’s rendez-vous spot, but it was certainly much safer than meeting at her house. Who would be there on a Sunday morning? Anyway, Billy Taupe was no longer a concern. She took another breath. She must have written more. . . . 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 Who did she mean? Billy Taupe telling her to come there so they’d be free? Her telling him tonight that they’d be free? Are you, are you Coming to the tree? Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. Now he got it. The song, the speaker in the song, was Billy Taupe, and he was s...