When I wake up the next morning, though, both rooms are empty except for me. Keol’s door is hanging open, and his bed still isn’t made. He only has one pillow. He and Ava must have slept so close to each other last night. I don’t think they slept together, I didn’t hear it, but I don’t know what it sounds like, I realize. I don’t know what it feels like, either.

“What are you doing?” says Nua suddenly, and I jump. I hadn’t noticed him come in, and I look out the window of Keol’s room. “Ava went down to the beach.”

“Mm,” says Nua, nodding. “She does that often.”

She’s just sitting in the sand, completely still, seemingly staring off into the water. Her legs seem to be twisted up all funny underneath her but she looks comfortable. “What’s she doing?”

“Probably thinking,” says Nua matter-of-factly, hopping onto his bed and opening the book that was lying on the table. “Fresh air’s good for her lungs, she said that’s why her mother makes her live down here.”

Strange thing to say, I think, but then I realize that he’s right. Ava does cough a lot, even when she isn’t smoking, but I wonder why she smokes if she has a sickness in her lungs. Maybe her mother doesn’t know she does that.

“Where’s Ava?” asks Keol suddenly, peeking his head in through the door to the bathroom, and I gesture to the window. He comes in and moves the curtain aside, then nods and puts his hands on my shoulders. He pushes me out of his room, closes the door, and leaves. After he’s gone I go back in, and minute later I see him making his way down the sand, untying the rope-belt from around his waist.

“Don’t tell me they’re gonna have sex on the beach,” I murmur, watching him tap Ava on the shoulder. She looks up at him, and they speak for a moment, and then he sits next to her in the sand. She untangles her legs and pulls him towards her. Nua snorts from behind me, turning the page. “They’re gonna have sex on the beach.”

“Ugh.” I let Keol’s curtain close, flooding the room with darkness, and Nua turns on the light next to him and continues reading. “Get used to it.”

“As long as she’s occupied without me, I’m happy,” I mutter, and Nua laughs, not disagreeing. I go into the bathroom to splash water on my face.

I follow Bayan around again today, but this time I pepper him with questions that he answers patiently and quietly. He refers to the women as Miss Lilly and Miss Ava, I knew that, but I didn’t realize that he calls me and Nua and Keol “Master,” until I ask him about where he’s from and he says, “I don’t know, Master Aber.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that answer. I start with, “You don’t have to call me that.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

He smiles at me slightly, and says, “Yes, I do.”

We’re in the second-floor living room. He’s busy with a bottle of window cleaner and a rag. This room looks over the backyard. “Well, how do you...not know where you’re from?”

“I’ve moved around a lot,” he answers.

“How did you get here?”

“Miss Lilly bought me.”

“She...what?”

“She paid money for me,” says Bayan patiently. “I came home with her and she told me my new job was to keep her house pretty.”

“Oh.”

“At that point, it was mostly keeping Miss Ava out of trouble,” he says with a slight smile. “I was young, but they were only around six or seven.”

“Who?”

He looks over at me, and then looks away. “Miss Ava.”

“You said they.”

“And her friend,” he says after a moment. “The one she ended up marrying, her first prominent.”

“Oh.”

He doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he’s telling me the truth. I don’t see why he would lie, though. “What do you do all day?”

“Keep Miss Lilly’s house pretty.”

“Do you do the cooking?”

“I do.”

“Why doesn’t she like me calling her Miss Ava but you still do it?”

“Because I’m not married to her,” he answers. “I’ve got Miss Lilly to worry about, but Miss Lilly is happy that Miss Ava is ordering you around. Even if her first order is always to not call her Miss Ava.”

“Her mother-”

“I can’t explain her mother, Master Aber,” he interrupts, turning to me. He’s always wearing all dark blue so he can sneak around in the shadows, bringing us drinks and cooking the food. I can’t see his face now, the light from the window behind him throws him into shadow. “All I can do is my job.”

I look at him for a moment, and then ask, “Do you know what Miss Lilly does in the government?”

He looks at me, rubbing his lips together, and after a moment says, “Yes, Master Aber.”

“Can you tell me?”

“No, Master Aber.”

“Why not?”

“Because she told me I couldn’t,” he answers. “I’m sorry. I answer to her first.”

“Why, because she’s the one who paid for you?”

Bayan sighs, twisting his rag in his hands, and then he slings it over his shoulder. “I suppose so, Master Aber.”

He leaves me alone in the living room after that, and I don’t follow this time. I just lie on the couch thinking about his answers. I wonder again if he’s ever been married. Maybe there’s something wrong with him. Maybe he was supposed to marry Ava but she refused and Miss Lilly got mad. Or maybe this was just how it always has been. My parents have kept things from me before, because they didn’t want me to know about the bad things they worked so hard to protect me from. And Miss Lilly didn’t even pay for me, she just stole me away from my parents and my home and everything I’ve ever known and stuck me with Ava. Would I rather be with Ava or be a servant like Bayan? I don’t know. At least being her husband I can just lie on the couch all day and not do anything.

It hits me that he implied that he’s been with Miss Ava since she was six or seven years old. She’s twenty now, Nua told me on the night of her birthday. Bayan must know some things I don’t. I wonder if he knows anything about Abigala.