I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots.
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Supple leather that has molded to my feet.
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I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid up into a
cap, and grab my forage bag.
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On the table, under a wooden bowl to protect it from hungry rats
and cats alike, sits a perfect little goat cheese wrapped in basil
leaves.
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Prim’s gift to me on reaping day.
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I put the cheese carefully in my pocket as I slip outside.
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Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling
with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour.
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Men and women with hunched shoulders, swollen knuckles, many who
have long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust out of their
broken nails, the lines of their sunken faces.
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But today the black cinder streets are empty. Shutters on the
squat gray houses are closed.
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The reaping isn’t until two. May as well sleep in. If you can.
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Our house is almost at the edge of the Seam.
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I only have to pass a few gates to reach the scruffy field called
the Meadow.
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Separating the Meadow from the woods, in fact enclosing all of
District 12, is a high-chain-link fence topped with barbed-wire
loops.
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In theory, it’s supposed to be electrified twenty-four hours a day
as a deterrent to the predators that live in the woods — packs of
wild dogs, lone cougars, bears — that used to threaten our
streets.
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But since we’re lucky to get two or three hours of electricity in
the evenings, it’s usually safe to touch.
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Even so, I always take a moment to listen carefully for the hum
that means the fence is live.
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Right now, it’s silent as a stone.
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Concealed by a clump of bushes, I flatten out on my belly and
slide under a two-foot stretch that’s been loose for years.
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There are several other weak spots in the fence, but this one is
so close to home I almost always enter the woods here.
