The next few days are not much different. Bayan brings me and Nua breakfast, and I only see Miss Ava and Miss Lilly at lunch- and dinner-times. There’s dessert every night, and Bayan is serving, and I don’t know how he bears it.
I spend time reading, watching TV, trying not to piss anyone else off. Bayan doesn’t say anything to me and I hardly see Keol at all. Whenever I happen upon Nua his nose is in a book, and I start to understand why. I need to do something. I can’t relax here; my nerves are on edge and my thoughts are on fire. Someone’s always watching. I can’t trust anyone except Abigala, and she isn’t here. I need to get back to her.
A few days into my marriage I fall asleep on the couch of the huge living room on the second floor. Bayan somehow still delivers me breakfast before I wake up, but I ignore it and stretch. I stare out the window. It looks over the backyard, and I see the other two by the stone fountain in the middle, where I got married. The only thing visible from my bedroom is the field of flowers. Abigala loved flowers.
Loves, I correct myself, shaking my head to clear out the thoughts. She loves flowers. She’s still alive and I’m going to get to her and I’m going to bring that entire garden to her if I can because she loves flowers.
“Looking for something?” says a voice from behind me, and I jump, then turn to see her. Miss Ava stands leaning against the doorframe with her lighter in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and she places it between her lips and cups her hand around the flame as she waits for my answer.
I don’t give one. I don’t even know what the rules are for talking to her. She smiles slightly around the cigarette and exhales, then comes over to the window where I’m watching the other husbands. She sighs. “Do you want to go down to the garden?”
I look at her, then back out the window, and she blows smoke in my face. “Yeah. They both like it out there. Nua asked me a few minutes ago if he could go out, and I think Keol spends a lot of his time by the fountain when the weather’s nice.”
“So he can go anywhere he wants whenever,” I say quietly, pointing towards the black-haired one who’s sitting with his hands braced behind him on the stone wall surrounding the pool, and wait for her to stop me. She doesn’t. “And he can go anywhere as long as he has your permission.”
She follows my finger towards the shaggy-haired blond one, and smiles slightly. “Yes. Within the grounds, of course.”
“And where am I?” I ask, my voice slightly cool as I turn to her, and she suddenly lifts her hand up to run it through my hair, her fingers getting caught in the tangles. “You can go anywhere you want in this house, same as them.”
“What about out of it?”
She starts to move towards the door, jerking her head to me that I should follow. In the doorway, though, she turns, and blocks it from me so that I stop abruptly and look at her. She grins. “You have to be with me.”
I don’t respond. She won’t let me leave unless she’s with me. She won’t let me do anything by myself. I’ll never be able to escape.
She seems to want to bring me outside. Fresh air would do me good, I think, so I don’t protest as she leads me down the stairs. She pauses in the lobby, where cabinets sit against the wall by the front door that leads down to the beach. She glances at them, then back at me, and exhales some smoke before pushing open another door and leading me through the downstairs living room and onto the porch and outside.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to stay by her side all the time, but I don’t really want to so I don’t. She goes to sit in a lounge chair by the edge of the swimming pool, tilting her head back so the sun rolls over her face and the smoke she blows out through her lips goes straight up towards the sky, and I wander towards the fountain where her other husbands are sitting.
Nua looks up at me as I approach. He’s sitting on the ground, leaning against the stone that Keol’s on top of as he relaxes on the border of the fountain. He’s wearing a thin black rope cinched around his waist as a belt, and his hair sticks up on end. He looks like he’s older than Ava by a few years, and is watching her over his shoulder with a slight grin on his face as if he’s the one in dominance of her. He doesn’t acknowledge my existence. Nua does, at least. They both have rings on their left fingers identical to mine, and I wonder why Keol gets his own room.
Nua grins at me slightly as I approach, and asks quietly, “She let you outside?”
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Keol doesn’t look at me, just tilts his head back and lets the sun wash over him. He looks so unbothered and casually confident and I’m not surprised he’s the favorite. “Yeah.”
“What’s your restriction?” asks Keol. Nua glances up at him, then raises his eyebrows at me, asking the same question with them, and I shrug in annoyance. “She has to be with me.”
“You have to be with her,” corrects Keol, glancing over at our wife. She’s still smoking by the pool. Nua rolls his eyes at me. “She’ll loosen up soon enough, right now she just has to please her mother.”
“Maybe once you get promoted to Nua’s level he’ll get promoted to mine,” says Keol, stretching out on the stone and lying down all the way. Nua looks up at him, then gestures with his head for me to sit next to him on the ground. I do, and Keol finally glances at me, then looks back up at the sky. “So where you from?”
I laugh in slight surprise, and Nua leans his head against the stone. “He really means, How did you get captured?”
Keol doesn’t deny it, and I lean my head back too to avoid looking at them. The house is just as elegant from the back as it probably is from the front, and I sigh. “House was raided.”
“Why?”
Nua’s question surprises me. I’m not sure how much I should reveal to them, but he looks at me, and it’s obvious he knows something.
Keol lifts his head to look at me too, then puts his hands under it and lays back down. “Lilly is in the government.”
I look at him, and he grins slightly. “So’s Ava. I’m not saying they had anything to do with it, but they probably had something to do with it.”
Nua laughs in slight exasperation. “That’s not true.”
“What isn’t?” asks Ava, and I jump. Keol just looks at her. “That your mother directly asked for a new husband for you, which led to the capture of dear Aberworth here.”
I wince, not looking at her, but Nua just raises his eyebrows in question again but this time at her. She just laughs, then grabs Keol by the rope-belt and pulls on it a little. “You two can come inside whenever you want.”
Keol rolls his eyes but sits up and is led by the waist back into the house, and I look over at Nua. “What?”
“She’s strange,” says Nua laughingly. “But Keol’s potentially not…entirely wrong. Ava and her mother do work in the government. Different parts, though.”
“Which parts?”
He shrugs. “Ava does economics stuff, something with money. Her mother doesn’t tell us.”
“So…”
“She could’ve wanted to get Ava a new husband,” he says grudgingly, glancing at me. “Why? How did you get captured?”
I swallow, leaning my head back against the stone again. “My parents ran a shelter.”
“For whom?”
“Boys,” I say quietly, picking my fingers. “Who ran away.”
“Ah,” he says quietly, piecing together the rest of the story. I lean my head back and close my eyes. He turns a page in his book and asks, “Where were you last night?”
“Fell asleep on the couch in the living room.”
He snorts. “Ah.”
“Why?”
“Just wondering,” he says nonchalantly, glancing at me. I sigh, opening my eyes, and find shapes in the clouds. I need to start finding books to read.
Bayan calls us in for dinner a short while after, and I follow Nua’s lead. I bite my tongue every time Miss Lilly rings her bell although Bayan, expressionless and wordless as always, just does what she wants and leaves us alone. But when he takes the plate from Miss Ava I swear I can see a hint of a smile grace his lips, and she grins back as Keol plays with her fingers.
After dessert I take a shower, discovering that neither door in the bathroom locks from the inside. I check and find that the door to my room doesn’t lock from the room side, either. The shower is nice, I haven’t had one in a while. There are stacks upon stacks of towels in the closet, each soft to the touch, and I wrap one around my waist and go into my room.
When I push open the door, though, Ava’s inside, bringing her hand up to her face to cup around the cigarette between her lips.
I’ve chosen wrong. I’m in her room. She’s sitting on the windowsill overlooking the backyard, and looks over her shoulder at me as her thumb clicks the lighter. She takes a long inhale, smiles, and blows out. I watch her. She doesn’t seem upset; she’s examining me as closely as I am her.
After a moment I speak quietly. “Sorry.”
She takes another drag of the cigarette, then says quietly, “No problem.”
Her eyes run up and down mine, and I’m acutely aware that the only thing separating us is the towel wrapped around my waist. I will my cheeks not to flush with heat, and she grins a little. I don’t know if I feel more at ease or not. She coughs slightly, then speaks again, quietly. “You’re allowed anywhere in the house, you know.”
I blink. “This is your room.”
“You’re my husband,” she says easily, the cigarette between two slim fingers as she watches my expression. “You’re allowed in here anytime you want.”
I feel exposed and uncomfortable and I think she can sense it. For a moment I don’t think she cares, but after a moment of still looking at me with that piercing gaze of hers she grins, tucks her lighter back in her pocket, and then closes the door behind her.
I exhale almost as heavily as she does when she’s smoking and actually look around for the first time. Her room is dark, the heavy red curtain drawn across the window, and the comforter on the bed is the same color. The wood is almost black and the plush carpet under my feet is a dark color that I can’t make out in the light. Around me are little drops of water sinking into it; I flush even though she’s not here anymore and go back into the bathroom.
I close my door and lean against it. Keol’s door is open; he’s not in there, and Nua isn’t either. I dress quickly and then go to bed, burying myself in my blankets, but I can’t sleep. Nua comes in what feels like hours later, and says, “Aber.”
I make a noise.
“Good night, then.”
I don’t answer. I don’t even know how to describe what I’m feeling, I’m embarrassed and angry, why did she do that? She didn’t do anything, actually, but she didn’t...I don’t know. I don’t like here. I want to go home.