Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
It’s Maysilee who surprises me. Back home, she isn’t popular, she’s known. She’s not respected, she’s feared. Not deferred to, but avoided. Here, following Ampert’s lead, kids bring her their district trinkets and ask her to make them special, and she agrees. The girl must know fifty ways to braid, twist, and loop a cord into a piece of finery. She sets off their humble offerings from home with her fancy patterns. District pride runs deep. From 6, which covers transportation, Wellie has an old bicycle bell, Miles a tin train whistle. Livestock-loving District 10 brought horseshoes; the lumberjacks of 7, carved wooden trinkets. The girls from District 8 have little dolls in beautifully sewn outfits. A kid from 3 has a doorknob, but I’m not sure how that reflects technology. Whatever they present her with, Maysilee gives dignity to their tokens, and even though she still offers a fair amount of unsolicited fashion advice – two girls change their hairstyles and a boy promises to stop biting his nails – our allies adore her.
By the end of the training session, District 11 hasn’t said yes, but they haven’t said no either. If they’re in, I wish they’d say so. We could use more brawn. I saw Hull, the guy who kicked Panache in the shower, fling a pitchfork and decapitate a dummy. Why pretend that’s not what we’re here for?
All of us Newcomers stand a little bit straighter by the time we head back to our vans. Even locked in the dark, Maysilee, Wyatt, and I continue to make plans, sharing information about our allies and working on a strategy. In no time at all, the van pulls to a stop.
“That was quick,” says Maysilee.
The door swings open, and a Peacekeeper gestures for me to get out. Wyatt makes to follow, but the Peacekeeper holds up a hand. “No, just Abernathy.”
This isn’t good. I slide out of the van in front of a white marble building, far more imposing than our tribute apartment. It stretches the length of the block, a single structure accessed by a huge pair of wooden doors inlaid with a pattern of golden stars. I catch a glimpse of Wyatt’s furrowed brow as the door slams shut and the van speeds away. What’s going on? Where am I?
Two men in violet uniforms stand in silent attendance at the entrance. As if responding to some unheard signal, they haul open the doors to reveal Plutarch Heavensbee. He approaches me, his face unreadable.
“Hello, Haymitch. I’m afraid there’s been a last-minute schedule change.”
“Just for me?”
“Just for you. It seems the president had second thoughts about your . . . performance.”
Louella under the balcony. Snow up above. While I applauded for all the Capitol to see.
Plutarch doesn’t need to explain further. This is where I pay for painting my poster.
A fragile collection of muscles and bones, a few quarts of blood, wrapped up in a paper-thin package of skin. That’s all I am. As I pass through the doors of this marble fortress, I have never felt more breakable.
My eyes travel up the walls to the lofty ceiling over the entryway. No poodles or oranges here. Just more marble and huge urns filled with bunches of flowers the size of bushes.
A servant in a starched apron runs a feather duster over a naked statue. She catches my eye, her lips parting in pity. Her tongue’s missing. She’s an Avox, one of the mutilated prisoners forced to wordlessly serve the Capitol for life. Will they take my tongue? The thought turns my mouth bone-dry. Dying at the end of Panache’s sword now seems like a mercy.
“This way,” says Plutarch.
The carpet has the soft spring of a bed of moss, and it absorbs my footsteps as if I’m already gone and beyond making a sound. One of the ghosts that inhabit Lenore Dove’s songs. She once told me about being arrested by the Peacekeepers back home, how frightened she was at first. Then she remembered she’d read that sometimes the only thing you can control is your attitude to a situation. “Like I could decide whether I was scared or not, no matter what happened. I mean, I was still scared, but it helped having that to chew on.”
I try to chew on it, but there’s too much adrenaline pumping through my veins.
Help me, Lenore Dove, I think. But she can’t. No one can.
Plutarch leads me down a long, arched hallway lined with lifesized paintings of haughty people in fine, old-fashioned clothes. Each holds an object – a scale, a harp, a ruby-studded cup – that seems meant to define them.
Plutarch gestures indifferently. “Meet the Heavensbees,” he says.
Wait . . . the Heavensbees? Is this his family? And could this actually be his house?
There’s no shortage of Heavensbees; they watch over us through several halls, flaunting their signature possessions – a leafy branch, a glossy white bird, a sword, is that a turkey leg? Dripping in wealth, every last one of them. We pass doorways, some tightly sealed, some flung open to reveal roomfuls of elegant furniture and twinkling crystal lights. Other than an occasional Avox slinking in the shadows, it’s deserted.
I think about how many people spent their lives building this place, how many died before its completion, so that the Heavensbees could have somewhere to hang their pictures. Their smug, satisfied, ridiculous pictures. Well, the joke’s on the Heavensbees. Now they’re dead, too.
Finally, we turn into a room where an old man with a white beard holding out an open book smiles down from his portrait above the fireplace.
“Trajan Heavensbee,” says Plutarch. “I’m his great-, great- – I can never remember how many greats. Anyway, he was one of my grandfathers. The only one who’s been of any use really. This was his library. It’s a good place to talk.”
Talking isn’t torturing, so I calm down a little. The walls come into focus. They’re not lined with instruments of pain but towering shelves of books. Thousands and thousands of volumes, floor to ceiling. In the corner, a golden staircase spirals up a column of white marble and leads to a balcony that runs around the room. A gold eagle perches on the railing at the top of the stairs.
This room is Lenore Dove’s dream come true. A world of words to wrap herself up in. Each book’s as precious as a person, she says, as it preserves someone’s thoughts and feelings long after they’re gone. The Covey have a collection of them, ancient things with cracked leather bindings and paper delicate as moth’s wings. The family treasure.
Although most of us learn our letters in school, there aren’t a lot of books in 12. Sometimes one appears at the Hob, and if I’ve got anything to trade with, I snatch it up to save for Lenore Dove’s birthday, regardless of the subject, since they’re so hard to come by. There was a paperback guide to raising poultry once, and even though it mostly talked about chickens and she’s a goose girl, she loved it. Another time, I found a collection of maps from long before the Dark Days, pretty useless now. But I really struck gold last year with a small volume of poems by the long dead. Some of those made it into songs.
I remember the joy on Lenore Dove’s face when I gave her the poetry, the kisses that followed, and feel stronger. They can’t destroy what really matters.
“Do you read, Haymitch?” Plutarch asks.
“I can read.”
“No, I meant, do you like to read?”
“Depends on what.”
“I’m the same,” says Plutarch. “Reading in general isn’t a popular pastime in the Capitol. It’s a shame. Everything you need to know about people is right here in this room.” He turns a knob shaped like a goat’s head on what I took to be a desk built into the bookshelves. The top splits in two and a tray full of sparkling bottles rises in its place. Plutarch pours himself a glass of amber liquid. “Can I offer you something?”
“I don’t drink.” Professional curiosity wins out, though – I’m a bootlegger, after all – and I cross to examine the booze. What we call white liquor’s as clear as water, but his bar boasts every color of the rainbow. I don’t know if these have been dyed or aged or mixed with other things, like herbs. It’s all white liquor, only dressed up. The bottles have little silver nameplates on chains. Vodka. Rye. Cognac.
Then I spy a name I recognize, even though I’ve never seen the stuff. I lift the bottle and let the light dance off its rosy depths.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.