They scheduled the funeral for four days after Ulinda’s passing.

“Hot countries,” Multhamurra said when Kylara had told him the date, “they always bury people too early.” He had seemed sad about it. The magsman had retreated inwards since the murder, spending his time cooped up in his room. Frankly, Kylara was surprised he hadn’t left town entirely.

The rest of Kookaburra Creek did not have the luxury. There had not been a funeral for someone so young and for something so tragic in many years, and people wanted to mourn properly.

Proper mourning, of course, involved as much extravagance as possible. Everyone anyone could think of was invited. There were preparations that needed to be made, planning that needed to be done, and rites that needed to be conducted. It was going to be a big affair, and it was taking a lot of effort to arrange.

Everyone, predictably, was put to work. Kylara included.

She grabbed a pair of scissors and carefully snipped off a small piece from the corner of the soap cake. It smelled like gumbi gumbi. She watched as it fell into the warm water with a small thunk. She stirred it a bit. The water wasn’t hot enough. It was taking a while to dissolve.

She side-eyed her sister as she waited. Yalmay and her were meant to be scrubbing the furniture together. Meant being the operative word.

One of them was helping.

One of them was… frankly, Kylara wasn’t sure what Yalmay was trying to do. Pretending to clean?

Yalmay seemed to be shadowing her every move. She hovered nearby, holding her brush and bucket. She smiled at Kylara when she noticed her staring, an awkward upturn of the corner of her lips. Then, with a bemused expression, Yalmay began to scrub the already cleaned chairs, mirroring the exact movements Kylara had just done. It seemed like every time Kylara touched something, Yalmay would be there, cleaning it again.

“Yalmay, what are you doing?” Kylara finally said.

“Hm?” Yalmay looked up, her expression innocent. “Oh, just cleaning.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Kylara said, pointing between the two of them. “But I already did that one. Why are you doing it again?”

“Oh, I just thought I'd give everything a second pass, you know, really get into all those nooks and crannies.”

“Okay,” Kylara said. She casually leaned back against one of the twice-clean tables and crossed her arms. “Why?”

"Saw a bit of mud.”

“No,” Kylara said, “you didn’t.” She was fairly confident that wasn’t a lie.

Yalmay hesitated for a moment, then tried another excuse, “Well, there was a spiderweb–”

“Nope,” Kylara interrupted, dismissing that claim with a wave of her hand.

She grabbed a chair and sat on it backwards, her gaze fixed on Yalmay. “There wasn’t.”

Yalmay looked down at the ground.

“It’s just that every time I finish something up,” Kylara said, “you come and do a second pass. I don’t get it. I can clean fine. So, what’s up?”

Yalmay put the brush down and sighed. “You know how people are,” she said, her tone trying to imply something.

Kylara gave her a blank look.

“Don’t make me say it,” Yalmay said quietly. “You know how it is.” her voice trailed off into the implicit.

“I don’t know actually, no.” Kylara crossed her arms.

Yalmay looked at the ground. “It’s just… some people think it’s a bad omen. You were there. You nearly saw her die.”

Kylara looked at the chair Yalmay had stopped scrubbing. “And what, you believe this? You think I’m… unclean?” Kylara asked incredulously.

How dare she?

“No,” Yalmay said, her unease palpable. “I wouldn’t think that. Not ever. But, maybe… it’s best to be sure? They always say there are signs to these sorts of things. You were there, Kya. You said you heard a bird before she died.”

They had talked about this before. “It was a koel Yal, not a willy wagtail,” Kylara said. “You know that.” Willy wagtails were considered the bearers of bad luck. Koels were not.

“It’s not just that,” Yalmay said. “Things have been odd lately. You can hear it in people’s voices. In the words they use. And I was talking to Janes. She agrees. She thinks the whole thing is weird. Especially with you being there.”

Janeyca, who was out in the middle of the night, casually strolling around town while Ulinda was killed? She of all people thinks it’s weird I was there?

“Janes can talk,” Kylara muttered under her breath.

“She told me to stay away from the woods,” Yalmay said.

Kylara snapped her head up. “She what?” This was the first time she had heard of this. “Janeyca told you to stay out of the woods? When?”

“The morning of.”

Kylara leaned forward. Why hadn’t Yalmay mentioned this before? “What did she say, exactly?” she asked.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Yalmay shrugged. “Just to stay away, I guess. I had thought it was because of something else but…”

“But you believed her.”

“Well, yes. And I’m glad I did too. Think–what if it was me out there?”

The words echoed. They had for a while now.

“What if it was me?” Kylara muttered.

What if it had been me?

Kylara looked into the distance. Bryan, the town’s tanner was cleaning some leather with pounded salt. She watched as he handed a piece to sheep-eyed Rick, who examined it and dunked it into a bucket. Probably some solution of honeywater and flour, Kylara thought. She had wanted to be a tanner as a kid. That dream hadn’t lasted long. Life had got in the way.

A large coach rambled past them pulled by two draft birds. Kylara recognised the two men in the windows–the mayor of Saltsbury and the surveyor-general. Important people for an unimportant person’s funeral.

That was what murder did to people. It makes some of them important. It makes some of them afraid.

What if it had been me?

“I would have said something to you,” Yalmay said, snapping Kylara out of her reverie, “but I didn’t think Janeyca meant everyone when she said to stay out of the woods. I thought she just meant me.”

“Why would she want to warn you specifically?” Kylara asked.

And why would Yalmay take her seriously? When was the last time Yalmay had been in the woods?

Yalmay shrugged. It was just a fraction of a second too quickly. Kylara’s eyes narrowed. Yalmay wasn’t telling her something. Interesting.

“Dunno,” Yalmay said. “Maybe you should ask her.”

“Janeyca?”

“Who else? You two need to make up. I don’t know what’s going on but you need to get over it.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“Really?” Yalmay said. She twirled a piece of hair around her finger. “Cause I think you are.”

Kylara shrugged. She still wouldn’t call it a fight. “If Janeyca made time for me, I’m sure things would go back to how they were,” she said. “It’s not my fault she chooses to never be awake at the same time I am.”

“Maybe you should put in more effort. Talk to her,” Yalmay insisted. Kylara glared. “For me? Please.”

“Fine,” Kylara said, “but I already did. Yesterday.”

“As part of an integration,” Yalmay said. “That’s not talking.”

“I needed to ask her about what she was doing that night,” Kylara said, “see if she saw anything.”

“Yeah, you said,” Yalmay said. “You also said she was acting weird.”

“She was. She told me it was just shock,”–it hadn’t been shock, Kylara was sure of it–“but I don’t know. It didn’t seem like shock to me.”

Kylara picked a bit of dirt off the chair she was sitting on. Perhaps Yalmay was right. Perhaps she was bad at cleaning.

“I mean–is there any reason to doubt her?” Yalmay asked. There was dirt in Kylara’s nails now. She flicked it off. “People are allowed to react differently to things. Not everyone compartmentalises every aspect of their life like you.”

Kylara glared at her sister. Then she leaned back and ran a hand through her hair. “You’re right, I guess. I’ll talk to her again.” Just to ask her about the woods. Again.

Yalmay grinned broadly, then punched Kylara’s arm. “Ow!” Kylara said. She rubbed it. “Seriously? What was that for?”

“It was a good luck punch.”

Kylara stared at her sister. “No it wasn’t?” she said. It had hurt.

“Well, it was good luck to me then,” Yalmay said gleefully. “I really want you two to make up. I can tell it’s bothering Joontah. Like, a lot a lot.”

That surprised Kylara. She hadn’t thought he would care. “How is he, by the way?” she asked. “Joontah? I haven’t seen him in a few days.” Not since before Ulinda’s death.

“I’ve barely seen him either,” Yalmay admitted. “Honestly, if Janes is acting weird, Joontah might be even worse. He’s trying hard to hide it, but I know better.”

“Did you ask him about it?” Kylara asked.

Knowing Yalmay, the answer was probably no.

“Of course I did,” Yalmay said immediately. “He just said he’s been going through some personal stuff.” Yalmay looked down at her lap. “He won’t tell me what though.”

“Really?” Kylara asked, intrigued. “Doesn’t he usually tell you everything?”

“I mean, apparently not.” Worry warred across Yalmay’s face. “Maybe something changed. I don’t know.” She looked ready to cry. Kylara put a hand on her shoulder.

“This is really bothering you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Yalmay said, voice shaky. “He’s never done this before.” She took a deep breath. Her bottom lip was quivering.

“Maybe you could talk to someone?” Kylara said softly. “Someone good at this stuff.”

Yalmay sniffled and then snorted. “No offence Kya, but remember your last relationship?”

Kylara winced. “I try not to.”

“How long was it? Two weeks?”

“Ten days, actually.”

“Right.”

“I’m not saying I’m the expert to talk to,” Kylara said. “You could talk to your mum.” Yonerda, Kylara’s stepmother and Yalmay’s birth mother, was fairly laid back with these things. She had had Yalmay young, and the two of them often had more of a friendship dynamic than a mother-daughter one. She seemed like a good person to speak to.

“My mum married your father of all people,” Yalmay said miserably. “She’s not the best at this relationship stuff.”

Eh. Good point.

“You could talk to my father,” Kylara suggested.

Yalmay laughed. “You think he’s good at relationships?”

“Well,” Kylara shrugged. “Quantity has to count for something, right?”

Jerong Kunyjiri was either on his third or thirtieth relationship, depending on how you counted his many, many extramarital ones. It sometimes felt like her father had slept with all the women in the Kookaburra Creek and half of the men.

Kylara had been being truthful about asking him for advice too–quantity did have to count for something. Her father had slept with practically the whole town and he still had a job and was–as far as Kylara knew–well-liked. He must have been doing something right to avoid the drama. But perhaps he wasn’t what Yalmay needed right now.

“You know,” Kylara said after a moment, “it’s rather selfish of you–dating Joontah.”

Yalmay blinked. “Why? What do you mean?”

“Well,” Kylara said, “he’s adopted. He’s pretty much the only person in Kookaburra Creek I one hundred per cent know isn’t my sibling.”

Yalmay smiled a bit.

Aha! Goal achieved.

“I guess you could go for someone really old,” Yalmay said, “like forty. Or Janeyca. She’s available. Also adopted.”

“Is that why you want me to talk to her so badly?” Kylara teased. “You want us to date?”

“Pretty sure you’re not her type,” Yalmay said. “But you could try.”

Kylara had a strong hunch that she was Janeyca’s type, actually, but she kept her thoughts to herself. Before Yalmay had started dating Joontah, Kylara had been convinced Janeyca had a crush on Yalmay too. She had never mentioned anything and Yalmay had never noticed. It felt like a distant memory now anyway.

“We should probably get back to cleaning,” Yalmay said, wiping the water from her eyes.

“Probably,” Kylara agreed.

“I don’t really want to though.”

“Well, good news,” Kylara said, without looking at her sister. Her lips curled into a slight smile. “I know how I can cut the amount of work in half.”

Yalmay’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? How?”

“You do some this time.” She reached out and picked up a bucket, presenting it to Yalmay with a flourish before abruptly thrusting it into her arms. Yalmay crinkled her nose up, took the bucket, and let out an exaggerated groan. “Hate you,” she groaned, rolling her eyes dramatically.

Kylara couldn't help but smile. “You might want to do the really grotty-looking ones first,” she said. She picked up a towel and tossed it at Yalmay. “They’re furthest from me. Could be less contaminated with bad omens and all.”

Yalmay’s shoulders slumped even further. “I think that should count as a lie,” she grumbled. “But fine, I probably deserve it.”