I feel like an intruder, like I’m in someone else’s home. But aren’t I?

I wonder what Abigala is doing right now. I wonder where she is, considering the fact that my parents are probably in jail. I wonder why the woman who raided my home is now suddenly my mother-in-law. What does she have, what connects her to the laws that made my parents’ good deeds bad?

I stay outside in the garden with the others for a short while, because I don’t know what else to do. The sun is high in the sky when Nua finishes his book. Keol wanders around through the flowers, then goes over to the pool and dips his toe in. After a little while of me just watching them, Bayan comes out.

Nua looks up when he hears the door open, then sighs and stands. I look at him. He jerks his head to me. “Lunch.”

It’s a short affair. Bayan serves. Miss Ava sits at the head of the table and Miss Lilly at the foot, and Keol sits at his wife’s right hand, the place of the prominent. Nua takes her left side and I sit next to him, leaving a chair in between me and Ava’s mother. She doesn’t comment. We eat in near silence. After dessert, the other boys wait at the table until Miss Lilly stands. Then Ava stands, watching her mother leave, and looks at me. “You can go anywhere in the house as long as you don’t piss her off.”

Then she leaves. I raise my eyebrows. Keol snorts, standing, and follows her out. Nua shrugs. “Her mother’s really more of the threat here.”

“I’ve gathered,” I say softly. He picks up his book, which spent dinner lying next to him, and announces, “I’m going to the library.”

I follow him up the stairs, but stop at the second floor. He goes down the hallway and disappears through a door. I inhale, then exhale. Everything smells clean but faintly of smoke. There’s a door open slightly near me, and I can see a television. I go inside.

It’s a comfortable-sized sitting room, living room, I don’t know what rich people call it, but I have gathered that Ava and her mother are rich. There’s a flat-screen on the wall and a wrap-around couch that sinks to the touch. Suddenly I hear a click sound, and I look over to the door.

Miss Ava lowers her lighter and inhales, then says softly, “I’m sorry about your sister.”

I don’t answer.

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“And your parents,” she continues, moving towards me slightly. “And my mother. If she ever does anything that makes you uncomfortable, please tell me.” She pauses. “Or if I do.”

I raise my eyebrows, and then suddenly feel something on my legs. When I look down, a cat is slinking through them, leaving little orange hairs on my clothes.

I gasp, taking a step back, and Miss Ava kneels, holding her hand out to it. It jumps into her arms, and she looks up. “You don’t like cats?”

I stutter. “I…I don’t mind cats.”

“Hm,” she says, nodding, and places it gently on the couch, then turns back to me. “Here,” she says quietly, holding out her hand. “I’m supposed to give you this.”

Lying in the center of her palm is a golden ring.

I look at it for a second, then back up at her, and she smiles slightly, then adjusts her grip on it so she’s holding it between her thumb and forefinger. She places her lighter down on the table and gestures for my hand.

I reluctantly give over my left hand so she can take it. Her touch is gentle as she slides it on, and I look at the ring on her finger. She notices. “That’s you.”

She points to one of the four tiny diamonds embedded in the gold of her ring, and I raise my eyebrows. She says, “They add one on every time I get a husband.”

The cat mrows.

I want to ask why there’s four. I don’t, because she’s already leaving the room. “Dinner will be at five,” she says over her shoulder. “And you’re cordially invited down to the dining room to join us.

“If you don’t come,” she says quietly from the doorway, and I turn to face her. Is that an option? Her cat jumps off the couch and follows her, its tail high in the air. She smiles slightly again, guessing my thoughts. “Bayan will bring it up to you. But I’d suggest not getting on my mother’s bad side, Aberworth. At least not so soon.”

“Aber,” I correct, my voice quiet, and she looks at me. “Aber.”

It’s strange to have her address me so directly. She looks at me, then nods and inhales deep as she leaves the room.

Dinner is another quiet affair. Does Bayan ever eat? He must just sit alone in the kitchen and have the leftovers of what he serves us. I wonder if he’s the one who cooks. If so, he’s a good cook.

I follow Nua up to the bedroom after dinner. He falls onto his bed, opening a book, and I sit down on mine. He looks over at me. “You good?”

“How can I be?” I ask, flopping down, and he smiles slightly. “Advice: don’t show that you’re nervous or scared, even if you are. Her mother feeds off of it.”

“And what about her?”

Nua shrugs. “I don’t know her that well, Aber. She leaves me alone, and unless she suddenly decides she’s done with Keol I’m assuming she will you, too.”

“So what, I’m perfectly safe here?”

“Of course not,” says Nua with a snort. “There’s still Miss Lilly to worry about.”

I don’t answer, staring up at the ceiling. All the doors are closed. I wonder where Nua gets his books.

“Nice ring, by the way,” he says after a few minutes of silence. I sigh, looking down at my finger, and don’t answer.