We Set the Dark on Fire

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  There was a hush inside that Dani had never found anywhere else in the house. Everything about this room screamed that she didn’t belong. This kind of quiet seemed to say that important decisions would be made in this room. That the walls trusted the man they bore witness to, to be just, and fair, and to do what was right.

  Dani shook herself slightly, dispelling her flight of fancy. Whatever these walls had seen of the man she married, she doubted it had been justice. Maybe he knew he could never be the kind of leader a room like this deserved, Dani thought as she stepped toward the desk. Maybe that was why he was so cruel.

  The desk was the most likely place to find a schedule, and so Dani started there. The first few drawers opened easily, noiselessly, almost welcoming her to peruse their contents. But there was little in these drawers besides blank paper and pens. Dani’s own desk had more secrets to offer than this one.

  The seconds ticked by, and though Mateo wasn’t due back until after dinner, Dani found her heart racing along with them. She forced her hands to stay steady. To replace every item exactly where she had found it.

  She was about to give up when she noticed a panel on the back of the desk that was slightly less polished than the rest of its gleaming parts. She crawled underneath and pressed, jumping back when it sprang out at her touch.

  This was where he would keep the things he didn’t want seen, she thought as she slid the panel aside to reveal a cabinet with a shiny brass lock. It didn’t give when she tried to slide it aside. She should have known better than to think it would be that easy.

  She returned to one of the unlocked drawers for a letter opener, thankful for Berto, her neighbor’s son in Polvo who had taught her to pick locks on a lazy summer day. Her mama had chased them around the dirt yard with one of her woven sandals for an hour when she discovered what they were doing, Dani remembered, smiling despite the circumstances.

  The sharp point of the tool slid easily into the lock, and Dani let her memories melt away as she focused on the lock’s mechanism, closing her eyes like he had taught her, barely moving until she could sense all its parts, probing for the little catch that would let her inside.

  “Yes!” she whispered when it finally swung open, the word swallowed by the luxurious room. Inside the cabinet were leather-bound notebooks, loose sheets of paper, ledgers—all the things that had been missing from the unlocked drawers.

  But Dani had been in this office too long, and there was so much to look through. Her heart picked up speed as she rifled carefully through papers and folders, looking for anything promising, anything that could tell her what Sota needed to know.

  Calm down, she told the hairs standing up on her arms, the goose bumps warning her that something was wrong. He won’t be back until after dinner, and no one else is allowed in this room. She was safe. She just had to be careful.

  In one folder was a stack of letters with Medio’s official seal at the top, and Dani slid it carefully out, opening it in her lap, skimming the contents until something caught her eye.

  It was a letter from the desk of Medio’s president, signed in bold strokes by his own hand. An invitation to accompany him on a tour of the south segment of the border wall to “assess failings in border security in light of recent events.”

  Sota had told her this much. Protests after the death of a man attempting to cross the wall. Government property damaged or destroyed. Apparently, the men in uniform with guns and the towering border wall weren’t enough anymore. Dani shuddered to think what would come next.

  The date was clearly printed midway down the page. Two days away. Dani had barely made it. It was time to get back to her room, where Sota’s bag of stones was waiting beneath her mattress with the cards he’d left her.

  Her task finally accomplished, she felt lighter than she had in a week as she carefully returned the letter and closed the cabinet door. But before she could take the letter opener to the lock again, she heard it. Footsteps. Loud ones. Coming down the hall.

  Dani could feel her heart beating in every vein, her hands shaking as she tried to lock the cabinet door again. But the footsteps were getting closer. Maybe it was just a member of the staff, she thought frantically, as the opener failed again and again to find the catch. Maybe the footsteps would continue on past. . . .

  But deep down, she knew better. The only person who could be so unaware of the racket he was making in the hallway, at this hour, was her husband. No servant would ever dare to walk so loudly.

  Finally, Dani gave up, replacing the panel over the still-unlocked secret door, setting the letter opener back into its drawer. It was too late to worry about locks. She had to get out of here.

  It was much too late to leave through the door, but she darted to the window, which was open to tempt the evening breeze. The drop was dizzying. Two stories onto the flagged stone driveway, with nothing to cling to on the way down and nothing to break her fall.

  Dani swore under her breath. She’d survive the drop, but walking away from it was far less likely, and then where would she be? There were no gods who could keep her bones safe from an impact like that.

  The bookshelves were mounted, all but the small one in the corner, and Dani wasn’t sure she’d be able to fit in the space behind it, even narrow as she was.

  She was running out of options. The footsteps had stopped in front of the door.

  The only other feature in the room was the gleaming bar cart, with bottles of liquor and intimate glass settings. Dani thought of hiding behind it, waiting him out, but the doorknob was turning and she closed her eyes instead, throwing herself into her least believable persona yet, and the one she most needed him to swallow whole.

  The doors opened slowly, the hand on them unhurried or weary. Dani fastened on her mask with iron hooks, and turned to face her husband half in shadow.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous as he walked toward her.

  “I know I shouldn’t have come,” Dani said with a small quaver in her voice that she didn’t entirely have to fake. “But I feel like I’ve upset you lately, and I wanted to explain.” She looked into his eyes, hard and suspicious, and despite the screaming of adrenaline through her veins, she held them. “I didn’t think it would be appropriate to wait in your bedroom, and you seemed upset when I spoke to you at dinner and . . .”

  “You’re here now,” he said, his vowels a little too long, his consonants sloppy. “Spit it out.”

  He was drunk. The closer he moved to her the more obvious it was. His movements were strange and loose, and his eyes focused on her face, unfocused, then focused again. It was subtle, but it was there, and Dani could use it.

  “I just . . . get so nervous,” she said, breathing around the words, like a weight was being taken from her in the saying of them. She took a step toward him on feet that longed to flee instead. “So desperate to prove I can be useful to you, give you another perspective like my maestras said I should.”

  Mateo had stopped moving forward, and was she imagining it? Or had one corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk? “Go on,” he said.

  “You know that I come from a very different background than you,” she said, and it felt like a confession, even though he knew exactly where her papers said she was from. “I was worried I’d be behind, without the experience that you, and even Carmen, have with this world. I’m alone here without you on my side, Mateo, and no one knows more about navigating these waters than you do. I just want to do what you do. I want to be as good as you are.”

  Mateo smiled, baring his teeth. A predator displaying dominance. “Well, I’m not sure that’s possible,” he said. “But I applaud the effort.”

  Dani’s blood boiled at the readiness with which he accepted the flattery. The bald-faced lies that were her only path out of this room alive.

  “I feel like I started all wrong,” she said, her voice even smaller now. “Asked too many questions. Pushed too hard. I just want you to know I’m willing to e
arn my place in your confidence. I’m willing to learn from you.”

  “Let’s have a drink,” he said, a challenge in his eyes that told her she’d better accept.

  I want to punch you in your smug face, she thought. “I’d love that,” she said instead.

  Mateo walked to the bar cart Dani had so recently considered hiding behind, and he poured two heavy tumblers with a clear liquid that smelled like an open flame when she breathed it in.

  “What is it?” she asked, a wrinkle in her nose.

  “What is it!” Mateo repeated. “Daniela, you haven’t lived.” He leaned over his glass, taking a deep breath in, gesturing for her to do the same.

  She coughed, recognizing the scent at last. It had wafted off enough of her neighbors growing up. Sad-eyed men who walked miles through the dust to forget their troubles. Dani’s father had staunchly refused to keep anything stronger than the customary sangria in the house.

  Mateo laughed, a fake, booming thing that made the glasses clink on the cart. “Okay, now a sip, just a small one, and swish it around your mouth.” He demonstrated, closing his eyes and moaning in a way that made Dani’s stomach turn.

  But she had gotten herself this far. If drinking liquor would keep her secret safe, what choice did she have? Even her father couldn’t begrudge her this, she thought as she took a mouthful. But before she could swish, she choked, barely managing to get it down, coming up with streaming eyes.

  The taste had been bundles of herbs aflame, the smoke seeping into her mouth and nose until she felt she’d caught fire, too.

  “That’s it!” Mateo practically shouted. “I can’t believe this is your first. Although I suppose women don’t often appreciate the finer things in life, do they? Not like men do, anyway.”

  The heat from the liquor spread, her anger not far behind. She took another sip just for something to do, and this time her mouth was ready for it. This time the liquor tasted like home. The spiny plants her mother grew out back for all sorts of purposes, the salt in the air, the smoke of a bonfire when someone had something to celebrate nearby.

  This time, the tears filling Dani’s eyes weren’t just from the burn.

  “I swear I’d be glad to see the whole outer island go up in flames if it weren’t for this stuff,” Mateo was saying, half his glass already gone, the slurring more pronounced. “I’ve tried to have it distilled inland, but it’s just not the same.”

  “They make this beyond the wall?” Dani asked, trying to pass off this falling feeling as mild curiosity.

  “Near the wall,” Mateo corrected her. “We buy it from the right side, of course. Importing from over the wall is illegal.” He winked. Dani wanted to toss her liquor in his face. She’d seen him evasive and condescending, but she’d never seen him like this.

  She took another mouthful, saying silent thanks to the people who had been growing and cutting and mashing and fermenting for centuries, only to have their humanity insulted by the people enjoying the fruits of their labor.

  This time, the anger didn’t cool.

  “I have to say,” said Mateo, draining the rest of his glass, “I was surprised to see you tonight. And I’m glad to hear you’re committed to emulating those who excel in this world. One thing that school is rather lax on, in my opinion, is respect for one’s betters.”

  The pleasant buzz of alcohol was the only thing that kept her from committing an act of physical violence. It was like the smoke had enveloped her, whispering with the voices of home that she should stay safe. Save her retaliation for when it would do more than doom her.

  “You’ll do what I ask you to do,” Mateo was saying now, his eyes tracing her jaw, her collarbone. She wanted to crawl out of her skin. “You’ll know what I deem you worthy of knowing. If someone asks a question in public you don’t know the answer to, you’ll play dumb. It’ll hardly be a stretch.”

  The heat was everywhere now. She thought of the betrayal she would commit the moment she left this room, and this time she felt proud.

  “For now, you’ll tell the plebeians where to put my newspapers and you’ll answer my invitations and you’ll rest assured that my father and I are doing everything we can to stop the cursed trash on the fringes of this country from destroying us all.” He smiled a little, as if proud of his answer.

  “Yes, señor,” Dani said, and her voice was small and still, even while an inferno raged in her chest.

  Mateo was quiet for a while, and Dani drank, and she thought of stones, and protests, and Sota. She thought of her neighbors and friends at the border and the way he had just reduced them to nothing.

  “The older generation may be afraid to send a message,” Mateo said after a long moment, drawing Dani from her heat-crazed thoughts. “But I’m not. It’s about bringing this country into an era that utilizes its full potential. No more softness. No more forgiveness.” There was a faraway look in his eyes now, like he was seeing a future only he could bring to bear.

  Did he even remember she was there? He seemed like he was continuing another conversation. One she hadn’t been a part of. She hardly dared to breathe.

  “If it takes extreme measures,” he said, his eyes still unfocused and dreamy, “so be it. There’s no room for disobedience in the future I’m planning. And if they fear us for a little while, they will obey for generations.”

  “Like animals . . . ,” Dani said, almost without meaning to. She steeled herself for his anger, but he smiled instead, draining his drink and setting it on the table with a clunk.

  “Now you’re starting to understand.”

  “You know,” said Dani, rapidly forgetting the importance of survival, “I think I’ll head to bed. I’m feeling a little light-headed.”

  “Not so fast,” Mateo said, filling his glass again, a little slopping over the side. He leaned forward and filled Dani’s as well, not bothering to ask permission. He drank deeply before continuing. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you disobeyed me by coming here.”

  “No, señor,” Dani said, sipping again when he stared pointedly at her glass.

  “I’m not an unreasonable man, Daniela,” he said, leaning so close that she could smell the liquor on his breath. “But I do expect something from you. . . .”

  This time, it was as if a thousand spiders were crawling across her flesh. It was all Dani could do not to pull away in revulsion.

  “Do you know what it is?” he asked, moving closer still. Dani’s mind jumped, inexplicably, to Carmen. How often had she been close to him like this? Had she enjoyed it? Or had she held still and borne it like Dani was doing now?

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself, forcing her awareness back into the moment, where Mateo’s eyes were glittering in the lamplight, his thin lips stretched around a smirk, like he could taste her fear, and he was savoring it.

  “N-no, señor,” she said.

  “Obedience,” he whispered, snakelike. “Complete obedience. Is that clear?”

  His long, pale fingers were on her chair arm now, just inches from her hand. She didn’t move. She met his eyes and hoped that a little of her anger showed. Enough to keep her safe.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice small in a way she hated.

  He moved closer one last time, his body taking up too much space, his mouth taking in too much of her air. Dani felt light-headed as he lifted a finger and grazed her cheek.

  “Good,” he said, and she could taste the word. His sour breath. The liquor’s flame. She could taste everything that would come next if he decided to ignore the rules.

  The moment stretched, the fear coiling in Dani’s belly as he pinned her in place with his beetle-black eyes. Then his mouth curled into a smirk, and she felt them balanced on a knife’s edge, about to fall off one side or another.

  “Get out of my office,” he said, choosing at last. “And don’t you dare come back.”

  Dani didn’t have to be told twice. She stood on unsteady legs and walked as quickly as she could to the door, stumbling a little o
n the edge of the carpet. The last thing she heard before the door closed behind her was the clinking of glass on glass, and the sound of Mateo’s laughter.

  When she stepped into the dark silence of her own room, the sliver moon barely making shadows on the floor, Dani felt her hands begin to shake. She closed the door behind her, locking it even though she knew it was futile. There’s no way he would allow her to have a room he couldn’t access.

  The shaking spread as she sat on the edge of her bed, unable to stop herself from allowing every fear she’d shut out in his presence from surfacing, clawing up her throat, stealing her breath. He could have had her arrested. He could have had her killed. But all she could think about now was the way he’d come too close, the way he’d used his body and the authority its strength gave him to make her comply.

  With that thought, anger replaced her fear. How dare he? With all the authority he already had, to use something so much more sinister to control her? She had wondered if Sota was exaggerating, trying to win her loyalty, but at that moment she didn’t care what he had said. She only cared about what she had seen, what she had felt.

  Dani pulled the stones from their hiding place and weighed the bag in her hand. Mateo thought she was powerless. That he could reduce her to a trembling victim with some harsh words and the scent of his breath on her face.

  But she wasn’t powerless. And if she played her cards right, she would never have to be again.

  Her parents had dreamed of a better life, but they had never sat across from Mateo Garcia and seen the cruelty in his eyes. What would they say if they knew staying safe meant putting a man like that in power? Sitting by while he destroyed lives and oppressed people just because he could?

  Walking toward the window, Dani let two stones fall into her palm and peered into the dark, tropical garden outside. When she placed the first stone with a satisfying click, Dani thought of the towns like Polvo, being burned to the ground because of “suspicious activity.” She thought of the people shot at the wall, deemed criminals because desperation forced them to cross a border they hadn’t built or consented to. She thought of the children, sent back to starve for being born on the wrong side of that line, or forced—like her—to live with lies and ghosts trailing them all their lives.