Days pass just the same. It’s October now. I grow restless and impatient. Nua seems depressed. He doesn’t do anything except sleep and eat a little. He wanders around Ava’s room during the day. He had never been in there as much as he was the past few weeks, I don’t think. He’s been here for around a year now, but his relationship with Ava was never more than cordial. They never had what she and Keol had.
The day after Miss Lilly comes home, Bayan brings us breakfast in Ava’s bedroom. I’m just sitting on the couch, with Shiv the cat in my lap. It’s the first time she ever voluntarily jumped up to sit on me. She used to sit on Keol sometimes, but usually she just followed Ava around. Nua’s sitting on the windowsill, looking out over the back garden. I pet the cat absentmindedly, orange hairs coming off in my fingers, when Bayan knocks on the door. I look up, and then gasp. Nua looks over too, but Bayan just puts the tray down and turns to go. “Wait,” I say.
He pauses, looking back at me, and Nua furrows his eyebrows, standing. The whole left side of Bayan’s face is a mess of bruises, and his lip looks broken, too. “What the hell happened to you?”
Bayan smiles slightly, only with the right side of his mouth. “Don’t worry, Master Nua.”
“Was that Miss Lilly?” I say. Nua comes down the stairs to get a better look at the bruises; I would stand too except for the cat on my lap. Bayan just turns away, and I glance at Nua. “Bayan, what’d you do?”
He stops again, and tilts his head back, looking at the ceiling. Finally he sighs, and says, “It was worth it.”
And he carries on. I think of Ava’s twin brother. I am a twin married to a twin, and right now, all the other three are gone, out of reach. Bayan knew Ava’s brother. Nua and I never did, but Bayan has been with Ava all this time, since he was a child, since they were. He must have known Penny up until he went away, and I’m sure that despite her sickness he never expected to lose Ava so soon as well. He spent some time in the hospital with Miss Lilly, when they were looking at her body, and maybe Keol’s. I don’t really know. But now he is home, and he is going about his work as if nothing else has changed. He is strong, on the inside. I wonder if he ever shed a tear over either of the lost twins.
One of the strangest things I ever discovered in this house was about Bayan. He had met with a person named Sloan in the dead of night. He had to turn off the fence around Miss Lilly’s property, and that was when the doors were still unlocked so whoever Sloan was could sneak up to the door and pass him a message. Sloan told him that Penny misses him and Ava, and Bayan told Sloan to tell him that they miss him too. But I do not think Ava knew about this. I don’t think anyone does, except for me, and Bayan does not know that I know. But Penny is Ava’s twin brother. Why would Bayan hide Penny from Ava? I don’t know how to raise the question. I think about it from time to time, wondering when and where and how to bring up the topic.
But right now, I’m just tired. I should not be sad about losing Keol, but I am, and I should not be sad about losing Ava, but I am. Her mother has become even more recluse, and I hardly see her, which suits me fine. I do not want to. But there is an ever-lingering sense of dread that settles each morning in the pit of my stomach and does not go away: what is she going to do with us?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
It must be how Penny felt, too, his whole life. Oh, Penny, Ava’s poor twin brother, he is lost and we do not know where he is. But what if Bayan does? Ava tried for years to find him; it made her sympathetic to me and my Abigala cause. Keol knew about him; I don’t know how Nua found out about him, but he knew before I did. He was the one who told me. But if Bayan knows, why does he not say? Secrets swirl around every person who had ever stepped foot in this house.
Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and roll over to my side, expecting to see her face, her hair falling over the pillow, Nua’s arm wrapped around her waist. But I don’t. I just see Nua, or more often than not, no one. He often comes to bed with me in her room, but does not stay the whole night, or wakes up early to look out the window, to see the sun slowly rise over the water. Bayan still brings us breakfast in Ava’s bedroom, and the bruises on his face seem to be getting better. We still don’t know why they got there, but he won’t answer us. I remember asking him questions a few months ago, and he answered as many as he could, but there were somme topics he would not touch. He answers to Miss Lilly first, he said, and when she tells him not to talk about something, he listens. We used to really only see Miss Lilly at mealtimes, when we used to have dinner every night, all five of us, and lunch on most days too, but we don’t do that anymore. I don’t miss it. It was always just quiet and awkward and Ava would always be mad at her mother and near the end Keol would always be coughing. When we were alone in the house for a week and two days Nua and I end up wandering down to the kitchen later on in the day for lunch and dinner, and that’s what we keep on doing. I never thought I’d miss always having a smoking cigarette in the corner of my eye but I do and I hate it, I hate that I miss Ava, because I don’t know what to do with it. What’s the point of missing someone who’s never going to come back?
The only reason I get out of bed every day now is to feed Shiv. Bayan would do it if I didn’t, but I need something to do. She likes me now, I think, she sleeps in the bed with us and she follows me around, leaving little orange hairs wherever she goes like bread crumbs. The library is still locked, so usually that’s just down to the kitchen to get her food and then back up to the bedroom. Nua’s read the same book five times now that we can’t go into the library; it’s over six hundred pages, but he just keeps starting over. One morning about a week after Miss Lilly comes home I wake up and he’s in the middle of it again, and I just roll over, pulling the blankets around me. I lie there until I hear Bayan knock on the door; I know it’s him because Miss Lilly doesn’t knock, and because he always knocks the same, rolling his knuckles and then two quick raps. Nua looks up when he comes in, and puts the book down. Bayan comes in and sets the tray on the table as I sit up in bed, and then Nua says softly, “We have to get out of here.”
Bayan smiles slightly, looking over at me as he fiddles with the hem of his navy blue sweater. “I know, Master Nua.”
“She said she could set us free,” says Nua in almost a whisper, and Bayan hesitates, and then nods. “I know, Master Nua.”
The bruises on the side of his face are almost faded, but he reaches up and touches his lip. Nua says, “Lilly’s gonna kill you one of these days.”
He smiles slightly again, and says quietly, “Only if I do something bad enough.”
“Would helping us be bad enough?” I ask softly, and Nua looks over at me too. Bayan sighs. Shiv comes in through the door and jumps up on the couch next to Nua. I stand up and go down to them, putting my hands on the back of the couch on either side of Nua’s head. He looks up at me, and then asks, “Are you still gonna do it?”
Bayan looks at us, and then glances at the door, and says, “Of course, Master Nua.”
And he leaves us then. I duck my head, sighing, and Nua tilts his back so he’s looking up at me. “We shouldn’t make him do it.”
“I don’t think we’re making him do anything,” I say softly, going down to my elbows so our noses are almost touching. “He knows her, better than we do.”
Knew. Nua smiles a little, and next to him on the couch Shiv rolls over, meowing. I sigh, straightening up again, and go around to join him on the couch. He passes me a bowl of strawberry yogurt, and we eat.