Take a journey through time and genres anddiscover a past where queer figures live, love andshape the world around them. Seventeen of the bestyoung adult authors across the queer spectrum havecome together to create a collection of beautifullywritten diverse historical fiction for teens.From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexicofeaturing a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourningthe death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanishconvent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, timeperiods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored orforgotten.OceanofPDF.com ALL OUTEdited BySaundra MitchellANNA-MARIE McLEMORENATALIE C. PARKERNILAH MAGRUDERMACKENZI LEEROBIN TALLEYMALINDA LODAHLIA ADLERKATE SCELSAELLIOT WAKESCOTT TRACEYTESS SHARPEALEX SANCHEZKODY KEPLINGERSARA FARIZANTESSA GRATTONSHAUN DAVID HUTCHINSONTEHLOR KAY MEJIA For Jim McCarthy.Thank you for trusting me with your baby.OceanofPDF.com ContentsRoja by Anna-Marie McLemoreEl Bajío, México, 1870Author’s NoteThe Sweet Trade by Natalie C. ParkerVirginia Colony, 1717And They Don’t Kiss at the End by Nilah MagruderMaryland, 1976Burnt Umber by Mackenzi LeeAmsterdam, 1638The Dresser & the Chambermaid by Robin TalleyKensington Palace, September 1726New Year by Malinda LoSan Francisco—January 21, 1955Author’s NoteMolly’s Lips by Dahlia AdlerSeattle—April 10, 1994The Coven by Kate ScelsaParis, 1924Every Shade of Red by Elliot Wake England, Late Fourteenth CenturyWillows by Scott TraceySouthwyck Bay, Massachusetts, 1732The Girl with the Blue Lantern by Tess SharpeNorthern California, 1849The Secret Life of a Teenage Boy by Alex SanchezTidewater, Virginia, 1969Walking After Midnight by Kody KeplingerUpstate New York, 1952The End of the World as We Know It by Sara FarizanMassachusetts, 1999Three Witches by Tessa GrattonKingdom of Castile, 1519The Inferno & the Butterfly by Shaun David HutchinsonLondon, 1839Healing Rosa by Tehlor Kay MejiaLuna County, New Mexico, 1933About the AuthorsOceanofPDF.com ROJABYANNA-MARIE MCLEMOREOceanofPDF.com El Bajío, México, 1870They all gave him different names. The authorities, who had been tryingfor months to catch him, called him El Lobo. The Wolf. La Légion calledhim Le Loup.His mother, back in Alsace, had christened him with a girl’s name,though he had since forgiven her for that. It was a name he had trusted mewith but that I knew never to speak. The sound of it was too much areminder of when he’d been too young to fight the hands trying to turn himinto a proper demoiselle, forbidding him from running outside becauseyoung ladies should not do that. His heart had been a boy’s heart, throwingitself against his rib cage with each set of white gloves for mass.I called him his true name, Léon, the one he’d chosen himself. None ofthis was strange to me, a boy deciding his own name. The only strangething was the fact that he knew mine.No one outside our village called me or anyone else in my family by ourreal names. They worried that letting our names onto their tongues wouldleave them sick. The rumors said our hearts were dangerous as a coralsnake’s bite. They carried the whisper that the women in my family couldmurder with nothing but our rage. They pointed to our hair, red as our skinwas brown, and insisted el Diablo himself had dyed it with the juice ofdevil’s berries, to mark us as his.Abuela had told me our rage was a thing we must tame. Thougheveryone else feared that our rage might kill them, the lives it more oftentook were ours. Poison slipped from our hearts and into our blood, she said.The venom spread to our fingers and the ends of our hair.But even she found a little joy in it. She flaunted it. So we would haveenough to eat, she taught me to crush red dye from the beetles that infestedthe nopales. They were pests, ravaging the cactus pads, but if caught theymade a stain so deep red we could sell it. My grandmother even tied tinywoven baskets to the nopales, luring the insects to make nests.That only added to the rumors. Las Rojas, the grandmother andgranddaughter whose hearts blazed so red it showed in their hair, and who made the same color and sold it with stained fingertips. We heard whispersas we passed churches, families drawing back from us, afraid we could killthem with a glare.Now, as I stood in front of Deputy Oropeza’s polished desk, I wished allthe stories were true.“You want El Lobo released?” Oropeza rested his boots on the smooth-finished wood.The toes of his boots, long and pointed as a snake’s tongue, narrowed andcurved up toward his shins. They had become the fashion of rich men, whonow wore them not only for celebrations but in the streets, the forks nippingat anyone who got in their way.“Tell me you’ve come here as a joke,” he said. “Tell me one of myfriends sent you to see if I would be taken in. Was it Calvo?”His hand flashed through the air. I flinched, thinking he might strike me.But he was halting me from speaking.“No, don’t tell me,” he said. “It was Acevedo, wasn’t it?” He clapped hishands. “I swear on the gospel, that man stops breathing if he isn’t trying totrick someone.”If Oropeza attended church, if he worshipped anyone but himself, he’dknow better than to swear on la Biblia. But I kept silent.“How much did he pay you to do this?” Oropeza’s boots thudded on thetile floor. “Because I’ll double it if you help me play my own little trick onhim.”The rage in me shuddered and trembled. It felt like it was flickering offmy eyelashes.“No one sent me,” I said.The richest men in El Bajío couldn’t have paid me to be here. But I hadbegged every official who would see me.Most I found by stopping them in the street. The ones who listenedbowed their heads to tell me there was nothing they could do, not for anyFrenchman, least of all El Lobo.The ones who didn’t want to hear me—Senator Ariel, GovernorQuintanar—shoved me to make me move. They backed away from me likeI was crafted out of mud, as though if they came too close I might dirtythem. I was not a girl who could ask for things. I was not powder and perfumeand lace-trimmed fans. The kind of women who could wheedle favors fromwealthy men wore dresses in the purples and deep pinks of cactus fruit.They wore silk and velvet ribbons tied as necklaces. The owners of blueagave farms sent them sapphire and emerald rings.They were not girls in plain huipils.But Deputy Oropeza had agreed to see me. Hope had bloomed in thedark space beneath my heart. Yes, he wore the pointed boots of rich men,but he hadn’t gotten into the same competitions the others had, driving oneanother to have boots made with toes as long as I was tall. Maybe there wasreason in him.“Please,” I said now.The war had ended. But the hills still lay scorched and barren, and Léonhad been captured as an enemy Frenchman. Un francés. And now ablindfold and a bullet waited for him at dusk.“He didn’t even want to fight with them,” I said. “He deserted.”The things Léon had seen had driven him to betray his own country. Ihated la Légion for what they had done to Léon. He hated them for lettingtheir soldiers loose on this land. They raided villages, throwing womendown on the earth floors of their homes, killing the men and keeping locksof their hair as trophies.And those were only the things he had been willing to tell me, as thoughI myself had not known families killed or scarred by the French uniform.But he didn’t see the brown of my skin and consider me less than he was.He did not see the red of my hair and decide I was wicked. He saw me assomething soft, a girl he did not want to plague with nightmares.By the time Léon deserted, he had grown to hate not only la Légion buthis own country, for starting this war in the name of unsettled debts, and fordoing it while los Estados Unidos were too deep in their own civil war tointervene. So Léon had done the small but devastating things that earnedhim the name Le Loup. At night, he strolled into French camps wearing hisstolen uniform. The blue coat with gold-fringed epaulettes. The red pantsthat tapered to cuffs at the ankles. The stiff yellow collar that rubbed againsthis neck when he nodded at the watchmen as though he belonged there.He stole guns, throwing them into rivers. He set horses loose, drivingthem toward villages too poor to buy them. He pilfered maps and parchments, leaving them burning for the men to find. The rumors said he’deven called wolves from the hills, scattering the camps. But when I’d askedhim about that, he only smiled.Now the memory of Léon’s smile stung so hard I looked for the cut of iton my skin.“He was working against them,” I told Oropeza.Oropeza looked out through the silk curtains and onto the rows of curlinggrapevines.“Then he is a traitor,” Oropeza said. “He is not even loyal to his owncountry. What would make you think he would be loyal to you?”He turned his gaze to the square of tile where I stood in my huipil. In thatmoment, I saw myself as Oropeza must have seen me.Men like Oropeza would never consider me worth looking at. I wasshort, wide hipped, a girl from the villages. I had only ever been told I waspretty by my abuela.And Léon. My lobo.Oropeza laughed. “The little campesina thinks el francés loves her?”Campesina. I knew what that word meant to him, how he wielded it asboth insult and fact. It was a word men like Oropeza kept ready on theirtongues, a way to show their judgment both of where I had come from andthe shape of my body. To them, my height and form marked me. Apeasant’s shape, men like Oropeza called it, a shape made for work close tothe ground.“All he told you was lies,” Oropeza said. “He might have thought youwere a little bit interesting.” He gestured at my hair. “A distraction.”The salt of my own tears stung.“One day you will thank me for what I’ve saved you from,” Oropezasaid.I set my back teeth together. He considered me and everyone like me achild. Men like him thought they had more of God in their hearts than wedid, as though they held it in the lightness of their skin, or, for a few ofthem, in their eyes as blue as the seas their ancestors had crossed to claimthis land.Oropeza lurched forward, clutching his chest as though it had cramped.And then his stomach, as though he’d had a portion of bad wine.I stepped back. The venom in me, carried in my family’s blood, was spilling out. It hadbuilt in me, spun and strengthened by my rage. Then it had flowed into theair between me and Oropeza until he was sick with it.This was the poison of Las Rojas, the venom our rage could become.I kept myself back, pressing my tongue behind my teeth to stop myself.I could not let the poison in my blood make Oropeza sick. If he’d heardthe stories about my family and realized they were more truth thansuperstition, he would have me dragged into the street and killed as a bruja.One of Oropeza’s men showed me out. My steps led me over thepolished tile, and then out into Oropeza’s front gardens.Léon had stayed for me. He had kept himself here, caught between laLégion he’d deserted and this country that considered him an enemy. Andhe’d been taken for it.He’d never had the stomach for la Légion. He’d told me the night I foundhim, once I’d given him enough water for him to speak and he’d come outof the fever enough to make sense with his words.He’d only joined because it had given him a way out of Alsace. He’dbeen told that la Légion would never check on the name he’d been bornwith, the name that would give away more than he ever wanted anyone toknow of the body he kept beneath his clothes. The chest he bound down.The shoulders and back he worked hard enough that they could take asmuch weight as any other man’s.And la Légion hadn’t checked. They did not want to know. Theypreferred their légionnaires forget who they’d been.He could take the fighting, and even the beatings they gave leslégionnaires to harden their spirits. But he could not stand how his régimentlet the men work out their rage on village women. How they killed brothersor husbands who protested.Léon had spoken up enough that they considered it rebellion. So eachnight they beat him in a way they called les couleurs. Blood on one cheek,bruises on the other, the pale, untouched stripe of his nose and lips between.The colors of the French flag, meant to put the allegiance back in him.The night I found Léon, he’d worn those colors. It was the first time he’dtried running, and they’d caught him. So they’d tied him to one of theacacia trees that bloomed yellow each spring. His back against the thin trunk. His wrists and ankles bound behind it so he could not stand. All hecould do was kneel.They had told him that they may or may not come back for him, and ifthey did, it would be because they were curious if the wolves had eatenhim.That night, una vieja from our village had sent me into the woods. Sheasked me to bring her an oyamel branch from the fir tree she always held alittle of as she prayed. I only noticed Léon because, at the sound of brushcrackling under my feet, he lifted his head. His forehead shone with sweat.And through his fever, the thing I would later come to know as his charmseemed a kind of delirium, a madness. He’d mumbled a few words inFrench before saying, “If I’d known a beautiful woman would be calling onme, I would have made myself presentable.”I unbound him and brought him home not because I was kind. I broughthim home, holding him up as his eyes opened and shut, because if it had notbeen for the mercy of the other families in our village, my abuela would nothave had a proper burial. I could not have done it myself. My heart was soweighted with losing her I was sure it would pull me into whatever hollowin the ground I made for her.So I brought home this tall, underfed boy with hair so blond the moonmade it look white. I boiled water and made pozole, to show God I wasgrateful, and that there was mercy left in me.But there was no mercy in men like Oropeza, and Ariel, and Quintanar.I had failed Léon. I had lost him. And now, at dusk, when a shot rangthrough the air, I screamed into the sound.I screamed into the wind bringing me the rattling laugh of the men whokilled Léon. I sobbed into the silhouettes of mesquite and acacia, and intothe darkening blue of the sky.Still screaming, I crossed myself, saying a prayer for the soul of LéonBellamy.Léon, the boy who made me laugh when he tripped over rolling his r’s.Léon, who had startled the village with his eyes, so pale gray that at nightthey looked silver, and his hair, light as bleached linen. Léon, who had wonthem over with his wonder about armadillos, how the animal rolled itselfinto a ball of plate armor. Léon, the boy who had put his mouth to my ear and told me the brown ofmy skin made him think of wild deer roaming the woods where he wasborn.Even in this moment, opening under me like a break in the earth, Abuelawould have told me to find some small thing to thank God for. There wasone, just one, I could get my fingers around.No one, not la Légion, not Oropeza, ever knew Léon as anything but aboy. They did not know that his mother had christened him with a girl’sname. They did not know that he had joined la Légion less out of patriotismand more for the chance to live as who he was. If they had, Oropeza wouldhave thrown it at me, mocked me for it. He would have made clear what hethought of us, Léon living among the other soldiers with his bound-downchest, me lifting my chin in the street as though I were the equal of thepowder-pale women in their escaramuza dresses.But even this small mercy broke in me. All of it broke.First I had lost my grandmother, made sick from her rage over what thiswar had taken. She always warned me not to let my rage kill me, but in theend her own had spread its venom through her.They said this war was over, even as women wept over their stoves andinto their sewing. Even now when an Alsatian boy had just beenblindfolded and shot.My rage felt so hot it would singe away my smallest veins. There were somany empty places where everything I had lost once fit. Now there wereonly the dustless, unfaded patches where all I loved had been.There was nothing left. Yes, there were the women who had loved meand my abuela; my abuela had fed them when they were sick and prayedover them when they bore children. There were even the ones who hadtaken to Léon like he was a stray. But now they only reminded me of thoseempty places.I found the few clothes of my grandfather’s that Abuela had kept, theones he’d left behind. He had dared to hit her once, and her rage had struckhim back so quickly, felling him, he called her a witch, yelling, “Bruja,” ashe fled our village.I hemmed his trousers with quick, rough stitches. I stuffed his boots withscrap cloth so they would fit. I had the small, wide feet of my grandmother,the edges rough from years of running without shoes. Like a silent prayer, I gave her my gratitude. Abuela had wanted me toplay outside barefoot as much as I could stand, so that if ever I could notafford shoes, my feet could go without them. Now I understood what mygrandmother had wanted, for me to keep my heart soft but the edges of mehard enough to survive the world as it was.My grandfather’s poncho, I plunged into red dye, the rough agave takingit fast.At night, the color wouldn’t show. But I would feel it against my skin.I would not let this rage kill me. By using it, I would drive it from mybody. I would turn it against the last man who would not save Léon. Theman, who, by dawn, would be robbed of his finest things.Oropeza’s guards, I took first.I neared the hacienda with my head lowered. My hat hid the red of myhair. The brim shaded my face. I left the guards no chance to wonder if Iwas some messenger boy bearing midnight news, or whether they shoulddraw their brass-throated pistols. I let my rage stream into them. I let itbecome liquid and alive.They fell, one gripping his side, another holding his chest as though thevenom clutched his heart.Anything I could carry, I stole. Fine cigars. Money and papers from thedesk drawers. Jewels that had once belonged to Oropeza’s wife; Abuela wassure he had killed her with his cold heart as well as we could with ourpoison.I slipped through the house, the moon casting clean squares of lightthrough the vestíbulo windows. The strap of my woven bag cut into myshoulder, heavy with all I had taken.The rustling of grape leaves outside and the tangle of voices stilled me.Oropeza and his friends stumbled drunk through the dark grapevines.Calvo and Acevedo and other men with more power than sense and moremoney than mercy.They laughed. They swapped echoes of the same questions.“How much are los franceses giving you for the traitor?” Calvo asked.“How did you even manage this?” Acevedo asked. “I thought the onlyFrenchmen you knew were the ones you’d had shot.”“Why didn’t I think of this?” another man asked.“Because you’re not as smart as I am,” Oropeza said. A question had just formed in me when I saw the figure held betweenthem, being shoved forward and made to walk. Blindfolded, his wristsbound behind his back.Because he could not see, he stumbled, drawing their laughter. The longpoints of their boots needled his shins.They were forcing him toward the road that ran behind Oropeza’s estate.My gasp was sharp as the first breath waking from a nightmare, themoment of wondering if, as in those dreams, my fingers were made oflightning or the sky was truly a wide blue blanket woven by my abuela’shands.Léon.They hadn’t let the firing squad take him.Hope bubbled up under my rage, but with it my anger thickened.They hadn’t killed him, not yet. Instead, Oropeza was trading him to thecountry that now considered him an enemy. Trading him for money, forfavors, for the currencies of men who owned so much ground but neverbent down enough to touch it.He was surrendering El Lobo to the country that called him Le Loup, thecountry Oropeza declared his enemy but still bargained with in secret.My hope lifted my rage higher, driving it into a swirling cloud that flewout the windows and rushed at the men. It caught them, striking them downlike el Espíritu Santo had slain them.But this was not God’s work. This was not the Holy Spirit filling thesemen. This was the work of una Roja. A poison girl, veiled in men’sclothing.The men fell to the ground, holding their throats and chests and sides.The richest ones, the ones whose boots had the longest tapered points,twisted to keep from stabbing themselves with their own shoes. Oropezajerked as though demons poured through him. My vengeance, a vengeance Ishared with my grandmother and all Las Rojas, was toxic as thorn appleand lantana. It was poison as strong as moonflower and oleander.I threw open the glass-inlaid doors to the back gardens. I steppedbetween writhing men and grabbed Léon’s arm, pulling him with me. Icaught the smell of his hair. Even now, it held the scent I’d come to think ofas the countryside in Alsace. Dust and rain on hills. Fields covered in theblue of flax flowers and the gold brush of oats. He’d brought it with him on his skin. And when he told me the brown of my naked back reminded himof the deer that roamed that land, he gave me a place in his country.Even through my rage and my fear, my lips felt hot with wanting to touchhis skin. They trembled with wanting to give him my name.Oropeza gazed up at me. His face showed no recognition, only the fearthat I was a boy born of robbers and devils.Through the open doors, Oropeza yelled into the house for his servants.He called them stupid and slow. He called them fools.They ran across the tile. But when they saw the scene, when they saw thewrithing men, and me, and the blindfolded man I had stolen from theirpatrono, they sank to the floor. They clutched their stomachs as though they,too, had been poisoned.My breath stilled with worry that I had made them ill, that my venomwas in them even though I had no rage for them.But they caught my eyes, and smiled.They twisted as though I was striking them down, so they could not beblamed for letting me rob Oropeza.They had heard the stories. Las Rojas. They noticed the wisp of hairfalling from my grandfather’s hat and onto my neck. They saw me as thepoison girl I was, a daughter made of venom, even as I hid in mygrandfather’s clothes.I held on to Léon, leading him around the stricken men.Oropeza and his friends would not die, not tonight. But they would thrashon the tile and the dirt until I was too far for my anger to touch them.“Who are you?” Léon asked. His breath sounded short more from tryingto press down his fear than from how fast I made him walk.I cut the rope off his wrists and pulled off his blindfold and kissed him asfast as if I had more hands than my own. I didn’t care if the act wouldreveal me. My rage kept these men down like a blanket over a fire.Léon’s lips recognized mine. He kissed me harder, setting his hands onmy waist to hold me up.“Go,” I whispered, my mouth feathering against his jawline.Now he smelled like sweat, and the bitter almost-rust tang that I sworewas the last trace of his fear. But under these things I found the smell Iremembered. The warmth of flax and oats, things his family had grown forso long his skin carried the scent across the ocean. “You have to run,” I said, my forehead against his cheek.“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. His breathing came hard. I could feelhis heartbeat in his skin. “Not unless I’m going with you.”I pulled away so we could see each other as much as the dark let us.“They took you because you stayed for me,” I said, still keeping myvoice to a whisper. “I am poison. Don’t you see that?”Léon set his hand against my cheek.“Emilia,” he said, quiet as a breath. He meant it for no one but me.The wind hid the strain of his breathing. The far lamp of the moon turnedthe gray of his eyes to iron. The sound of my name made me feel like thecloth on my body was blazing to red, my hair a cape as bright as marigolds.“You are here and I am alive.” Now his accent turned sharp, not hispracticed Spanish. “So tell me what makes you poison.”He put his hand on the back of my neck and kissed me, this boy whowanted to belong to the girl I was, brown and small and poisonous.To the men, we might have looked like two boys, one pressing his mouthto the other’s. Tonight, we would pull off our shirts and trousers for eachother. Léon would be a boy, no matter the shape of his chest beneath hisshirts. And I would let my hair fall from my grandfather’s hat and be thegirl I had always been to him. For Léon, I would put on my best enagua justso he could push the soft cotton of the tiered skirt up my thighs. I would letmy breasts lay against his skin. I would kiss where the rope had cut into hiswrists and the cloth into his temples.I wanted to protect his body as though it were mine.But my own, I wanted these men to see it, and remember. I wanted themto know that I was my abuela’s granddaughter, that I carried the blood ofpoison girls.The men still lay on the floor, gripping their chests and ribs.I lifted my red poncho and my shirt, and I showed the men my breasts.The moon lit the rounded shapes. It lit the fear on the men’s faces, thehorror on Oropeza’s.I gave them only that one second, just enough to let them wonder in themorning if they had imagined it, and then I let my shirt fall.I reached for Léon. But it was not the men he was watching, or even me.He stood in the moon silver on the vestíbulo floor, looking out toward the hills. He lifted his face to the sky, breathing like he was taking a drink ofthe night itself.And the wolves came. They came with their claws ticking against theground and their muzzles stained with the blood of their last prey. Theycame with coats the same red gold as the hills they had run down from.They came with their backs streaked dark as the ink of the night sky.I drew back from them, the wolves now crouching at the edges ofOropeza’s property. Then I caught Léon’s smile, slight but intent, telling mewe had nothing to fear from them.Léon took my hand, and we ran down the steps, the wolves filling thespace behind us. They stood as guards, moving toward Oropeza’s men onlywhen the men moved to pursue us. When the men lifted their heads towatch us run, the wolves showed their teeth. When they shouted curses atus, the wolves growled and snapped.That was how Léon and I left them, both of us showing hearts so fiercethese men considered them knives. We fled from the feigned cries of themen and women who worked for Oropeza but who loved us for defyinghim. We fled from the howls of men who wailed more for their pride thantheir bodies. We left them with the salt-sting memory of us, a brazen girl,and a boy with a heart so fearless wolves were his guardian saints.Many stories found us after that night. Some said the French soldierknown as El Lobo had called down from the hills a thousand wolves whonot only scattered the men but ravaged Oropeza’s grapevines. Others said agirl known only as La Roja poisoned them all with her wicked heart, hidingthe red of her hair so they would have no warning.Some said El Lobo and La Roja were enemies, rivals, the girl capturingthe French soldier just so she could have the pleasure of killing him herself.Others said La Roja stole El Lobo, only to fall in love with him the momentshe first touched him.When we hear word that every rich man who witnessed that night hasdied, I will tell the rest of the story. I will say what we have done since thatnight. What haciendas Léon has called wolves to destroy. What mercilesshearts I have poisoned with the rage in my own. All that La Roja, the girlwith the red hair and the red cape, and El Lobo, the boy as feared as wolves,have done. But this is the part I will tell now. We rode off on Oropeza’s finestAndalusians, the wolves’ call at our backs. We vanished into the midnighttrees faster than first light could reach us. We lived. We survived to whisperour names to each other even if we could not yet confess them to anyoneelse.* * * * *OceanofPDF.com Author’s NoteI grew up loving fairy tales. But as a Latina, I didn’t look much like thegirls I saw in storybooks. Later, realizing I was queer, the loves I sawportrayed in those fairy tales felt even further away.When I went looking to reclaim a fairy tale in a historical context, I couldthink of few better starting places than Leonarda Emilia. An outlaw in early1870s Mexico, Leonarda had a short but infamous career that began whenofficials executed the French soldier she’d fallen in love with. Known tohistory as la Carambada, Leonarda wore men’s clothing, but becamenotorious for revealing her breasts to the powerful men she’d just robbed asshe rode off.Léon is a tribute to the many assigned-female-at-birth soldiers who havefought in wars throughout history; though in most cases history doesn’t giveenough context for us to know what these soldiers might have claimed astheir gender identity, Léon is imagined here as a transgender character. Asthis story’s interpretation of the Wolf, he, along with Emilia’s Red, aremeant to embody the spirit of la Carambada. With much respect to thehistorical Leonarda, this story takes liberties in the spirit of reclaiming awell-loved fairy tale for the communities I’m proud to call mine.For their thoughts, advice, and guidance, I owe much gratitude to ElliotWake, Jayne Walters, Mackenzi Lee, Tehlor Kay Mejia, the trans boy I’mlucky to call my husband, and of course, editor Saundra Mitchell. Thankyou for helping this story navigate the path between history and fairy tale.OceanofPDF.com THE SWEET TRADEBYNATALIE C. PARKEROceanofPDF.com Virginia Colony, 1717Clara Elizabeth Byrd had been married twice by the age of sixteen and shehad decided she had no taste for it.Her first husband, Mr. John du Pont, being of Huguenot lineage with anestate on the James River, had been a kind man. Though nearly twentyyears her senior, he had not laughed when Clara suggested he might makeher a wedding gift of a sloop. Instead, he asked in what color he shouldcommission the sails be dyed. Clara imagined that they’d have made goodcompanions for one another had he not swallowed a chicken bone and diedbefore the cake had been cut.It was a tragic affair, resulting in Clara’s return to her family homefarther down the river. The sloop came, too, in accordance with Mr. duPont’s presumed final wishes. Clara was incandescently thankful. Nevermind that she had not yet learned to sail it. She had read every novel on thesubject and was certain she could manage without too much trouble.Before she had occasion to try, her father selected a second husband forher. Mr. Frederick Earwood, as if the name weren’t bad enough, was a quietyoung man with no humor about him. Upon learning of his betrothed’ssloop, he sat back in his chair, studied one corner of the ceiling so intently itseemed he’d quite forgotten there were others in the room and then said in acareful monotone, “We shall take the ship with us if only to dismantle it anduse its parts for firewood this winter.”In that moment Clara determined her second husband would be her last.She devised a plan, requesting to be wed in the Lower River Chapel on thebank of the James. From there, they would retreat to Mr. Earwood’sholdings near the Carolina border. Her sloop would be moored by the dockawaiting its miserable journey inland.Which, of course, it would never take.In all the tales of adventure Clara had ever heard, it was never younggirls who were daring. It was always boys running off to rescue a friend orfetch much-needed medicine or stumble into good fortune. Clara knew girls would be daring if given half the chance. And she intended to take thatchance, right from under the pale nose of Mr. Earwood.And so it was that Clara Elizabeth Byrd took a second husband in orderto have her first adventure.She spent the weeks leading up to the wedding putting her scholarlyknowledge to practice, sailing the sloop a little farther each day. She lovedit every bit as much as she expected. The sun on her face and the wind inher hair, the horizon glinting with promise. She was meant for a life in fullview of the sky.Soon, the wedding was upon her. The vows were necessary, and so,unfortunately, was the moment Mr. Earwood was given permission to kissthe bride. Mr. Earwood leaned close, his lips puckered as delicately as adoll’s. Clara feigned a girlish giggle, neatly pressing her own lips to hischeek.Though it displeased Mr. Earwood, the congregation applauded hercharmingly modest sensibilities. No one raised an eyebrow when shebegged for a few moments alone after the ceremony. And while the rest ofthe party processed toward the town green for cake and feasting, Clararaced to the river and climbed aboard her sloop, where she’d storedeverything she would need to make her journey: a few precious coins,clothing, some food, a fishing pole and even a sword from her grandfather’strunk.The sun was just passing into the west as she raised the main sail and jib.The air was sharp with the last chill of winter, the trees eager to send greenshoots into the Virginia sky. A thin sweat coated Clara’s brow as sheworked to unknot the ropes that kept her little boat tethered to the dock. Ifanyone saw, she would surely be stopped and dragged back to the side of anirritable Mr. Earwood.The skirts of her black silk gown were twisted around her ankles in thenarrow spaces. She’d have preferred to wear her new green mantua gownfor the occasion; its open cut would’ve made maneuvering around the shipmuch easier. But both her maid and her father had been horrified at the ideaof a bride wearing such an unlucky color, so she’d relented rather than giveherself away. Now she moved slower than she desired on account of notwanting to trip and fall headfirst into the water. Finally, with a ferocious shove, her little sloop drifted away from thedock and into the steady current of the river. Though the sloop was amodest size for traveling the James, twelve feet from prow to stern and fourfeet across, it would be noticeable due to the brilliant yellow of its sails. Mr.du Pont’s generosity was both a boon and a curse, and since she could notobscure the color of the sails, Clara needed to disguise herself to avoiddiscovery.Stowed on the boat was a set of boy’s clothing, stolen a piece at a timefrom her own father’s laundry, which she would don as soon as it was safeto do so. For now, she slapped one of her father’s old cocked hats on herhead and kept her body hidden in the belly of the hull, emerging only toadjust the boom when the wind shifted.She sailed thus, lying flat on her back with her eyes trained on the gentlebillowing of her yellow-dyed sails, until the sunlight sliced orange and pinkacross the sky. The air began to get cooler, the sky above darker and all of asudden Clara felt a chill of fear. She was alone as she had never been. Alonewith precious few possessions and no notion of where to take them exceptaway from Mr. Earwood and the promise of a landlocked life.It was then that she heard it: sudden splashing in the river and shouts inthe distance. Her pulse quickened and the chill she’d felt only secondsbefore was replaced by a fresh sheen of sweat. She lay on the bottom of herboat with ears pricked and eyes open wide, hoping the sounds would passher by. But instead of moving off, the splashing grew nearer, the shoutinglouder.When her boat rocked sharply to one side, it was all Clara could do tokeep from crying out in surprise. She bit the inside of her cheek and waitedfor the rocking to subside.Nothing followed. Her boat resumed its course, floating smoothlydownstream. Had she bumped a stone? Had some large catfish mistaken herfor food?“You there! Boatman!” The shout carried across the river to Clara’s ears.The shock of it caused her to bite too hard on her cheek. She tastedblood.“Good sir! Pause and speak with us!”If she lay in the bottom of her boat, they might assume it was adrift andcome out to retrieve it for themselves. If she answered, they might know her for a girl and still come out.Though her hands shook, she knew she must move. Lifting only herhead, she spied two figures pacing her on shore. They were smartly dressedand bore expressions of determination and mild panic. The one in front wastall; his stride was commanding and bold. The one behind had a flowerpinned to his brocade waistcoat and ran twice as fast to keep apace with hisfriend. Here the banks of the river were peppered with long stretches of tall,marshy grasses several feet deep. The two men had to run farther up thehillside in order to see the river where she sailed.Clara pitched her voice low. “Good day to you, sirs!”With a pinch of panic, Clara noticed how the man behind seemed topause midstride, as though aware that something was amiss. The otherplowed on, shouting, “Have you seen a girl? She came this way! Did shecross the river? A girl!”For just a second Clara’s mind reeled. These men would know her for therunaway she was and force her to return to the dreadful life she’d only justescaped. She would be married and her sloop dismantled by sundown. Buther sense returned nearly as quickly as it had fled. They sought a girl fromtheir side of the river. She was not the delinquent they pursued.Clara thought of the splashing and suspected it had been no catfish thathad nudged her hull. She placed a steadying hand on the boom as the windshifted. The sloop rocked in response. Lowering her chin and keeping hervoice deep, she responded, “I’m afraid I haven’t seen her. There’s beennothing but sunlight on the water with me this day.”The taller man nodded his thanks and bolted back up the gentle hill to thepine woods above. The shorter man didn’t follow immediately, but studiedher for a long moment. It was too far for her to see clearly, but Clara wassure she could see some hint of malice in the slope of his shoulders.Finally, both men were gone from sight. Clara adjusted the boom andcarefully climbed to the starboard side of her little boat. Keeping her hatfirmly atop her head, she peered over the lip of the hull and directly into thewide brown eyes of a girl.She clung to the side of the ship like a barnacle, her face barely above thewater as the boat swept her along. Her hair streamed behind her, and herlips were drawn tight across chattering teeth. Clara could see that she wore a gown as yellow as the sails above, which was probably trying mightily todrag her down.Without a word, Clara removed her hat, then reached down with bothhands to pull the girl aboard. The boat heaved and cold water sloshed overthe side, but soon the girl was huddled beneath the jib, safely onboard.Clara tightened the sail at once. The wind was in their favor and movedthem swiftly downstream, away from any who might still be searching for arunaway girl or two.“I’m Pearl,” said the girl. She’d found the last glimmer of sunset and satinside it. The light made her brown hair burn and her eyes glassy and deep.“Thank you.”“I’m Clara. You’re welcome.”“I suppose you’d like to know who those men were?” Pearl asked, andwithout waiting for an answer, she plowed on. “The one who shouted wasmy brother, William, and I do feel badly for deceiving him. He’s never beencruel to me, at least, not intentionally. The other was Mr. Michael Pitts, myhusband-to-be, and I don’t feel badly for him in the slightest. Mealy,indecisive and selfish. Took me to wife out of ‘the kindness of his heart.’Pah! Well, I left him out of the meanness of mine.”Clara had not intended to inquire, but she was glad Pearl spoke so freely.“You ran away from your wedding day?”Pearl raised her chin, defiance shining in her eyes. “I did.”It occurred to Clara that Pearl’s dress was yellow. Not blue to signifyyears of faithful love, not pink to announce her purity, but yellow, the colorof pagans and the wildest of flowers. This was a girl she knew already, evenas she knew her not at all.“Me, too,” Clara answered, fluffing the skirts of her own black dress.“And I am sorry for the disappointment my father will feel, but I am full oftoo much life for Mr. Earwood. I’d have driven him to an early grave.”Pearl laughed. “Pitts and Earwood. They should be friends.”“After this, perhaps they will be!”Pearl’s smile softened. “I know we certainly shall be.”Something in the curl of Pearl’s voice called a corresponding curl inClara’s breath. She did not respond and the two girls drifted in silence whilethe sun slowly drained from the sky. Clara sighted a particularly reedysection on the opposite side of the river from where Pearl had just fled and nosed the sloop inside it for extra coverage. It would be a cold night on thesloop, but it was still too dangerous to camp on shore. They would have tomake do with what little heat her lanterns could provide.But Pearl would need more than that.The girl made no complaint, but she shivered in her layers of wet dress.She would make herself ill sleeping in such a state.“Here,” Clara said, offering her single change of boy’s clothing. “Putthese on.”Pearl accepted them gratefully, cold fingers brushing Clara’s as she tookthem from her hands. Though they were surrounded by mere reeds insteadof sturdy walls, Pearl quickly began the work of loosening her dress. Clarahelped, tugging on cold, wet lacings until her own fingers burned.The work was so familiar that it didn’t occur to Clara that Pearl was anear stranger until the dress slid from her shoulders, leaving only the shiftbehind. Then it wasn’t only her fingers that burned, but her cheeks, her lips,her chest. She turned away to give Pearl her privacy and tend to the stirringin her lungs.“I have bread and cheese,” she said, rooting through the bag she’dstowed on the sloop ahead of time. “Jars of preserves and a few bottles ofwine.”“You’re my savior,” Pearl said, voice muffled by cloth. “Let’s start withthe wine. Tonight’s a celebration after all.”“You’re right,” Clara said, feeling the truth of it expand in her lungs. “Wedid it, Pearl. We left.”“And tomorrow’s all about the life we choose.”The life we choose. The words were said with such anticipation that for amoment, Clara felt overwhelmed. She had spent so long trying to imagineherself inside a house she had no hand in creating, imagining the rooms andcabinets and nearest neighbors she might have as a married woman in a newtown. Now there was no house, no town even, and the possibilities seemedas long and steady as the river rushing past.The girls opened their wine and tore their bread and scooped generouslyof fig preserves. They drank until the bottle was gone and ate until the jarwas empty, and then they lay on their backs on the flat nose of the sloop.“What was your plan?” Clara asked. “Just...run?” Pearl’s laughter sounded like merry song of a wood thrush. “From start tofinish. The thought came over me all of a sudden. I was standing there, atthe entry of the church, staring down that short aisle to a long future with aman who was already calculating the value of our wedding gifts. And I tellyou before I knew what I was about, I was running out the doors and downthe road. So, yes, ‘run’ was my plan. And it worked, I’ll remind you.”“Barely! And by luck alone!”“What was your plan, then? More than run, I assume?” Pearl leaned upon her elbow to level Clara with a playful glare. “Did you steal this boat,Clara? You might’ve chosen something less conspicuous than a sloop withyellow sails.”It was Clara’s turn to laugh, and she felt self-conscious as she did. “It wasmine, but seeing as I was married when I took it and all my belongingswere also Mr. Earwood’s, it’s probable he thinks I stole it.”“You’re an outlaw,” Pearl teased.“In good company,” Clara teased back, noting the way Pearl’s gaze slidto her lips and back again to her eyes. “And my plan was to take my sloopand ride the river to the open ocean. I’ve food and a fishing pole to keep mefed, a blade to keep me safe and skills to keep me afloat.”“And then what?” Pearl asked.Clara was almost afraid to say it. For so long, she’d nurtured this secretdesire knowing anyone who heard it would think her too childish for theworld. The words had been so long held back that now they feared comingout. But in the flicker of lamplight, Pearl’s smile was encouraging.“Do you know of the Sweet Trade?” Clara asked, fiddling with thedelicate lace on her stomacher.Pearl’s expression was skeptical. “Piracy? That’s your plan? Become apirate?”“It is,” Clara answered seriously. “All my life, people have told me whatto do or taken what’s mine. The same is true for you! We’ve been raisedamong pirates who call themselves gentlemen. And I’m ready to turn thetables. I’m ready to take what’s mine and maybe a few things that aren’t.”“That sounds like a lovely sort of justice.” Pearl smiled as she leanedclose, her breath sweet with figs, her lips stained purple with wine.“Perhaps I’ll join you and we’ll rule the Carolina seas together.”“I’d gladly take you amongst my crew.” “And I would gladly join it.”Clara felt warmth spreading through her cheeks. Pearl’s smile was softernow, her brown hair falling around her face to curl at her chin near her lips.She looked perfectly unkempt and radiant. Clara had started this dayevading a kiss she didn’t want, but she would end it with one she did.Clara leaned up, and Pearl leaned down. Their lips met, gently at first,then more urgently, one kiss diving into the next and the next like littlewaves until they parted to breathe. Clara rested in Pearl’s arms, a sheet ofbrown hair covering them both.“We shall be the most dreadful of pirates,” Clara said, cupping Pearl’schin in her hand. “Because between us, we’ve left three husbands wanting.”Silence fell around the girls. Clara watched as Pearl drifted away fromher, though her body remained so near she could feel its gentle heat. Finally,after several long moments, Pearl sat up and spoke again.“It won’t work,” she said. “It’s just a dream.”“This whole thing is a dream. But we’ve made it real,” Clara protested.“No, maybe if we were boys, this would work. But we’re not. We’re onlygirls, and this won’t work.” Tears shimmered in Pearl’s eyes. She scootedaway, huddling in her boy’s clothing, her cheeks still flushed from the kiss.“We have to do something girls can do.”Clara knew that she hated everything Pearl had just said, but she had nosolution for it. “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “We should get somesleep.”The girls settled down to sleep with their eyes on the stars above andtheir ears full of crickets and owls and the soft shushing of the river. It allsounded like tomorrow and like the future and like a life they’d chosen. Forbetter or worse.* * *The morning came with a cold drizzle and the sound of men’s voices.Clara awoke sharply. Her skin was damp and shivering cold, but herheart was thumping heat into her veins. She could feel Pearl beside her, hearthe sound of her steady breathing. Still asleep.Making as little noise as possible, Clara rolled to her side, placed a handover Pearl’s mouth and gently shook her awake. She startled, but seeing Clara’s face, she settled again at once, nodding to show she understood.All around, tall grasses shuffled in the early-morning breeze, providingthem cover, but obscuring their view of the shore. The girls sat still in theirbobbing boat, listening again for the sounds of men.They came softly at first. Low, indistinguishable voices threadingthrough the reeds. Not until they came a little closer was Clara able todetermine that there were two of them. She raised two fingers and Pearlnodded, agreeing.Two girls to two men. They were decent odds, but Clara felt a tremorthreaten in her breast. She stilled it with a plan.Leaning close to whisper in Pearl’s ear, she said, “The plan is to run. I’llready the boat. You get my sword and be ready to look fierce with it.”Pearl nodded, but asked, “Where’s your sword?”Clara pointed to the cloth bag she’d filled with everything she couldthink to need, including one of her grandfather’s short swords. Now shewished she’d thought to grab a second.The men’s voices grew louder and the girls quieter. They pushed theirwool blankets aside and slipped around the boat as seamlessly as water.Pearl sorted through the bag with care until she produced the sword, andClara eased the boat out of its moorings with smooth, steady motions. Soon,the sloop was free, held in place only by the thicket of reeds they’d nested itin overnight. But it would go nowhere without lifting the sails to catch thebreeze, and that was sure to draw the notice of these men.Clara was deciding how best to execute their escape, when she heard ashout, “You there! Lad!”Pearl stood at the stern of the sloop, her hair tied at the nape of her neck,one hand resting on the boom for balance, the sword in her other. Shelooked every bit a boy in her breeches and waistcoat.Without wasting a second, Clara whistled and tossed her cocked hat toPearl, who snatched it out of the air and pressed it on her head. Next, Clarascooped up the still-damp yellow dress and tucked it in the narrow hold ofthe sloop’s nose. She finished just as the two men spotted them through thereeds and called out again, “We don’t mean you no harm, lad. You can putthe sword away.”The voice was terribly familiar. By the way Pearl’s hand tightened on thehilt of her sword, she thought so, too.