Author's note: Consider this my theory on the Hanging Twins. :) Title is from a poem by Sylvia Plath.

They have her by the arms, and she is too weak to fight when they take Azami from her. But that hasn't happened yet. At the moment, nobody knows where they are or what they have done. She and Azami are all alone, but for each other.

I'm scared, she thinks.

'Don't be scared,' says Azami.

So she isn't.

Father looks down from the ceiling. His eyes are red. His face is purple. He looks down at them.

Akane is hungry and thirsty, but Azami says, Don't go. Wait.

So she waits.

The sun grows warm outside. The wooden frame of the house expands in the heat. The rafters shift, and father sways. He sways, and looks down at them.

They will drag her into the street and she will try to reach for Azami, but her arms will have no strength left. They will be saying terrible things about her. They will say, 'We must kill her.' But that hasn't happened yet.

The day is long, and the house is quiet with just the two of them. Father swings back and forth and looks down at them with his red unseeing eyes. Akane remembers her hands around his throat. She looks at the rope suspending him from the beam, and wonders how she ever got him up there.

For a moment she's afraid of what's happening to her, but she holds onto Azami, and it's better.

Her sister's skin is like ivory, smooth and cool to the touch, and when she moves, it sounds like bones.

Akane's lips are dry, but Azami tells her not to go for water. It's almost night. She has to wait. So she waits.

At night Akane sleepwalks through the halls of her empty house. She mumbles in her sleep. Her hands flex.

Arms limp, head fallen back on the ball of her neck, Azami walks behind her.

Her dry lips crack. Her stomach twists. She is past hunger and thirst. She sits with Azami in her arms, too tired to move.

Outside they are noticing that nobody has seen the dollmaker or his daughter in three days. Soon they will find him hanging from the ceiling, and they'll know what Akane has done. They will drag her out and the killing will begin again. There will be ropes suspended from a beam in the Kurosawa house. But it hasn't happened yet.

A fly crawls out from between father's swollen lips. Akane tries to cry, but the sound comes out through Azami's mouth instead, and it sounds like laughing.

Akane is as limp as a doll, and the man has to carry her.'Sister,' she tries to say, but the word comes from Azami's mouth. The man holding Azami almost drops her. His face shines with sweat, and he has bared his teeth unconsciously. Because she is not frightened, she can see that he is.

'Hang it by the neck,' he says, 'and throw it into the Hellish Abyss.'

'Don't kill,' Akane says, her voice a dry whisper. 'Don't kill any more. Don't kill.'

'Throw them both in,' he says. She knows him. He was a priest at the ritual.

They cross the bridge and the sun on the river hurts her eyes. How dark and welcoming the water would be if they threw her in. How cool it would be in her hot, parched mouth.

'Kill them both,' the priest says.

Akane sees the ropes hanging from the crossbeam in the hallway. 'Why... kill?'

'Kill them both,' the villagers repeat.

'Don't kill,' Azami says with the rope around her neck. 'Why do you kill?' She hangs from the beam, but she's not crying this time. She's not in pain. That's good.

Akane tries to smile and the sores on her lips split open. She tastes blood. She sees the fly crawl out of father's mouth. This hasn't happened yet, she thinks. Or perhaps it happened long ago.

'Don't kill,' Azami says. She isn't moving at all. She hangs from the rope as if she isn't dying in it. 'Don't kill. Don't kill.'

Blood fills Akane's eyes. She tries to be still like Azami, but her body kicks and writhes without her meaning it to, and the rope pulls tighter.

But that hasn't happened yet.

'Akane, open your eyes,' says father. He strokes her hair lightly, bringing her head around to look at him. 'Look. It's Azami.'

The skin of her sister's neck is as flawless as ivory. Akane stretches out her arms for her. She doesn't ask how this can be.

'I won't kill any more,' she says. 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.'

'You see,' says father. 'She came back to be with you.' A fly crawls out of his mouth, and his face is purple, but Akane doesn't see those things. She holds her sister in her arms. It's almost night. She has to wait.