Bought Love

Chapter 8

Katniss

"You should go talk to her," the elder standing beside me says. I turn to her and shake my head.

"She sold me, Dove Claw," I respond in Cherokee, "She gave up being my mother when she accepted money to get rid of me." The old woman chuckles and grabs on my arm.

"You cannot undo the fact that she was the one who gave birth to you," she says reaching out and touching the bulge in my dress formed by my growing child. "Just as you will always be the one who will have given this one the gift of life." I wrap my arms around her and feel her frail arms do the same.

"I've missed you so much, Grandmother," I say. She nods and pulls away.

"Have missed you too, Jay Song," she says. "Now I am really telling you, go speak to Heather. She's suffered a lot over the last year for her choice." I frown but nod reluctantly. I look at Peeta and walk towards the medicine tent. He grabs my arm gently and I stop.

"What did you two say?" He asks and I remember he understands very little of my native language.

"She asked me to speak to my mother," I say.

"I've asked you before to speak with her," he says. "What makes it different coming from her?"

"Because my grandmother was more angry than I over the whole thing," I reply. "And if she honestly believes that my mother deserves to see me before I leave this place, then I will say goodbye." He watches me cautiously as I cross the camp. He knows I must do this alone.

I open the flap of the tent and duck inside. She sits beside the fire mixing herbs and doesn't even look up as she speaks.

"So you're pregnant?" She asks.

"Yes," I say. "But you sold me to be someone's obedient little wife. Are you really surprised I'm going to be a mother at the age of seventeen?"

"You don't seem too distraught," she replies.

"I'll admit, it took quite a bit of time before I got over the fact that neither my husband nor I had a choice in the matter and I opened my heart to him," I say. "But I don't think I will ever understand why you sold me like a horse or cow. Why would you do that to me? I'm your daughter!"

"You think I didn't suffer for what I did to you, Katniss?" She asks. "There was no harm done. I can see it in your eyes. You are happy."

"I was treated like one of the dark ones before Lincoln passed his law outlawing slavery for the week before my wedding," I cry. "I received fifty lashes from a rawhide whip the night before my wedding because I tried to run away. They  covered me in so much power that I was paler than the snow white wedding dress I was squeezed and laced into. Peeta didn't even know I was Cherokee until he saw the trails made by my tears down my cheeks."

"You don't understand," she says. "I had to do this, and I'm sorry."

"Had to?" I ask. "And just why did you have to?"

"Because they wanted your sister," she says. I take a step back and my baby kicks against my rib cage.

"Prim?" I ask and she nods. "But she wasn't even fourteen."

"They offered me double what they paid for you," she says. "There's been younger brides than that. They knew I needed the money and they wanted Prim because she doesn't look like a half breed. I eventually convinced them to take you for cheaper. You were older, stronger, with a woman's body. And I knew that had you known it was to save Little Duck, you would have gladly volunteered to take her place." She looks back to her herbs and sighs. "Besides, I knew they wanted you for Peeta. He is a lovely young man and I knew he would take good care of you when you needed it."

"You knew Peeta?" I ask. She nods.

"I grew up with his father, Harper," she says. "We were good friends at one time. Peeta got very sick when he was about four or five. I nearly lost him to an aliment I can't even remember the name of that winter. When you get that close to that happening and you pull them back out and they go on to live, to grow up, you tend to keep good track of him." I think for a moment and then look down.

"I think I remember that," I say. "He was so  ill. Crow feather only let me visit you twice and I remember you let me his forehead. He was so cold but he was sweating so much." My mother nods.

"Yes, that was him," she says. "What a terrible fever that was. But then you left him your little pet raccoon skin, your favorite toy." I laugh.

"Because I thought he would help heal Peeta," I say. "He made me feel better when I was ill with colic. I wanted the same for the little boy who had kept my momma away."

"How have you been?" She asks.

"I was a little ill for the first season," I say. "But I'm alright now. Just tired."

"You will start to feel what a pain in the ass a child can be when she begins to decide you need reminding that she is there," she says. "If she's anything like you, she will not leave you alone even in the darkest depths of the night. You will up all night with her, before and after you give her life." I look down and cradle my swollen abdomen.

"She?" I ask.

"You are carrying like its a girl," she says. "Besides, I asked the ancestors." They do not lie."

"Well, yes, she already is," I say. "I wake Peeta two or three times a night during her restless nights from my tossing and turning."

"It is good that she's active," my mother says standing. "I'm sorry I'll never meet her."

"Maybe someday we will come back East for a visit," I say. "But I can't stay somewhere where I'm treated like I'm different."

"You will be okay," she says standing. She comes forward and hugs me. I return it somewhat reluctant but happy none the less to have my mother back.

"I've missed you, Mother," I say.

"I've missed you too little one," she says.