Bay’s shoulders rounded. “The Briars. My family.”
She gave them the photographs with the lines of the benches broken, that wide ribbon of earth. “They should have known, with walls that steep. They should’ve known this would happen.” She swallowed hard enough that Estrella could also see the knot of it in her throat. “When it broke, the landslide was like nothing they’d ever seen. Millions of cubic meters of dirt and rock. Everyone in town thought it was an earthquake.”
That was the band of earth. An avalanche, breaking the steps.
Gloria handed a photograph back to Bay. “Did everyone get out?”
Bay shut her eyes, shook her head, her jaw tight. “There’s no count. No numbers.”
“What do you mean?” Azalea asked.
“I mean I can’t find numbers anywhere,” Bay said. “My family buried this so deep I can’t even find out how many miners died. All I can find are the photos and those articles saying some kind of accident happened. I had to go looking for death certificates. But I can’t even find many of those.”
The seam of a wallpaper panel was coming away from the wall, showing the yellowing glue underneath. Bay’s fingers worried at the edge.
“All those lives,” she said. “All those stories. And we hid it all.”
Every word looked like a stone in Bay’s pocket. She was more than a century removed from this, but still, the guilt had been passed down. No one else had taken it, so it had fallen to her, the Briar bastard, a burden tumbling down stone steps to the lowest point in this family.
Bay looked at Dalia, wincing like Dalia might slap her, or tell her she did not love her, or scream at her that her family were murderers and liars.
“This is what I come from,” Bay said, her voice breaking into pieces as she confessed this to the woman she loved. “This is my family.”
“Who rejected you,” Azalea said. “Forget them. The things they did aren’t yours.”
“I’ve lived off Briar money,” Bay said. “That makes me responsible.”
“You lived off Marjorie’s money,” Calla said.
“I’m still a Briar,” Bay said. “This is still mine.”
“Then let’s do something about it,” Dalia said.
“How?” Bay asked. “It’s done. Those men.” She sank onto the edge of the bed, fingers raking through her hair. “Their blood is on our hands.”
“It’s not done,” Gloria said. “You can tell the truth. Make sure everyone knows what happened.”
“Are you kidding?” Azalea asked. “The Briars will kill her.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Calla said.
Their voices receded against the striped wallpaper.
Estrella tried to listen. But the words floated round the room instead of reaching her. They patterned the bedspread. They stuck to the wallpaper. They caught on the white iron chandelier above them.
The dark earth on the boy she’d found in the sunken garden.
His clothes that seemed a hundred years out of date.
The half-starved look of an overworked boy.
The way he looked for things to do with his hands. The calluses on his fingers, rough as sand.
Everything Estrella had imagined about where he had come from fell away.
The force of it made her buckle toward the wall. She took slow, steadying breaths, but the world would not go still.
Dalia was again holding Bay’s face in her hands, Bay’s eyes shut. The other three were swearing that if Bay told the truth, they would scare Reid and every other Briar into thinking they were witches who would turn them into violets if they laid hands on her.
Estrella slipped from the room, down the stairs, across the open land that gave her a shortcut back to La Pradera.
She found Reid standing on the grass, lighting up a cigar he’d no doubt stolen from the collection Marjorie kept for guests. He’d changed out of his formal clothes, all traces of jacket and pocket square gone. But he looked like he’d dressed himself by pulling pants and a shirt out of the laundry, then grabbing the formal shoes he’d worn for the ball, probably left beside his bed.
How he looked didn’t matter to him. In a man, not caring was a draw, a mark of confidence. In Estrella, who’d worn her eyeliner until it smudged and her ball dress until it wilted, the same not-trying looked sloppy.
What shamed a girl was, in a boy, so often worth showing off.
Reid flicked the cigar. He threw embers over the ground. To him, this land was no different than a crystal ashtray.
The ash struck the earth, and anger gave Estrella words.
“You killed them,” Estrella said.
He took in the sight of her, stained skirt and unbrushed hair.
He flicked another ember. “What?”
“Your family killed them.” Her voice was rising, like a bird’s call echoing off trees.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Men died on your family’s watch,” she said. “And then you covered it up.”
Reid crouched, putting out the cigar in the grass.
Estrella pressed her teeth together, like she could feel the burn on the ground.
Reid blew on the cigar. When it cooled, he tucked it into his pocket, rising to standing again.
He eyed her dress and smudged makeup.
“Clean up,” he said. “Get some sleep.”
How level the words came out startled her, charged but not angry. Low enough that the wind wove through them.
Reid started walking.
“Reid,” Estrella called after him.
He kept walking.
“Stop,” she said, letting her voice go.
She followed him past the fountains and trellises.
“Look at me,” she said, and her voice turned to a yell.
Reid crossed the courtyard of blossoming trees. He was almost to the hedge wall when she caught up with him.
She grabbed his shoulder. She dug her fingers in so hard she could feel the heat of his skin through his shirt, and she wrenched him to make him turn around.
He did turn around, fast and hard.
He backhanded her, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to hit her or just flick her away.
She was close enough, and he’d let his hand fly fast enough that the impact landed hard. Open hand, his knuckles hitting her mouth.
Her lip split open, and the taste of her blood spread over her tongue.
Estrella stumbled, getting her balance back. Blood stung her lip.
“Nobody’s killed anyone except you and your family,” Reid said.
Estrella’s heartbeat throbbed in her cut lip.
“You’re the reason Bay’s gone, aren’t you?” Reid said.
Estrella spit out the blood in her mouth, the salt so strong on her tongue it was almost sweet. It struck the ground, and the shape of it looked like a trail of red starflowers. They shone on the grass.
She set the side of her thumb against her lip, blotting away the blood.
This was one thing she could use. They hadn’t lost Bay, not yet. But Estrella could still frighten Reid with the stories and whispers about the Nomeolvides girls, their hearts as wild as they were dangerous.
“Not just me,” Estrella said. “All of us.”
She took a step forward, narrowing the gap between her and Reid.
In that moment, she was not just Estrella.