We Set the Dark on Fire

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

  As they read section three in silence—about the supervision of housekeepers, and Mateo’s preferences for everything from food to lighting to temperature—the tree-lined drive opened up into residential streets.

  It was mostly widowed wives down here, the ones too old to be placed again when their husbands died. Some of them chose to remain together in old age, Primera and Segunda, already so used to living together that they decided not to part.

  Looking at Carmen, her haughty expression unchanged by the mountain of work awaiting her when they arrived home, Dani couldn’t imagine she’d make the same choice.

  Item four, she read. Señor Mateo requires a glass of room-temperature sangria be placed on the end table nearest his favorite chair up to, but no more than, twelve minutes before his arrival home.

  Was this going to be her marriage? Catering to the whims of a spoiled boy? Dani had pictured something slightly . . . grander. Then again, she reminded herself, this was only section three of the manual. Maybe the rest would be more satisfying.

  Item seven: All of Mateo’s personal correspondence must be placed on the northeast corner of the hall table. This task should not be entrusted to staff members but performed by the Primera of the house herself.

  The tasks grew only more tedious and minute as the list wore on. In school, they had learned that a Primera would be her husband’s equal, standing beside him, learning what he knew and sharing his power, but this handbook had her relegated to little more than an assistant. Scheduling social events, responding to invitations, placing Mateo’s mail on the hallway table? This wasn’t what she’d been trained for.

  To dampen her rising irritation, Dani let her gaze drift out the window, where Medio’s capital city was just coming into view.

  She had spent so long in the quiet, sterile environment of the Medio School for Girls that she’d almost forgotten what the bustle of a city was like. Of course, the small city nearest Polvo was nothing compared to the capital, but Dani found herself nostalgic all the same.

  The noise. The narrow alleyways between red-and-white stucco buildings. The overcrowded marketplaces, with their bulging baskets of produce and spices and fabrics in every color under the sun.

  Street musicians gathered on every other corner, little girls in bright skirts spinning in front of them until they were breathless.

  As the tightly sealed car maneuvered the hairpin turns, Dani inhaled deeply, like she could smell the grilling meat and open casks of sun-wine over the pervasive salt sea air. Everything in Medio moved upward, from the sea at the island’s outer perimeter to the mountain in the center where the capital stood sentry, fed by the freshwater spring that made the lowlands’ salt seem vulgar by comparison.

  But even though the upper class might try to deny it, claim it was a curse by a vengeful god, this was an island. No matter how far up or in you went, you could always feel the beating heart of the sea.

  The streets opened up again, less markets and food stands and more residential buildings. Between them, laundry hung like the flags of warring nations, and old ladies with wrinkled brown faces and flyaway white curls bickered through open windows over their imagined borders. A drumbeat started, audible even through the thick glass of the car’s tinted windows. This was a place where you could trade limes for gold bracelets and old names for new ones. A place where you could disappear like smoke.

  A place where you could stay and be anyone.

  Dani looked between Carmen and Mama Garcia, then next to her at Mateo’s stern-faced señora. Surely they weren’t immune to the magic of this city?

  “I assume you’ve already familiarized yourself with your list of duties?” Señora Garcia asked. “Given that you’ve taken to gaping out the window like an oversized fish.”

  Dani’s face was as smooth and impassive as ever, her Primera mask in place. But maybe it would take more than a mask to impress one of the country’s top Primeras.

  “Yes, Señora,” Dani said. “Of course.”

  “Then you won’t mind telling me the protocol for the preparation of Mateo’s bedchamber when he’s been away from home overnight.”

  It was a trick question. Preparing the bedchamber was a Segunda’s job. But it was on the list, and Dani was nothing if not thorough. She met the señora’s eyes as she said:

  “The bedding is to be washed and changed by the housekeepers under the supervision of the Segunda, who will then check it over thoroughly to ensure that the sheets are wrinkle free, his awards from the Medio School for Boys are polished, and his mirror is free of spots and dust.”

  Señora Garcia unpursed her lips for what seemed like the first time. “Well, it seems your reading comprehension and memory are up to snuff, at least.”

  Dani nodded deferentially, but inside she glowed. This might not be her dream, but she had learned the satisfaction of being exemplary. Because of the nature of their roles, Dani and the elder señora would spend little time alone together after this first week, but she would be the last of Dani’s official teachers, and she found herself still eager to make a good impression.

  Maybe it was the whisper of her own mama still stirring in her heart, Dani thought, that made her want to make this woman proud. But when she glanced up again, it was only to notice that Señora Agosta Garcia, with her stern face and her fastidious appearance, was as unlike Dani’s mama as one woman could be from another.

  As they left the city behind, Carmen studied her nails in that bored way of hers. Mama Garcia dozed beside her like a cat in a patch of sun. As for the señora, her eyes were a million miles away; she was probably thinking hard about the exact way Mateo liked his book spines dusted.

  Item fourteen: Under no circumstances should the Primera, the Segunda, or house staff be permitted inside Señor Mateo’s private office.

  This one caught Dani’s attention. Maybe she wouldn’t be the only one with a secret in the new Garcia household. But item fifteen was about the type of dessert Mateo liked if he was arriving home on a weeknight, and Dani sighed, a small and quiet thing, puncturing her breathless awe until it shrank in her chest.

  The car began to climb, leaving the crowds behind, and this time it didn’t dip down again. They were headed for the government complex, the exclusive, gated community where all of Medio’s most influential and powerful people lived, like priceless jewels at the island’s throat. As far from the sea and its salt-barren ground as you could get. As far as you could get from the desperation of people dependent on the tides and whims of those in power.

  It had been a long time since they’d had anything to be thankful for out there. Since the Salt God denounced his brother’s second marriage, according to some, but Dani wondered sometimes if that was just an excuse.

  In the rear window, the sea was visible at last—a shimmering horizon line. From up here, you couldn’t see that people were starving. Couldn’t see the ancient wall with the armed sentries stationed along it. Couldn’t see the mothers’ hands reaching, begging for a scrap of something to give their children as armored trucks rolled through the gate with just enough food to keep most of their families alive and hungry.

  From here, it was almost like quivering-chinned teens weren’t probing for a place to sneak their younger siblings across, just hoping not to be gunned down or sent back. Like big men with knives and a little scraped-together power weren’t taking more than their fair share, ganging up on the already downtrodden until they were forced to do something desperate and dangerous just to survive.

  Suddenly, the false papers were heavy as stones in Dani’s bag. She could try all she wanted to pretend she belonged in this car. In this life. But as long as she could see that horizon line, she would never forget where she had come from.

  The gates of the government complex loomed ahead, and Dani found herself suspended between two worlds. The sea and the gate. The past and the future. But before she could deal with either of them, she would have to get through the checkpoint.

  “Ay, I hate the
se things,” said Mama Garcia as the intimidating iron gate became visible up ahead. “It’s just a constant hassle for busy people. Who’s really going to try to sneak in up here, huh? It’s not like we don’t know a criminal when we see one.”

  Her face was the picture of disdain, and inappropriate as it was, Dani fought the urge to laugh at the unbelievable irony.

  Mama Garcia thought she should be able to tell. Like they all had scarlet marks on their foreheads to brand them. Like they were so decidedly other that even a glance at one would reveal them for what they truly were.

  Ignoring the older Segunda’s ranting, Señora Garcia instructed them all to take out their papers.

  Dani swallowed once, hard, as the others dug through their shoulder bags. It was time to hope Sota had earned his cocky attitude.

  Her life depended on it, after all.

  5

  A true Primera can turn her heart to steel, and her face to stone.

  —Medio School for Girls Handbook, 14th edition

  AFTER A CHILDHOOD IN POLVO, beneath the shadow of the border wall, Dani thought she might never get used to the deference the police showed the wealthy.

  Her papers securely in her lap, she watched as officers approached the glossy cars ahead with smiles, even laughter. A far cry from the scowling menaces who had made their way through Polvo once a week, scattering chickens, terrifying children and adults alike as they searched for stolen merchandise, punished families for “hoarding” food, and looked for people to send back over the wall.

  Dani couldn’t remember ever feeling as small as she had on inspection days, and that had been their goal. To intimidate. To punish. Simply because she and her neighbors had been born with less.

  But she wasn’t the same person she’d been then, Dani reminded herself. She had spent five years in the company of the country’s wealthiest daughters, learning their ways, becoming a Primera worthy of the Garcia family. That, along with her training, could be used to her advantage.

  “Good morning, ladies,” said a young officer when they reached the front of the line. Mama Garcia waited until the last possible moment to roll down the window, as if the air outside held something contagious. “We’re so sorry for the interruption. With the influx of new faces around graduation time, we need to make sure we’re not letting in anyone we shouldn’t.”

  “Make it quick,” said Señora Garcia, scarcely making eye contact with the officer.

  Every girl Dani had ever been, from a scared child sneaking across the border to now, sat in awe of the way she dismissed him—and the way he let her.

  “Of course, señora,” he said. “If you could all just pass your papers to me, we’ll have you out of here in no time.”

  The señora reached out, and Mama Garcia and Carmen handed their papers over, still looking bored. Maybe slightly irritated. But there was no fear.

  And why should there be?

  Dani hadn’t moved. She needed to move.

  “Come on, child,” said Mama Garcia. “We don’t have all day.”

  Of course, Dani thought. They wouldn’t want Mateo’s wine to be a degree over room temperature, now would they? “My apologies,” she said instead, channeling the girl she’d learned to be in the classroom on the hill. The girl with iron in her bones, who would never let so much as a finger tremble.

  You were trained for this, she told herself.

  Once she handed the papers off, it was done. She would either be heading through that gate to the most exclusive community on the island, or down the road in handcuffs.

  Every second was a year. Mama and Señora Garcia’s papers came back in minutes, but all new residents were being double-checked. The air was growing thinner in the car. It had to be. Dani took slow, even breaths to keep anyone from noticing the lungfuls of remaining oxygen she wanted to gulp in. Our restraint is our strength, she told herself again and again.

  Carmen’s papers came back next. She didn’t even look up as she took them.

  The officer outside the car wrinkled his brow at Dani’s ID. “It’ll just be one more minute.” Another officer joined the first, and together they held Dani’s hummingbird heart in their hands. If the papers didn’t work . . .

  But there was no time for thoughts like that. Steel heart. Stone face. Dani shook herself mentally. She wasn’t a little girl hiding in her mother’s skirts when the scary men passed through the village. Not anymore.

  In this moment, she was a girl who deserved deference, not the type of scowl usually reserved for dogs. How dare he.

  Her voice was as steady as her hands when she rolled her window down and said in her most imperious voice: “Is there some kind of problem?”

  The first officer’s eyes went wide. “I’m sorry, señorita—” he began, but Dani interrupted.

  “It’s señora,” she said. “Señora Garcia. And my husband is waiting very far up that hill for my safe arrival. We wouldn’t want to make him impatient.”

  For anyone else, clenched fingers would have given it away. Trembling knees. Fear set deep in the eyes. But Dani was immune to it all. She was slick and smooth and impenetrable.

  She was a Primera.

  “Of course, señora, my sincere apologies, only we have a new verification system in place and . . .”

  The glare Dani leveled him with cut him off midsentence. The irritation on her face was a tool, and it worked.

  “But you all must be very busy?” the officer said, asking her for permission.

  “We are,” said Dani with a withering smile. “And if you consider my husband’s position with the military, and the rigorous vetting process we’ve already been through, I’m sure you’ll understand that this silly song and dance you’re doing is really quite redundant.”

  The officer’s face actually went red at this. “Of course, señora,” he said, passing her papers back inside.

  “We certainly appreciate you keeping us all safe,” Dani said. “You can’t be too careful these days.”

  “Yes, well,” said the officer, waving at the car before turning toward the next. “Have a good day, ladies. And we’re so sorry again for the inconvenience.”

  “About time!” said Mama Garcia. “Somebody had to put them in their place!” Dani settled back into her seat, resisting the urge to smirk.

  Mama Garcia continued to fan herself with her oversized hat until the window was up and the car had been restored to its precise sixty-eight-degree temperature, but Señora Garcia gave Dani a small, approving nod.

  The gate in front of them groaned loudly as two more officers pulled it open before them, the white stone drive almost blinding beneath the late-morning sun. The thrill of accomplishment made Dani feel giddy as the gate closed again behind them. Outside, there were still people under suspicion, but in here, she was safe.

  Bold, she chanced a look at Carmen, expecting a look of irritation for the way Dani had impressed Mateo’s madres. If this drive had been a competition, she’d just made herself the clear victor, and Carmen had never liked to be bested. Especially not by Dani.

  She wasn’t disappointed; Carmen was looking at her. But her expression was far from envious. There was something sharp and appraising in it that Dani had never seen before.

  In the face of that look, Dani realized: she enjoyed the power of being a Primera. The way it changed the posture of the people around her. The way it could make even an enemy admire her.

  Outside the car, the complex proper was in full midmorning swing. House staff walked along the wide, tree-lined streets with harried expressions, while in the manicured grassy areas young Segundas played with children who would never know the feeling of hunger in their bellies.

  Dani had expected this place to be sparse. Utilitarian. A place that would hold up to an attack from outside. The government of Medio was run from inside these walls, wasn’t it? But while the complex might have been those things in practice, to the untrained eye it was nothing short of the most luxurious community Dani had ever seen.
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  Of course, she mused. The most influential people in the country lived and dined and socialized and raised their families within these walls. It wasn’t as though the upper class of the upper class was going to live in windowless concrete bunkers.

  “Here we are,” said Mama Garcia, with the tone of someone unwrapping a rather impressive gift. All eyes swiveled toward the house as the car pulled into the circular drive.

  Dani commanded her jaw not to drop. The house was an oasis of rose-colored stone rising from the expansive tropical garden that surrounded it. On its front alone, Dani counted twenty windows. Even Carmen had the good grace to look impressed.

  “It’s not quite as far up the hill as ours,” Señora Garcia said. “But it’s in a respectable up-and-coming neighborhood, and if Mateo continues on his current trajectory, you won’t be living here for long.”

  “If Mateo continues on his current trajectory,” echoed Mama Garcia, pulling open the door, “you’ll be waving down at us and the rest of the island from your breakfast patio.”

  Señora Garcia actually smiled at this, her pride in her son the first crack Dani had seen in her perfect restraint. She cataloged it for safekeeping, this pride. Too much of anything could be a weakness. “Yes, well,” the señora said. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

  Dani had heard the whispers, of course, that Mateo was being groomed for the top job. But to hear it like this—intimately, in the very place where the office itself stood—felt like something different.

  The presidency was the only governmental seat in Medio that was elected by the people. If Mateo ran, she would be a candidate’s Primera, responsible for assessing the wives of his rivals for probing points, for showing the voting public that Mateo could be trusted.

  But if he won, and she was allowed to assume the role her training had prepared her for, rather than just shuffling mail from one side of the house to the other, she would be the most powerful woman in Medio.

  The tour of their “modest yet respectable” home took the rest of the morning. There were only two levels, but the floor plan was sprawling and open, with the same rose stone walls inside as out. The floors were tiled, each room a work of art.