Gale gaped down at Katniss, laid out on the porch with the knife still in her chest. He was utterly shocked, yet the most shocking thing was that he wasn't feeling that much of the rage, grief or sheer terror that he knew ought to be expected under the circumstances. He looked at Johanna, and read off the cue cards that rose in his mind. "You can't Johanna Mason," he said. "Johanna Mason was a Hunger Games victor from District 7. You're Johanna Donner. Your mother is Maysilee Donner, from District 12, and you live with her and her father Jan, a little ways down the shore."

"Listen to me... Oh, to hells with that," Johanna said. She kissed Gale, hard, and bit the inside of his lip. "You tell me. Do you think I'm your neighbor's granddaughter?"

"We should take my wife inside," Gale said. He looked over his shoulder. There was no sign of Katniss. He looked in the open door, and somehow he was not surprised to see Katniss coming from inside with cups, a pitcher of tea and a loaf of bread on a tray.

"What just happened?" he said. He shook his head. "That couldn't have happened. People who get stabbed in the chest can't get up and serve tea. And even if they could, how could they be back in the kitchen just like that? So that didn't happen." As he spoke, his eyes lit on a knife beside the bread on the tray. It was the same knife Johanna had plunged into his wife's heart. But of course, that hadn't happened. But then again, he knew knives, and that was no bread knife, so where had it come from?

"Thank you, Katniss," he said. He took the tray and set it down on the table, turned back to kiss Katniss on the cheek, and cut her throat. Johanna was already running, and he followed.

They were into the tree line, and Gale noted that the trees were like nothing he knew, with gold-tinted leaves, brilliantly white bark, and reddish-gold fruit. "Have you ever seen trees like this before?" Johanna said.

"No," he said. Then, "Maybe. A couple times. I don't remember."

"Well, you remember this place, right? You do, I can tell. So do you remember these trees in this place?"

"I remember them when I came to live at this lake," he said. "But before that... no."

"And this isn't something you could have overlooked, is it? If you hunt, you have to know something about how trees work. A few trees could sprout in a season. A few dozen could crop up in a few years before anyone noticed. But these are hundreds of big trees, decades of growth at least. Do you think this could have happened in the place you remember?" He shook his head. "All right then, it's settled: You aren't where you think you are. Someone is trying to fool you. So what do you want to do?"

He was silent. "You're the Rebel, Gale! You're the hero of the Rebellion, and proud of it! If you can't remember, just look into my eyes, and see how I'm looking at you. So what do you think the person I see would do about being held in any place where you aren't allowed to know where you are or even remember what's really happened to you? I'd say he wouldn't just try to break out, he'd burn the whole place to the ground!"

At last, Gale spoke: "But, maybe, whoever is doing this thinks they're doing it for our own good. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong for us, but right for other people, if there are other people. We have to find out more about this place. If we can, we have to find whoever's doing this, and try to communicate."

"All right," Johanna said. "It's the most reasonable thing to do. I hope you won't take it personal when I say, I would never have expected to hear it from you. So, really, the first thing is to figure out who else is in here with us, not to mention how to tell the difference between us and- for lack of a better word- them. The best part is, we can do that and still look like we've accepted this place. I say we start with Haymitch."

They headed in the direction of Haymitch's cabin. They were halfway there when they heard a call that made Johanna jump. "Johanna! Johanna, we were looking for you!" It was an old man's voice, slightly gravelly. A cue in his mind told him it was Jan Donner, Johanna's grandfather.

The old man really wasn't that old, probably not more than sixty, though that was old indeed by the standards of 12. He had a half-bald head and a bushy mustache that still held traces of blond. He moved with long, lurching strides that covered ground surprisingly well. Behind the cues, another picture rose of the same man, with rags of clothes hanging from his body and skin hanging from his bones. He had chased after Gale in what passed for the village square like a big, clumsy, over-friendly dog, and fallen to his knees in tears when Gale ran away on his little boy legs. Right behind the man was a woman of about 40, and the cue told him it was Maysilee Donner, co-Victor of the 50th Hunger Games.

"I'm pretty sure he's real," Johanna said quietly. "She isn't."

"Jo, you mustn't leave without telling us where you're going," Jan said. He closed in, just like a friendly dog, but Johanna stepped forward and met him, returning a long embrace, and pulling back her jacket so he wouldn't feel the knives concealed inside.

"We're going to see Haymitch," Johanna said. "I forgot to leave a note. I'm sorry." She looked at Gale from the corner of her eyes, and curled her lip at his nearly incredulous stare.

Haymitch's house was large by any standard, and huge for a cabin. The porch alone had as much square footage as the inside of the concrete cabin. A woman was on the porch, reading from a book. The cue told Gale that this was Haymitch's eldest daughter, but it was conspicuously difficult to imagine how they could be related. Her skin was very pale, and her face seemed almost stylized, with the generic beauty of the ceramic dolls Gale had seen a few times in town. "She doesn't look real," he whispered.

"I know, but I'm pretty sure we know her," Johanna whispered back. "Victoria..."

Victoria called inside, and Haymitch came out, following her happily to meet the guests. "Maysilee! Gale! Jan! Johanna!" he called out happily. "It's so good to see you. Come in!" Victoria just smiled and waved, taking frequent glances at Haymitch.

"He looks like he would have if he'd found something to smoke instead of drink," Johanna whispered succinctly. "She looks like a schoolgirl with a crush on the teacher. They're real."

"There's something else,"Gale added. "I think they both know this isn't real. But they're happy."

"He's happy. To him, going along with this place is no different than getting drunk. She looks like she could be happier." Johanna spoke aloud to Victoria: "So, Vic, I've been wanting to ask... Haymitch isn't you're real father, is he? I mean, it doesn't matter as long as he loves you, but still, I notice..."

"Oh, no, he's my real Dad," Victoria said. She blushed a bit. "Actually, he says I was a bit of a `close call'... Hm. It is funny. All my sisters look just like my mother."

They reached the doorway and entered. For a moment, Johanna froze on the threshold. "You're right. They look just like their mother." Four woman were seated at a long table. One was in her forties, the others looked to be in a range from 14 to 17. They all had different hair colors, but with allowance for age, their faces were identical.

"Hey, look," Haymitch said, "we've got one more guest." Gale knew, even before he looked: Katniss was coming.