We Set the Dark on Fire

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  Carmen’s laughter came in a short burst. “You surprise me, Primera.”

  “What, you’ve never met a funny Primera?”

  “Once,” Carmen said. “But she wasn’t irreverent, too.”

  Dani bowed with a flourish. She felt loose and light, like she might float away. If she was actively working against her husband’s agenda but under suspicion of sympathizing by his awful mama, what was the use of being proper anymore?

  Dani had never felt more free.

  “One of a kind, then, I suppose,” she replied at last.

  “You certainly are,” Carmen said, and her eyes lingered.

  Dani didn’t look away, and the space Carmen had so deftly put between them suddenly felt like not enough and far, far too much. The strange intensity from the night of the party had returned, and Dani had to stop her eyes from wandering down. . . .

  “You know what?” Carmen dropped the last of the flowers into the vase. A perfect bouquet.

  “What?” Dani asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

  “Let’s have an adventure. Go somewhere fun. You up for it?”

  It was the word fun that caused Dani to pull back. It wasn’t the most hated word in the Primera lexicon, but it was close, and her reaction was instinctual, borne from years of conditioning against this very danger. “It’s probably not a good idea,” she said, though something bubbling and sun-bright inside her was urging her to say yes, and damn the consequences.

  “Come on!” Carmen pleaded, whirling around, not noticing the way her robe gaped at the thigh. “It would be irresponsible to let me go alone, wouldn’t it? All the way to the marketplace where who-knows-what is lying in wait?”

  Dani began to thaw.

  “It would be perfectly proper,” she said. “A Primera chaperone to make sure a flighty Segunda doesn’t run amok while their husband is away.”

  Her low, persuasive tone was quickly eroding Dani’s objections. She knew she was supposed to refuse, but at that moment she couldn’t for the life of her remember why.

  “We’ll stay inside the gate. Just for an hour,” Carmen promised. “Please, Dani?”

  The way she looked up through her lashes sealed it. She could have asked for anything.

  “People don’t say no to you, do they?” Dani finally replied, fighting the smile that threatened to stretch her pursed lips apart.

  “Not if they want to live.” Carmen threw Dani a mock sinister look before standing and slinging an arm around her shoulder. “Thank you, Primera,” she said. “You won’t regret it.”

  Overwhelmed by the closeness of her, the scent of her hair, Dani could only nod.

  Carmen dressed quickly—in the privacy of her closet, thankfully—and before Dani could think better of it, they were walking down the driveway in the blazing sun.

  “No car?” Dani asked, and Carmen laughed, skipping ahead, swinging her arms.

  “Walking is part of the experience,” she said. “Get on board!”

  “I’m on board,” Dani mumbled. That smile kept returning at the most inconvenient times.

  On the road to the complex’s plaza, Dani’s loose black dress was fitting for a chaperone, but Carmen flaunted curve-hugging, sky-blue silk, drawing stares of admiration and more as she passed. She ignored them all, humming and twirling and looking altogether oblivious to the effect she had on people.

  As the residents of the gated community stared, Dani imagined taking Carmen’s hand. Walking arm in arm. It was absurd, of course, this far inland. A fantasy.

  In Polvo, and other villages like it, there was the occasional couple that broke tradition, living woman with woman or man with man, and some who eschewed the confines of their gender altogether. Old men muttered about it being unnatural, uptight mothers gave those houses a wide berth when they walked to the wells with their children, but in a place where marriage was based on love and there were still gods in everything, people were mostly allowed to live in peace.

  Here, though, marriage was a business transaction. Wives were bought and paid for. Even if the bearded Sun God had ever condoned two women in love, or two men, it simply wasn’t good for business.

  Dani was forced to leave her musings behind as the pop-up marketplace came into view in the town square. It was nothing like the markets she had visited in her childhood—this one was more entertainment than function—but Dani found herself as breathless as she’d been in the capital. Intoxicated by the bustling feeling of people moving and living, of hearts beating in tandem. At the top of the plaza’s steps, a woman in a sweeping embroidered skirt played a painted guitar as if she had twelve fingers on her left hand alone. The notes drifted over the small crowd, adding a magic to the moment that wasn’t lost on Carmen.

  When she tossed her head back to laugh, spinning in circles to the rhythm, Dani found herself smiling, her dark thoughts drifting away. When she laughed, the sound was hesitant, but it felt good leaving her body. It left a weightlessness in its wake.

  She didn’t notice Carmen watching her until it was too late.

  “You should laugh more often,” said Carmen, almost shyly. “Happiness suits you.” Her eyes lingered a moment, and Dani’s cheeks bloomed with a warmth that was becoming all too familiar. Maybe it was a fantasy, but today, she didn’t care that they had no future. She just wanted to live in this moment for a little longer, where she and Carmen could lock eyes and share a blush. Where every note of every song had meaning and the very air was electric.

  “Come on,” Carmen said at last, breaking eye contact, dispelling the worst of the tension. “Let’s shop.”

  She took Dani’s hand in hers, and though she knew she should, Dani didn’t protest. Carmen had long fingers and a strong grip, and Dani let herself be propelled by Carmen’s energy. This force-of-nature girl who was on a mission to see and touch everything in her path.

  Carmen trailed the fingertips of her free hand along wide turquoise disks hanging from braided leather bands; she scooped a handful of tiny, glittering obsidian beads from an open cloth sack and let them fall back one by one, clicking against one another. In the next booth, she pulled at the corner of a woven blanket, rubbing it first across her own cheek and then Dani’s.

  “Isn’t this the softest thing you’ve ever felt?” she asked, her eyes bright.

  But with Carmen’s hand still in hers, she found she couldn’t agree.

  Carmen dropped Dani’s hand then, needing both of her own to lift a giant polished horn and peer inside. The old man running the booth only smiled when Dani looked at him in alarm. No one could say no to Carmen.

  “I’m starving,” she exclaimed when she’d returned the horn. “Come on!” and she bumped Dani’s hip with her own before darting off toward a row of tiny food stands, mouthwatering smells mingling in the air before them.

  From a green-and-gold-striped tent, Carmen ordered for both of them. White, flaky fish grilled with citrus and herbs, a heap of scarlet pickled onions, a stack of little flour tortillas like clouds.

  They sat at a tiny table in the middle of the commotion, and their food came with paper cups of white wine that tasted like a sunbeam. Caught up in the day, Dani shed her Primera propriety and groaned with her first bite. Carmen stared, and Dani tried unsuccessfully not to stare back.

  Things grew quieter for a moment, as they ate and sipped and caught each other looking. A small but brilliant flame was catching in Dani’s chest, and she felt the presence of the heart goddess again, turning the air warm and the sunlight liquid.

  Was it possible that she wasn’t the only one feeling the terrifying things she was feeling?

  And what did it mean if Carmen felt them, too?

  She was cruel to you in school, said the increasingly desperate voice of the maestra in her head. But the accusation floated away. It was old news, and Dani understood what desperation felt like. She couldn’t blame Carmen for surviving. Hadn’t she done things she never expected to do for the very same reason?

  It’s against t
he rules!

  What about Mateo?

  Sota?

  Your parents?

  But none of them were here, and Dani was, and her skin was alive like it had never been, her heart thudding too hard in a way that wasn’t quite unpleasant. When Carmen’s plate and cup were empty, it was Dani’s turn to say, “Come on.”

  She walked away from the crowd, ignoring a knot of people gathering for some midday attraction nearby. She sensed, rather than saw, that Carmen had stayed close. They followed a winding walking trail until they could hear the chattering of a creek, fed by the freshwater spring that kept this part of the island green, so different from the salt-bleached landscape where Dani had cut her teeth.

  Where Carmen had cut hers.

  Where was this boldness coming from? Dani wondered as she left the trail, pushing into the trees until she could see the plate-sized pools with their glinting silver fish.

  She stopped.

  Carmen stopped.

  There were gods everywhere here, and Dani knew without a doubt that whether or not her feelings were lawful, they weren’t wrong. Nothing that felt like this could be. She was working up the courage to turn and face Carmen when she felt a soft hand on her wrist, the pressure fainter than before.

  It gave her the bravery she needed.

  The enthusiasm Carmen had been buzzing with all day wasn’t gone, but it was quieter somehow. Softer. She didn’t let go of Dani, just slid her hand down until their fingers tangled between them.

  “Dani,” Carmen said, and the way she said it made Dani sure.

  “Yes,” she answered in a whisper. “Yes.”

  Carmen’s answering smile could have rivaled the moon that had blessed her for brightness.

  Dani stepped closer, her flat shoes whispering through the vines at their feet until there was less than an inch between them. The silk of Carmen’s dress brushed her bare knee, and she shivered.

  “Cold?” Carmen asked, her breath against Dani’s face. She could only shake her head in response. “Is this okay?” Her nose grazed Dani’s, her lips not far behind.

  “Yes,” Dani said again, breath sending strands of Carmen’s hair dancing.

  “How about this?” she asked, sliding her thumb along Dani’s cheekbone.

  “Mhm.” Dani closed her eyes against the feeling. But there were things she wanted to feel, too. Things she’d been dreaming of feeling for weeks.

  Hesitantly, she lifted the hand that wasn’t holding Carmen’s and slid it into her hair. “Okay?” she asked, and Carmen sighed a contented little sigh.

  “Yes.”

  Dani thought of the day she’d found Carmen in the bushes, untangling of the twig from the back of her curls as Hermanito the caterpillar crawled across their palms. She’d thought Carmen’s hair seemed alive that day, but she hadn’t known anything then.

  Carmen’s hair had a pulse. A weight. A magic to it that made Dani feel like her bloodstream was full of tiny bubbles. Carmen had traced Dani’s cheekbone and was now running a hand down her neck, leaving goose bumps in the wake of her fingers.

  Their eyes locked, their breathing synced and heavy, their pupils blown wide as they took each other in, unhurried for the first time.

  “Okay?” they asked together, then laughed. But they didn’t stop.

  Carmen sighed. Dani brushed her hair off her forehead. Their noses bumped, corrected, and passed like ships in a channel, making just enough room.

  Dani’s heartbeat was like gunfire, she thought through a dreamy haze, but when Carmen screamed and dropped to the ground, she realized:

  It hadn’t been her heart at all.

  It had been actual gunfire.

  “Dani, get down,” Carmen said, pulling at Dani’s hand until she was on her knees beside her, suddenly breathless for another reason.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Carmen said, a shadow passing over her eyes.

  The stones. Mateo’s trip.

  This was La Voz, Dani realized, and she had drawn them here.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said, standing up and pulling Carmen with her. “This place is about to be crawling with officers and we’re not . . . exactly . . .” She gestured helplessly at the scene they’d painted. Scandal scented the air for a mile around them.

  “Right, okay.” Carmen let go of Dani’s hand and shook her head like there was a fly buzzing around it. “How?”

  “If we get back on the path, we can take it away from the marketplace and back up the road to the house,” Dani said, already moving, but Carmen didn’t follow. “Come on!” Dani said, impatient now. “They’ll be combing this whole area any minute!”

  “I don’t think we should run,” Carmen said, quiet but fierce.

  “What. Are. You. Talking about?”

  She stepped closer, scattering Dani’s concentration again. “Think about it. You know what it’s like at the border, even on the right side. People are dying. Starving. Even here, they’re being dragged out of parties and arrested. We’ve gotten close to talking about it, haven’t we? Saying what a pity it is? But let’s be honest here, Dani, we both know who’s out there. If we care even a little . . . shouldn’t we be brave enough to witness it?”

  Dani’s mouth was hanging open, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had seen hints of this. Wondered. Even hoped. But here was the proof, right in front of her. Carmen understood, and Dani had never wanted to kiss her more.

  “I know we can’t help,” Carmen said, taking Dani’s silence for disagreement. “Not without going to prison. But can’t we at least be there? Can’t we do that much?”

  There was no time for kissing now. Not the way Dani wanted to do it. So she stepped forward and hugged Carmen fiercely. Just for a moment. “Of course we can,” she said into her hair.

  They held hands all the way back up the path to the marketplace, walking too close, shoulders and hips bumping with every step.

  They didn’t let go until the first uniform backs came into view.

  15

  A Primera with strong principles, iron-clad restraint, and a thirst for knowledge will never be led astray.

  —Medio School for Girls Handbook, 14th edition

  THE SCENE IN THE MARKETPLACE had gone from casual to chaos.

  Merchants ducked behind their stalls, and a crowd had congregated at the top of the road that led back to the residences, blocked from returning home by the demonstration.

  The gunfire had ceased for the moment, and Dani battled her way through a crowd trying desperately to move away from the source of the commotion. Carmen stayed close—but not too close—behind her, and the occasional brush of her hand against Dani’s made her feel brave.

  Military officers had arrived, clogging the street, guns at their shoulders; their boots stomped in a way that made Dani’s knees unsteady. But unlike the inspections of her childhood, or the riot at school before graduation, this time there was something bigger than Dani’s fear.

  “There they are,” Carmen said, speaking softly into Dani’s ear so she wouldn’t be heard. How, in the midst of a revolution, could she still change the focus of every cell in Dani’s body with a whisper?

  Up ahead, through a tangle of gun barrels and toppled tents and endless limbs, they could just make out the protesters. Dani saw Sota first, his angular face proud, his chin jutting upward. Beside him was the wolf-eyed girl from the marketplace. They were two of at least twenty. Around their waists, chains glinted in the afternoon sun.

  For one panicked second, Dani thought they had been arrested. That they were chained together as some sort of spectacle, to be made an example of. The thought of watching Sota die, watching any of them die, wrenched at something that had just been born in her chest. She stepped forward without thinking of the consequences.

  Carmen caught her before she could make it far. “They’re okay,” she said. “Look.”

  She was right. In addition to the chains, they were all hol
ding hands. Blocking the road to the government buildings and the elite residences. They were forming a human obstruction, forcing the people in the market to bear witness to their pain.

  “Come with us peacefully, or you will be arrested for treason,” came a booming voice from behind them. The officers of Medio’s military didn’t need amplification—they were trained to be heard.

  “We are the voice of the voiceless,” said the protesters as one. No one moved a muscle.

  “Do not force us to make this a confrontation,” said the officer’s voice. “If you agree to return to the outer island without violence, you will be treated with mercy.”

  At the center of the human chain, one of the women got to her feet. “The violence has already begun,” she said, in a calm, clear voice that didn’t need to rise to be heard. Dani thought she could feel it echoing inside her chest, alongside her heart. “The violence is committed every day you defend that wall and let citizens of Medio starve.”

  Beside her, a bearded man stood, and the woman pressed her palm to his before returning to her seat. “We protest for lack of shelter. We protest for lack of medical care. We protest because our children are hungry, and you, with all this excess, would rather kill them than feed them.”

  Tears sprang to Dani’s eyes, and around her, the crowd was quieting, turning to listen.

  The man turned to the wolf-eyed girl, her black hair glinting in the midday sun. She looked so fierce, so brave. Dani felt Carmen straighten her shoulders, saw her lift her chin.

  “This violence has been fifteen years in the making,” she said, forcing the crowd to grow softer to hear her.

  They did.

  “The government claims the wall exists to keep you safe from the threat beyond it, but ask yourselves: When has there ever been true protest without injustice? Who really cast the first stone? Who is attacking, and who is bleeding?”

  When she turned to Sota, she pressed both palms to his and bowed her head before taking her seat amid the clinking of chains.

  “Your newspapers paint us as criminals,” he said, and though the sun was in his eyes, Dani felt as though he was looking right at her. “And how easy it is for them to judge. With two beautiful wives for every undeserving husband. With enough fresh food that it goes bad before they can eat it all. With doctors and hospitals and shoes with soles. With healthy children that are allowed to grow thick before they grow tall.”