Growing up, one of my favorite things to do with cousins and friends who liked to write was to share a Google Doc, where we would take turns adding to a story idea, just seeing where it would go. It was a lot of fun to work so closely and collaboratively with others, and I’d always anticipate each new addition and reaction to what I had written. I’m surprised it took me this long to pitch the idea, but a few weeks ago, Ava and I started our own short stories following this form.

This is part two of a set of short stories Ava and I wrote in turns, each of us taking turns writing 150 words or so. This story is the one that I started, unsure where it would go, but excited about the journey it would take. This came together so magically, and you can tell how much we both loved writing it, based on how we consistently wrote well above the 150 guideline. The nice thing about making the rules is that you also get to break them.

Please enjoy this piece, which I’ve titled The Burden Beneath the Boughs. At the end, check out my overall thoughts on the product, as well as a blurb from Ava! And stay tuned for Wednesday’s post, which is the story Ava started.

My sections are in the font Figtree.

Ava’s sections are in EB Garamond.

With that, please enjoy!

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The Burden Beneath the Boughs

By L. Saige Johnson and Ava Christina

Content warning for violence, language, homophobia, and discussions of domestic abuse.

Brynlynn waited beneath the cursed oak for her love to arrive. 

Okay, maybe it wasn’t cursed. But everyone sure as hell treated it like it was. That’s part of why she and Naomi liked it so much. No one bothered them when they kissed beneath the oaks gnarled branches, or when they spooned between the large roots over a blanket of fallen leaves. It was their safe space, free of homophobes or damn family drama or the fucking assholes at school. The three of them shared their secrets, Brynlynn, Naomi, and the oak. Of Brynlynn and Naomi’s relationship. Of the dark thoughts Brynlynn had ever since her mother died. Of how Naomi schemed ways to stop her father and brother from beating her. And of the body that the oak had convinced them to kill at the edges of its far reaching roots. 

The oak could protect them, it had whispered one night as they lay tangled together beneath its great shadow. Neither girl knew if the oak was actually making sound or speaking directly into their minds, but they both heard it. Yes, it could protect them. From their families, from those who hated them for how they loved.

All it had wanted in return was a sacrifice.

Lovely girls, the oak had said to them, I am old and can reach far, so far with my roots. I know all the creatures of the forest and the plains. But humans are so few within my reach. And humans.. Those I find most interesting. Most exciting. The emotion, the love, the hate… It is rich with life. I desire to see it.

Then the oak had told Brynlynn and Naomi what it desired in return for its gift of protection. Four words it had spoken, but they both understood the meaning right away.

Bring me your hate.

It was strangely easy to give in to the tree’s request, and easier yet to fulfill it. Almost as if god himself had wanted it to happen, one of the idiotic jocks that loved to mock them followed them home the very night the tree had spoken to them. It started with the usual jeers that they could ignore. He called them queers and outcasts and rejects. Nothing they hadn’t heard before. Brynlynn and Naomi ignored him as best as they could, continuing to the bus stop that would take Naomi home. 

“Hey fags! I’m talking to you!”

Naomi kept walking, but Bryn stopped. She turned to look at the jock, striding towards them with an intense darkness in his eyes. She knew that look. All violence and hate and intent to harm. 

So before he could put his hands on her, she pushed him, with almost supernatural strength. Caught off guard, the jock stumbled backwards. Tripping over his own feet, he fell supine, his head cracking against the ground with enough force to break teeth. 

OVER

Brynlynn froze at the dropped-watermelon sound of the jock’s skull cracking. It did not frighten her, but she feared Naomi seeing her this way.

She looked at Naomi, who stood several feet away. Her eyes were glued to the jock, who was now groaning and spitting curses through a bleeding mouth.

She met Brynlynn’s gaze. There was no fear in Naomi’s eyes, no judgment or alarm at the sudden turn of events. Like this was expected, routine, mundane.

The only thing that Naomi’s eyes did was reflect Brynlynn’s own rage and desire back at her.

Brynlynn smiled, her teeth bared like a wolf.

“Bring me your hate,” Brynlynn recited to her lover.

Naomi’s lips parted slightly as she watched the whimpering jock attempt to roll over, her cheeks flushing with excitement and… was that desire?

In silent agreement, the girls approached their bully. Naomi kicked him in the side, which Bryn thought was really hot. They grabbed him by his arms and began to drag him back to the woods. 

He wasn’t heavy. Just like when Brynlynn pushed him, there was an ease and surge to their strength. He wasn’t loud, and a few good shakes shut him up, anyways. The girls retraced their steps back into the edge of the woods. 

Good, the voice of the oak said to them as they got closer. You have done well, which pleases me so. Please, bring him closer. I wish to feel of his pain and his emotions. Oh yes, they are so sharp already. 

They did as asked, dragging until the tree said they had brought him far enough. About a hundred or so feet from the trunk. Now girls. Help me feel more. 

“How do we do that?” Naomi asked, looking to Brynlynn, whose face cracked into a devilishly delighted grin.

Brynlynn reached into the pocket of her joggers and wrapped her fingers around the object she’d been carrying in secret for months, ever since those dark thoughts first began to echo in her mind.

She held up the butterfly knife, sharp as a scalpel. Naomi’s eyes widened, but not in fear. In anticipation.

Brynlynn stepped in close to her lover, brushing her lips over hers lightly before slipping the deadly knife into Naomi’s hand.

“Make him feel it, darling,” Brynlynn whispered in her ear.

Naomi grinned back at her. She spun toward the prone jock groaning on the forest floor. Then, like a hungry animal, she pounced with the knife.

The jock’s groans turned to screams as the butterfly knife entered and exited his body, parting the skin like butter. Naomi’s grip on the knife slipped slightly as hot, steaming blood splashed upward, coating her hands, arms and chest.

The oak tree’s leaves rattled. Good, good! Continue. 

Naomi continued with the knife, working more intentionally with her stabs, twisting the blade now with each puncture. More spurts of blood came from the young man, his screams filling the otherwise quiet night. 

Brynlynn joined in on the fun. She slammed her combat-boot clad foot into his side, and he curled up around it, a scream turning to a wheeze. She pulled her foot away and kicked again, aiming for his testicles. This time, his gasp was soundless. 

“That’s what you get!” she yelled. “For fucking with us! For all the years you’ve treated us like shit!” Brynlynn kicked again. “How does it feel, huh? How does it feel?” 

The girls paused in their efforts to make him feel even a glimpse of the pain they felt on a daily basis. Bryn realized she was shaking, her rage and anger hot and begging her to act. But she waited for his response. 

OVER

In the silence that fell, a soft whimpering could be heard coming from the boy on the ground. Naomi heard it and froze in place.

“I’m sorry,” the boy wheezed through wet breath. Blood sprayed from his lips as they parted. “I’m sorry. Please.”

Naomi took a step backward. She thought she heard genuine regret in his voice. She blinked and looked at him, the ruined mess of his bleeding, flayed body seeping its hot lifeblood down into the oak’s roots. She could imagine how scared he must be, how horrifying it must feel to have your stomach bleeding from twenty different holes, how much he probably wished he could take anything back if it would save him now.

Naomi suddenly felt sick. She turned and vomited on the damp leaves.

“Naomi?” Brynlynn said, taking a step toward her.

Naomi’s hand, the one holding the knife, was slick and sticky with hot blood. She shuddered as a drop of the boy’s blood gathered, ran down her hand, and dripped to the cold ground.

“This is wrong,” Naomi said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Brynlynn’s rage was fading, and she felt cold without it. “But didn’t you feel how good it was, just a second ago? To finally have power after so long? Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me you want, is to be more in control of your life? To be able to stand up to your dad and your brother?”

“Not like this,” Naomi said. She dropped the knife to the ground. “I wanted to be able to speak up, not fucking kill a boy!” Her voice was rising now, louder than she’d ever directed it at Brynlynn. 

“He deserves it! They all do!” Bryn argued back. “Imagine how much better school will be without this prick!” She kicked the dirt in his direction. 

“And it was so easy,” Brynlynn said, quieter now. “It could all be so easy.”

Silence fell over the pair, when the leaves began to shutter and fill the surrounding woods. The tree spoke to them again.

Thank you for your anger, it said in their minds, its voice like the wind through branches in winter. But please. Do not turn it on one another.

Naomi’s anger broke, and she found herself on her knees in the damp leaves. The knife fell from her limp hand, smearing blood on the ground where it landed. She didn’t know when she had started crying, but her face was wet with salty tears.

She turned her face up to look at Brynlynn, whose devilish grin now melted into a look of concern and shame.

“I can’t,” Naomi whispered, her voice barely audible over the swish of leaves. “This might be right for you, Brynn, but it’s not for me.”

Brynlynn looked at her lover crouching there in the leaves, covered in blood and heaving broken sobs. Her eyes flicked to the boy, who had gone quiet and still without her noticing. Flaps of skin and tissue dangled from his once-pristine body.

Brynlynn gagged suddenly, covering her mouth with her hand in horror.

She fell down beside Naomi and reached for her desperately, holding her close and shaking as the boy beside them quietly died.

The girls held each other tightly, even as the ground rumbled beside them. Roots came up from the ground and began to wrap around the boy, the boy they killed, bringing him into the earth. The knife, too, was dragged into the ground by roots. More emerged, these ones around Naomi and Brynlynn, and they poked at the bloodstains on their clothes and their hands. The roots drank in all the blood, shuddering as they absorbed the last signs of what the girls had done. 

I must thank you again, said the tree, as its roots returned to the ground. That was exquisite. I have felt much from you two as you sheltered beneath my boughs, but nothing before like that. 

I understand it would be cruel of me to ask any more of you. But know that for your help-for the strength you have given me this day, you will always be protected, so long as you are within my grasp. 

That had been a week before. Naomi went out of her way to watch the local news every night since, something she’d never made a habit of in her life before. She sat, curled in on herself on the stained couch that reeked of dog shit, while her brother and father screamed at each other in the kitchen, a 12-pack of Banquet nearly gone between the two of them. She read the closed captions, scanned the news crawl at the bottom of the screen, watched the pretty female news anchor with her flirty mauve lipstick and dimples.

The boy had been reported missing, something she’d been expecting. What she was waiting for was discovery of some evidence of foul play, something that would turn a missing teen headline into a murder headline.

Brynlynn responded to their guilt in the opposite fashion. She avoided the TV, turned her phone off (a feat her mother sarcastically marveled over), and shut herself away from reach by the outside world.

She did not call Naomi at night, text her all day like had been their habit. Naomi noticed, and did not fault her for it. They both needed time to process what they’d done, separately first, then maybe together.

The following Friday at school, they agreed to meet after night fell that evening. Naomi was full of nerves, both over what conclusions her lover might have come to during their distance, and over returning to the scene of their crime.

Brynlynn found herself to be calm and detached at the prospect of meeting under the oak again. She’d disconnected, not only from her devices but from what felt like the rest of the world. Naomi would be her only connection now and forever. She intended to make sure of that tonight.

Now, Brynlynn, who’d arrived fifteen minutes before their agreed-upon time, stood waiting for her lover under the oak tree. Many called the tree cursed, for its strange gnarled grey limbs and its unusual size. Bryn thought that, in the week since their crime, the oak appeared to have grown noticeably. She didn’t think it was a coincidence.

Naomi finally emerged from the trees, dressed in Bryn’s favorite outfit of hers. A blush pink maxi dress with a lace top. Bryn told her it was beautiful the first time she’d seen her wear it, made her look like a fainting damsel in one of those erotic baroque paintings.

Perfect, Brynlynn thought, her hand deep in her pants pocket, growing sweaty around the object she turned around and around inside.

Naomi approached, smiling shyly, as if this was their first time meeting under the oak. In a way, it was. They were changed, forever and permanently after what they’d done to feed the oak.

Brynlynn smiled back, her fingers tightening on the promise ring in her pocket.

Naomi met her in an embrace, and for a time, they just stood together, arms wrapped firmly around the other, feelings they could never put to words spilling out. Relief that they still needed the other. Exhaustion over the state of their lives and the fear they still felt. Guilt over what they had done, and what it could have led them to do. Neither said it, but both knew there was a reality not far from this one, where others joined the jock beneath the earth. 

But more than anything was the shared love between them still. They knew that things would be different from now on. Now, maybe Naomi would find it easier to have courage, and to speak up against the abuses thrown at her. And Bryn would try to reconcile things with her mother, to practice some more patience when it came to how unaware she was of her subtle but wounding comments. And together they would continue to carve out the life that they wanted. Where they were together, no matter what.

“Naomi,” Brynlynn finally said, pulling away but still holding her lover. “I… let’s move on, yeah? I doubt we’ll ever be able to forget what happened, but we can still keep going, right?”

Naomi nodded. “Please. I’ve been so scared of what we did. Part of me doesn’t regret it, which scares me, but most of me does. I’d love to just keep going.”

Brynlynn pressed a kiss to Naomi’s lips, gentle but firm, and slipped the ring from her pocket to Naomi’s finger, sealing their promise. Not just that they would do their best to move on, but that they would do it together. 

Naomi broke the kiss to look down on the ring, which was made of delicate silver chains linked together, little crystals sparkling from every other link. In answer to the unspoken question, Bryn showed her own hand, which bore a watching ring in black. Silver was never her color, but it looked perfect on Naomi. Everything did. 

“Nothing will pull us apart,” Brynlynn promised. “Not life, not death, not the world that’s always against us. I can live with it all, knowing that you’ll be there with me. That’s all I need. Not anger, or vengeance, or retribution. Just you.”

Tears came to Naomi’s eyes, and she thumbed the ring, feeling the comforting cool of the metal. “You’re all I need, too, Bryn. “I know I’m always going to be alright, so long as I have you. I’ve known that for a long time now.” They sealed their promise with a kiss, this one longer and lighter, without the weight of the words they did manage to say. 

And so, they remained for a time under the boughs of the great oak, which never did speak to them again, but always kept them safe beneath its branches and above its roots. It, too, had a promise to keep. 

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I had such a blast with this. It got really dark, which I blame on it still being peak spooky season when we started writing. I wanted to write something spooky and messed up, but I’m glad Ava kept me reigned in a bit because I think I may have gone a little further without her influence, and I don’t know how many reader would be able to stomach it. Oops! Here is what Ava has to say about the end result:

This piece is a great example of why Saige’s stories are so captivating. I was intimidated when I read her opening lines- somehow she’d already created such a beautiful and moody literary setting that I never would’ve been able to dream up. I find it funny that she mentioned wanting to go even darker, because the entire time I was writing my sections, I was worried I was taking it darker than she had been intending. But that’s what’s so much fun about this exercise- your partner will take things completely different directions than you ever could’ve thought up.

I hope that you enjoyed reading our messed up little story as much as we enjoyed writing it! And remember to tune in on Wednesday for the upload of our second collaborative piece, this time started by Ava!

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