7. Black and White

What kind of fool does Peeta take me for? I rush out of the cabin in search of the truth.

But it doesn't take me long to realize that Peeta spoke the truth when he said there was nothing beyond the stream. I regret my actions altogether as I climb over the boulders, especially when I look down and see that I have torn the sleeve of Madge's dress. Then I hear him yell.

His wail is so loud that I freeze. It doesn't sound fake; it has all the hallmarks of someone who is seriously injured.

I change directions and turn back. Peeta is lying on the ground near the stream when I find him. For a moment I think he is dead because his face is so pale in the moonlight. Despair falls over me that I am left alone in this beautiful setting. Tears course down my cheeks. I lay my hand on his chest, and sigh in relief as I feel his chest rise and fall in a rhythmic pattern.

I run my fingers through his hair. My mouth goes to his ashen lips and I kiss him. His eyes fly open. I am so grateful that he is alive, but then he tells me about the injury to his thigh. I run my hand over his upper pant leg. It is sticky with blood.

Something kicks in, an inner strength, and somehow in that black night I get Peeta back to the cabin and onto the pallet.

His eyes are closed. I remove his boots, cursing for a moment as I untangle his double-knotted laces. Then I reach up, and unbutton his pants. I wonder idly where he purchased such authentic garb. I remove them slowly, careful to keep the fabric clear of the injury to his thigh.

Underneath his pants he sports the official nineteenth century underwear. It's made of thick cotton muslin with a broad waistband. There are buttons up the front and a cut "v" in the back to adjust the fit. The legs are long, ending a couple of inches below his knees.

The white underpants are bloody and torn and I unbutton them as well, glancing at Peeta's face for a moment to see if he is awake. The idea of undressing him while he is unconscious makes me uncomfortable on so many levels. And not because I haven't seen a naked man before, it's because I'm so attracted to Peeta.

Once I have removed his pants, I cover his privates with the gray blanket. I don't need a distraction while I look at his leg.

The wound on his thigh needs to be cleaned. Fortunately the water Peeta boiled for tea hasn't evaporated in the heat of the dying fire. I find what looks to be a clean towel folded on the mantle near to the dishes. I dip it in the warm water and wash the blood from his wound.

The cut is jagged and deep. He needs a trip to the ER to get it stitched up. But given the circumstances that likely won't happen. I search frantically through the cabin for bandages; he must have a first aid kit living in such an isolated place.

But there's nothing. However, when I open the trunk I uncover a stockpile of odds and ends stored in his extra pair of boots. Apparently they serve as Peeta's junk drawer. A sewing needle is stuck into a spool of dark thread.

Sighing, I thread the needle and begin stitching Peeta's skin together. I don't know what I'm doing, and it's all I can do not to gag. I wonder if Peeta keeps a bottle of medicinal whiskey on hand. I need a drink.

Peeta doesn't wake as I sew. I stop a few times to rest my hand on his chest to be sure his heart is still beating. I suspect he is unconscious from loss of blood.

When I am done with the stitches, I retrieve the white linen cloth that the combs were hidden in from the table. I wrap it around Peeta's leg loosely like a bandage, tying it off with a square knot.

I go back to the table at look at the combs. The red color looks vibrant in the candlelight. I put them into my hair for safekeeping. Madge will be furious with me if they are lost.

I throw some wood onto the fire to keep it burning and blow out the candles.

Peeta breathes steadily so I guess he's resting, which is something I need to do as well. But I don't want to lie on the wooden floor like Peeta did last night. Instead I climb over him and wedge myself between his solid body and the wall. There's not much space but I can squeeze in.

I turn onto my side and face the log walls, rubbing my fingers over the rough surface wondering what my next step should be. It's as if I've stumbled into a western Shangri-La. And despite what I told Peeta about my desire to return to my old life in Portland, it's not true. Other than Gale and Madge, there's nothing to keep me there. Since Prim's death I've stopped caring about that life altogether.

But Peeta's insistence that the year is 1852 unsettles me because there's a ring of truth about it. If real, and that's taking a gigantic leap of faith, it would explain why I can't find the reenactors and why no one has found me.

Because I know people must be searching. My picture probably already has its own box on Yahoo.

Unless Peeta is another Tony Stark with enough resources to play out his wildest reenactor fantasy, I can think of no other explanation for the authenticity of his cabin and its contents. And I can hardly believe that in 2014 the U.S. government would give away 320 acres of land for free.

Peeta groans. I turn and quickly sit up. "How are you feeling?" I put my hand on his forehead. Fortunately there's no sign of fever caused by infection.

"I stitched up your wound and wrapped it," I say. "Don't move too much or it might start bleeding again."

"Thanks," he murmurs. He blinks a few times. "Hey you're wearing the combs. I was right, they look nice on you."

I flush as I remember my reaction when Peeta showed them to me.

"Peeta we need to talk. I have something important to tell you."

I lie back on the pallet and turn my head to face Peeta. He is already on his back but he twists his head toward me, a panicked look in his eyes. Our faces are a few inches apart.

"You said the year is 1852, but where I'm from it's 2014."

His mouth curves up. "You're from the future." I think he mocks me.

"It's true." I am indignant that he doesn't believe me outright but then I remember running away when he told me the year was 1852. At least his wound will keep him here to listen to me.

I spend the next hour telling Peeta about cellphones and television and fancy coffee drinks and hot showers and movies and antibiotics and cars and planes and computers and the internet and electricity and refrigeration and air-conditioning and people who play at history by dressing up in old-fashioned clothes and every sundry detail of the twenty-first century that make it home to me.

When I am done, he touches my cheek and leans in closer and kisses me. Everything I told him flies out of my head. His kiss stirs something deep inside me. I grow warm and that heat spreads out along my arms and legs.

We kiss for so long that I am ready to climb on top of him not caring about his stitches when he breaks away. We stop and catch our breath.

"Katniss, if your story is true, what magic did you do to arrive here?"

I run my tongue over my puffy lips. "I don't know. But I dreamed of you the night before I got here."

He smiles.

And then I realize what caused it. "It must be these combs," I say, reaching to my head and touching one. "My cousin's wife Madge bought them in an antique store in this little town called Mellark on the way to the reenactment."

Peeta gives me an odd look. "That's my last name. Mellark."

My eyes widen. "Is there a town named for you?"

Peeta laughs. "Not yet."

"I slept in them the night before I showed up here. But then Madge woke me up and took them from me. Did anything special happen at your end before I arrived?"

"There were colors in the sky," Peeta says. "They shimmered like a rainbow at night."

"Do you mean an aurora borealis?"

Peeta shrugs, like he doesn't know the term.

" I've never seen the phenomena here," I continue. "I didn't think Oregon was far enough north."

"I remember wishing someone was here to watch it with me," Peeta says.

"So you wished me here."

"Maybe." He kisses me some more.

"What am I going to do?" I murmur when we pull apart to catch our breath. But the question is rhetorical because realistically I know I can't return to 2014, unless Peeta has a pair of ruby slippers hidden in the cabin.

And I would be accepting of this new life, but one for thing. Gale and Madge. They must be frantic at my disappearance.

"If there was some way that I tell my cousin and his wife that I'm safe, I'd feel so much better about everything," I tell Peeta.

Peeta runs his hand across my cheek. "How could you tell them? They're not even born yet."

And that's when I relax. I suddenly realize that Prim hasn't been born either. And instead of being sad about losing my little sister, she still has her whole life ahead of her. Perhaps, with a little planning, I can even prevent her getting anywhere close to that gas explosion.

"How do you think it works?" I ask. "Is everyone existing all at once, all living in different worlds?"

"I don't know," Peeta says. "I don't even care. I'm just glad you found your way to me." He turns onto his side, stitches be damned, and the gray blanket falls away. I quickly lose Madge's dress and then the only world I care about is the one that exists on this pallet of pine needles in the middle of the Oregon wilderness.

Epilogue

A month later, when Peeta's leg has healed we hike to his brother's house. Rye and Delly are shocked to see a woman by Peeta's side, but he makes up a story about me being the niece of a drunken homesteader named Haymitch Abernathy. We borrow their horse and wagon, and head into Oregon City where Peeta makes an honest woman of me.

We're just in time, too, because within a couple weeks I'm nauseous and regularly in need of the new privy that Peeta constructed.

Peeta makes good on his plan to improve the land and sell it in three years. We have two children, a daughter and newborn son, when he opens his bakery in Oregon City.

And as the years pass, I make arrangements for the future. I write a letter to Prim warning her of the gas explosion. One day Peeta and I pose for a portrait and I write a note on the back of it to Madge. I make my grandchildren swear that these letters and the combs will passed along through the family and delivered at just the right time. Some day, Madge will purchase the combs and slip the picture into her purse. Maybe later, in her grief at my disappearance, she'll study the photograph, turn it over and read my note.

I won't lie and say I never think about my old life. There are many days that I'd like to escape the drudgeries of the nineteenth century, and curl up in front of a television to watch a movie and scarf down a pizza. Times when I wish for miracles of 21st century medicine.

But fresh air, simple food, and regular physical labor, along with the occasional dose of garlic tea, keep my family healthy and strong.

Peeta and I never see the shimmering lights that drew me from my world to his. But that's okay, because I would never willingly leave. History never looks like history when you're living through it.

THE END