Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games)

by Suzanne Collins

“Can you help him?” I hear Burdock ask. A cool hand rests on my forehead. The scent of chamomile flowers. Asterid March’s face swims into view, pained but sur-prisingly calm. “Drink this, Haymitch.”

“I expect you’ll think everything’s your fault for a long while. But that’s got to wait. Today we bury them. You know what your ma would want.”

There’s a bad moment when I look up and see my ally, wearing her District 12 black, and start for her. “Maysilee!” Her face crumples into tears, hides in a handkerchief. Not Maysilee. Merrilee. Like as two peas in a pod.

Then Burdock begins to sing, in that clear, sweet voice of his: You’re headed for heaven, The sweet old hereafter, And I’ve got one foot in the door. But before I can fly up, I’ve loose ends to tie up, Right here in The old therebefore. The mockingjays, who nest in the surrounding trees, fall silent as he continues: I’ll be along When I’ve finished my song, When I’ve shut down the band, When I’ve played out my hand, When I’ve paid all my debts, When I have no regrets, Right here in The old therebefore, When nothing Is left anymore. The mourners have quieted. When I’m pure like a dove, When I’ve learned how to love, Right here in The old therebefore, When nothing Is left anymore.

As my eyes sweep the crowd, I see person after person press the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and then extend it to their dead. Our way of saying good-bye to those we cherished. I follow suit, raising my hand high, because I have so many to honor.

I go home before I remember I have no home.

This was arson, carried out in such a way that my family could not even make it to a window to escape. Ordered by Snow. For my homecoming.

I like being hidden here in the dark, where no one can find me. Out of the view of the Capitol, but also away from the pitying eyes of District 12.

I’m no Burdock, with his trusty bow and knowledge of plants.

“Oh, Lenore Dove. Oh, my love,” I say. “You came back,” she says, tears streaming, but happy tears. “You came back to me. In this world!”

“Don’t you . . . let it . . . rise . . .” she gets out. Tears choke me. “I can’t stop it. You know I can’t stop it.” Her head jerks a bit to the side. “. . . on the reaping,” she whispers.

But when I pull back, I taste the poison and know she is gone.

Tam Amber standing stiffly over them, his head shaking as he mumbles, “Not again. Oh, not again.”

The raven. The unforgiving songbird. Repeatedly reminding me of President Snow’s crystal-clear message to me on my homecoming. That I will never get to love anyone ever again. Nevermore. Because he will make sure they end up dying a horrible death.

I would welcome death, if it wasn’t for my promise to Lenore Dove that I would somehow keep the sun from rising on the reaping.

Some nights I find the oblivion I seek, others I wander through the dark.

“Lady,” he said, — “Maude Clare,” he said, — “Maude Clare”: — and hid his face. On a mossy slab of slate: — Yet some maintain that to this day She is a living child; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild.

I bury the flint striker, snake and bird, in front of her headstone. I ask her to free me from my final promise. I ask her to let me come to her now. I ask her for a sign.

I hit the bottle even harder. Drinking, disappearing into the night, regaining consciousness in the forgotten places of District 12.

NO CAPITOL, NO HANGING TREE!

It’s Effie Trinket who finds me thus, the morning of the Victory Tour.

“We do want you. You shook up the Capitol, both figuratively and literally, with that earthquake. You were capable of imagining a different future. And maybe it won’t be realized today, maybe not in our lifetime. Maybe it will take generations. We’re all part of a continuum. Does that make it pointless?”

“Well, you know better than anyone what we’re up against with Snow. If you think of another way to stop that sunrise, you let me know.”

“I have nothing to live for.” I say this without even a note of self-pity. I am simply stating a fact. “Then you have nothing to lose. That puts you in a position of power.”

“You think you’re a good person, don’t you, Plutarch? You think you’re a good guy because you told me about the sun and the berms. When what you really did is help create the Capitol’s propaganda and broadcast it to the country. Forty-nine kids died for it, but you gave it the old Heavensbee spin and, in that propo, you’re some kind of hero.” Plutarch takes a moment to answer. “I’m nobody’s idea of a hero, Haymitch. But at least I’m still in the game.”

And so I remain, forever trapped in my chamber. I am so desperate to forget. To escape the grief, the aching loneliness, the loss of those I love. There are no mementos of them; all are burned or buried. I work on forgetting their voices, their faces, their laughs. Even in my head, my language becomes dull and flat, stripped of the color and music of yesterday.

But I can’t say I have no future, because I know that every year for my birthday, I will get a new pair of tributes, one girl and one boy, to mentor to their deaths. Another sunrise on the reaping.

And when I remember that, I hear Sid’s voice, waking me the morning that raven first tapped on my chamber door. “Happy birthday, Haymitch!”

I fulfilled my promise about the reaping, or at least lent a hand, but she says I can’t come to her yet. I have to look after my family.

Tough and smart, her hair in two braids then, reminding me for all the world of Louella McCoy, my sweetheart of old.

didn’t want to let them in, her and Peeta, but the walls of a person’s heart are not impregnable, not if they have ever known love.

She’s not an easy person; she’s like me, Peeta always says. But she was smarter than me, or luckier. She’s the one who finally kept that sun from rising.

Lenore Dove likes it best there, and I’m content where she’s content. Like the geese, we really did mate for life.

I’m not sure I’ll be here in the old therebefore much longer. My liver’s wrecked and I only dry out when the train’s late. I drink differently these days, though, less to forget, more out of habit. When my time comes, it comes, but I’ve no idea when that will be.

I know one thing, though: The Capitol can never take Lenore Dove from me again. They never really did in the first place. Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping, and she is the most precious thing I’ve ever known. When I tell her that, she always says, “I...