Chapter Text
It was night when they realized Lucy Gray was gone, but it would be months before Clerk Carmine accepted that she wasn’t coming back. Tam Amber had been the last one to see her, early in the morning before daybreak. He caught her heading towards town, a bag hauled over her shoulder and her hair bundled up in a bright orange scarf he had never seen before. She told him that she was going to see about buying a new goat, a kid from the litter the Mellark’s just birthed. She wanted to head out before Mayor Lipp came in to wait outside their home and avoid all his hollering. She’d be back before nightfall, she promised.
She wasn’t. The long August day turned into deep night and there was still no sign of her. Mayor Lipp demanded to see her, claiming she fled to escape prosecution. She was responsible for his daughter’s death, according to him. He’d been this way for a week now, stalking them and harassing them about his daughter. As the day went on, the Covey’s anxiety grew, and by night, they began to wonder if Lucy Gray had really fled.
Clerk Carmine refused to believe it. How could Lucy Gray, who had served as his mother, his big sister, his best friend, leave him so unceremoniously? If she had fled, she was hiding out somewhere, terrified of the mayor’s wrath.
The next morning, there was still no sign of Lucy Gray. Tam Amber and Clerk Carmine went to Mellark’s to ask about her. But the Mellark’s insisted that they hadn’t seen Lucy Gray yesterday, that she had never come to them about buying a kid, that they didn’t have any new litter of goats to begin with. Clerk Carmine felt a scream lodge itself in his throat, but he refused to let it out. He interrogated Tam Amber about how Lucy Gray was yesterday. Did she seem off? But Tam Amber said he hadn’t noticed anything new about her. She had seemed a bit shaky and tense, sure, but she had been that way since the arena, and even more so since Billy Taupe’s death.
Billy Taupe’s death — Clerk Carmine had barely begun to process his own brother. They had buried him only a few days ago. For that reason, in Clerk Carmine’s mind, that meant that Lucy Gray couldn’t be gone, not forever. It just didn’t make sense for them both to leave his life in the span of a week. Clerk Carmine was determined to find her.
While the mayor sent out Peacekeepers into the district to interrogate anyone who knew anything about Lucy Gray’s disappearance, Clerk Carmine and the Covey went past Twelve’s borders to look for her. They found things missing from their supply room, keying them into her running away. Then, by the Hanging Tree, they found their old wagon parked. Lucy Gray brought it there, Clerk Carmine asserted.
They wove into the forest past the Hanging Tree; Barb Azure had the idea to check the lake. Clerk Carmine and Maude Ivory both agreed that Lucy Gray would be there, hiding. Heck, the kids even came up with a plan to keep Lucy Gray there in the house by the lake, where they’d bring her food and clothes and whatever she needed, until Mayfair Lipp’s true killer was found. Safe and out of harm’s way, that’s what she was in that house by the lake.
Lucy Gray was all over the house — what they were missing in their supply room was wrapped in bundles, laying on its floor; the bag Tam Amber has seen her carrying was set by the door, filled with her clothes and trinkets; and by the fireplace were rotting fish, wrapped in leaves, as if they were about to be cooked by someone but had been abruptly stopped.
Barb Azure broke at the sight of the fish. She squatted down, burying her face in her knees, rocking herself back and forth in despair. “She’s gone,” she wept. “She’s gone.”
Maude Ivory was red faced with anger. “Stop it! She might just be out hunting or gathering fruit!”
“If she did do that, something might have gotten her,” Tam Amber said carefully. Everything about him seemed strained.
“Why would you say that!” Maude Ivory screeched. Her hands were balled into little fists, her eyes sparkling with tears.
“Maude Ivory, baby,” Barb Azure looked up and sobbed, “why in the world would Lucy Gray leave fish behind to rot if she needed food? She’s—“ Barb Azure was overcome with tears once more.
Clerk Carmine clenched his jaw. He refused to believe it, even with the reek of decomposing fish drenching the cabin’s air. “She’s probably out there, hurt,” he said. “We need to go find her!”
“Wait,” Tam Amber started, “Wait!”
But Clerk Carmine and Maude Ivory were already bounding out of the cabin and into the woods.
“Lucy Gray!” they both cried. “Lucy Gray, it’s us! We’re here!”
They ran wildly through the forest, searching every which way for their beloved Lucy Gray. They screamed until their voices began to give out, ran until their legs were sore and wobbling. Jabberjays picked up their cries and repeated “Lucy Gray! Lucy Gray!” back to them as they swarmed. Clerk Carmine felt delirious, but he was determined.
His search stopped when he ran into Tam Amber as he came around a tree. His face slammed hard into Tam Amber’s chest, and he staggered back, holding his nose. Tam Amber stood quietly, his face so stoic, so ancient, though he was only nineteen. Maude Ivory caught up to them, catching her breath.
“We can’t find any sign of her!” Maude Ivory croaked hopelessly. Her voice was hoarse, her cheeks red, her hair wild and falling out of their braids.
Clerk Carmine noticed the sadness in Tam Amber’s eyes, the resignation. “I’m sorry,” the older boy said.
Tam Amber extended his hand out to them, opening his palm to reveal three bullet casings. Maude Ivory gasped, and Clerk Carmine’s stomach dropped.
“Where did you find those?” Clerk Carmine demanded.
“A few yards back,” Tam Amber said. His voice became soft, barely a whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“Those could’ve been there for ages!” Clerk Carmine insisted.
Tam Amber’s face crumbled. “If they were, they’d be rusted.”
“No!” Clerk Carmine cried. “You don’t know that!”
He looked to Maude Ivory for reassurance, but the little girl stared wide eyed at the bullet casings, shivering.
“If she’s dead, then where’s her body, huh?” Clerk Carmine continued. “She’d be around here, somewhere! There’d be vultures pecking at her!”
Maude Ivory began to cry then. Tam Amber scooped her up in his arms like a baby, rubbing her back as she wept into his shirt. Tam Amber gave Clerk Carmine a gentle look, as if to say, “Come on,” before beginning back to the cabin. That animal-feral scream that was lodged against Clerk Carmine’s heart threatened to erupt. He stood there, tense, hot faced, heavy breathing and angry at the world. He wanted to fight someone, anyone.
Instead, heavy tears began rolling down his cheeks. Suddenly he was three years old again. He ran after Tam Amber, saying nothing.
After his investigation into Lucy Gray’s disappearance was inconclusive, Mayor Lipp stopped coming by their house each day. The guns used on Mayfair and Billy Taupe were never found, either, making each of their deaths a permanent cold case. Rumors swirled around the district that Mayor Lipp sent some men to stalk Lucy Gray into the woods and gun her down, and bury her body somewhere secret. Barb Azure believed this, and Tam Amber said his gut told him that was the likely case. They could never know for sure, though; everyone involved in the case was either dead or missing.
But one, Clerk Carmine knew. There was Coriolanus Snow, the boy from the Capitol. Clerk Carmine never quite trusted him, no matter how much Lucy Gray raved about him. He found it more creepy than romantic that Coriolanus had come all the way from the Capitol to Twelve just for Lucy Gray, a girl he had known for a few weeks. He didn’t like the way Coriolanus looked at or talked to Lucy Gray, either, how he snapped at her for differing opinions and how he stared at her like he owned her. But she had trusted him, whether Clerk Carmine liked it or not. If anyone knew where Lucy Gray was, it was Coriolanus Snow.
Clerk Carmine asked any patrolling Peacekeeper he saw about Coriolanus. Most of them, being of a higher rank, did not know him. One claimed that the name “sounded familiar”, but couldn’t say anything more. Frustrated, Clerk Carmine walked himself all the way to the Peacekeeper base’s guest lobby, where he demanded from the young man behind the front desk to speak to Cadet Snow. The young man told him that unless Coriolanus had placed a formal request to speak to Clerk Carmine, he could not call in any Peacekeeper away from duty to see him.
“I’m not leaving until you bring him to me!” Clerk Carmine said.
The young man flipped through his booklet again. “You aren’t anywhere on the guest list. Beat it, kid. Before I have you forcibly removed.”
Clerk Carmine wasn’t afraid of his threats. Not after everything that had happened since Lucy Gray’s name had been called in the Reaping. “No! Call Coriolanus Snow and tell him that I need to speak to him, NOW!”
Another Peacekeeper peaked his head through the door behind the front desk. “What’s all the commotion?”
“This kid is trying to meet with a cadet without invitation. He won’t get off my ass,” the first Peacekeeper said, glaring at Clerk Carmine.
The second Peacekeeper came out from the door. He analyzed Clerk Carmine for a moment. “You one of those Covey kids, right?”
Clerk Carmine nodded.
“You related to that Billy boy who got killed? You look just like him,” he said.
Clerk Carmine’s cheeks went hot. “Yes! And I need to talk to Coriolanus Snow!”
“Coriola– you mean Gent? Well, kid, you’re gonna have to write him a letter if you wanna talk to him. ‘Cause he’s nowhere near Twelve now,” the second said.
“What do you mean? Where is he?” Clerk Carmine asked, softer now, disbelieving.
“He got stationed to District Two like a week ago,” the second said. “Was sad to see him go. Nice guy, I worked with him on a few assignments.”
Dread filled Clerk Carmine’s nervous system like poison. “A week?”
“Last Monday, I think,” the second shrugged. “Why? He owe you money?”
Clerk Carmine’s feet took him out of the lobby faster than he could think to reply. He raced away from the base, towards nowhere in particular, trying only to outrun his fears. A week ago — last Monday — the day after Lucy Gray went missing — the day after Peacekeeper’s free day — NO. It was a coincidence. It had to be. Why would Coriolanus lure Lucy Gray out into the woods and kill her? Why would he do that and then run to Two? Why would he do that after Billy Taupe and Mayfair’s deaths, after his own friend Sejanus was hanged —
No. Nevermind the fact that Coriolanus was the only one other than the Covey who knew about the lake house. Nevermind the fact that Coriolanus was the only one who was close to Lucy Gray that had access to a gun. Nevermind the fact that he had motive to kill Billy Taupe –jealousy– and Mayfair Lipp – revenge for Lucy Gray.
Lucy Gray said that she had gotten Coriolanus in trouble because of how her games ended. That’s why he became a Peacekeeper — that’s why he asked for Twelve — that’s why he followed a girl he barely knew across the country —
“No, no, no,” the words escaped Clerk Carmine’s lips, and his vision was blurry and his knees were buckling, and he couldn’t breathe, and the ground was rushing up to him —
On the ground, Clerk Carmine fought back a scream. He refused to believe it. He refused. Lucy Gray was still out there.
Summer faded into autumn. Now that all musical performances were banned at the Hob (another consequence of Mayfair’s death), Tam Amber began working in the mines, while Barb Azure took on odd jobs. Housecleaning for merchant families, cleaning pigstyes, lugging boxes onto crates when the train stopped in with goods. They still made money on the side working weddings, but people in District Twelve didn’t like getting married in the winter. Plus, there was the fact that the Covey were now short two incomes without Lucy Gray and Billy Taupe. The Capitol money Lucy Gray had left them was a temporary cushion, one that would go fast. Clerk Carmine made Barb Azure promise not to sell herself, not ever, but he could see the hesitation in her eyes.
The leaves fell from the trees, and it was as if life lost all its color. The Covey were so full of grief that they were drowning. The ever quiet Tam Amber practically went mute, communicating with glances, grunts, nods. Every night, Maude Ivory woke up screaming from her nightmares, all revolving around Lucy Gray’s absence, Billy Taupe’s death. Barb Azure became sullen, snappy. She broke up with her girlfriend in mid October over nothing in particular. “She was smothering me,” was her excuse. A lie. Barb Azure always wanted to be drenched in love.
And then, Clerk Carmine. He begged Tam Amber and Barb Azure to let him quit school so he could work, but they refused. He got free lunch at school, one less meal for them to worry about, and they wanted him to look after Maude Ivory. And, anyway, Clerk Carmine was legally required to go to school until age fourteen. No business wanted to put themselves at risk of being shut down for employing a thirteen-year-old. But Clerk Carmine couldn’t stand being in the classroom, even with the guarantee of free soup and bread. He felt locked up, claustrophobic, the way he imagined it felt to be in the mines, the way Lucy Gray described the train ride to the Capitol. So he skipped school, almost everyday. He became like how his brother had been, wandering around the district, stealing and scamming, whatever he could do to get a bit of pocket change. He was routinely berated by merchant families for going through their trash, and got chased out of the Hob a few times for causing trouble. Typical Covey, they’d all say, always thieving, can’t ever be trusted.
But mostly, he spent his time in the woods. Making traps, shooting squirrels with Tam Amber’s bow, gathering whatever roots and fruits and nuts he could find to feed his family. He preferred it out there, alone in the woods, away from the world. Sometimes he’d just sit in a tree for hours and whistle his brother’s favorite tunes, and would listen to the mockingjays sing them back to him. During those fleeting October days, when the forest canopy was made up of vibrant shades of yellow and orange and red, he thought of Lucy Gray, who he associated with any spectacularly bright color.
At night, his sorrows caught up with him. Sleep evaded him no matter what he did, how he willed it to come. He’d stare up at the ceiling, listen to the sound of wind from the outside. Eventually Maude Ivory would wake up sobbing, and he’d pull her into his bed and hold her until she calmed down. He’d sing her back to sleep, the song that Lucy Gray used to sing her. “Deep in the meadow, under the willow…” She’d be asleep in his arms, and his own sobs would wrack his chest. He’d muffle his cries by burying his face into his flat pillow, missing his brother so much he felt like he would die from the pain. Despite all of the horrible things Billy Taupe had done at the end of his life, Clerk Carmine loved him like all-fire, he always would. Clerk Carmine had no memories of his parents, of their life before District Twelve. All the memories, the intimate details, of what their parents looked like, sounded like, acted like, how they had loved him, had gone with Billy Taupe. And Clerk Carmine feared his own memory wasn’t as strong as his brother’s. He could already feel Billy Taupe slipping away from him. He couldn’t picture the way he sounded when he sang anymore, his clothes didn’t smell like him anymore. Time was passing, taking him whether he liked it or not.
On the ground, the leaves rotted. The first snow came late November, and now the past summer was nothing but a painful knot in Clerk Carmine’s chest. He wore his brother’s sweaters, pretended that they were his arms holding him. With all the snow, all of the dead earth, there was nothing to gather, and hardly anything to hunt. He roamed those woods anyway, singing the ballads that Lucy Gray and Billy Taupe were named for, hoping for the sound of mockingjays.
He kept telling himself that Lucy Gray was out there somewhere. She spent the fall season hiding, living off the land, and now that it was winter, she’d return to them. Because, of course, she couldn’t survive the winter alone. She had to come back. And she would.
Tam Amber spent his Sundays practicing his new hobby, stone engraving. He wrote simple things at first, things like “Hi CC” and “We love Shamus”, to practice and to make the others smile. Clerk Carmine asked him one day, “What made you wanna carve up stones?”
“I wanna make some gravestones for Billy Taupe and Lucy Gray,” Tam Amber said. “I’d mark them with some lyrics from their ballads.”
Clerk Carmine staggered back, coiling in on himself. “No,” Clerk Carmine said, shaking his head vehemently.
Tam Amber shut his eyes, sighed. “CC –”
“No! You have my permission to make one for Billy Taupe. Fine. But you can’t make one for Lucy Gray!”
“CC, I know it’s hard to accept –”
“Of course I’m not accepting it! How would you feel if that were you? Out there, scared and hiding, and everyone at home just said you were dead. Your own family making a gravestone for you. It’s not right!” Clerk Carmine was trembling now. He wanted to smack Tam Amber across the head.
Tam Amber closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He said nothing for a while. Then, “Well, I’ll get started on Billy Taupe’s.”
He did, and the topic did not come up again for a while. The Covey trudged into the last month of the year, and an inch of snow buried them farther each day. Every sunset, Clerk Carmine set a chair by the window that looked out upon the cold, white meadow, and the barren forest in the distance. He sat there and watched, awaiting to see Lucy Gray, clad in deerskin and that mysterious orange scarf, walking home.
There was so much snow that winter, the air was always frigid. Even with a fire roaring inside their hearth, it was painfully cold inside their home; Clerk Carmine always wore several layers under his sweaters and trousers, along with wool socks, gloves, and a hat. Grating on the edge of his mind was a voice that said, “It’s too cold for Lucy Gray to survive out there, alone with no shelter. She’s not coming back.” He’d swat it away like a mosquito.
January, Tam Amber finished Billy Taupe’s gravestone. On a sleek, smooth surfaced stone, read:
“Is there room at your head, Billy
Or room here at your feet?
Or room here by your side, Billy,
Wherein that I may sleep?”
They agreed that when spring came, they would return to the grove where they buried Billy Taupe, and would set the engraved stone at the head of his burial spot. They discussed it over bowls of stew. Blowing on a spoonful, Barb Azure asked, “And Lucy Gray?”
Again, the same fight. Clerk Carmine threw a fit, saying that they couldn’t give up hope. Tam Amber sighed, Barb Azure insisted that this wasn’t healthy. Maude Ivory eventually ended up crying from stress, stopping the conversation. Barb Azure consoled Maude Ivory, and Clerk Carmine angrily went upstairs to his bed.
The hills of snow that covered District Twelve began to melt in March. The Covey had managed to get through the worst of winter relatively healthy, with even young Maude Ivory not getting anything worse than a sniffle. Yet just when the promise of spring neared, Clerk Carmine fell ill. Fever, chills, fatigue, congestion, cough. Barb Azure stayed home with him while Tam Amber worked and Maude Ivory went to school, much to Clerk Carmine’s chagrin.
“You need to work,” he told her as he shivered under three heavy quilts. “I’m fine. We need money more than I need you with me.” She ignored him. She made him drink endless cups of tea and bowls of squash soup, and bought him a much too expensive bottle of cough syrup from the apothecary. The syrup made him drowsy and confused; he hated it.
On the fourth day of his illness, he felt somewhat better. Still fatigued and sniffly, but his cough had subsided, as had his fever and chills. He insisted that Barb Azure go back to work today. “I just need to sleep off the rest of this cold,” he told her. “I’ll be perfect by the end of the day. Please, Barb Azure, we have to pay off that cough syrup!”
She reluctantly obliged, only after fixing him another pot of squash soup that she instructed him to reheat and eat four times a day. She also told him to keep taking his cough syrup, even though his cough was gone. Then, she slipped on her wool coat and headed off to the town square to see if anyone was hiring day laborers.
Billy Taupe had a bowl of the squash soup, which was still warm in the pot, along with a slice of seedy bread. After he had his fill, he grabbed the bottle of cough syrup from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. In his adolescent carelessness, he decided to take a swig of it, thinking that would be easier than measuring it in a spoon before drinking. The thick, disgustingly sugary syrup oozed down his throat, and he shuddered. Then, he laid down on a mat in front of their old, tiny television set. He wrapped a quilt around his shoulders, turned on the TV to play a Capitol documentary about livestock production in DIstrict Ten, and quickly felt himself drift off.
His dreams were dark, hazy. Images of the last Hunger Games played, static-y and black and white as they had been on their TV. A hanging tribute, struck down by a girl with an axe. The boy from Twelve chasing Lucy Gray. Snakes dropping down from the sky, killing several, swarming Lucy Gray, calmed only by her singing.
“You’re headed to heaven
The sweet old hereafter
And I’ve got one foot in the door.
But before I can fly up,
I’ve loose ends to tie up,
Right here in
The old therebefore.”
Clerk Carmine eased out of sleep, his body feeling heavy, his vision a bit distorted when he first blinked open his eyes. The TV was still playing. And, distantly, he could still hear Lucy Gray, singing as she had in the arena:
“I’ll be along,
When I’ve finished my song,
When I’ve shut down the band,
When I’ve played out my hand,
When I’ve paid all my debts,
When I have no regrets,
Right here,
In the old therebefore.”
Clerk Carmine jumped up to his feet, his heart racing. He looked around the room, for the source of Lucy Gray’s voice. “Lucy Gray?” he croaked.
She continued:
“When nothing
Is left anymore…”
Her voice, it was coming from outside! Quickly, Clerk Carmine pulled on his boots, a jacket and hat, and scrambled outside. There were still spots of gray snow, but for the most part, the earth was made up of mud and dead grass. The bare branches of the trees dripped, the ice that had coated them melting. It was cold enough for Clerk Carmine to see his breath, but the chill in the air was exhilarating. The world smelled fresh, clean. Of course Lucy Gray would come on such a day!
Clerk Carmine looked around, and spotted a figure far away in the meadow. Rainbow, he could see it! Lucy Gray in her mother’s ruffled rainbow dress!
“Lucy Gray!” Clerk Carmine cried, his eyes filling with happy tears. “It’s me! I’ve been waiting for you!”
She waved to him, then turned her back, and began running in the direction of the forest. Hurt, confusion, filled Clerk Carmine’s chest. Hot tears poured down his cold cheeks.
“Wait!” he cried. She didn’t, bounding farther to the forest. He started towards her, too, running as fast as his weak legs would take him.
As he ran through the meadow, Clerk Carmine watched Lucy Gray slip into the forest. “No, Lucy Gray! You don’t have to hide anymore! Come back!”
Inside the forest, Clerk Carmine slowed his pace, afraid of darting right past her, in case she was hiding behind a bush or tree. He looked around everything in his path, and craned his neck to scan the tops of the trees from below, hoping to see a flash of rainbow hanging over a sturdy branch.
“It’s me, Lucy Gray! Please, you don’t need to hide!”
The forest was silent, but he wouldn’t let that fool him. Lucy Gray had been second only to Tam Amber with her ability to silently move through a forest. He went deeper into the forest, calling out for her.
“It’s okay to be scared, Lucy Gray,” he said. “But no one’s going to hurt you anymore. I won’t let them!”
Silence again.
He thought for a moment. “Sing if you’re nearby!”
Then, her voice streamed through the forest:
“When I’m pure like a dove
When I’ve learned how to love
Right here in,
The old therebefore —”
Forward, her voice was coming forward! Clerk Carmine started running again, in the direction of her voice. He ran and ran, until he saw her standing there, waiting for him.
Her rainbow dress was bright, almost sparkling, against the dull gray trees. Her cheeks were full, her bouncy black curls were decorated with wildflowers. She was here, she was alive! She outstretched her arms for a hug. Clerk Carmine’s heart burst, and he practically leapt into her embrace. He held her tightly, and closed his eyes as he rested his cheek against her chest. Against her chest? He hadn’t been able to rest his head against her chest like that since he was eight, when she was still taller than him. Last he had seen her, they were the same height. She had grown so much since she’d been gone…
He squeezed onto her, but felt nothing holding him back. Why had she dropped her arms? Then, he realized how cold she felt, how rough, like bark. He opened his eyes, drew back his head, and realized he wasn’t hugging Lucy Gray, but was holding onto the trunk of a tree.
He pulled back harshly, as if he had touched something hot. He looked at the tree, up and down, and it was so obviously there, and had so obviously been there the whole time. He spun around, searching for Lucy Gray, but she was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t miss her with that rainbow dress, there was no way.
He had been imagining things, he realized. He took too much cough syrup.
Then the worst realization of all finally hit him. Winter had come and gone, and Lucy Gray was still missing. She had left all of her belongings at the lake house, left behind good fish that she was clearly intending to eat—
Clerk Carmine sank to his knees and sobbed. It was as if someone had shoved a dagger into his chest and carved deep into him. His wails of anguish were the only sounds for miles. Lucy Gray was gone, Lucy Gray was gone. Whatever had happened to her, she wasn’t coming back from it. Not ever.
The sun had just dipped under the horizon by the time Clerk Carmine made it back home. He was weak, shivering, covered in mud. Barb Azure, Tam Amber, and Maude Ivory were all sitting at the kitchen table, faces knit with concern. They sighed with relief as he walked through the side door. Barb Azure embraced him and kissed his forehead.
“Oh my stars! Where have you been, CC?” Barb Azure asked, her voice choked up.
A fat tear rolled down his cheek. He only replied, “I’m ready to make her gravestone now.”