Keol’s cough is getting worse, too.  

I notice it at the dinner table one night, and so does Ava.  We both look at him, concerned.  Miss Lilly does not seem to notice nor care.  I think of the blood on Ava’s hands from earlier, and I see Ava swallow nervously.  

Keol exhales, and then stands and leaves the room.  Miss Lilly doesn’t even look up or say anything except to ask, “You’ve been taking your medication, Ava dear?”

Ava looks at her and doesn’t answer.  

“Wouldn’t want you to end up like that.”

“Yes, mother,” says Ava with a faint smile, although she stabs at her fish as if trying to kill it again.  

We don’t stay for dessert.  I don’t really want to; I’m not in the mood.  I go into the downstairs living room, and look out the window.  Keol is sitting on the stone barrier of the fountain, on the other side, barely visible from the house.  I glance over my shoulder; Miss Lilly has already left the dining room, so I go out and sit next to him.  

After a moment, he sighs.  “She’s told me how it feels.”

“How what feels?”

“The sickness,” says Keol, pausing to cough.  “In her lungs.  She says that every breath she takes hurts.”

He sighs, looking up at the sky.  “And she does things, like walking to town and going swimming and.”

He pauses for a moment, and then finishes his thought.  “And sleeping with us, and it has to hurt her, when she…”  He presses his hand flat against his chest where his lungs are, and takes a deep breath.  “But she has to do it, for Lilly, because Lilly wants her to, because Lilly doesn’t give her or us any choices.”

“She coughed up blood, the other day,” I say quietly.  “She said it was fine, but…”

“It’s not,” says Keol with a smile that doesn’t match his words.  “It’s happened before, and it’s not fine.”

“Have you?”

“No,” says Keol with a sigh, shaking his head.  “It’s different, I just feel achy and cold and I have a headache and the cough isn’t that bad.”

“And you vomit in the middle of the night.”

He shakes his head again, sighing, and I say, “The cough seems bad.”

“It’s not,” says Keol again.   “It’s fine, I’m fine, Aber.”

He exhales and stands up and I follow him into the house.  We go up the stairs to the second floor, and he says, “Come up with any more great plans for your sister?”

“No,” I say with a sigh, thinking of the folder I saw a few days ago.  “Ava said she’d look.”

“She showed you what she knows about Abigala,” says Keol suddenly, turning so that he’s in front of me and I have nowhere to go.  I look up at him and don’t answer.  Keol smiles slightly.  “She’s been gathering information for a while now, for you.  Why did she show you now?”

I open my mouth, then close it.  Keol scoffs.  “It’s not all there, Aber.  There are things that she won’t let you know.”

“And what are they?” I ask.  Keol shrugs, turning back around.  “Abigala has political motives.”

“Political?”  I follow him down the hallway.  “What does that mean?”

“I dunno,” says Keol.  “Ava mutters when she’s working and she talks in her sleep.  I can’t say I know anything.  But I do know Ava.  If she’s hiding anything, it’s because she doesn’t want you to know, and if she doesn’t want you to know it’s because she wants to protect you.  She tells me everything, Aber, except for what her mother tells her.”

I exhale.  “What does her mother know about Abigala?”

Keol turns around, stopping again, and studies me for a moment.  He finally responds, “Miss Lilly is a smart woman, Aber.”

I don’t respond.

“Then again,” he continues, “so is Ava.”

I don’t deny it.  I can’t.

I don’t sleep well again.  I keep thinking about my dreams of the forests where Keol and I get trapped while Miss Lilly is after us and of Abigala falling into a pit.  She took husbands?  Four husbands?  Why?  She must have gotten caught up in something bigger than herself.  Just like Ava did.  And that’s why I think Miss Lilly had something to do with it.  

I want to talk to Keol again.  I think he knows more than he lets on.  I don’t know why he wants to help me, unless it has something to do with Ava and her twin brother.  Penny.  So many things have been revealed to me lately, I can hardly wrap my mind around them.  

The next morning I go downstairs after breakfast, and look out the window of the second floor living room.  But no one is in the backyard.  I go back upstairs.  

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Keol,” I say, pushing open the door to his room, and then wince.  Ava’s lying in his bed, alone, the blankets pulled up to her waist.  She’s holding her phone above her face, and says nonchalantly. “Nope.” 

“Where’s Keol?” I ask, and she shrugs.  “Dunno, why?”

“Never mind,” I say under my breath, turning to go, but she sits up.  “Woah, woah, woah.”

I grit my teeth and slowly turn back around, and she wrinkles her nose at me.  “Gonna answer my question?”

I sigh frustratedly.  “Ava, I-”

“Didn’t know you and Keol were such good friends,” she says, propping herself up on her elbows.  “Is there something you wanna…tell me?” 

“Why do you have to be like this?” says Keol with a sigh, pushing past me into the room, and Ava raises her eyebrows again and answers in the same tone.  “So I don’t go insane.  I lied, I did know where he was, he was peeing,” she adds, looking back at me.  I sigh again.  Keol rolls his eyes.  

“What are you two planning without me?” she says again, and Keol’s jaw clenches.  She stares at us for a moment, her gaze flicking back and forth, and then she sighs and leans back on her hands.  “Look, I know you want your privacy, but if you want to keep little secrets from anyone in this house, save my mother, not me.”

I look at Keol, and he looks back, and then says, “We know you found Abigala.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, but Ava just nods slowly, looking at the ceiling, then says, “Okay.”

She gestures for us to come sit, and we both hesitate.  She rolls her eyes.  “First of all, Keol, this is your bed, and second of all, you both know that both of you have-“

“Alright,” mutters Keol, sitting down next to her, and I follow.  She looks between us.  “What do you know?”

“Only what you showed me,” I say quietly, and Ava looks at me.  “So what’s the big secret?”

“You didn’t show him everything,” says Keol, looking up at her.  “You know about her.”

Ava opens her mouth, then nods.  “Yes.”

“More than what you told me?” I ask quietly, and she hesitates, then answers.  “Yes.”

“You’re being extremely honest today,” Keol mutters, and she laughs a little.  “What do I have to lose?  You?”

Neither of us answer.

“You’re from a shelter.”

I blink, realizing she’s talking to me, and say, “Yeah.  Well-”

“Well, your parents ran one, and they hosted boys who had to escape their wives.  So you and your sister grew up together, hearing horror stories about what a forced marriage in this society could be like.  And then one day, we raided your shelter and took you, and for some reason, Abigala is now on our side.”

“I didn’t realize there was an us and a them.”

“Just thinking out loud,” she says, flashing me a grin.  “Am I wrong?”

“No,” I murmur.

“And now you realize that she’s on our side.  But is she really?  She might be doing something good.  So you want to find her and you want to ask her yourself.”

“And you’ve found her,” I say, feeling desperate.  “You know where she works, she works at the same place as you, you could, you could…”

“No, my darling,” says Ava gently.  “I really can’t.  I work in the budget office.  She works for the agencies department.”

I don’t know what that means.  Keol opens his mouth, but Ava just puts her hand in front of his face and keeps going, not even looking at him.  “It’s all politics and red tape, Aber, I really don’t know that much about her that I could tell you.  For all intents and purposes, from the outside looking in, it seems she’s doing exactly what we want her to do.”

“So she really is on your side,” says Keol, taking her hand in his and moving it away from his mouth.  

“I’m not even on my side,” responds Ava through a slight laugh.  “I’m on yours.  That’s why I picked you, Aber, you know that.”

I swallow.  Keol looks at me, then back at Ava, who sighs.  “I’ve tried, Aber.  There’s not a lot I can do.”  She looks down at Keol, twisting her fingers in his, and says, “Trust me.”

I can’t tell if I believe her or not.  There has to be more, there has to be something else, I can’t just be stuck here with this, not knowing.  She got married, she has children, it’s only been two months, there has to be more.  

“Nua in on this, too?” she asks sharply, and I shake my head.  She nods.  “Good.  Keep him out.”

We stare at each other for a moment, and then suddenly she grabs my hand with the one Keol doesn’t have.  “Don’t look for her any more, Aber.”

“Why?” I ask quietly. 

She smiles sadly.  “You won’t like what you find.”  

“She’s my sister,” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes, and she gives my fingers a squeeze before letting go.  “Yes, she is.”

She stands, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, then exhales.  “And I’m your wife.”

She hears me scoff as she leaves, but doesn’t react.  I bite my lip, then wipe at my face.  “My wife isn’t more important than my sister.”

“And your sister isn’t more important than your wife,” says Keol.  “You’re here.  You’re stuck here, with Ava, and Abigala is out there somewhere doing something that we don’t know about.”

“She could be in danger.”

“We’re in danger,” answers Keol.  “You miss your sister, she misses her brother, but...she’s right.  Neither of you will like what you find.”

I exhale, looking at my fingers.  “She knows something.  And she isn’t saying.”

“That’s not unlike her.”

“She’s weird,” I mutter, and Keol laughs slightly, running his fingers through his hair.  “She’s always weird in the mornings, before she’s had her…”

He trails off, but I raise my eyebrows.  “Before her pills?”

 “She told you about the pills?” says Keol, and I furrow my eyebrows.  “Yeah.  Why?”

He takes a deep breath, tries not to cough, and fails.  “They stopped.”

“What?” I say in slight shock, and he leans towards me so he can lower his voice.  “I’m not supposed to be taking them.”

“I know.”

“Ava always gets two pills, and she takes the little white one and I take the little red one.  But she stopped getting the little red one.”

“So you’re not…”

He shrugs, leaning back.  “I guess her mother stopped giving it to her.  And we don’t even know if I’m sick, Aber, she needs them more than I do.”

“She tried to give the white ones to you, didn’t she?” I ask, and he laughs, shaking his head in exasperation.  “Yeah.  But she needs them, and I’m fairly certain her mother would be more upset if she died than if I did.”

“Yeah,” I murmur, and Keol grins at me slightly cockily.  “We’ll figure it out, Aber, don’t you worry.”

I’m not sure he’s just talking about the pills anymore.