CHAPTER 6
I find myself in a grave with all the dead surrounding me. They are eating my flesh and I am in agonizing pain. They nibble at me, bit by bit, and as I again open my eyes, I find that they are no longer the family and friends and strangers that I had killed; rather, they have transformed into mutts. Prim's beautiful cornflower blue eyes are unmistakable. I wait in excruciating pain for death like Cato had done, but death never comes. Soon, we are all being buried alive. I hear the sound of the shovel plunging forcefully into the ground, pulling up dirt and roots, and heaving the freshly dug earth onto my burning body. I snap awake, screaming loudly. I jump from bed and cover myself in my cotton robe. Before I even crane my neck to look, I smell the clean, earthy smell of freshly dug dirt. Hadn't it been a nightmare?
I glance out the dusty panes to see a few small bushes of tiny yellow flowers. Primroses. It's both beautiful and sad. Peeta returns to the site with a watering can and glances up at me.
"Bad dreams?" he asks.
"Always."
"Me too." He returns to the task at hand.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
" I found them in a nearby meadow. I thought you might like them as a memorial for her."
Tears well up in my eyes at the mere mention of Prim. So small and delicate just like the flowers. My little sister.
"Thanks. You didn't have to do that but I appreciate it."
"I feel terrible about yesterday. How is the cut?"
His eyes shift to my chest where the crusty, scabbed over puncture wound has clearly become visible from the loosening of my robe. Horrified, I tie the robe tighter around my waist.
"I've had worse," I state simply.
There's a weird silence that seems to last forever as each of us tallies our own lists of our many wounds garnered in a few short years. I force my mind back to the present and try to think of something to keep it there.
"You know, I don't see why we couldn't harvest these in our garden."
"The primroses? For the diner?" Peeta asks.
"Yeah, they're edible plants. You can eat their roots. Prim and I used to gather them for salads when we were starving."
Peeta looks down at the tiny flowers.
"At the very least, we could use them as a garnish for cakes," he adds.
"There's more information in the books of plants my father compiled about it. Do you want to come in and leaf through it?" I ask.
"Aw, I don't know, Katniss," Peeta says quietly.
"It was just that time in all these months. It was under weird circumstances, you know?"
Silence.
"Peeta, it's fine. I don't care. I'm not scared."
"You're not scared of anything. You never were."
I say nothing in response. I just close the window and turn back inside. I cross the room to the door to the living room where I have a vacant bookshelf containing few actual books. Really, my entire home is largely barren with the exception of furniture and kitchen items. My mother only left the book behind because, now that she is working in the Capitol with its advanced medical technology, Mother no longer needs to rely upon homeopathic remedies to cure ailments. Mostly, though, I think she left the book, me, and District 12 behind because we remind her too much of my father and Prim.
Peeta and I sit down on the sofa and turn the delicate pages of the reference book. My father's slanted handwriting and rough sketches scrawl across the pages. I smile as I remember my father's skill and talent when it came to knowledge of survival techniques. I suppose they were things he learned from his father and his father before him: all from a long line of poverty-stricken, starving members of the Seam.
"It must have been very difficult after your father died," Peeta quietly stated.
"It was but we got through it."
"I used to think how strange it was that your mother chose him over my father. Why would you want that kind of life? But I think I get it."
"No, don't say that. Your father was wonderful. He was kind. I'm certain he couldn't have been overly fond of squirrel but he always bought them anyway. He brought me cookies after the Reaping."
"He…what?"
"Didn't I tell you that? I thought it was a mind game at the time…that you had sent him. But no. He was just kind."
Peeta grew solemn and remained silent.
"I'm sorry, Peeta," I said. "You must miss him very much."
"I do. When my mother and brothers would get on my case my father always took my side. Now the only one I've got in my corner is Haymitch when it interests him."
"I'm in your corner," I offer, covering his hand with my own. Peeta looks at me with a sorrowful look.
"You probably should stay on the other side of the ring," he responds and looks thoughtfully at the scab peeking above the collar of my robe.
Gently, gently, he pushes the cotton to the side to uncover the wound. I hold my breath, afraid to move. He cautiously bends down to kiss the dried blood and his lips softly graze the skin and muscle over my ribs before gently tracing the outline of the cut with his finger tips. A hot flush develops over the goosebumps on my skin.
"But we have to be each others' family now. Haymitch, you, and me. Who else can appreciate the things we've been through? Who else can we trust?"
"We've lost a lot," Peeta adds. "A lot of good people for absolutely no reason at all. All for their silly games," he turns another page in the book and a thought enters my mind.
"We can't ever forget and we can't let anyone else ever forget. Let's tell their stories."
Peeta looks at me confused.
"Whose?"
"The other tributes," I say. "And Prim. Cinna. Madge. They have stories that need to be told."
"What are you thinking of doing?"
"Let's write about them in our own book."
"My memory is half-destroyed, Katniss."
"I'll help fill in the blanks," I say. "You just use your beautiful poetry and art to paint a proper picture. Paint that picture of Rue surrounded by flowers."
"I thought you just wanted to forget," Peeta says.
"I did. I do. But we can't forget those who sacrificed their lives for us."
Peeta smiles and takes my hand and gives it a squeeze.
"Okay. I think that's a great idea."
And so we set about our project. When we aren't working at the diner, we spend cold winter nights huddled in front of the fire in my house which slowly begins to looks like an actual home. I describe people and events for Peeta and he turns the details into beautiful prose. I love to lie on the floor, propped up on a pillow, and watch Peeta's hands work. We sit silently for hours with the exception of the few details I quip as a reminder for Peeta's art. His hands move surely yet gracefully across the pages. The soft scratching of the pencils becomes familiar: a white noise lullaby that calms me, loosening the tense muscles in my shoulders. I curl into a compact ball on the floor next to Peeta as he works late into the night completing his latest masterpiece and I fall into a dreamless sleep.
When I awaken a little while later, I look up to see what Peeta has drawn: a picture of our kiss in the cave as he lay dying. A flood of emotions rises and threatens to drown me. He had drawn that without my prompting. He had drawn it from memory.
Peeta notices that I'm awake and quickly turns the page in the book to cover his drawing but it's too late. I saw all of it. Every last stroke is heavily laden with bittersweet memories of our last moments of childhood innocence.
"Peeta…" but only a hoarse, choked whisper comes out.
"Sorry," he says, turning away. "I was just remembering. I know it's a weird memory now."
"It isn't weird," I say, taking the sketch from him. "It's beautiful. It's one of the few beautiful moments we have."
I turn my gaze back to the accuracy of the picture. The cave is exactly as I remember it. How could he have remembered it in such stunningly accurate detail despite his fevered state?
And then, as he seems to keep doing lately, Peeta catches me off guard. Even though I've always been the one to initiate a kiss, there are his lips, pressed against mine and there are his arms encapsulating my body. I think about how different this kiss is from the pictured kiss in the cave. That kiss had seemed so innocent, so brief, so light. This kiss reaches deeper inside of me, to the very marrow of my bones. It makes my blood boil. I press myself back against him, hoping he knows what I know: this is not a kiss for cameras. This is not a kiss to pull him back to reality. This kiss is solely for him.