Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (free ebook reader txt) 📕

in. It must be some mine other than El Rosario or I probably would have met them before now. I wonder when their door will have no suit in front of it too, or whether it will still be there, but it will be Santiago who belts it on every morning.

I see no sign of a woman.

Yenni and Santiago pull me to an overturned bucket. I collapse onto it, beyond grateful to be out of the cold and off my feet. Yenni stands beside me, a hand on my shoulder to keep me from tipping over onto the floor. Santiago vanishes, but a minute later, he’s back.

“Here you go,” he says, and a tall glass of water is pushed under my face.

My hands tremble as I reach for it, but he doesn’t let go, so I don’t have to support its weight. I sip slowly at the rim, water dribbling over my chin and tracing a freezing finger under my suit. It’s almost painful: the coldness of the water hits my empty belly like a knife and my throat muscles cramp around the unfamiliar work of swallowing, but it tastes like life and I make myself drink it.

My stomach feels like it’s going to explode when I’m only about halfway done with the glass. I pull away and Santiago takes the glass from me.

“Go bring me a basin with water, some soap, and a cloth, then sit facing the wall so I can clean her up,” Yenni whispers.

He makes a face at her for giving orders, but does as she says. While Santiago bustles about getting the things she needs, Yenni smiles down at me.

“I still can’t believe it’s really you,” she says. “Whatever happened?”

I feel so weak that my head is swimming. The water in my belly sloshes uncomfortably, and the edges of the room are starting to fuzz in my vision. I want to start at the beginning, string everything together in a way that makes sense and shows that I’m not crazy. I want to tell her about Papi, and Daniel, and not being able to eat, and Mami, and Abuelita, and César, and the devil. But I only manage “Lost” before I pass out.

When I come to, I feel wetness against my face. My head lolls and my eyes open sluggishly to see a teenage girl holding a basin and a washcloth standing in front of me in a small, plain room. She has a wide, pretty face with arching eyebrows, and her cheeks dimple when she smiles at me.

Yenni, I remember.

“Well, now that you’re awake again, we can do it right, hmm?” Her eyes sparkle with intelligence. She’s at least five years older than me, so we wouldn’t have gone to school together, but Santiago looks about nine: I would definitely know him from school. Since I don’t recognize either of them, I’m definitely on the far side of the mountain. “Let’s get you out of that disgusting suit and get you clean,” Yenni goes on. Santiago sits across from us, studiously facing the wall. “Do you think you can stand?”

I nod, even though the idea of standing makes my knee scream and my legs tremble. Yenni helps me to my feet and strips me down to my underwear. When she pulls off the suit, Daniel’s angel falls out and clunks to the floor.

Yenni bends over and picks it up.

“What’s this?” she asks with interest.

Their papi rumbles a complaint in his sleep and they both drop their voices.

“What’s what?” whispers Santiago, twitching with curiosity.

I shrug, too tired to talk.

Yenni lowers me onto the bucket and hands the angel to Santiago. He examines it while I sit there shivering, and Yenni scrubs my arms, legs, and torso with her wet cloth and a bar of lye soap. When she’s done, she wraps me in a blanket and tells me to tip my head. She puts the basin on the floor behind me and attacks my filthy hair with energy. My eyes prickle when she hauls on the knots with a comb, but I sit there quietly until she announces she’s done.

Yenni rinses my hair and wrings the water out of it, then braids it, still wet, with practiced hands. She considers me. “I don’t think we’re the same size, but now that I’ve done all that work to get you clean, I’m not going to put you into that suit again.”

A relieved noise slips out of me. I was dreading putting that thing back on. If I have my way, I’m not touching it ever again.

Yenni kicks Papi’s coveralls and the clothes I was wearing under it into a corner and reaches up to the rope slung across the wall behind the bed Santiago is sitting on. She pulls a pair of leggings, a sweater, and some clean underwear from where they were hanging on the rope and brings them over to me. It feels weird to change into someone else’s underwear, but my clothes are all so gross that I slip everything on gratefully. My arms are longer than hers, we discover, but she’s wider around the hips than I am. The clothes fit well enough.

“Thank you,” I mumble up at her. It feels amazing to be clean again. Though I don’t feel anywhere near healthy, I have started to feel human, not like some horrible, scummy creature dragged from a cave.

“You’re welcome,” says Yenni, wiping her hands on her skirt. “Santiago, you can turn around now,” she says to her brother, then throws the basin of wash water out the front door. Santiago hands me Daniel’s angel.

The sleeping form makes another grunt. Yenni drops her voice again.

“It’s late,” Yenni whispers. “Why don’t you get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning? Do you think you could drink some more water first? Or maybe you need to go outside and go to the bathroom? My guess is you’re too dehydrated, but if you need to go, there’s a ravine you can