Before her mother disappeared, seven years ago, Scarlett had never been inside this place. She didn’t even know that to confess, people scribed their ill deeds on paper, then handed them to the priests, who set the notes on fire. Like her father, Scarlett’s mother, Paloma, had not been religious. But after Paloma had vanished from Trisda, Scarlett and her sister had felt desperate, and with nowhere else to go they’d come here to pray for their mother’s return.
Of course, those pleas had gone unanswered, but the priests were not entirely unhelpful; Scarlett and her sister had discovered they were very discreet about delivering messages.
Scarlett picked up a piece of sin paper and carefully penned a note.
* * *
I need to see you tonight.
Meet me at Del Ojos Beach.
One hour past midnight.
It’s important.
* * *
Before handing it to a priest with a generous donation, Scarlett addressed the message, but she didn’t sign it. Instead of her name, she drew a heart. She hoped that would be enough.
4
When Scarlett was eight, to keep her from the shore, her father’s guards warned her about the sparkling black sand of Del Ojos Beach. “It’s black because it’s really the burnt remains of pirate skeletons,” they said. And being eight, and slightly more foolish than now, she believed them.
For at least a year she didn’t venture close enough to the beach to even see the sand. Eventually, Felipe, an older son of one of her father’s kinder guards, revealed the truth—the sand was just sand and not the bones of pirates at all. But the lie had already buried itself inside of Scarlett, as lies that children are told often do. It didn’t matter how many other people confirmed the truth. In Scarlett’s mind, the black sand of Del Ojos Beach would always be burnt pirate skeletons.
As she walked there in the night, the speckled blue moon winking eerie light over the unnatural sand, she thought back to that lie; she felt it sneaking into her slippers and moving between her toes as she neared Del Ojos’s rocky black cove. To her right, the beach ended at a jagged, black cliff face. To her left, a broken dock like a massive tongue jutted into the water, past stones that reminded Scarlett of uneven teeth. It was the kind of night where she could smell the moon, thick candle wax dancing with the salty scent of the ocean, full and glowing.
She thought of the mysterious tickets in her pocket as the smoldering moon reminded her of how their metallic scripts blazed earlier that day. For a moment she was tempted to change her mind, give in to her sister, and to the tiny part of her still capable of dreaming.
But she’d done that once before.
Felipe had booked them passage on a schooner.
She and Tella had only made it onto the boat’s plank, and going that far had cost them so much. One of the guards had been especially rough with Tella, knocking her out as he dragged her back to the estate. But Scarlett had stayed conscious as she was pulled off the dock. She was forced to stand on the edges of the rocky beach, where water from glowing blue tide pools sunk into her boots, and she watched as her father took Felipe into the ocean.
She should have been the one to drown that night. She should have been the one whose head her father held under the water. Held until her limbs stopped thrashing and her body went as still and lifeless as the seaweed that washed onto the shore. Later people believed Felipe had drowned accidentally; only Scarlett knew the truth.
“If you ever do something like this again, your sister will suffer the same fate,” her father warned.
Scarlett never told a soul. She guarded Tella by letting her believe she’d just become extremely overprotective. Scarlett was the only one who knew they could never safely leave Trisda unless she had a husband who could ferry them away.
Waves clapped against the shore, muffling the sound of footsteps, but Scarlett heard them.
“You were not the sister I was expecting.” Julian strolled closer. In the dark he looked more like a pirate than an ordinary sailor, and he moved with the practiced ease of someone Scarlett felt it would be unwise to trust. The night dyed his long coat an inky black, while shadows lined his cheekbones, turning them sharp as two knife-edges.
Scarlett now debated how wise it was to risk sneaking off the estate to meet this boy so late at night on such a secluded strip of beach. This was the sort of wild, reckless behavior she was always warning Tella about.
“I’m guessing you’ve changed your mind about my offer?” he asked.
“No, but I have a counteroffer for you.” Scarlett tried to sound bold as she pulled out the elegant tickets from Caraval Master Legend. Her fingers did not want to release them, but she had to do this for Tella. When Scarlett had gone back to her own room earlier that evening, it had been ransacked. It was such a disaster, Scarlett hadn’t been able to discern exactly what her sister had made off with, but Tella had obviously been thieving things to prepare for this ill-fated voyage.
Scarlett thrust her tickets toward Julian. “You can have all three. Use them or sell them, as long as you leave here early, and without Donatella.”
“Ah, so it’s a bribe.”
Scarlett didn’t like that word. She associated it too much with her father. But when it came to Tella, she’d do whatever she had to, even if it meant giving up the last thing she still dreamed about. “My sister is impulsive. She wants to leave with you, but she has no idea how dangerous it is. If our father catches her, he will do far worse than he did today.”
“But she’ll be safe if she stays here?” Julian’s voice was low, slightly mocking.
“When I get married I plan to take her with me.”
“But does she want to go with you?”
“She’ll thank me for it later.”
Julian bared a wolfish smile, the whites of his teeth shining in the moonlight. “You know, that’s exactly what your sister said to me earlier.”
Scarlett’s warning instincts kicked in too late. She turned at the sound of new footsteps. Tella stood behind her, her short frame covered in a dark cloak that made it seem as if she was part of the night. “I’m sorry to do this, but you’re the one who taught me there’s nothing more important than taking care of a sister.”
Suddenly Julian clamped a cloth over Scarlett’s face. Frantically she tried to push it away. Her feet kicked up black clouds of sand, but whatever potent potion laced the fabric worked its magic fast. The world spun around Scarlett until she didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed.
She was falling
falling
falling.
5
Before Scarlett lost all consciousness, a gentle hand stroked her cheek. “It’s better this way, sister. There’s more to life than staying safe.…”
Her words ushered Scarlett into a world that only existed in the delicate land of lucid dreaming.
As a room made of all windows came into view, she heard her grandmother’s voice. A pockmarked moon winked through the glass, illuminating the figures inside with grainy blue light.
Younger versions of Scarlett and Tella, made of tiny hands and innocent dreams, curled together in bed while their grandmother tucked them in. Though the woman had spent more time with the girls after their mother had left, Scarlett could not recall another night she’d ever put them to bed; that was usually servants’ work.
“Will you tell us about Caraval?” asked tiny Scarlett.
“I want to hear about Master Legend,” chimed Tella. “Will you tell us the story of how he got his name?”
Across from the bed, Nana perched upon a tufted chair as if it were a throne. Coils of black pearls circled her slender neck, while more covered her arms, all the way from her wrists to her elbows, as if they were lavish gloves. Her starched lavender gown was creaseless, adding more emphasis to the wrinkles etching her once-beautiful face.
“Legend came from the Santos family of performers,” she began. “They were playwrights and actors, who all suffered from an unfortunate lack of talent. The only reason they had any success was because they were as beautiful as angels. And one son, Legend, was rumored to be the most handsome of all.”