In just three short months after their marriage, during their father's birthday Klein and Marissa came over for a visit. She was humongous, a large watermelon sized bulge in front of her stomach which looked almost comical against her slim frame.
"Hello," she said shyly.
"Wait, something doesn't add up," Rye murmured with a perplexed frown. You guys got married how many months ago?" He began to count on his fingers, "one, two, three…"
But Klein just laughed him off while their mother punched Rye in the neck and exclaimed that it might be twins. To Peeta's relief his brother appeared happy. He smiled more these days and had a glow around him since his marriage.
Klein and Marissa had brought over a box of filled chocolates for them and they cut the (fresh and not stale) birthday cake after singing happy birthday.
"So, do you have any ideas for names yet?" their father asked after they had settled around the sofas holding their plates of cake.
"One night Marissa had a dream that she was playing with a little girl with red hair like her, and when she woke up she knew for certain we were going to have a daughter. As soon as she told me we started discussing names and decided on Micaiah."
"Micaiah Mellark. That's a pretty name." his father declared.
Michaelis snorted over his slice of yellow cake with white frosting. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Sis has a stupid dream and you're all sure it's gonna be a girl?"
To everyone's surprise Klein gave him a gentle flick on the forehead. In Klein terms it was the equivalent of a normal person punching Michaelis in the face and then rolling around with him on the floor in a bar room brawl.
"Don't call Marisa's dream stupid."
There was a shocked silence.
Then their father and Rye hurried to change the subject to what they had dreamed about last night. Apparently Rye had dreamed about a loaf of bread chasing him and their father had dreamed about a cupcake taking him to the Capitol. In order to save the conversation their mother quickly began detailed analysis of what their dreams could possibly mean while Michaelis rubbed his forehead and mouthed "stupid dreams" to Peeta.
After dinner Michaelis and Peeta, dubbed "the brats" were sent to the kitchen to do the dishes and clean up while the adults discussed grown up topics over glasses of brandy.
"Do you have any dreams Peeta?" Michaelis asked while their arms were elbow deep soaked in suds.
"I dreamt I was Reaped," Peeta confessed. He had dreamed of Effie Trinket, dressed in all pink and roses plucking his name from the bowl.
"Yeah, lots of people dream that close to the Reaping." Michaelis paused. "Are you still mad at me for daring you to take out that tesera when we were twelve?"
No, Peeta actually wasn't. "No, it was actually what gave some of us the idea to form the Tesera Coalition and we managed to help a lot of people."
"You and your friends are a bunch of goody two shoes." Michaelis stuck out his tongue at him.
"Well maybe you should give it a try. Sometimes the best way to solve your problems is to help others." Then he began to choke and cough as Michaelis turned the sink nozzle on him.
"You're so high and mighty, thinking you're better than me and putting on airs!" Michaelis' face turned red and looked away from Peeta. "I have a real dream, to be our District's leader one day!"
Peeta coughed and glared at him from under his sopping wet hair. "You only want to be mayor so you can lord over everyone. Well guess what, if you think anyone will ever vote for you you're insane!"
"You're insane!" Michaelis sprayed him again. Peeta flung a bowlful of water at him in retaliation, soaking his opponent.
"Oh now you're gonna get it!"
"Boys, is there a commotion going on in here?" Peeta's father poked his head into the kitchen.
Peeta and Michaelis paused, one holding a dishtowel like a whip and the other in a defensive stance holding a plate like a shield.
"No Mr. Mellark, we're just having a friendly conversation, only we got a bit loud in order to hear over the sound of the running water." Michaelis turned on the nozzle over a stack of plates as to prove his point.
"Yeah dad, we're fine," Peeta muttered, not wanting to spoil his father's birthday. "Really, we are."
Maybe it was talking about the Reaping, but later that night Peeta dreamt once again that he was a tribute, then put on a speeding train, dressed in synthetic coat and pants, and dropped into a forest.
Walking to school the next day he shared his dream with his friends who reassured him it was because of eating the rich cake before bedtime.
"I get really vivid dreams too sometimes when I eat something weird before bed. Once I had a pickle with a glass of milk and gosh I was convinced that I shrunk down to thumbelina size and was exploring my room!" Delly shared.
Peeta still wasn't reassured but decided to shelve it at the back of his mind for now.
Just before they took their seats Peeta turned around to face Michaelis. "Still want to be Mayor one day?"
Michaelis flushed but gave a sharp jut of his chin. "Yeah. And when I do everyone will finally acknowledge me."
"Yeah acknowledge you as a giant turd," Samus quipped.
Everyone laughed but quiet Madge turned her head sharply and the mild mannered girl who usually disappeared into the background and never spoke unless spoken to snapped. "People don't acknowledge you because you're Mayor. You become Mayor because people acknowledge you." Then maybe sensing she said too much her cheeks blushed an attractive pink and she bent her head back over her books.
Mrs. Thomas walked in at that point and shut the door, indicating that anyone who arrived afterwards would be marked tardy. She wore a stern grey pantsuit and pince-nez glasses and no makeup. "Everyone, pop quiz today. Please take out a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. You will have twenty minutes."
A few people groaned, as they always did whenever a pop quiz was announced but Peeta was unperturbed. When it came to class rankings Peeta, Madge, and a Seam boy with thick glasses usually led. Everyone dutifully copied down the questions from the blackboard and began.
"Pssst Peeta, move your hand I need to copy off your quiz."
"Go away Michaelis," Peeta whispered and tried to move his lips as little as possible.
"I didn't study though. I'm going to fail!"
"That's your problem." Peeta purposely hunched his back over and guarded his paper as if his life depended on it.
Twenty minutes later the timer rang and Mrs. Thomas strode up and down the aisles collecting the quizzes. She paused at Michaelis' desk when she picked up his paper.
"Where was the Treaty of Treason signed? 'At the bottom. When Coriolanus Snow ascended to the seat of presidency, what was the first thing he did? 'He sat down.'"
The entire class burst out into laughter. Mrs. Thomas on the other hand, was unamused.
"Mr. Donner, is my class a joke to you? If it is I think I need an essay on the causes of the great rebellion on my desk in two days."
"This is all your fault Peeta," Michaelis snarled as he followed him home.
"You're the one who made a fool of yourself. And stop following me!"
They entered the bakery together, the chime of the bell signalling their arrival. Peeta pulled on an apron and began to wash his hands. "Unless you're buying bread, leave Michaelis. You're not welcome here."
There was a pause.
"I know your secret Peeta."
"What, that I hate you?" Peeta scoffed knowing without a doubt Michaelis was just trying to bug him, as usual.
"No. You know which one I'm talking about." There was a pause as Michaelis smirked his bastard smirk. Peeta felt his temper rising and heat rushing to his face.
"Well then, I'm waiting! Why don't you just shout out my secret for everyone to hear then if you want to embarass me so much? "
There was a pause. Then another one as Michaelis struggled to think of something to say after Peeta called him out on his bluff. What an idiot, Peeta thought.
But misfortunes upon misfortunes there was a murmur of voices outside, a small high-pitched voice begging "-please! The cakes are so pretty," and an older exasperated voice giving in. The bell chimed and in walked Prim Everdeen holding hands with her sister Katniss.
"Oooooh Katniss can I have this one when it's my next birthday?" Prim pointed excitedly to a bright yellow one with frosted daffodils.
"Of course you can little duck, but your birthday's not for a while yet."
"Hey Katniss, what's up," Michaelis called casually.
"H-Hi Katniss," Peeta tried to say but his voice rose all squeaky at the greeting and his back noticeably stiffened, something that made Michaelis gaze at him in interest.
Katniss ignored them both and ushered Prim out, hurrying her sister along as if she was afraid she was a younger child that would start touching things and make a mess.
Peeta ducked down behind the counter and pretended to be wiping up a flour spill. Michaelis, that bastard jumped over the counter to crouch down next to Peeta.
"So, you like Katniss Everdeen huh," he said in a low whisper so that the other shoppers and his father and brother at the back couldn't hear.
"No," Peeta whispered back furiously. But he felt his body betray him as blood rushed to his face causing him to blush.
An ear to ear grin like the Chesire cat began to spread on Michaelis' face. "Well then, this makes things very interesting." Then before Peeta could say anything else he vaulted over the counter and sauntered out the door.
What can that bastard be planning?
Unfortunately Peeta couldn't dwell on that for long because later that night he had another dream that woke him in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and breathing as if he had been running a marathon.
I-I had been speared by a Career and left to die, but then my district partner found me and and-
"I couldn't remember what happened after that," he confessed to his friends the next day. Well that was a lie. He had dreamed that his district partner was Katniss and the amorous things she did to him he was too embarrassed to say out loud.
"Peeta it's just a nightmare," Nan said gently. "When the Reaping is coming up or when the Games are in session I dream I'm in the Games too, and after I "die" I wake up in a cold sweat. It's horrible but when I wake up I remind myself I'm still alive it wasn't real. It was worse when I moved to Delly's house, then the Inn because when I woke up I wasn't at home but Peeta, you are. Just look at your surroundings and you'll know you never set foot in the Games.
But Peeta still couldn't shake the unease. "I can still feel the ghost of pain where my wound in the dream was though, and then the fever, the thirst, I'd never felt anything like it before so how could I get that memory? Am I going crazy? Or am I psychic?"
Luso snapped his fingers. "Of course, a psychic! We can ask the Augury at the Hob!"
Four pairs of eyes turned to him quizzically. "Isn't she that old woman who mumbles vague nonsense that can apply to anyone for a handful of coins?" Nan inquired. Samus looked equally doubtful.
"Or, even if she's really psychic I don't think we should be tampering with that black magic." Delly shivered.
"Nah, she's the real thing! Remember how I lost my bike a while back? I went to her for help and she told me exactly where to find it!"
"But I thought you said by the time you found it it was broken and picked apart to the point where it was beyond saving," Nan replied.
"Yeah but I found it didn't I?" he said defensively. "And it's not that expensive either, just eighty Gil. That's like, the cost of a lunch."
Everyone murumered their agreement. "I guess I'll give it a try." Peeta decided. They agreed to meet and go after school that day.
Against the still bright sun and heat of a hot summer approaching they loitered at the school gates, murmuring greetings at members of their group joining them. Eventually the five of them set off, Luso leading the way determinedly.
"I'm not actually going to look at the witchcraft, I'm just going to go with you guys to the Hob to see if I could find some cooking spices for my mum," Delly confided to Peeta.
True to her word at the entrance she dashed away and left them where Luso lead them to an ancient woman sitting down on a carpet. She had sallow skin, grey braids beneath a dark blue-black hood and was surprisingly portly for someone from the Seam, but when Peeta looked at her eyes they were a cloudy blue, like a single drop of blue colouring in a bucket of water.
"Welcome. Would you like your fortune told?"
Peeta explained his recurring dreams of being Reaped and in the Hunger Games while she nodded wisely and held her hand out.
Peeta extended his hand so she could read his palm but she slapped his empty hand away and stated coolly that she needed payment first.
Eighty Gil later Peeta had his palm read for real, while the Augury turned it this way and that, tutting and frowning. Then she had him drink a cup of tea and turn the cup clockwise three times. She handed him a moth-eaten bag and told him to toss the contents onto the floor. He emptied the bag haphazardly and a pile of bones tumbled onto the carpet (they were all glad Delly was shopping at this point) and their fortune teller hemmed and hawed over the formation. Finally she shuffled a deck of cards and Peeta selected three of them.
"These cards represent your past, present, and future," she murmured.
She flipped over the first card. "The seven of wands. You've got the upperhand and were able to fight off your challengers easily. Others want what you have, which means that what you have is valuable and worth protecting."
At this point Peeta started to suspect that she was a fraud, he couldn't imagine any time he had fought off challengers, let alone with ease. And of his meager assets what could possibly be valuable or worth protecting?
The second card was upside down. "The justice card represents your present. You are currently at an imbalance of some sort. You aren't accepting of the way things are unfolding, you're let down and are judgemental of yourself and others."
Well, maybe that one was true.
But when she flipped over the last card he and his friends screamed so loudly that everybody in the Hob turned to their direction. Delly came running over to see what the commotion was all about. The final card depicted a skeleton reaper shrouded in black holding a scythe atop a skeleton horse with the label DEATH at the bottom. Blood seemed to rush from his head and pool towards his feet and Peeta found himself swaying.
"Oh no Peeta you are going to die in the Hunger Games," Samus whispered in shock.
But the Augury shook her head and snatched back the three cards, reshuffling them in her deck with such speed they looked like a flurry of brown leaves. "Why is it that everyone takes the death card literally? It means change, transition, that the life you currently lead is about to transform."
"So am I going to be Reaped or what?" Peeta demanded in frustration.
"I do not know." Everybody fell over in shock. The Augury blinked her cloudy eyes slowly.
"The spirits have pieced together your future. What is revealed to me is that the one thing you desire most in the world, the very first desire in your heart, you will receive. But only after a great number of trials and hardship, torture, heartbreak. That is known."
There was a pause.
"That was a flipping waste of our time!" Nan exploded. "You just spout out random stuff that can apply to literally anybody, you ma'am, are a fake and a swindler!" She paused as if realizing something. "Luso, what did she specifically say to you about your bike?"
"That I needed to go look where my heart is. So I went to visit Rosalind and she dragged me to go shopping in the market, and on our way there I saw the remains chained in an alleyway I never passed by before."
A vein popped in her temple and Nan looked like she was going to strangle him. "Luso, I swear to god I am going to bitch-slap you right now."
On their way home Samus turned to Peeta curiously. "So, hypothetically if she was telling the truth, what is the thing that you desire that the Augury was talking about?"
Peeta paused. They were nearing town square and he spied Michaelis from the corner of his eye holding a package under his arm, the essay that was due for Mrs. Thomas. "That Michaelis will finally have his comeuppance," he muttered. Michaelis saw them and stuck his tongue out at Peeta.
But of course, what he really desired was still Katniss Everdeen.
The day of the Reaping arrived and Peeta and his friends lined up like cattle. Flies buzzed around their heads in the heat and they swatted them away irritably like cows would do with their tails. A few boys ahead of him was Gale Hawthorne with his hand on the shoulders of his younger brother, twelve years old and at his first Reaping. Without a doubt Peeta knew that if his brother was Reaped, Gale would a hundred percent volunteer to take his place.
He knew Rye would never volunteer for him. As much as he was a clone of his father, there was a piece in him that came from their mother, a kind of selfishness and keen sense of survival. Peeta glanced behind him to look for his family in the stands. For the first time Klein wouldn't be in the Reaping but even if he was he wouldn't volunteer for Peeta either because despite all his good and noble points, he was a coward.
But Peeta didn't hold anything against his brothers. If the roles were reversed he wouldn't volunteer for them either because he was selfish and a coward. He looked down at his feet and seethed with hatred for himself. If only he were more like Gale then maybe Katniss would know he existed.
Well that ends now.
He tightened his fists with resolution. What did the Augury say again? That his life was going to transform? Well alright then, from now on Peeta was going to be brave and heroic like Gale was. Starting with finally telling Katniss how he felt. After all, how could he expect to have her love when he couldn't even speak to her?
Yes, after the Reaping was over and when they all filed away and trickled towards the exits he would tell her.
Promise.