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Lucy Gray Baird ran.
At first, she hardly felt the pain in her arm. Behind her, the mockingjays screamed out the song she’d left them with. It was miles before she noticed the blood’s sticky passage down her arm and realized he’d hit her. Her heartbeat stumbled for a beat–but no, it was just a graze. It burned fiercely now, but the blood across her upper arm was already going dark and tacky as it clotted.
She slowed to a trot and then a walk and then she was leaning up against a tree and gasping for breath.
Three’s enough for a lifetime, Coriolanus had said, meaning murders.
Who’s the third? She had asked–but she’d already known. And he was a liar too, because nothing was ever going to be enough for Coriolanus Snow.
Maybe he was following her, still coming to kill her, but she doubted it. The way he’d balked at a simple hike to the lake–he may have starved with the rest of them through the war, but what did a Capitol boy know of the wilds?
He wouldn’t venture any further. No–he would sink the guns in the lake, or bury them, and then he’d go back to the Capitol he loved, to find the order he craved, and he would forget her as hard as he could.
What did that matter to her? It’s not as if he could will her dead.
But–she might die anyway.
She had the clothes on her back, the knife she’d found in the cabin, and the bag she’d been carrying with matches and a little food–black bread, some withered apples, a skin for water. But not the fishing rods. Not the jug, or the metal can for carrying coals–those she’d left in her flight.
She’d been so calm as she’d left. She’d known it would take him a little time to work out she had to die. That big knife was all she could afford to grab.
Could she survive like this?
She’d told Coriolanus that she couldn’t do it on her own–that she’d come back to the Covey after a few days.
She couldn’t do that.
The mayor would be looking for her. And that’s not to mention Coriolanus. Coriolanus, who wouldn’t waste a second shot at her.
She pushed herself off the tree and found north by the sun. It was time to walk.
***
She found a stream and washed her arm. Hoped the water was clean. Dug up katniss for her dinner.
The rain had stopped by the time she needed to rest, but it still took her ages to start a fire, shivering the whole time as she blew on the little smoking pile of leaves that she’d sacrificed one of her precious matches to light. The katniss roots were somehow both raw and charred even with her best efforts. The fire never quite developed the slow-burning embers that she needed to cook them properly. She’d tried to make a crude fishing pole out of a branch and a shred of her dress but she didn’t catch anything. Maybe her hook was rubbish. Maybe the stream didn’t have any fish.
There was little in the way of shelter. The best she could find was a boulder with a slight overhang. She huddled under it, shivering once the fire had died, for the hope of protection should it rain in the night.
There was little sleep to be had.
She woke early, back cold and stiff against the stone. Gingerly, she rose. It was time to walk again. At least she could follow the stream. It tended vaguely north, by her reckoning—at least for this stretch.
As she went she took tiny bites of one of the apples. It was soft and dry, but bursting with sweetness. She tried to savor it, but it still went quickly. She ate everything, even the core, spitting out only the fibrous stem and the black teardrop seeds.
She drank water to placate her grumbling stomach, but it wasn’t convinced.
That evening, coerced by her growing hunger, she ate the bread and the last of her apples. With tired legs from a day of walking, and a full belly, she slept long and deeply under the dense needles of a pine grove.
Hope found her in the morning, even though her larder was empty. But she was well-rested, and shucked her skirts to use as a net to catch a fish. After that hearty breakfast, luck brought her to a thicket of raspberries that the birds hadn’t yet plucked clean. She ate until her stomach hurt, and the rest she carried in her skirts even when the juice pooled at the bottom and dripped onto her legs. Her fingers stung from the prickles. Even mushy and warm from the travel, they made a pleasant meal that evening.
That was a good day for Lucy Gray.
***
She often sang as she walked. “Nothing You Can Take From Me” was her favorite for when she was angry, or hungry. The one about the hanging tree was for when she was lonesome.
She never sang the song she wrote for Corniolanus. That one she wouldn’t sing again.
She was often lonesome, and she was often hungry, and she was often angry. She missed Maud Ivory and the rest of the Covey. She even missed Billy Taupe sometimes.
The worst times were when she missed Corniolanus–when she remembered her own despair as she’d been dumped off that train at the capitol. A pig they’d delivered for the slaughter. And he’d been there with his beautiful face, and that perfect rose. He’d looked like hope, standing there.
Well, she would show him. She was going to survive, just to spite him–even if he might never know.
Although she didn’t know how.
She was doing alright now, in the bounty of late summer. There were roots to eat, greens and berries to pick, fish to catch in the streams, especially now that her technique was improving.
But winter would be cold and harsh–even colder and harsher the further north she went. And she had no provisions to tide her over. She was sleeping on the ground and eating what she could catch in a day. In a few months, she would starve, if she didn’t freeze to death first.
But what could she do? She kept walking north.
***
She was singing to herself–not a real song–just bits and pieces and whatever caught her fancy. She didn’t know how long it had been since she’d left the District behind. Days and days and they’d run together.
Even now she could tell the light hours were shortening. Every once in a while, the breeze had a bite to it.
“What are you singing, child?” said the woman.
Lucy Gray froze.
She was probably sixty or so, smiling a little, and leaning on a walking stick.
“It’s ok,” she said gently, “I don’t mean you no harm. It’s just not a lot of people go walking in the woods these days.”
“They sure don’t, ma’am,” said Lucy Gray, with a smile. She’d recovered herself from her falter.
“You’re not from around here at all, are you?” asked the woman with amazement. “You don’t talk like the rest of our people. How did you get here?”
“Oh I’ve been wandering here and there,” she said lightly to cover up the pit of fear that had opened in her stomach.
“Poor thing,” said the woman, with a little too much insight, “let’s get some tea in you.”
And she led them to a little shack, well hidden in the trees. It was warm and dry inside and there was a cooking fire that the woman put a kettle on. She bustled around and said little until their tea was ready and she’d served Lucy Gray a cup, in a manner that seemed strange and overly proper.
“You have family, dear?”
“No ma’am,” said Lucy Gray.
“Hmm” said the woman, “Well you can’t keep sleeping rough all winter.”
“I know,” said Lucy Gray, “It’s just I don’t know where else to go.”
“Well dear—what do you know of District 13?”