It was the twin’s birthday, and Beth had spent weeks considering what to get them.

  She gifted them some treats after breakfast. Two tiny packets of the very last of her hoarded chocolate, long since bleached white. A small handful of bartered blueberries. Some handmade blackberry sweets. Their main present had been harder.

  Tempted as she had been, Beth could not smuggle them anything. She had stared at the art supplies, and the sports supplies, and the games, and the books, her hands itching with the desire to add them to her space. But she couldn’t. She was smuggling essentials for people who desperately needed them. She could not waste the space, nor could she risk anything that could be linked back to her. The first three runs of smuggled products were still hidden at the high school, but they should be on the black market before she did a fourth. Longer than she had hoped, but before winter, which was the main threat. Beth would do nothing to endanger that before it even began.

  It had to be something she’d openly purchased. She hadn’t wanted to give them anything practical. They were old enough to resent getting items that they knew they would have received anyway. But it couldn’t have been anything too luxurious, either. Not only would it have raised eyebrows when they inevitably showed it off at school, but also because it would have upset Sophie. Sophie had made that perfectly clear every time she just happened to mention stories of rude people upstaging parents in gift-giving.

  In the end, Beth had decided on an activity. She swapped days so that she had the time off work to attend an afternoon play. Gwen had recommended one that George’s brother, Arthur, was involved with. She was assured it contained plenty of skill-effects for Calley to admire, and Arthur had promised them excellent seats.

  As they carried their blankets and pillows into the newly constructed amphitheatre, Beth mentally thanked him. They were close to the centre and at an optimum distance from the stage to see everything. The weather was perfect for the occasion, with enough wind and skittering clouds to keep the sun from becoming too oppressive. The recommended pillows were more than enough protection from the fake stone of the stands. Even the over-priced flavoured water she was guilt-tripped into buying was well-made. Beth should have been relaxing into the satisfaction of a job well done.

  Except it didn’t take long for Beth to realise that she should have asked for more details. In fact, both she and Gwen should have questioned just why Arthur would have been involved in a children’s play in the first place. The play was perfectly appropriate – on the surface. Under the surface, it was uncomfortably on the nose.

  Beth could barely watch as the elf lord Patrick gave a speech about how the leprechauns were stealing their gold. She could hear it in the rhythms and word choices. It was an unsubtle impression of her brother. Beth checked the twins, but at least it still seemed to be going over their heads. They laughed without deeper recognition as a fountain of ‘stolen gold’ started pouring out of Patrick’s pockets. There was a strong edge of cruelty in the slapstick of him fumbling to hide them while making sure to pick up every coin.

  The play progressed with more impressions and veiled accusations. It might have been her personal bias, but she thought that Peter came off the worst. Her stomach churned with the familiar helplessness. Everyone thought the worst of him, and there was nothing either she or he could do to correct them. It finally ended with Patrick et al thinking they’d swindled a fortune from everyone, only to watch the mounds of gold disappear. On the other side of the stage, the leprechauns and the centaurs feasted on the bread and fruits the elf lords could no longer afford to buy. The twins were very pleased with the application of justice. Not quite ‘eat the rich’, but a very solid ‘leave the rich to starve’.

  After the various curtain calls, Arthur came to say hello in person.

  “These are my siblings, Oakley and Calley,” said Beth.

  “Half-siblings,” corrected Oakley, and Beth sighed deeply.

  Arthur greeted them warmly, ignoring Oakley’s correction. “What did you think of the play?”

  Calley jumped in to praise the special effects and ask more questions than Arthur knew the answers to, although he did his best. Oakley was a little impressed with some of the acting. After the twins were finally done with him, Arthur turned to Beth expectantly.

  “Very impressive writing,” said Beth. “Very insightful. Compliments to the author.”

  Beth did not turn the last word into an overt pun on Arthur’s name. She was quite sure he’d hear her implication anyway.

  “Oh,” said Arthur. “There wasn’t really any single writer. It was workshopped through a lot of people.”

  Sure. Spread out the blame.

  Beth gave him a look, but with consideration for the twins, she moved on to less controversial compliments. Once those were done, Arthur looked undecided. Beth cringed in expectation. She did not want to have a conversation about her brother.

  “You’re living with the twins’ mother, I gather?” he said at last. “Dare I ask what happened to your own mother? Did she get somewhere safe?”

  Beth laughed in surprise. “Um, no. I mean, I don’t know. My mother went ‘out for milk’ when I was five and never came back.”

  “Ah,” said Arthur. “My apologies.”

  “Yeah,” said Oakley, ghoulishly. “There was a whole police investigation and everything. Lucky for Dad, he was, like, two hours away at the time, or they would have arrested him for murder.”

  And right there, all the details Beth usually tried to avoid.

  “She literally disappeared?” asked Arthur. “She didn’t just walk out?”

  “As far as we can tell,” agreed Beth with a polite smile and a shrug. “She failed to pick me up from school one day. We never saw her again.”

  “She didn’t pack up anything,” said Oakley. “All her money and passports and clothes were still in her bedroom, exactly as she left it. She was just gone. Poof.”

  Arthur’s expression worked a few times before Beth took pity on him.

  “She was in a car,” she explained. “The police suspect she went off the road somewhere and ended up in a body of water. It happens— happened more often than you’d think.”

  Beth had been too young to realise the police had really been implying her mother had committed suicide. She had tracked every draining and dredging operation for years before an impatient Sophie had finally told her. Growing up, Beth had never decided whether she’d prefer that her mother had decided to leave, but at least she was alive, or whether it was less painful to think that she was dead, but at least she hadn’t just bailed on Beth and Peter.

  “Dad had to get like a dissolution,” said Oakley. “That’s like a divorce, but on the grounds that you think your partner’s dead.”

  “Wouldn’t a declaration of death alone be sufficient?” asked Arthur.

  “It turns into a real divorce if they turn up alive after all, you see,” said Oakley.

  Beth said, “Without a body or a natural disaster or the like, you have to wait a full seven years to get a full death certificate.”

  Unsaid was that there wasn’t even seven years difference between the ages of Beth and the twins. It had been less than a year between her mother’s disappearance and Sophie falling pregnant, a point that had come up more than once in arguments when Peter had still lived at home.

  “I’m very sorry for what you went through,” said Arthur.

  “Thank you,” said Beth.

  She supposed it was her duty now to return the conversation to something more appropriately conversational, but she couldn't think of anything. Thankfully, Arthur took that chore away from her by spotting someone else he needed to greet. They exchanged wishes to see each other again, and he made himself scarce.

  Beth turned to Oakley with a sigh. “What have we said about telling other people private family business?”

  “But you were already talking about it,” objected Oakley.

  “I gave him a neutral summary. I didn’t give him all the gory and personal details.”

  “It’s all police files and public records. It can’t be personal.”

  “None of which are accessible now, though,” said Calley. “If you think about it.”

  “It’s personal to me,” said Beth. “It isn’t information I want to discuss with everyone I happen to know. And it made him uncomfortable as well. Didn’t you notice how quickly he escaped? We don’t tell people things that will make them feel bad.”

  “Who was he, anyway?” asked Calley in a rather transparent redirection. “Besides the writer of the play, I mean.”

  Beth almost giggled at Calley’s instant dismissal of the ‘group effort’ explanation. “Do you remember Gwen from the allotments? She’s dating Arthur’s brother.”

  “One of your friends then,” said Oakley.

  “Yes,” said Beth. “Do you have your blankets and pillows? Got everything you came with?”

  Oakley said. “Are we going home already?”

  “I don’t think they have a post-credit scene in plays,” said Beth.

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant, isn’t there anything else we can do now?”

  “It’s getting rather late,” said Beth. “By the time we drop our stuff off, it will already be time to eat. Sophie and Dad are looking forward to celebrating your birthday. You wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

  “And after supper?” asked Oakley suspiciously. “Are you going to be home, or are you going to go out and spend time with your friends?”

  Beth could feel her shoulders tense up. There wasn’t anyone immediately around them anymore, but she still didn’t want to argue in public. “Sophie and Dad wanted some time to have you both to themselves, remember?”

  “That’s bullshit,” said Oakley.

  “You shouldn’t use—” said Beth.

  “You’re not my mother!” replied Oakley.

  Thank the heavens for small mercies. “No, but I do care about you, and I care what people think of you. When you swear like that, people make assumptions about you that aren’t true or very nice.”

  “You don’t care about me. You just care about your stupid allotment and your stupid friends and your stupid job.”

  Beth spoke softly in an attempt to get Oakley to lower the volume of his own voice. “The stupid job and the stupid allotment are what keeps real food on the table. I’m effectively working three jobs. So, no, I’m not going to have the same amount of time to spend with you as I used to. That’s just part of growing up. I’m afraid that you’re just going to have to get used to it.”

  “Why’s it always me that has to sacrifice?” asked Oakley.

  “We’re all sacrificing,” said Beth. “I can’t fix everything for you, but I’m doing my best.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Oakley. “You took us to a play because that’s what Calley wanted to do on her birthday. You didn’t care about what I wanted to do.”

  “I chose a play because you both told me you enjoyed the one the school took you to.”

  “But Calley liked it more. You like everyone more than me.”

  Beth was so tempted to ask Oakley what he’d done for her birthday. To remind him that relationships had to go both ways to mean anything. To suggest that Oakley consider his own behaviour before demanding other people like him. But she knew that would be cruel.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Beth said, “You know that’s not true, Oakley. I love you all.”

  “More bullshit. You love Peter more than you love either of us. And you know what makes that really funny? He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t even like you.”

  “Oakley—”

  “No, it’s true! I heard him bragging about it to that friend of his, Adrian. He said how you were begging him for work and he brushed you off with a really shitty job.”

  Beth breathed through her reaction. It hurt. She wasn’t going to pretend it didn’t. But people said things they didn’t really mean all the time. Especially when their pride was hurt. It was probably easier for Peter to pretend he hadn’t wanted to help her than to admit that he hadn’t had the power to.

  “Adrian was all about how Peter managed to get him this really nice cushy job but just let his sister hang out to dry. And then they called you a ho!”

  Beth was pretty sure that was in the context of ‘bros before hoes’, which wasn’t quite the same thing. Peter shouldn’t have been saying that either, but he would hardly be the first guy to try to sound badass to his friends.

  Still, it seemed uncharacteristic for him to say it while Oakley was listening. “Did they say this right in front of you?”

  “Yes!” said Oakley, then after a few seconds of Beth’s disbelieving look, admitted, “They didn’t know I was there.”

  “You were eavesdropping.”

  “I had to,” said Oakley. “They were talking about Steve.”

  “Steve… your classmate that almost got adopted? That Steve?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. Adrian was complaining about how that all fell through and he didn’t get the kickback he’d been counting on. I had to find out what was going on.”

  “And did you?” asked Beth.

  “No,” admitted Oakley.

  Pity. “Exactly. Because when you’re eavesdropping, you’re always going to get the wrong idea of what’s really going on. It was probably a completely different Steve. It’s not like that’s an uncommon name, is it? And you shouldn’t be repeating things you know people said in private, either. You know better than that.”

  Oakley opened his mouth again, but Beth stared him down until he surrendered.

  “Thank you,” said Beth. “Peter is an adult, and sometimes they say things they don’t mean, for all sorts of reasons. Peter and I love each other, and we both love you and Calley. Alright?”

  Oakley nodded sulkily.

  “Good.”

  Beth no longer had to crouch down to look Oakley in the eyes, but she did bend her knees to put them on the same level. She carefully put her hands on Oakley’s arms, ready to pull them away if Oakley showed resistance.

  “I’m sorry that you didn’t have the best day you could have. Next year, we’ll discuss it ahead of time so that both you and Calley get to spend time on things you want to do. Okay?”

  Oakley shrugged.

  “Do you think you can try to put that aside for now? I’m not saying you shouldn’t speak up if we accidentally hurt you. But I am saying that if you’re expecting the worst from everyone, then that’s all you’re going to notice. So, can you try to enjoy the rest of the day? For me?

  And stop cutting of your nose to spite your face, for heaven’s sake.

  Oakley shrugged again.

  “Can I get some words?” asked Beth.

  “You just don’t understand what it’s like to share a birthday,” he said, but much quieter. “It’s never just—"

  “Except,” interrupted Calley with scorn. “You know, for Uncle Alex.”

  Beth concealed her smirk. It was funny, but it wasn’t the same at all. Her fully grown uncle had never once tried to steal the spotlight from his baby niece. Beth hadn’t even thought to buy him a gift in return until she was eighteen.

  “Oh,” said Oakley. “Yeah. I forgot about him.”

  “Have you—heard from him and Aunt Mary?” asked Calley, tentatively.

  “Aunt Mary was still alright at Easter,” said Beth. “That’s the last time I heard from her, but her situation sounded stable. She’s probably okay.”

  Even The Book wasn’t any help. It didn’t mention her. In fact, now that she thought about it, it didn’t mention anything about the twins either, not after Beth’s ruralisation. The Book was very focused on Beth, but that almost felt like Beth had abandoned contact herself. Letters were still a thing, after all. Or perhaps it was her father that had forbidden contact, to conceal what he’d done?

  Beth shook the speculation off. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t going to happen.

  “And Uncle Alex?” asked Oakley, proving that he hadn’t taken anything on board about taking hints and not pushing for uncomfortable details.

  “Wait,” said Calley. “He was ill, wasn’t he? You didn’t want to join us on holiday because of that.”

  That wasn’t quite true. Beth hadn’t wanted any of them to go on holiday because of the rising surge of illness and threats of lockdowns. She hadn’t had any deep need to sit beside Uncle Alex’s bedside. Beth decided not to get into it.

  “He was an early case of the infection,” said Beth. “He passed away just before we came to Pines. I’m sorry, I thought Dad had told you both, but it must have become lost in that chaos.”

  “You mean they shot him,” said Oakley.

  “Yes,” said Beth, with matching black humour. “I do mean they shot him.”

  Before Oakley could open yet another uncomfortable conversation topic, she hustled them away and back home. Thankfully, Oakley seemed to have used up his teenage indignation for the day. They were very well-behaved during supper. Even when Beth returned that evening, the twins were happy and eager to show off their presents without being tactless enough to compare them to what Beth had given or the outing Beth had taken them on. Sophie had found a good balance – new shoes they desperately needed, but a level fancier than they had been led to expect. It was unfortunate that they were once again expected to be happy with identical gifts, but at least the shoes were something that Oakley was more interested in than Calley.

  Once Calley was ready for bed, Beth folded her legs to sit down on the covers next to her. “About what Oakley said today… you know that it’s not true right? I don’t love Peter more than I love you.”

  “I know,” said Calley, matter-of-factly.

  Beth said cautiously, “that’s good?”

  “Dad loves Peter more than he loves any of the rest of us. You just pretend you feel the same way when you’re trying to get something out of him.”

  Beth felt like her breath had been stolen. She opened her mouth to protest… something.

  That no, actually, Beth had been lying, and she did love Peter more than the twins? For the longest time, that was a secret truth Beth had thought but would never say. Peter was her real brother. They shared things with each other that they never would with the twins. Except she’d lived with the twins and not Peter for more years than the other way around. Except the twins were kids who needed her more than Peter. Except that Peter wasn’t showing much love for Beth.

  That Beth didn’t pretend when she argued with her father? She did. She knew she did. Peter was her trump card strategy more often than she herself thought was appropriate.

  That their father loved them all equally? She probably should have treated it the same way she’d treated Oakley’s accusation, with a gentle misdirection and a reassuring lie. But while it was cruel to let a child think they were loved less, it seemed even more cruel to tell Calley that she was delusional for noticing the truth.

  Calley continued, as if conferring a secret, “Oakley isn’t very good at nuance, you see.”

  ‘Good at nuance!’ Calley wasn’t wrong, but where on earth had she picked that up?

  “I love you,” said Beth, lacking anything else to say. “Oakley loves you. Sophie loves you.”

  “I know,” repeated Calley, in that same, almost disinterested, tone of voice.

  “I think you might be a little too good at nuance,” said Beth, as if it was a joke, and Calley giggled.

  But Beth was genuinely worried. Beth was only now, at twenty, starting to confront the mess that was her relationship with her father. For Calley to have to go through that same emotional agony at thirteen – well, fourteen now – was horrifying. Whatever difficulties Calley might be having, she wasn’t having them that night. Within five minutes, her breath had smoothed out into the slow sighs of sleep.

  The twins’ emotions were more important, but Beth still needed to consider the other things that Oakley had revealed. She hadn’t lied to Oakley. It was hard to imagine there was enough money in placing child workers to justify a kickback. It was even harder to imagine Peter joking about selling children. But she found that she just couldn’t dismiss it. Kickbacks were never a good word, after all. Beth realised she might be a little prejudiced against Adrian, thanks to what she’d learnt from Theo and his friends. But she didn’t care about Adrian. She cared about Peter. She was going to need to talk to him about what he knew and what he was doing to rehabilitate his image. This time she would yell at him through the window, if that’s what it took.

  Since she’d already used up favours for the twin’s birthday, the best she could manage was to pop in very shortly after five. The university entrances now had bored security guards, but she walked in with Theo and wasn’t stopped. She didn’t even have to decide whether she was being literal about the window thing – that was the most natural way to get to Peter’s office. She planned to use the knowledge of his presence to argue with the secretary. Except, perhaps inevitably, Peter genuinely wasn’t there. She wondered if he was already off, having taken an early day himself. She was reassured to notice that the window was left open to the late summer breeze.

  He was just out of the office. For a moment. Or maybe for an hour-long ‘if I can just grab you for a second’ meeting everyone in power insisted on having five minutes before the end of the day. Beth shifted from one leg to the other as she stared inside. There was no point asking to be let in now. Except she couldn’t just stand there in the middle of the courtyard like a lump. If nothing else, eventually someone was going to walk past her and ask her what she was doing.

  Beth eyed the half open window, then the empty square around her, and had reckless thoughts.

  If she waited inside Peter’s office, then he couldn’t turn her away when he got back. It wasn’t likely he’d go full detective mode to find out who had let her in. She edged between the pots of enthusiastic red geraniums and pulled up on the bottom edge of the window. It was a little stuck, but with some encouragement, it slid all the way up. Beth looked around again. No-one. Checked The Book. Nothing. Using the edge of the pots as a step, Beth was up and over and in the office. She lowered the window back to its original position. And there was half of the latch. Oops. She searched around and found the missing piece of wood and carefully placed it back into position so that it looked like it still functioned.

  Much better.

  She looked around Peter’s space, judging how he’d settled into it. It was nice, she supposed. Not much clutter, but not completely unlived in. Decently decorated with impersonal but pretty landscapes. Of all things, a bowl of fruit on the side-counter. A whole bowl of uneaten fruit, for one person. It even had a banana. Beth hadn’t eaten a banana in who knew how long. It was one of those conversation points – “sometime in the past, you ate your last banana, and it was so insignificant to you that you don’t even remember when it was.” Except there one was. A real banana. Either somewhere they’d kept a greenhouse heated all winter despite the rolling blackouts, or someone had prioritised a military plane to form part of a very long trade network. Beth couldn’t decide which she found more unlikely. Unless it was a fake. She carefully picked up the banana and smelled it. Yep. Real. She put it back, equally carefully. It felt like it would be some sort of crime to bruise it. She turned her back on it.

  The visitor’s chair was still the one she remembered from her previous visit. She decided to sit in the main chair instead, at least until Peter got back. It was his own fault for having that torture trap. Beth sat down and stared at the computer screen, complete with the little light showing it was powered on. The university grounds always had electricity.

  Beth had yet more reckless thoughts.

  It might be one way to be sure, wouldn’t it? Confirm that it was all nonsense before she even had to confront Peter about it. She’d have plenty of time to see him coming down the corridor and lock the computer back up again. He’d never know. She drummed her fingers on the keyboard. If Peter had finally stopped using that same, predictable password pattern, then she couldn’t snoop even if she wanted to. If she got the right password in two tries, then it was meant to be.

  She got it right on the first try.

  She had to give Peter credit. His files were all well organised and well labelled. A simple search, and she had every excel spreadsheet for children named Steve, Steven or Stephan open. From there it was easy to exclude the children that were too young or too old, and she was left with a single file. It wasn’t as informative as she’d hoped. She checked both the corridor and the courtyard. Still empty. Checked The Book. Still nothing.

  She started looking up all the obscure codes. Jackpot.

  PLCALLMC opened a document describing the official government policy on placing orphan children. It turned out that the government (the island-wide government, that was, not the town government Peter was part of) weren’t the utter bastards she’d mentally painted them as. They were offering a decent amount of support to any rural family – or family willing to become rural – that was willing to take in orphan children. They weren’t supposed to be unpaid labourers. Which was a good thing, objectively. But it also demolished her strongest argument. This could very easily be the source of Adrian’s kickback.

  Beth changed the flag on Steve’s file so it would show him as happy in his current situation rather than actively seeking a placement. Except… Would Steve himself even want her interference? Who was she to assume she knew better? She changed it again to undecided. At least that wouldn’t put him right at the top of the list. She knew this couldn’t be the end of things. It wouldn’t save Steve forever, and what about all those other children whose names she didn’t know? It wasn’t like they were less deserving of safeguarding.

  Beth checked the corridor and the courtyard again. Still no-one. Checked The Book. Still nothing. She held her breath in order to hear better. People in the building over, perhaps? Nothing and no-one closer.

  She leaned back in the chair. Now that she had confirmed it was a genuine possibility, she needed to figure out whether Peter knew, and if he was in a position to do anything about it. She couldn’t do much to find out what was being said in face-to-face meetings, but she knew from Theo that internal emails were still a thing. Would they just come out and have it in plain text? Time to see. She grabbed some paper to keep everything straight. After an hour, and the distracted realisation Peter wasn’t coming back, Beth had discovered all she could hope to. There was no smoking gun, but there was a very concerning picture starting to crystalise.

  Beth went into the corridor to make sure she was the only one on the floor. Then she set the printer to running. Just a few things that needed more scrutiny. A few of the official policies. Some contact lists. Some emails about how the initiative was going. And some unrelated things, because why not? It wasn’t like she cared about government privacy. That military supplied summary of all available skills would be extremely useful for the upcoming skill auction.

  She read back through her notes. The reason why the government wasn’t officially concerned about how the refugees were supposed to buy food and clothing was because they were already supposed to be getting them for free. Beth could see the amounts issued, under Adrian’s supervision. She didn’t have to double-check with the other refugees to know that it wasn’t getting delivered.

  No wonder Peter wouldn’t be able to authorise the additional scavenging. It would just raise red flags into why the refugees needed more than they were already getting.

  The printer shuddered to silence, and Beth scrubbed her face. She could spend forever here and still not find everything, but she had already found more than enough. It was stupid to stay past the point she could reasonably provide an excuse for her presence. She closed everything down and stored the papers into her dimensional space. She considered leaving through the window, but she wouldn’t be able to replace the latch. And if she got caught halfway, that would be impossible to explain. No, she judged. Brazenness was her safest option. She walked down the corridor, out the front door, and then straight through the closest gate. She waved casually at the guard who had no interest in challenging anyone leaving.

  It was odd, she realised as she walked home. She had come here suspecting to find government corruption, and she had more than done that. But she had also discovered that it was corruption. It wasn’t official. A disturbing amount of it looked like it could be isolated to the office of Adrian himself. There was the possibility that she could simply report him and that might actually work. But if she did, it would take Peter down at the same time. It wouldn’t matter if he knew about it or not. He was the one who was supposed to know. Peter was the official check, and he hadn’t been doing those checks.

  Beth would have to figure out what she was going to do with her new knowledge.