The empty streets are haunting, like we’re the only two living people in the world. The caw of a raven sounds in the distance. Echoes from the thumping wheels fling themselves back at us sharply. The sky darkens when a threatening cloud covers the sun.
The road worsens as we move away from the merchant district of town; the surface now compacted dirt, pitted and uneven. The cart groans with every dip and rock it crosses, the jolts knocking my teeth, biting the inside of my cheek. I clutch the lip of a trunk with one hand and grip the rough wooden edge of the cart with the other, my elbow locked to keep me from pitching over the side.
Today, we two are alone in this journey, the road desolate, not even any small comfort in shared grief. While we wordlessly cross the district with only the sound of grit crunching beneath the wheels, the rest of the district is forced to dance and imbibe, raising their cups to our good fortune.
For years now when a new husband is carting his bride to their new home, along with all of her worldly possessions, the roads are choked with small over-burdened wagons and pale-faced lasses. That first year all the new marriages happened in one mass ceremony, but it took weeks to sort out the housing assignments. So after, couples were bonded in groups every year between May and July. Ours is the only singular marriage in the district since the genetics program was introduced.
An ear-splitting boom of thunder rips through the air. A moment later a flicker of lightning zips across the horizon. All my hair on my arms stands on end and I peer up at the sky with contempt. I’m rewarded with a fat drop of cold water plopping on the skin between my eye and nose.
The wind promptly picks up as a second clap of thunder rolls over us, causing a whole cloud of ravens to take flight off to our right, their screams echoing around us. An involuntary shudder cleves through me and my skin prickles almost painfully.
The small wagon abruptly turns, and Peeta guides it down a street leading away from assigned housing. From any housing, as far as I know. He steers through the oldest part of the district, and I twist my head to watch the direction he’s bringing us, startled. Past blocks of abandoned warehouses to what seems like the fence bordering the district, overburdened with some kind of green creeping plant.
When we approach closer some kind of iron work becomes visible, not the regular chain link variety. He lowers the cart carefully and pulls open a gate that I didn’t even realize was there.
Peeta pushes the cart through and closes the gate as the sky unleashes a torrent of rain.
