97th Reaping [District Seven]

junie st. james

When they come for her, Junie is hiding up in the branches of the old oak tree, and she swears she will not come down. It takes both of her Fathers, and her brother, too, to coax her back onto the ground. 

I won't go I won't go I won't go I won't go, she says. Nobody is sure if this is because she is afraid that she will be reaped, or she is scared that somebody will try to brush  her hair. The fairies have told her something, and she is stubborn as always, and will not listen to reason. 

Your name is only in there once, says Pa. But she knows that there is magic involved in the draw, and that things like statistics have no place at the table with it. 

Perhaps just a ponytail? To keep it out of your eyes -- pleas Father, and she screeches like a goblin until everybody takes two big steps backwards, admitting defeat. 

In the end, she does get down, because her brother offers her sweets. They are her favourite kind, the red ones, hard, coated in sugar. Mostly, Junie lives off sugar alone. She doesn't seem to need anything else. Her fingers are always sticky, and often the world is spinning. This could be because she is not supposed to be here, among humans. Alternatively, it is possible she lacks essential nutrients. 

At home, her sister has laid out a dress for her. It is white, and it fit her last year. She puts it on and argues with everybody when they insist she wash her face. Junie double-knots her shoelaces, in case she needs to run. 

In the District Square, she feels strange and otherworldly, pressed against her peers. She does not make a habit of befriending them, and so she is a stranger in a sea of twelve year olds. They all share a collective foreboding that even Junie can take part in, although she takes a shiny trinket from the pocket of a girl in front of her, and rolls it around in her palm for good luck. 

As the long fingers of the escort's hand grope around in the bowl, Junie can hear the whispers. It will be you- you have been bad- your name will be called. Sometimes, the pixies are very, very mean to her. She tries not to cry. Father has told her that these voices are not, in fact, the folk of forest, but rather than part of the forest that lives within her own mind. In other words, they are Junie herself. Junie thinks he is very stupid, as all men are. 

First up, the sound of the woman's voice is a screech, the sort of howl that sets hairs on end and sends shivers down spines. Junie St. James! Of course, of course - didn't they say it would be the case? Didn't they tell her? 

Junie looks around herself, frantically, for somebody to save her. She cannot see Father, or Pa, or her brother or sister, just a thousand wide eyes looking right into hers, their mouths agape. She is suddenly aware of how small she is, how tangled her hair is, how dirty her face is. Junie has a strict rule about not crying, but she breaks it now, for the special occasion. 

"I'm so sorry," she sobs, "I didn't mean it. It was an accident." 

For whatever she did to deserve this, she made a mistake, and she would appreciate a second chance. None is made apparent. Nobody speaks, they just continue to gaze at her with their stupid, empty eyes. 

She should never have agreed to come down. 



[junie accepts her place as tribute]


[tribwall]