Sparks Fly

Chapter 10

A leather bag filled with food and a flask of hot tea. A pair of fur-lined gloves from Cinna. Three twigs lying in the snow, pointing in the direction I am going. This is what I leave for Gale at our usual meeting place on the first Sunday after the Harvest Festival.

I have continued on through the cold, misty woods, breaking a path that will be unfamiliar to Gale but is simple for my feet to find. It leads to the lake. I no longer trust that our regular rendezvous spot offers privacy, and I'll need that and more to spill my guts to Gale today. There are things he has to know . . . things I need him to help me figure out . . .

Once the implications of what I was seeing on Mayor Undersee's television hit me, I made for the door and started down the hall. Just in time, too, because the mayor came up the steps moments later. I gave him a wave.

"Looking for Madge?" he said in a friendly tone.

"Yes. I want to show her my dress," I said.

"Well, you know where to find her." Just then, another round of beeping came from his study. His face turned grave. "Excuse me," he said. He went into his study and closed the door tightly.

I waited in the hall until I had composed myself. Reminded myself I must act naturally. Then I found Madge in her room, sitting at her dressing table, brushing out her wavy blond hair before a mirror. She was in the same pretty white dress she'd worn on reaping day. She saw my reflection behind her and smiled. "Look at you. The future Mrs. Mellark. Like you came right off the streets of the Capitol."

I blushed a little at her words. Mrs. Mellark . I'd never been comfortable with boy talk, so I decided to focus on the second part of her comment. My fingers touched the mockingjay. "Even my pin now. Mockingjays are all the rage in the Capitol, thanks to you. Are you sure you don't want it back?" I asked.

"Don't be silly, it was a gift," said Madge. She tied back her hair in a festive gold ribbon.

"Where did you get it, anyway?" I asked.

"It was my aunt's," she said. "But I think it's been in the family a long time."

"It's a funny choice, a mockingjay," I said. "I mean, because of what happened in the rebellion. With the jabberjays backfiring on the Capitol and all."

The jabberjays were muttations, genetically enhanced male birds created by the Capitol as weapons to spy on rebels in the districts. They could remember and repeat long passages of human speech. The rebels caught on and turned them against the Capitol by sending them home loaded with lies. When this was discovered, the jabberjays were left to die. In a few years, they became extinct, but not before they had mated with female mockingbirds, creating an entirely new species.

"But mockingjays were never a weapon," said Madge. "They're just songbirds. Right?"

"Yeah, I guess so," I said. But it's not true. A mockingbird is just a songbird. A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist. They hadn't counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to pass on its genetic code, to thrive in a new form. They hadn't anticipated its will to live.

I see them now as I continue my trek through the snow — the mockingjays hopping about on branches as they pick up on other birds' melodies, replicate them, and then transform them into something new. They remind me of Rue, perhaps one of the few good memories I have from that dreadful arena. I think of the dream I had the last night on the train, where I followed her in mockingjay form. I wish I could have stayed asleep just a bit longer and found out where she was trying to take me.

After a couple of hours, I reach an old house near the edge of the lake. Maybe "house" is too big a word for it. It's an ancient stone cottage with a few cracks in the concrete, ivy threatening to overtake the outside walls. My father thought that a long time ago there were a lot of buildings — you can still see some of the foundations — and people came to them to play and fish in the lake. It's simple: one room with a floor, ceiling, and walls. Little remains on the inside except for the fireplace and a woodpile in the corner that my father and I collected years ago. I start a small fire and sweep out the snow that has accumulated under the empty windows, using a twig broom my father made me when I was about eight and I played house here. Then I sit on the tiny concrete hearth, thawing out by the fire and waiting.