hangman (biyn + oona)

oona st. james. 

oona remembers a song about a hanging tree, but this was not what she understands it to mean. she thought it was something more vulgar, more terrible than what she sees in front of her now. now she had time to look - to properly look, not just gawk in surprise at the intruder in her forest - she finds the act deliberate, almost serene. almost as though she is the one who intrudes upon him. perhaps he does not know that this is junie's place. 

or perhaps he knows junie. the thought strikes her hard and fast. nobody really knew what the little girl did in the forest, when she came back with twigs in her hair and leaves tucked into the buttonholes of her clothes. maybe she had friends there, friends nobody knew about. 

"i'm hanging in this tree," the boy said, seriously, which was an accurate description of what was occurring. "so that i can crush a man's skull if ever i need to." 

oona had not been expecting him to say that. she looked at him through narrow eyes, unsure if he was attempting to threaten her. immediately she braces herself, fixes a stern gaze across her features, determined not to betray that she is intimidated by his giant form, twice her size at least, talking about crushing skulls.

"and why were you screaming?" the boy asks. at this, oona blushes despite herself. 

she expects to find contrition in his eyes, but when she meets them she finds them to be open and honest. there is no hostility there, just straightforward curiosity. strangely, it reminds her of junie - that strange, wide-eyed way she had of saying exactly what she meant, without carrying the grown up fear of reproach around with her. 

"do you expect to be crushing many skulls?" she says this without thinking, without remembering that her fierce little sister ripped a girl's throat out with her teeth. it is a stupid thing to say, but the words have already left her lips and cannot be returned to where they came from. 

"i'm screaming because there isn't anyone here to here me. at least, i thought there wasn't."

she introduces herself as oona, minus the st. james. that part of her has become something it did not used to be, and she is sick of being looked at with pity.

oona st. james. 

once again, the words the boy speaks and what he really says do not align. 

"oooo-na," he repeats, sounding like a chorus of her first-grade enemies. father told her that it meant 'the universe' or something to do with being the first, which made sense, as she was the st. james baby which turned them into a family. pa, on the other hand, recalled it differently: it means lamb. before she had been born, they used to take in the motherless baby sheep, orphaned or otherwise rejected, and feed them with bottles of warm milk that they suckled through a teat. oona had not been so different, the story had gone much the same way. neither of these contradicting explanations did much to placate oona when the other children mocked her - oooooona - and yet the same sound on the boys lips felt altogether different. 

"and i'm biyn," he offered, generously. then he laughed, as though he had made a joke, and for some reason oona laughed along with him, although she did not know exactly what was funny. 

"well, it's funny," he begins, and oona listens carefully, wanting to be in on it, too. "i do expect to be crushing many of them. that is why i crash here each morning. but nobody ever comes along. not since..." he trails off, and oona's heart leaps in spite of herself. she is afraid to ask, afraid to hear, afraid to discover parts of her sister that she never shared, not wanting to discover concrete evidence of how much of junie she had neglected. 

"but you came along, oona," again, he stretches out the first syllable of her name, as though he enjoys it especially. "i would never crush your skull." he is earnest. "it's lovely, like a seashell." it is a strange compliment, but oona tucks it carefully and securely away for safekeeping. she has never come across it before, and she likes it. 

"well- thank you, i suppose," oona says, "that's kind of you to say." 

"'s a bit odd that you thought nobody was here, though," biyn continues seriously. "after all, i'm here all the time. you're the one that's not here, except for today." 

oona cannot fault him on this one. her voyages into the forest are new - a gradual investigation, launched on the day junie left. she has never been in this deep before. in truth, she has been a little afraid of not finding her way home, although that sort of sensible thing never bothered junie. oona was more affected by practicalities than her sister had been. 

"and will you be screaming here for a while longer?" the question shocked her, and she snorted with laughter. she realised that this morning was the first time she had laughed since junie's sharp teeth had ended sofia markus' life. 

oona caught her laughter and restrained it, trying to take the question as seriously as its asker had intended it. "i might be screaming for a while, yes. i lost somebody i loved very much, you see." 

she frowned. "i came here because this was her favourite place to be. so that's why i didn't used to be here, and now i am."

oona st. james. 

she hasn't really talked about it, since it happened. not because she didn't want to, but more so because the world has disintegrated around her into shadowy hallways, and suddenly everywhere became the sort of place where you must tip-toe very carefully. her house felt like it might blow down with a sharp intake of breath, and so it was best to be very quiet there. 

that was why she needed to come out here and scream. it was essential, so she did not explode. it was also why she had not yet found the words to describe what had happened, had barely done so much as speak her sister's name aloud since she had fallen from the eaves. 

biyn does not know. "if she is lost," he says, oblivious, "then it is a good thing that yuo have met me, oo-na. i will help you find your somebody; i promise i am quiet good at it." 

as always he is grave, very serious. he is wrong; he will not find junie st. james, not anywhere. she is quite gone. and yet oona can't bring herself to admit it, doesn't want to explain the reality of what has happened to her little sister, does not want to break biyn's surety. 

"but i'm afraid your screaming might frighten her away. i do not know if you have noticed, but your scream sends the birds all aflutter." 

oona glances up at the canopy around her. she had not noticed. now, she sees that everything is still; the birds are gone, they have fled. the boy is right. she feels a little embarrassed, to have poisoned the forest in this way. 

"maybe we should call to her first," biyn suggests, reasonably. 

oona knows that she should admit it, now. she should say it, simply and clearly: junie is dead, we will not find her. she cannot come when we call. oona cannot do this, however, cannot force her lips to distort into the words. they defy her. 

"what is her name?" he presses. 

she frowns, furrows her brow, engaged in a crusade against her twisted tongue. she gathers all her strength. it takes everything, to say it, "she was called junie," oona says, in a tone she hopes is even. "but if we call her, she won't hear us. she's not here anymore." 

oona takes a shaky breath. she hopes that biyn will not pursue the matter. "i'm sorry to interrupt your hanging, it was really quite rude of me. if you like, i can go--" she looks around herself, realising that every tree looks just like the next, and she is no longer sure which direction is ahead and which is behind. "you might have to point me in the right direction, though." 

oona st. james is not made for the forest, as junie was. she is a stranger, here. 

oona st. james. 

oona does not believe in ghosts. sometimes, in her dreams, she almost hears them, but fundamentally she cannot abide by the idea of second chances, of unsettled business, of debts to pay. after this, there must be nothing, because anything else would be magic, and oona has already established, beyond doubt, that magic cannot exist. if it did, things would have gone differently. 

when she speaks junie's name, however, she catches a glimpse of a ghost in biyn's eyes. 

his face is trapped behind ice for a moment, frozen by the memories that flash behind his eyes. oona cannot see them, but she wants to. this boy has known her sister (not in the way that the whole district has, as a frenzied fairy child with a foul mouth and sharp teeth, not in the way that they think they know her because they saw her fall, saw her die, no, not like that). oona wants to know exactly what he knows, every single bit of it. she wants biyn to show her the shadow-puppet remains of the not-ghost girl who used to play here in the forest. 

"i saw your junie," he confirms, but she already knew. 

oona feels her chest constrict, wonders if it is possible for all of her teeth to fall out from the pressure of it all. she imagines them scattered, little white shards, among the pine needles on the forest floor. 

"not here, but near a pond over that way. she used to hide under the water for a long time, seeing how long she could hold her breath, i think." this was a trick junie had been strictly banned from years ago, when she'd scared their father half to death. "it was impressive, really," biyn adds, and oona knows he is right: somehow, wretched, ragged little junie always was impressive, in an ugly, startling sort of way. the kind of way that made you stop and gawk, unable to tear yourself away. 

"i could show you the pond, if you like," biyn says, simply, as though it is that easy. 

there are no such thing as ghosts, there are no such thing as ghosts, oona tells herself. not even deep in the forest with strange boys you've never met before. after all, if biyn knows junie, he is not really a stranger. 

oona nods her assent. "okay," she breathes, "i think- i think i'd like to see." 

she is ready to follow him, unquestioningly. in his story about the pond he has shown her that he holds a key she did not know she was searching for. she is glad she has found it. 

"was it just that once, that you saw her?" oona says, and, surprisingly, all of her teeth remain rooted inside her mouth where they have always been. "didn't try to crush her skull, did you? she looks small, but she's scary." 

there it is again, the present tense. she isn't anything, anymore. 

"we found her in this forest," oona gestures around, although the forest is big and she isn't really sure where within it she had come across the baby. she is struck then by the peculiarity of the person with whom she speaks, and wonders aloud: "you don't live here, do you?" 

oona st. james. 

all her life, oona has lived in the same house. it is nothing special, but it is home. it has a living room with an old television set, and an armchair placed carefully over the stain from when her brother cut his hand and spilled blood all over the rug. there is a fireplace, and a kitchen, and a bathroom where the children used to bathe together, when they were a line of scabby knees and tangled hair. there are four bedrooms; one for oona, one for her brother, one that her papa and father share, and one that is empty and hollow and untouched. when oona was little it had just been her, and papa and father, and there had been two empty rooms which hadn't felt like holes cut out of the universe. they had not been barren places. they had held boxes, and the sewing machine, and possibilities.

biyn seems very worried that oona might fall over. she wonders whether this is a regular occurrence - she is not out and about in the forest often enough to know if people are generally toppling over here and there. junie certainly came home with enough cuts and scrapes to suggest that the brambles were actively hunting down passers-by. she takes biyn's offer of an arm to stabilize her, just to be safe. 

he tells her that he saw junie a few times. "four times, i think." 

oona does not know how many times she saw junie altogether - maybe thousands. she feels suddenly guilty she did not keep count.

he confirms, too, that he did not, in fact, try to crush her little sisters skull. she had not really been worried about that - despite his opening words, he seemed to be nothing but gentle. junie would have walked all over him.

"she had a deadly bite," he adds; a joke? oona is not sure, but her stomach lurches and twists at the words, and she fights the urge to pull her arm away. the image of junie on the television screen, teeth painted blood red, is what she sees when she tries to sleep at night, these days. biyn, though, smiles happily, unaware that he has dug his finger's around oona's heart and squeezed it tight. she decides to forgive him for the mistake, because the other option would be to hate him for it, and the idea of that exhausts her. 

he chatters on, charmingly unaware, while her heartbeat returns to its normal steady rhythm. "not here," he says, when she asks him if he lives in the forest. "just a bit further that way." she looks in the direction he has pointed; oona squints into the distance, but all she can see is trees. she did not think that there were any houses in that direction - in fact, she was under the impression that the way he had pointed was nothing but thick trees, all the way to the district fence line. she is well and truly disoriented, completely lost, entirely reliant on biyn to navigate her home. fortunately, he seems certain about every footstep he takes, although it all looks the same to oona. 

"well. in this wood somewhere, anyway," he adds, and she blinks in surprise. she did not really think it was possible to live in the forest. she studies his face for a moment, trying to decide if it is a joke, but he seems perfectly serious, if a little troubled. he changes the subject quickly. oona notices the blush in his cheeks. 

"we're almost to the pond," he says, and oona does not let go of his arm, although the tough gorse and bushes even out to a rambling, unobstructed path. 

"was your junie like that when you found her? all grown, like?" he asks her. "baby foundlings aren't so rare in this wood... oftentimes, the wolves find them first, though. almost like... someone's out there picking who gets eaten and not." 

oona snorts at this. "if a wolf tried to eat junie, he would regret it."

she remembers the child she tried to leave behind, and the guilt that crept up on her later, sent her to her father in the middle of the night, tearfully insisting that they go back for her. she recalls, too, being certain that it was too late, and that the animals had been coaxed out by the creeping darkness to feast upon infants who had not been saved early enough. that was before she'd known junie, though. 

"she was only a few days old, my father thought," oona smiles. "not crying or anything. happy to be here, she was." 

they reach a clearing, then, a frame of foliage around a perfect, rippling pool of water. it is beautiful; all dappled sunlight and clear water, the sort you could open your eyes beneath and study the rocks at the bottom. it looked like just the sort of place junie would be - oona almost couldn't believe that she wasn't here, now, climbing the trees or lounging in the sunlit shore, lolling on her back in the water, splashing them, beckoning to them, coaxing them to come in and join her. 

"there it is. got us here in the nick of time, didn't i?" biyn declares, although as far as oona knows, there is no deadline to their wanderings. in fact, she has no idea whatsoever what time it was. she does not make a habit of wearing a watch. 

"you aren't going to practice not breathing here, are you, oona?" he asks her, and she laughs, feeling the heat of the sun beating down on her face. 

oona does not believe in ghosts, but she can hear junie somewhere inbetween here and not-here, a shrill giggle poised mid-air. she had to go home soon, she knew. her father and pa would be worried - they were more cautious, now, more possessive, since the occupants in their house had dwindled. it was like they were afraid of running out completely. oona will go back, she promises herself. just not quite yet. she wants to stay here, with biyn and the water and the sun and the whispers of junie, for a little longer. 

she steps out of her shoes, leaving them stranded in the grass. she takes several steps forward until her toes touch the cool water of the pond. it is fresh and crisp, exactly as it looks.

come in, oona. come swim. 

oona does not believe in ghosts, and she does not believe in magic, but she doesn't mind staying for a while, anyway. besides, she wants to know more about the strange forest boy and his mysterious forest home. 

she peels her dress off over her head so that she is standing in just her underwear, and dives forward to let the water engulf her. she turns back to biyn, who stands on the grass with her discarded shoes. 

"are you coming in, or what?" she offers. 

she cannot go back to the house with the empty rooms. not yet.