Filed To Story: Sunrise on the Reaping Book PDF Free
“Lenore Dove?” I press mine against hers. Willing her to stay with me. Refusing to say good-bye.
But when I pull back, I taste the poison and know she is gone.
The nightmare always starts with me feeding her that gumdrop. We’re in the Meadow, holding fast to each other, her face shining with tears of joy. And I don’t check the bag. I never check the bag. Why can’t I remember to check the bag? I just lift that bloodred gumdrop to her lips, and there’s no stopping what follows. My realization, her terror, the bloody foam, my pleading with her to stay, her making me promise. Then the uncles are there. Clerk Carmine ripping her from my arms, trying to restart her heart while he calls her name. Tam Amber standing stiffly over them, his head shaking as he mumbles, “Not again. Oh, not again.”
That’s when the music kicks in, her name poem, her song, careening around my brain like a runaway train.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore –
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door –
“‘Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door –
Only this and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore –
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore –
Nameless here for evermore.
The raven. The unforgiving songbird. Repeatedly reminding me of President Snow’s crystal-clear message to me on my homecoming. That I will never get to love anyone ever again. Nevermore. Because he will make sure they end up dying a horrible death.
And so, I drive away anyone and everyone who could ever have been considered dear to me. Old neighbors. Hattie. Customers. Schoolmates. Blair and Burdock hang on the hardest. Blair finally acknowledges the truth of my position, gives me one final hug and leaves sobbing. Even then, Burdock insists on showing up, sometimes along with Asterid, who bears bottles of sleep syrup. Defiant. Deaf to my pleas. I resort to throwing rocks, hard, at them. It takes one hitting Asterid on the forehead, blood pouring down her perfect face, to finally get them to leave me alone. Hurting her that way feels worse than anything I did in the arena.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door –
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; –
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you” – here I opened wide the door; –
Darkness there and nothing more.
The world goes silent. I see no one. I have never really been alone before, always with my family. Or my friends. Or my love.
A Peacekeeper slides an envelope of money, my victor winnings, under my door every week, and leaves a food parcel on the porch. On the envelope, meat and bread and milk and various supplies have been meticulously deducted. Who has arranged this service? The president? Is he still insisting on keeping me alive?
I would welcome death, if it wasn’t for my promise to Lenore Dove that I would somehow keep the sun from rising on the reaping. The impossibility of it adds to my despair. I drain the bottles of sleep syrup to escape reality, only to feed her gumdrops in my dreams.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
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.