And here we are.  Underground.  The new year passes, and we get brownies wrapped in plastic to celebrate.  Nothing changes.  Marissa’s stomach is growing, she’s so big, it’s kind of fascinating.  I see Nerev more than I see her, because she stays in her tent all day.  Her feet hurt, her ankles are swelling, her back aches, Nerev tells me.  Everything inside and out of her is growing and stretching and she’s the first woman to have done this in years, or at least one of the only ones, at least around here.  She’s doing it for Nerev, she tells him.  For herself and for Nerev, and for their family.  

I try to ask Haywood about my family, but he does not answer.  Well, he does, but all he tells me is that there is nothing to report.  And I don’t know if I trust him, especially because Ava goes to talk to him quite often, and Ava has a habit of not telling me things.  But she promises that she’s only talking to Haywood about her mother, and I can’t help but believe her.  

One day while she’s out meeting with the whole Shan team I find Bayan in the fire forum, alone.  I had just passed by our tent and Nua was not there, so I was expecting to find him here, but he is not.  Bayan looks up at me when I come in, and I say, “Where is everyone?”

He smiles a little.  “Miss Ava is with Shan, and Master Nua and Penny went to take a walk.”

“Where?”

“Down the track, I suppose.”

“Oh,” I say, sitting down by the fire.  Bayan looks at it again, and I look at him.  He still manages to find and wear exclusively dark clothes, even down here.  His sweater is a little too big for him, and the sleeves cover his hands, but the bruises on his face are all healed by now; there’s nothing but a little scar above his eyebrow, and it’s so small that I’m not sure if it’s been there the whole time I’ve known him.  I only notice it now because the firelight glances off of it weird.  “Can I ask you about Miss Lilly?”

I don’t know why that comes out, and Bayan looks surprised too, but he nods.  “What about her?”

“Isn’t it a little weird?” I ask after a moment.  “How much she was involved with Ava’s, Ava’s entire life.”

“Miss Ava is still very young, Master Aber,” says Bayan, sounding slightly amused, and I nod, not sure of how to phrase this.  “Yeah, that’s what I mean.  Marissa is twenty-nine.”

“Ah,” says Bayan, understanding.  He doesn’t seem uncomfortable, and he just looks into the fire again, thinking for a moment, and then sighs.  “For as long as Miss Ava has been old enough, Miss Lilly has always singled her out between the twins.  Miss Ava is the one that Lilly wants.”

I have noticed that Bayan does not call Penny Master like he does me and Nua and he used to with Keol, and now that I know they share a tent it makes sense.  But he has always, consistently and without fail, called both Ava and Lilly Miss.  And it surprises me, now, to hear him drop it in reference to my mother-in-law.  Nua and Keol just said Lilly, I suppose because they had been there longer and had more time to get used to it and hated her more.  But Bayan?  Well, he has more of a reason to hate her than anyone else, I suppose.

“And she needs to control her,” Bayan continues.  “In order to…to get everything settled.  Lilly has a plan for her life, and for Miss Ava’s life, and for how life is going to continue after everyone here now is dead.  Of course, Miss Ava has never taken kindly to plans.” 

“No,” I say with a slight smile.

“Part of that plan,” says Bayan quietly, “was to get Miss Ava anchored down.  To stay in that house with her, forever.  You, her boys, you were a pretty good trick.  But obviously it wasn’t enough.”

I smile a little.  Ava ran away from us, but she sent back for us and brought us to her; Miss Lilly probably never anticipated that.

“But if she had a baby,” says Bayan quietly.  He pauses, and then says, “If she had Master Keol’s baby.”

“Yeah,” I murmur.  “Or Owen’s.”

Bayan smiles sadly, nodding.  “Yes.  And, you know, everything that Lilly does, professionally, has to do with boys, and husbands, and babies, and saving the human race.  She needs to set an example.  Miss Ava was supposed to be a shining model for all the women in the world, and it seemed like it was working when she got married, that was half of it, but then she never got pregnant.”

“Why doesn’t Miss Lilly just have more kids, if she’s so obsessed with it?” I mutter, and Bayan smiles slightly.  “She’s too old.”

“She’s not old,” I say, and then look at him.  “Wait, what?”

And he smiles a little again, and says, “Women can’t have children their whole lives either, Master Aber, and it’s always been like that.  Back when they got pregnant for nine months and children were actually born, like Miss Marissa’s doing it…it’s hard for their bodies, I suppose, so nature makes women go sterile, too.”

“Oh,” I say quietly.  “I didn’t know that.”

He shrugs.  “It used to be, before men stopped having children around age twenty-five, it used to be that men could have children their entire lives.  So it was even that the opposite of what’s happening now happened then.  Not to such the same extent, but…a lot of women had older husbands, because it was on them, not the men.”

“Really?” I say, fascinated.  Bayan nods, looking away.  “So it used to be women up until their forties or so, and men their whole lives.  So the pool was relatively big.  Once it switched, for some reason, we still don’t know why, to women to their forties but men only until age twenty-five, the window of opportunity closed almost all the way.”

“Yeah,” I murmur, my mind racing.  My mother is about seven years older than my father, I think.  She’s always taken care of him, though, she’s always taken care of all of us.  I think of the folder that Bayan brought to Penny and Ava when he got here, about their father, Aiden LeGatte, who died under mysterious circumstances when they were around six years old.  I wonder how old he was when Ava and Penny were born.  I open my mouth again to ask, but Bayan is just staring off into the distance, something in his eyes I can’t quite make out.  I ask, “How old were you when you came to Ava, Bayan?”

“Eleven,” he answers softly, not looking at me.  “Miss Ava and Penny were six years old, and Master Owen was eight.”

Which means Bayan is five years older than the twins, and Ava and Penny are twenty, now.  “How old are you now?”

And he smiles, knowing what I’m thinking, but his eyes are sad.  “Twenty-five.”

“Has Miss Lilly ever hurt you, Bayan?” I ask quietly, and Bayan sighs, still not looking at me, and says, “Yes, Master Aber.”

I knew that, I know the answer is yes, because I’ve seen the bruises and the cuts on his face, his arms, his throat.  I know that Miss Lilly screams at him and hits him and pushes him around, and all of that on top of keeping him locked in her beach prison for a decade and a half and forcing him to keep house for her.  I know that she’s hurt him.  But I have never seen his body under the dark blue clothes that he wears all the time, even down here.  He might have scars like Ava does, but not ones from doctors.  He might have scars that he carries inside of him instead of on his skin.  And no one has ever or probably will ever see them, except for maybe Penny.  “Did she hurt Owen?”

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“I think so,” he answers after a moment.  “In the months after Miss Ava married him, something happened.  Miss Lilly wanted him gone, and he stopped talking.  Miss Ava didn’t know what to do, but I don’t know if there was much she could do.  I don’t think she ever imagined that Miss Lilly would…”

“Rape him,” I finish quietly, and Bayan closes his eyes.  I feel bad.  “I’m sorry.”

“No,” he says softly, shaking his head.  “I…when he took his life, and it was just her and Master Keol, and she started smoking, I thought I had lost her.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me, and I smile slightly.  “You didn’t.”

“Are you mad at me?” Ava asks Penny, as they make their way back towards their tents.  

“No,” answers Penny after a moment, not looking at her.  “They made their choice.  That’s more than I asked for.”

“It’s less, and you know it,” she murmurs, and Penny half-laughs, half-sighs.  They stop in front of her tent, looking at each other.  Then she opens the flap, and they go inside, and sit down.  

“No,” Bayan agrees with me, smiling too, but then it falters.  “But now, it’s messy, it’s hard for her.  It’s hard for all of us.”

“Yes, but I know it’s hard for her, specifically,” I say softly.  “Not that it’s more or less bad for her than anyone else, but her mother, Miss Lilly did things to her mind.”

“I’m sorry, though,” says Ava softly, and Penny laughs a little, shaking his head.  “I’m sorry,” he responds.  “I put impossible pressure on you.”

“I could’ve…” she starts, but trails off when he shakes his head.  “Don’t.  I made it seem like you had any more of a choice than I did.”

“I did what I could,” she whispers, Penny smiles.  “I know.”

“I only wanted to protect him,” she murmurs.  Her voice is soft, and Penny twists his fingers together, but smiles.  He knows who she is talking about.  “I know.”

“Yes,” says Bayan softly.  “And she did it on purpose, because she wanted to keep Miss Ava in line.  Losing her twin…”  He trails off, then swallows.  “Miss Ava has faced a lot of loss in her life, Master Aber.  Two husbands and a sibling wouldn’t be easy for anyone.  But Penny was the first to go, and the deepest connection she had.  I can assume you understand.”

I nod, although there’s a twisting in my stomach.  I feel as though I hardly know Abigala anymore.  

“I know you loved him,” Ava says quietly.  The long silence that Penny lets dangle afterwards speaks louder than her whisper.  And then he smiles again, sadly.  “So did you.

“And he loved you,” he adds after a moment.  “Both of us.”

“First it was herself, though,” continues Bayan.  “Her own body was betraying her, and I thought that Penny was keeping her alive, energetic, happy.  With him, and with Owen, she had someone to live for.  But Miss Lilly gave her brother away, without her knowledge, and that ripped something out of her.  She was different after that.”

“Without her knowledge?”

Bayan smiles slightly sadly, and nods.  “Neither of them knew what was happening until too late.  Penny was gone.”

And then Bayan stands, and takes a deep breath, and I stand too.  “Sorry.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head.  “I just.  Come with me, Master Aber, they should be back by now.”

And so we go out of the fire forum and back down the western track towards Shan.  As we approach our two tents, pitched next to each other, I can see a soft glow coming from ours, and Bayan sits down in front of his next door. 

“And she married Master Owen,” he continues quietly, “against her mother’s will.”

I sit down next to him.

“The compromise was Lilly’s choice in Master Keol, so he’s forever…tied to the memory of Master Owen, and by extension Penny because the three grew up together.  They intertwine in her mind, and the only way to separate them, it seemed, was as they disappeared.”

“At least…”  I can’t finish my thought, but Bayan guesses it and smiles again.  “At least she has Penny back.  That’s one wound closing.”

“She seems different now,” I murmur, and Bayan surprisingly laughs.  “Well, she did die and get revived.  Ought to change a person.  But when I see her now, Master Aber, she reminds me of herself before any of this started.”

“Before…”

“She was sick,” he says quietly, “or she was married, or she was separated from her twin, her friend, and her lover.”

I look at the wall of the tent that separates us from Ava, and Bayan follows my eyes.  “She married Master Owen,” he says quietly, “to save him from a worse fate.  She blames herself for his death, for letting Penny go, for Master Keol, as well.”

“Why is she sick,” I ask, “and not Penny?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs.  “And it’s strange.  If it were environmental you’d assume all of us would be ill, genetic you’d assume it would affect Penny as well.  But it’s just her.  Just a sickness in her lungs, that no one could predict or help.”

“You seem to care for her,” I say quietly, and he glances at him, smiling slightly.  “I knew their mother was an evil woman before they did, considering the fact she thought she could simply buy me and make me work for her.  I’ve tried to protect them from her for years.  Miss Ava’s by far not the same person she was as a child, but…getting back to Penny helped.”

I agree silently.  I know she laughed with Keol and enjoyed spending time with him, with all of us.  Her time at the beach house wasn’t exactly miserable, but there was always something off.  Something missing.  And now, even though Owen and Keol are both gone, she has Penny back, her other half, her blood and beating heart.  And that’s made more of a difference than anything else.

Ava looks up, smiling slightly at her twin, then says, “Now go away.  Aber’s right next door and he likes to eavesdrop.”

I feel my stomach drop, but Penny just laughs, kisses her on the forehead, and says, “Sleep well, duckling.”  He slips out of the tent.  I glance at Bayan, and he smiles slightly and jerks his head towards her tent.

She’s lying on her back, and looks up at me when I let the tent close behind me.  “Where’s Nua?”

She doesn’t seem mad.  She’s never mad with me.  “With Shan.  He and Penny came to find us, he stayed.  Who were you talking to?”

“Who else shares Penny’s tent?”

Ava smiles, watching me lie down next to her, and I move so I’m on my side looking at her.  “Why does he call you duckling?”

She laughs, looking up at the ceiling of the tent again, and then sighs.  “There’s a kid’s story that I always hated.”

“Oh?”

“Mm,” she says again, thinking for a moment, and then sighs.  “So this duckling, when he was born he was all brown and ugly compared to all his brothers and sisters.  So all the other ducklings were mean to him because he was different, and everyone he met thought he was just a really ugly duckling.”

“I’m interested.”

“But,” she continues, “when he grows up, it turns out that he isn’t a duckling at all.  He was a swan-ling.”

“Don’t think that’s the correct term.”

“Do you know what a swan is?”

“Those big white birds.”

“The ugly duckling actually grew up to be a beautiful swan, prettier than all the duck bullies.  And they were all jealous of him the next time they saw him.”

“There’s a moral to this, isn’t there.”

“Technically.”

“Don’t judge on outward appearances.  So why do you hate this story?”

She laughs, rolling onto her side.  “The moral is supposed to be ‘don’t judge on outward appearances, because who you are on the inside is more important.’  The duckling was never a duckling, see, he was always a swan.  So does that make him better than the ducks?”

“The ducks were bullies.  They deserved to feel bad.”

She laughs again.  “Okay, but the point of the story was that appearances don’t matter, but it’s not as if the ducks finally accepted him because of who he was on the inside.  The only reason they all liked him at the end was because he wasn’t ugly anymore.”

I consider that for a moment.  She continues.  “The moral basically is, ‘It doesn’t matter what you are now, it matters what you’ll be.’”

“Oh.”

“And all I thought I’d ever be,” she finishes, “was a wife.  And I didn’t want to be a wife.  So I hated that story, because it said that that’s all that would matter.  The only reason Mother kept Penny when she found out he was male was because she knew he was going to be a husband one day.  And I hate expectations, Aber, I hate predictions, I hate unchangeable destinies.  So he calls me duckling because I wanted to stay ugly forever, a duck and never a swan.”

I laugh, not sure of how to respond.  She smiles at me, but there’s something in her eyes.  “I did make him a promise, though.”

“But we chose to stay,” I remind her gently, and she looks at me, nodding.  “I know, I know.”

I laugh slightly.  “So don’t feel guilty.”

She doesn’t respond to this.  She looks up at the ceiling of the tent, and then after a moment she opens her arm.  I put my head on her shoulder, once again tracing my finger down the cut on her chest, and she lets me.  Her hand rubs my shoulder, and she whispers, “I can’t not feel guilty.”

I don’t know what to say.  Because I know she blames herself for Owen, and for Keol, and for Penny getting sent away, and for Bayan getting hurt, and for leaving us even though we found her again, and for hurting me, when she put me in the little room in the foyer with the locks.  But for most of those things there was nothing she could’ve done about it.  Finally I say softly, “That’s what she wants you to feel.”

And Miss Ava looks down at me, and I look up at her, and she sighs, closing her eyes.  “I know.”