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Only a singular ripe red strawberry is left when she checks the bush.
She can only stare at it.
The bush had been almost full when she’d visited the woods yesterday. The strawberries were just about ripe, greenish around the edges, but ready to be plucked in the next day or so. The kind that would be fine had she left them to rest on the warmth of the windowsill. She’d been looking forward to it.
You could do an awful lot of things with strawberries in District Twelve. She’d been planning to sell them at the Hob, trade them in for a few coins to buy a dress for the Reaping. Vee needed a new one. Her old one, the one Luz had worn for her first Reaping, was growing threadbare and worn. As loathsome as it was, your clothing to the Reaping meant something. If you were chosen, it was the first glance your potential sponsors got.
Or, she could take them home and let her mother make them into jam. The jam was usually stringy and sour, but it went well with the cheap bread they could make with the Terressa grain. It would last them a good week.
Or they could share the strawberries, fresh from the bush. Rinse them in cold water and eat them like that.
But there were no strawberries.
She bites her lip, trying not to cry.
It seemed a silly thing to be upset about. But she’d been so, so careful. She’d bought a cheap mesh to place over the top of the bush to protect the delicate berries from the beaks and mouths of the birds and the deer. She’d snuck water into the woods during the peak of the summer. She’d watched them, every day, plucking the moulded and blackened berries so as not to sour the rest of the crop.
And now there was nothing in return for her labour.
Nothing.
She didn’t know what to tell her mother when she returned from the woods. Or what she was going to say to her little sister, Vee. They’d both been excited for the berries, for the promise of a new Reaping dress or jam.
(Her mother had been more excited about the jam. Something about the creation of it, the careful boiling of the berries on the stove, the spreading of the thick fruity paste over fresh bread took priority over a new dress. Especially for the Reaping.)
She removes the remaining strawberry. It seems foolish, she thinks, to even bother to take it, but she guesses she can take it home for Vee. However, it was nothing compared to a whole bag of strawberries. Or coins.
“Luz?” She hears from behind her, and she whips around, fingers slipping into her pocket to grab her knife. (She would never use it. But whoever it was wouldn’t know that.)
Her fingers drop, sliding haphazardly from the knife when she sees who it is. “Hunter,” she says, pointing towards the berry bush, gaze downturned, “There’s - I dunno what happened. The birds must have gotten in, somehow.” She watches as his eyes glaze over the berry bush. She’s expecting to see dismay in his eyes, something bitter. But that expression doesn’t pass over his face.
Her friend shakes his head slowly, and she raises an eyebrow in question. “Nah,” he says, then grins at her, pulling a strawberry from his pocket, “I got here at the crack of dawn and picked them. So they’d be fresh. Also managed to get a pigeon.”
Her expression twists. She grins at first, and then her mouth shifts into a frown. “You scared the shit out of me, Hunter!” She snaps. “I thought I was gonna go home empty-handed! Vee would have killed me; I’ve been telling her about this bush for months.”
She has. The forest has provided so much for them over the years, but rarely anything sweet. They get blackberries at the beginning of autumn, and they can make tangy elderberry cordial at the same time, but strawberries are a rare yearly treat.
“Well,” he says, “There’s berries.” He gestures towards the bush, and she pouts at him. It’s not very funny, she thinks; she was so worried about the lack of berries from her carefully tended-to bush, but at the same time - there’s very little opportunity for laughter in District Twelve. So she’ll take whatever she can get.
“I can see that.” She says, still feigning annoyance. It sheds quickly. “How’d you get that pigeon?”
“Shot it,” he shrugs, “It seemed fascinated with some strawberry bush…” He holds a straight face at that.
She elbows him and then laughs. “That’ll go in the Hob for a decent amount,” she comments softly, “We could trade for some - maple syrup. It’ll sweeten the jam.” She smiles at the idea. It’ll be nice, she thinks, to have something that’ll properly set the jam, properly sweeten it.
His eyes light up. “You’re right,” he loosens the bag on his back and looks inside. She also glances inside and grimaces at the sight of the dead bird. Shot right through the eye, she notices. “Aren’t you glad I left early today?”
She rolls her eyes at him. “You know damn well that bell will wake you up at six in the morning no matter what, Hunter.” The orphanage he lives at, she knows, is frightfully prudent with the timings of the day.
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “I was productive with that time.”
She nods slowly. “You were,” she murmurs, and then her gaze flickers towards the broad swaths of the open, empty forest. “I still need to scrape together some coins to get Vee a new Reaping dress. Fancy going fishing?”
Something in his eyes grows bitter, remorseful. She wonders, briefly, if he’s going to say something about the Reaping. He usually does whenever it comes up. They’re growing close to the next one. They try to avoid that topic of conversation, mostly, but when it starts creeping up on them, it’s hard to avoid.
He doesn't reply to her.
She fiddles with the hem of her tunic. She doesn't want to talk about the Reaping. She doesn't. But it's only days away, now, and - well. She doesn't want to be left with something unsaid. She can't avoid it much longer. "Hunter?" She says, and her voice is barely even a whisper.
"Yeah?"
"What if-" she swallows, "Next week. What if it's-"
"It won't be," he says, and his voice almost shakes with defiance. "It won't be. We'll be fine. We all will be. Vee's only in there twice. You're in there-" he swallows, then, and doesn't answer. "It won't be either of us."
It's hard to believe much here, Luz thinks. Panem invites disbelief. It invites confusion. It invites division. It doesn't invite reassurance or kindness. Those are not traits that the Capitol, Belos, or Panem holds dear.
With that in mind, Luz tries her hardest to believe Hunter.
"Okay," she whispers, "I - believe you."
"Good," he says back, "We'll get to finish that strawberry jam, okay? Maybe - maybe, after the Reaping, if we catch enough fish today - we could trade for a small cake. From the bakery. The jam will go nicely with that."
She smiles softly at the idea. She knows full well that the price of a cake is far, far more than a few fish, but - hey. It's a week before the Reaping, and she always feels nothing but downright dread in the next few days, spiralling wildly through her body. It'll be good to have something to look forward to, however unbelievable, however hopeless.
"Okay," she murmurs back, "Let's - go fishing, then. Go to the lake."
“Yeah,” he says and hands her a strawberry. She takes it and savours it. The Reaping is still a week away. She puts it to the very back of her mind, but still, it lingers. It's hard to ignore, but she focuses on the sweet burst of the strawberry and the warm stretch of Hunter's voice. "Let’s head to the lake.”