Haymitch. He speaks very little about it. Different techniques are being tried. There will never truly be a way to cure him. And now they want me to marry Peeta for a propo?
Plutarch rushes to reassure me. “Oh, no, Katniss. Not your wedding. Finnick and Annie’s. All you need to do is show up and pretend to be happy for them.”
“That’s one of the few things I won’t have to pretend, Plutarch,” I tell him.
The next few days bring a flurry of activity as the event is planned. The differences between the Capitol and 13 are thrown into sharp relief by the event. When Coin says “wedding,” she means two people signing a piece of paper and being assigned a new compartment. Plutarch means hundreds of people dressed in finery at a three-day celebration. It’s amusing to watch them haggle over the details. Plutarch has to fight for every guest, every musical note. After Coin vetoes a dinner, entertainment, and alcohol, Plutarch yells, “What’s the point of the propo if no one’s having any fun!”
It’s hard to put a Gamemaker on a budget. But even a quiet celebration causes a stir in 13, where they seem to have no holidays at all. When it’s announced that children are wanted to sing District 4’s wedding song, practically every kid shows up. There’s no shortage of volunteers to help make decorations. In the dining hall, people chat excitedly about the event.
Maybe it’s more than the festivities. Maybe it’s that we are all so starved for something good to happen that we want to be part of it. It would explain why—when Plutarch has a fit over what the bride will wear—I volunteer to take Annie back to my house in 12, where Cinna left a variety of evening clothes in a big storage closet downstairs. All of the wedding gowns he designed for me went back to the Capitol, but there are some dresses I wore on the Victory Tour. I’m a little leery about being with Annie since all I really know about her is that Finnick loves her and everybody thinks she’s mad. On the hovercraft ride, I decide she’s less mad than unstable. She laughs at odd places in the conversation or drops out of it distractedly. Those green eyes fixate on a point with such intensity that you find yourself trying to make out what she sees in the empty air. Sometimes, for no reason, she presses both her hands over her ears as if to block out a painful sound. All right, she’s strange, but if Finnick loves her, that’s good enough for me.
I got permission for my prep team to come along, so I’m relieved of having to make any fashion decisions. When I open the closet, we all fall silent because Cinna’s presence is so strong in the flow of the fabrics. Then Octavia drops to her knees, rubs the hem of a skirt against her cheek, and bursts into tears. “It’s been so long,” she gasps, “since I’ve seen anything pretty.”
Despite reservations on Coin’s side that it’s too extravagant, and on Plutarch’s side that it’s too drab, the wedding is a smash hit. The three hundred lucky guests culled from 13 and the many refugees wear their everyday clothes, the decorations are made from autumn foliage, the music is provided by a choir of children accompanied by the lone fiddler who made it out of 12 with his instrument. So it’s simple, frugal by the Capitol’s standards. It doesn’t matter because nothing can compete with the beauty of the couple. It isn’t about their borrowed finery—Annie wears a green silk dress I wore in 5, Finnick one of Peeta’s suits that they altered—although the clothes are striking. Who can look past the radiant faces of two people for whom this day was once a virtual impossibility? Dalton, the cattle guy from 10, conducts the ceremony, since it’s similar to the one used in his district. But there are unique touches of District 4. A net woven from long grass that covers the couple during their vows, the touching of each other’s lips with salt water, and the ancient wedding song, which likens marriage to a sea voyage.
No, I don’t have to pretend to be happy for them.
After the kiss that seals the union, the cheers, and a toast with apple cider, the fiddler strikes up a tune that turns every head from 12. We may have been the smallest, poorest district in Panem, but