-7-
Touch
No wind disturbs the meadow today. I sit in my little hollow beneath the tree and watch the late morning sun sparkled on the snow. Chickadees chatter above me, and when they suddenly stop an empty silence hangs in the air. Something's nearby, I think a moment before I hear the muffled footsteps.
"Hey," says Clove, grinning when I bristle and twist around. "Relax. Just me." She plops down beside me. "Back out here again, huh?"
"How did you find me?"
"You weren't home, so I poked around until I found footprints. You didn't exactly hide your trail."
"I told you I would come to see you."
"Eh, well, I got impatient." She looks around and sighs. "So what do you do here?"
"Nothing."
"Hm. Exciting."
I shoot her a glare. "It's peaceful."
"I get it. You want to get away from everyone."
And you are making that very difficult.
"I have a place like this too, back home," she continues. "But I practice there – I don't just sit. Maybe I can show you someday." She pauses for a moment. "I'm leaving tomorrow morning. Never thought I'd actually be sad to leave."
Right. She came to see me, and didn't get to do that very much. "I'm sorry about yesterday. And the first time you came by."
"Don't worry about it. But… I'd like to enjoy today with you. Think we can do that?"
I nod, still looking out across the white expanse.
"Thanks." She pulls her hood up. "It is really peaceful here. Quiet. Easy on the head. Do other people come out here when the weather gets warmer?"
"Yes. Then I just go deeper into the woods." She laughs, and I add, "There's a glen in there with a little pond where I go swimming. Maybe I can show you someday."
"Why don't we go now?"
"Now? It's frozen."
"Not to swim – obviously – but we're here, and who knows when someday will be for either of us. I'd love to see into the secret life of Katniss Everdeen."
I roll my eyes. "Come on." As we walk through the frosted forest, I hope I won't regret bringing an outsider to my nearest equivalent of hallowed ground. But it's hard to claim it as my own anymore. Only the winter is keeping other people out of the woods.
Prim's words from last night return to me. Easy enough to dismiss at the time, it's harder now that no one on the planet knows where I am or whom I'm with. If Clove wanted to dispose of me, this is the time and place to do it. My adrenaline pricks.
"You've been quiet," she says. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just a lot of memories in these woods."
"Good or bad?"
"Good."
"Like…?" When I don't answer, she says, "I see. So I can't enter the secret secret life yet." I give her a what-are-you-talking-about look, and she smirks. "That's okay. I can wait."
The pond is indeed frozen over, ringed by dead reeds and a dusting of snow. The spring that feeds it is choked with ice too, but I can see a slow trickle beneath the surface. Underneath it all, the plants of my namesake sleep in the mud.
"This is it."
"Nice." Clove climbs onto the rock at the water's edge. I used to sun myself there after a swim. She brushes snow from the spot beside her. "Coming?"
I step up carefully. There's hardly any space between us, and it would be easy to fall.
"Are you this tense with everyone?" she asks. "Or just me?"
"Um…"
"Because you act like it's everyone, but then sometimes I get the feeling you're a special kind of tense with me."
"What does that mean?"
"You tell me. If I had to guess, you're still afraid of me."
"I can't put aside the past like you can. I can't – I can't wake up and go on living. You haunted my nightmares, and now… now you're here. With me, in my sacred place. In my secret life."
"I won't hurt you," she insists. "Haven't you realized that by now?"
"It's one thing to hear it, and another to accept it. Really accept it, so that my heart doesn't start racing whenever I see you."
"Fear isn't the only feeling that makes hearts race."
"What?"
"What yourself. Shouldn't you be happy to see a friend?"
I stutter. "Are we friends?"
"Why not? I can't imagine you'd bring just anyone here."
She's right. Only my father, Prim, and Gale before her. And Madge.
"Right now, you're the closest thing I have to a friend," she says with her eyes trained on the ice.
"You have nobody back home?"
"We've been over this," she sighs. "I don't want to go back."
"Then don't."
"And do what? Live in a rented room on money I don't have? Crash with you and Loverboy?" She snorts. "At least in District Two the roof over my head is mine. It's not much, but it's mine. I can't stay here."
"We can still talk," I offer. "You can write, can't you?"
"Yeah." Her lips twitch with a thoughtful smile. "Yeah, I can. And I will."
We stay there by the pond until she asks if we can go back to town. I give her and her furry coat a look. "You can't be cold. Is it really that boring?"
"No. Not with you, anyway. I'm just hungry. No breakfast."
Not with you, anyway. Hearing that puts a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that persists all the way back to civilization. She suggests eating at the inn where she gets free meals with her stay. Delly is the only problem. It's enough that she knows I went up to room 209; she doesn't need to see us having lunch together. There isn't much of an alternative, though. The old Hob is far too busy to avoid attention and questions, questions, questions. Who's your friend? How do you know here? Where's she from? So I accept the lesser risk.
The tavern at the Old Oak is warm and smells of cider and sharp smoke. Clove finds us a little table in the corner away from the miners and builders on lunch breaks. I look around for Delly; she wasn't the one who greeted us at the door. Maybe she's at the bakery with Peeta, since apparently she drops by so often.
A brunette waitress, who can't be older than fifteen, bounces up to us with a smitten smile. "Hi Katniss!"
"Hi." I've never seen her before in my life, but of course she knows me.
"Clare! You know Katniss?"
"We go way back," replies Clove, watching me mischievously. "I'll have my usual."
"Um. Same for me," I say helplessly, hoping I like whatever her usual happens to be.
"Sure! It'll be right out." She hurries away, probably to tell everyone in the kitchen that Katniss Everdeen is here with…
"Clare?" I raise my eyebrows.
"Shut up," she huffs. "You didn't think I'd come here under my real name, did you?"
"I guess?"
"Unlike you, I don't get the celebrity treatment everywhere I go. Must be nice."
"Oh yeah. Can't you tell how much I love it?"
"At least no one insists you're dead and impersonating yourself for money."
That sounds horrible enough. I'm about to reply when I see Delly in the doorway, looking at us with keen interest. Shit. She waves when she catches my eye, but I can see her mind churning, wondering who this girl is and why I've so suddenly come out of isolation for her.
Clove follows my eyes. "Admirer?"
"Old friend."
"Yech. She's insufferable. All bubbly and friendly – and nosy. So many questions every time she sees me."
"Maybe you should fill me in on Clare's history so I don't blow your cover."
"It's not hard, and not far from reality. We met in District Two during the war and stayed in touch afterward. I was just so taken by the strength of beauty of the girl on fire." She flutters her eyelashes.
"That is miles from reality."
"Eh. Bubbles doesn't know that."
"Her name's Delly."
"I like Bubbles better."
I just shake my head, turning over in my mind the story she created for herself and feeling like there might be something she's not telling me.
Our lunch is mostly quiet after that. It turns out Clove's usual is rabbit stew – one of my favorites. The meat isn't as fresh as when Prim made it the same day with my kills, but this makes up for it with carrots and potatoes and onions. The waitress doesn't charge me for mine despite my insistence, so all the way up to her room afterward, Clove makes celebrity jokes and jabs until I'm thoroughly red in the face. I lose my patience when she holds the door for me and calls me 'your royal highness.' "Enough! You know I hate all of that!"
"I know." She shuts the door with a chuckle. "I just like watching you get mad."
"Thanks so much."
"Because it's the only way to get the fire back in your eyes. You know, since you are the-"
"Don't even say it."
"Girl. On. Fire." There's that infuriating smirk.
Ignore it. Ignore it. "Okay, I entertained you for a while. What else do you want to do?"
She hangs her coat and sits on the bed. "I could probably think of a few things. Come here. Stay a while."
"Um. Here?"
"Yeah. It was nice yesterday with nobody to bother us."
I sit beside her as she leans over and closes the thin curtains. "You know, I didn't make up everything for Clare," she says. "You always impressed me."
"Uh-huh, with my strength and beauty?"
"Yes."
"You… sound serious."
"I am."
She can't be. What is this? "I don't understand."
"Do I have to spell it out? I watched you take your sister's place, then the first time I saw you in that flaming black dress… You made an impression. I'd be lying if I said I never thought about you."
"What about Shay?" My voice quavers.
"Come on. Just because you're with one person doesn't mean you stop noticing others."
"Noticing? No. Do not push this."
"Believe me…" She gets up on her knees and leans closer to me until we're inches apart. "…I'd like nothing more than to push it." Her hand slides slowly up my thigh, and there's lightning in my stomach and no air in my lungs. I manage a strangled protest and nearly fall off the bed.
"No! No-no-no, I can't – do that!"
"Katniss…"
"NO!" I snatch my coat and trip over myself.
"Don't run from me again! Katniss!"
I throw the door shut behind me and run down the hall, down the stairs, ignoring her voice calling my name. I don't even see if Delly is around to witness my flight. I'm gone, gone, gone, and soon Clove will be too, and I will drag my life back onto the rails it jumped a week ago.
