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When Lenore Dove comes to me now, she’s not angry or dying, so I think she’s forgiven me. She’s grown older, her face etched with fine lines, her hair touched with grey like mine. But her features are hazy. The precious memories, held on to for so long, seem distant now, clouded by years of tragedy and drink. I’m not even sure if the face I see is actually hers anymore.
I try to recall the faces of the Newcomers. Heh, how clever we thought that name was at the time. Now it seems a bit on the nose but hey, it did its job. Wyatt. Maysilee. Louella. Just like Lenore Dove, the memory of their faces have become distorted with time. Indistinct. But their sacrifice was not in vain. Our plan just took a bit longer to come to fruition is all.
“You’re really going back, then?” says a quiet voice from behind me.
I smile but don’t turn around. “Morning, Sunshine. You’re up early.”
The click of wobbly heels against the tiles. A hand pulling on my shoulder. “Don’t toy with me, Haymitch. Are you really going back? To District 12?”
“Just for a little while,” I grin, turning around to face her. She’s wearing orange today, yellow feathers threaded through her fake eyelashes, but for a brief moment I see the young woman who’d stood in the elevator all those years ago, four hats stacked haphazardly on her lavender hair, looking ridiculous in a grape gumball of a dress. I’m glad she dresses a little better these days, even if it is only a minor improvement.
“How long, Haymitch?” she persists.
“As long as it takes to get the kids settled,” I tell her. The kids. Heck, it makes us sound like we’re some kind of family, but I suppose we are in a way. A family by choice rather than blood. A family I want to look after.
Effie continues to flap and fluster over me like some big orange goose, but I know it’s because she cares. She’s always cared. She may not have been with me in the arena like the others, but she still stuck by me. Never a tribute, but still a Newcomer. It only took me a few decades to realise this, of course, but it’s probably for the best. If I’d known sooner, I probably would have pushed her away like I had everyone else.
As it was, I’d come to think of her as nothing but an annoying, gaudy insect who came to pester me once a year around my birthday. A pompous, garish bug who’d once believed that the Hunger Games were for the greater good. A belief she no longer holds which just goes to show that people really can change for the better.
Good news for me, I suppose, although I can’t see myself changing much anytime soon.
“Effie,” I say at last, catching her hands in mine. “Sunshine. You know I’ve got to do this.”
Her bottom lip trembles, but I can see it in her eyes. She knows I’m right.
“But I’ll come back, ok,” I add, holding out my pinkie finger, an old schoolyard gesture. “I swear it.”
She looks at my extended finger, confusion etched across her heavily made-up face. Note to self, when I get back, teach Effie about the sacred rite known as the pinkie-promise. For now, I settle with a kiss. Her lips taste of citrus.
“Sunrise,” she says a moment later, casting her gaze towards the horizon.
I nod my head. I know what she’s thinking. “Sunrise, but there’s no reaping.”
“There’ll never be another reaping ever again,” she adds softly, and I hope to hell she’s right.
As I stare at the soft golden glow painting the sky, my thoughts return to Lenore Dove. My old love. My first love. My flame. One of the few things in my life worth keeping; the one thing The Capitol could never truly take away from me, even as they took the life from her body.
There was a time when I’d believed there would never be anyone else for me. That she wouldn’t want me to ever move on or find someone else. Like geese, we were. Mated for life. But I no longer believe this. I don’t think Lenore Dove would want me to. It’s taken me a long time to accept it, but I think she’d want me to move on. To live.
To love.
I glance at Effie standing by my side, the sun’s rays playing through her curled hair and catching on the glitter pasted to her face. She’s no all-fire, that’s for damn sure. And she’s no goose, either, although you could be forgiven for thinking her one with the amount of feathers she wears. But she is my sunshine.
I turn back to the sunrise, a glorious light-show of orange and pink, and gently take Effie’s hand in mine. As the sun slowly rises in the sky, I imagine Lenore Dove looking down on us, smiling.