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When you live in District 12, you don’t have much time or energy to spare for anything unnecessary. That goes double when you live in the Seam. Stories, songs—those aren’t needed for survival. I suppose that’s why we value people who are able to tell us stories or sing us songs, because most of us can’t.
The girl who stands in front of me isn’t one of those people, but her father was. He sang so beautifully that a town girl moved to the Seam for him, so beautifully that I would swear the mockingjays still echo his melodies, dead though he is these nine months. She doesn’t sing, hardly even whispers when she holds out a rabbit and asks what I’ll give for it.
I take the limp bundle of fur and weigh it in my hand, glance at what I have below the stall’s splintered wood counter.
“This chunk of paraffin,” I offer, setting it out. Given that at the best of times we only have electricity for a couple of hours in the evenings, unless there’s something that the Capitol is requiring us to watch on television, so everyone needs candles, it’s a fair bargain.
She nods and tucks it into her bag.
“See you next week?” I hope so. Soup sells better when there’s some meat in it, no matter what kind.
She nods again and scurries off.
Over the next months she slowly becomes a regular, along with the boy I know she hunts with. He’s a little more talkative, but not much. I learn to tell which of them killed the animals I buy. She’s the archer, and her aim steadily improves until she almost always kills with a shot to the eye. He’s the trapper, a good one; his snares break the animals’ necks so that the pelt isn’t damaged by their struggles to escape.
They bring rabbits, squirrels, beavers, possums, even wild dogs. Doesn’t matter to me. Possum is a bit more fuss since you have to be careful taking out the musk gland, but it’s tasty. Dog, now, has a real gamy taste, but season it up well and folks’ll think it’s beef. I can make a good stew out of dog and duck potatoes, flavored with pine bark.
I trade soup for ration grain, for garden truck, for oil and paraffin, for white liquor, for clothes. Have done since my man died in the mines. It was the only way I could keep my kids from having to sign up for tesserae, keep them as safe as I could from being chosen as tributes. It worked. They all made it safe to nineteen.
Now I see this boy and girl, still liable to the Reaping, and my heart goes out to them. It’s a week away, and the fear is bright in their eyes. I offer more than their dozen fish are worth. The boy thanks me. The girl nods, her usual response, but there’s a hint of a smile, of gratitude in the twist of her lips. I shoo her away and scoop up a cup of soup for the next person waiting.