I awake after Nua the next day.

There’s a tray on the bureau in the room. It has a box of cereal and a bowl and a spoon and a pitcher of milk gone warm on it. I look at the clock; I’ve slept through both breakfast and lunch. I look up at the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember what really happened yesterday and what was just the part of the nightmares that plagued my sleep.

Nua’s bed is made. He’s real. I realized last night that Keol sleeps in the little room off of ours; his door is closed. He’s real. Miss Ava is real, she gave me the ring on my finger. And her mother is real as well. She’s the one who put me here.

But they don’t have fangs or claws, like my nightmares told me. Well, I can still feel Miss Lilly’s grip on me from yesterday, but Miss Ava was gentle. Nua told me she would probably leave me alone.

Abigala. I still don’t know where she is. When I was dreaming, she fell into a dark pit that Miss Lilly covered up. But I don’t know what really happened to her, or my parents.

After a few minutes of lying in bed I sit up, and then look at the cereal on the bureau. I pour some of it into the bowl and eat it dry with my fingers as I try to remember which door is which.

One goes to the hallway. I peek out of that one, and then close it.

The one across from it goes to Keol’s room. I peek in there as well. The room is tiny; the bed fills it wall-to-wall and the door only just misses it when it opens. It’s not made. I close that door as well, and then go into the closet.

It’s small but full, and I run my fingers over some of the clothes I see. I slept in what Miss Lilly dressed me in yesterday, and I don’t have any desire to change. I don’t know what Keol or Nua likes.

Finally I go into the bathroom. Bayan said it connected to Miss Ava’s room, and I ignore the door on the other side of it. I see two toothbrushes on the sink closer to her room, and one closer to mine and Nua’s, and one next to it that is still in its wrapper. I’m assuming that’s mine.

I use it and immediately continue to eat the cereal. None of the women nor the husbands nor Bayan are to be found, and I go out into the hallway and down to the second floor.

I wander. I don’t know where I’m going, and I end up back at the staircase a few times before I realize the organization of this house. There are a few guest bedrooms, a living room, and at the far end of the hall, a huge library.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ah, so this is where Nua gets his books.

I don’t even know where to start. It stretches back far far far, this one room must take up half the floor, and there are more books than I even knew existed. The ones closest to me are big ones, on topics I wouldn’t understand like political history and economics, but as I move further I get to the novels. I run my fingers over the spines, looking for anything I recognize, but I don’t find anything.

Finally I sigh and leave the library. I go back to my bedroom, still not encountering any forms of life in the house, except for the cat, which almost trips me on the stairs. Her owner, nor mine, is nowhere to be found, though.

When I go into my room, the door to Keol’s bedroom is open. The windows in Nua and I’s room look towards the flower garden in the backyard, and I go into his room and kneel on his messy bed to see what’s on the other side.

We’re on the beach.

The front of the house stands overlooking the ocean. I can see a path that leads down from the side of the house straight to the sand, and long lines of rock extend on either side of the house out into the water. And Ava’s wandering down one of them, a long gray sweater around her shoulders, flapping in the breeze and making her slender frame look smaller than it already is.

I watch her for a moment. She stops on the final rock, the edge, the wind sending her hair flying back behind her, and then she sits down on it. A wave crashes against it close to her but she doesn’t move.

She stays like that for a minute, and then I let the curtain close and get off Keol’s bed. I didn’t realize we were on the beach; where even are we? Are there boats? Probably not, it would be too easy an escape.

“Wanna go swimming?” says a voice behind me suddenly, and I jump. Nua grins at me, hopping onto his bed, and opens a book. “Or can you not?”

“I’ve never been swimming,” I answer, studying him, and he turns a page nonchalantly, nodding. “But you can write. So you can read.”

“Yeah,” I say quietly, and he looks up at me, a slight smile on his lips. “Me too.”

“Yeah,” I say again, and he looks back down to his book. It’s quiet for a moment, and then Keol bursts into the room. He looks at us, then slips into the room with his bed in it. After a moment he goes running through the bathroom again, letting the doors slam closed.

“Alright,” I mutter, and Nua laughs. “Get used to him. And her. They’re both a little...excitable.”

“You said he was the prominent.”

“Oh, yes,” answers Nua. “I honestly don’t know where you’re going to fit in. She’s way too focused on him.”

“Do they…”

I trail off, and Nua looks over at me. “Are you going to ask if they have sex, or if they love each other?”

I flush, and he turns another page. “Yes they do and no they don’t.”

“What?”

“They do sleep together, but ask them if they like each other, even, and they’ll both go out of their way to convince you that they hate each other. I’m convinced the only thing she actually cares about is that cat of hers.”

“I don’t like cats,” I mutter, and Nua looks over at me with wide eyes. “You didn’t tell her that, did you?”

“No,” I say, and he exhales. “Good. She loves that stupid cat.”

“What do you do here?” I ask, and he shrugs. “Read. Watch TV. Try not to piss anyone else off. That’s the gist of it.”

I’m going to lose my mind here.

My thoughts keep racing back to Abigala. My mother and father are probably in jail. I don’t know which will face a harsher punishment. They’re probably separated. Abigala, though, those women took her away. Does Miss Lilly know what happened to her? Did Miss Lilly do something?

Will she come for me, or must I escape myself?